God and to Christ, that They will put into
our hearts the Spirit by which those psalms were written: that They will
take from us the evil heart of unbelief, which must needs have signs and
wonders, and forgets that in God we live and move and have our being. For
are we not all--even the very best of us--apt to tempt our Lord in this
very matter?

When all things go on in a common-place way with us--that is, in this
well-made world, comfortably, easily, prosperously--how apt we all
are--God forgive us--to forget God. How we forget that on Him we depend
for every breath we draw; that Christ is guarding us daily from a hundred
dangers, a hundred sorrows, it may be from a hundred disgraces, of which
we, in our own self-satisfied blindness, never dream. How dull our
prayers become, and how short. We almost think, at times, that there is
no use in praying, for we get all we want without asking for it, in what
we choose to call the course of circumstances and nature.--God forgive
us, indeed.

But when sorrow comes, anxiety, danger, how changed we are all of a
sudden. How gracious we are when pangs come upon us--like the wicked
queen-mother in Jerusalem of old, when the invaders drove her out of her
cedar palace. How we cry to the Lord then, and get us to our God right
humbly. Then, indeed, we feel the need of prayer. Then we try to
wrestle with God, and cry to Him--and what else can we do?--like children
lost in the dark; entreat Him, if there be mercy in Him--as there is, in
spite of all our folly--to grant some special providence, to give us some
answer to our bitter entreaties. If He will but do for us this one
thing, then we will believe indeed. Then we will trust Him, obey Him,
serve Him, as we never did before.

Ah, if there were in Christ any touch of pride or malice! Ah, if there
were in Christ aught but a magnanimity and a generosity altogether
boundless! Ah, if He were to deal with us as we have dealt with Him! Ah,
if He were to deal with us after our sins, and reward us according to our
iniquities!

If He refused to hear us; if He said to us,--You forgot me in your
prosperity, why should I not forget you in your adversity?--What could we
answer? Would that answer not be just? Would it not be deserved,
however terrible? But our hope and trust is, that He will not answer us
so; because He is not our God only, but our Saviour; that He will deal
with us as one who seeks and saves that which is lost,