This proverb cannot be understood to assert that a man needs nothing but God's blessing to make him a wealthy man in the ordinary sense of the word, because we know that there are many cases in which men would never have been rich if they had not toiled hard to obtain riches. Industry has been joined to the blessing of the Lord, and so they have become rich. God's favour does not generally make a man rich except he works; it is presumptuous sin to expect God to make us rich without honest toil. But the lesson to be learnt is evidently this--that diligence cannot command riches, that God must be taken into account in all our efforts to make money, that the "race is not" _always_ "to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding" (Eccles. ix. 11), even when the runners and the warriors are men after God's own heart. Placing the words beside our experience, we learn-- +I. That when a good man gains riches through hard toil, it is by reason of the Divine blessing on his labour.+ There are among us many possessors of vast wealth who have risen early and sat up late, and eaten the bread of carefulness, but have acknowledged that, after all, it was the blessing of the Lord that had made them rich. They can point to others equally diligent, and, in some respects, superior to themselves, who have fallen in the race and have died comparatively poor. Such examples are admonitions not to trust to one's own wisdom or effort to the exclusion of the will of God. Jacob worked hard for his riches for twenty years; "in the day the drought consumed him, and the frost by night--and the sleep departed from his eyes." But he declares that his wealth was a gift from the God of his fathers--"I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth which thou hast showed unto thy servant, for with my staff I have passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands" (Gen. xxxi. 40; xxxii. 10). A good man cannot use unlawful means of getting rich, therefore he may enjoy the amount of success which follows his efforts as a token of Divine favour. +II. That when men inherit, or become possessed of wealth for which they have not laboured, it is by the blessing of the Lord.+ The riches of Solomon were bestowed upon him without so much as the expression of a desire on his part, and were a token of the Divine approval. "Because . . . thou hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment . . . I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and honour" (1 Kings iii. 11-13). Looked upon as God's gift, wealth will be rightly used, and will be the blessing that it was intended to be.