Demon of Noonday

The Demon of Noonday is the title of a book by an eminent novelist and playwright - columnist John R. Gunn comments, "I do not know, but I think this title must have been suggested to the author by the phrase from the ninety-first psalm 'The destruction that wasteth at noonday'.

In his story, the author tells of a man in the late forties, who was attacked and cast down by the demon of noonday. Life's noonday is the most perilous period of life, as the story is intended to show. The demon of noonday - his name is legion, animalism, materialism, cynicism, pessimism. How furiously these demons sometimes attack men and women in the midday of life.

More are they to be feared for maturity with its dull routine. Its proneness to moods of lassitude, its self-confidence and scorn of danger than for youth with its lofty ideals, its hope, its enthusiasm and its trembling caution. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall.

Who is more apt to think that he stands secure than the man in middle life? In thinking that he standeth, he takes no heed lest he fall. He has become too confident to be cautious. His conscience has become less sensitive as to the minor moralities of life and almost before he knows it, the demon of noonday has him in his clutches. But no man need allow this demon of noonday to destroy him, if he is guided by faith in God. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall not be afraid for the destruction that wasteth at noonday."