Deuteronomy viii. 1-10.

ND thou shalt eat and be full, and thou shalt bless the Lord thy God.” Fulness is surely a more searching test than want. Fulness induces sleep and forgetfulness. Many a man fights a good fight with Apollyon in the narrow way, who lapses into sleepy indifference on the Enchanted Ground. Men often sit down to a full table without “grace.” Pain cries out to God, while boisterous health strides along in heedlessness. Yes, it is our fulness that constitutes our direst peril. “This was the iniquity of Sodom, fulness of bread and abundance of idleness.”

And so our tests may come on the sunny day. A nation’s supreme tests may come in its prosperity. The sunshine may do more damage than the lightning. The soul may falter even in Beulah land, where “the sun shines night and day.”

Prayer must not, therefore, tarry until sickness and adversity come. We must “pray without ceasing” in the cloudless noon, lest we are stricken with “the arrow that flieth by day.” We must seek the eternal strength when no apparent enemy crouches at our gate, and when our easy road is lined with luxuriant flowers and fruit.