Voices
True is the word.—Sorrow is our heritage.—I will shoulder my burden.—I have faith in God’s mercy. He will lead us now, as he led us out of Egypt.—God will deliver us, as he delivered our fathers.
Jeremiah
Arise, then, and cease repining. Take up your faith as a staff, and you will march bravely through these trials as you have marched for thousands of years. Happy are we to be vanquished, and happy to be driven from home; for we are vanquished, we are driven from home, by God’s will. Happy are we to lose all, that we may find him; happy is our hard lot, gladsome our trial. Kings who mastered us have vanished like smoke; nations which enslaved us have been scattered and their seed has been destroyed; towns wherein we served as bondmen have been made desolate, and are now the home of the jackal; but Israel still lives, ever young, for sorrow is our buttress and overthrow is our strength. Through suffering we have endured the assaults of time; reverses have ever been our beginning; and out of the depths God has gathered us to his heart. Think of our former troubles, and how those troubles were met. Think of Egypt, the house of bondage, the first ordeal. Give praise to affliction, ye afflicted; give praise to trial, ye sorely tried; praise the name of God who, through tribulation, has chosen us for all eternity!
[A wave of enthusiasm answers his words. The confused medley of voices gradually gives place to rhythmical choruses]
Voices
Bondmen of Mizraim
Were our fathers,
Bridled and bitted
Were our fathers,