This is the lesson of our lives. This is training, not only for the
old Jews, but for us. What was true of them, is more or less true of
us. And we read these verses to teach us that God's ways with man do
not change; that his fatherly hand is over us, as well as over the
people of Israel; that we are in God's schoolhouse, as they were;
that their blessings are our blessings, their dangers are our
dangers; that, as St. Paul says, all these things are written for our
example.

'And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger.' How true to life
that is! How often there comes to a man, at his setting out in life,
a time which humbles him; a time of disappointment, when he finds
that he is not so clever as he thought, as able to help himself as he
thought; when his fine plans fail him; when he does not know how to
settle in life, how to marry, how to provide for a family. Perhaps
the man actually does hunger, and go through a time of want and
struggle. Then, it may be, he cries in his heart--How hard it is for
me! How hard that the golden days of youth should be all dark and
clouded over! How hard to have to suffer anxiety and weary hard
work, just when I am able to enjoy myself most!

It is hard: but worse things than hard things may happen to a man.
Far worse is it to grow up, as some men do, in wealth, and ease, and
luxury, with all the pleasures of this life found ready to their
hands. Some men, says the proverb, are 'born with a golden spoon in
their mouth.' God help them if they are! Idleness, profligacy,
luxury, self-conceit, no care for their duty, no care for God, no
feeling that they are in God's school-house--these are too often the
fruits of that breeding up. How hardly will they learn that man doth