A great many people attend church and Sabbath school, where the blessings of grace abound, and yet are “sent away empty.” They are not fed. They do not carry anything with them from all the fullness before them. They are no better, no stronger, no happier for the privileges they have enjoyed. Is it the minister's or the teacher's fault? No; the fault must be their own. They were not really hungry, or they would have been filled.

A lady was ill with consumption. She was advised to go to Florida to spend the winter. She wrote home glowing letters about the salubrious climate, the wonderful foliage, the luscious fruits. While it was midwinter at her old home in the North, it was summer where she was. She spoke of the table, - how it was covered with all manner of tempting fruits. But in every letter she wrote there was one sad lament: “I have no appetite. If I only had an appetite, I am sure I should soon grow well amid such luxuries.” Then in a little while word came that she was dead, - dead in the midst of abounding plenty, not for want of food, but for want of appetite.

So it is with many souls. They live amidst abundance of spiritual provision. God spreads full tables before them continually. They sit down besides them, and then are sent away empty; not because there is nothing there for them, but because they have no hunger for such things. Others sit close by them, at the same tables, with the same provisions before them, and are richly fed, and go away rejoicing in strength and hope, and refreshed in all their nature; but these came with spiritual appetite. Our constant prayer should be that God would make us hungry for himself. The beatitude is, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”