n you all
these wonderful powers of mind and soul, surely He has given you the
less blessing, the mere power to earn your own food? If He has made
you so much wiser than the beasts, surely He has made you as wise as
the beasts.' 'And is not the body more than raiment?' Has He not
given you bodies which can speak, write, build, work, plant, in a
thousand cunning and wonderful ways; bodies which can do a thousand
nobler things than merely keep themselves warm, as the beasts do?
Then be sure, if He has given you the greater power, He has given
you the less also. And as for fine clothes and rich ornaments, 'Is
not the body more than raiment?' Is not your body a far more
beautiful and nobler thing than all the gay clothes with which you
can bedizen it? If your bodies be fair, strong, healthy, useful, it
matters little what clothes you put upon them. Why will you not
have faith in your Heavenly Father? Why will you not have faith in
the great honour which He put on you when He said at first, 'Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness, and let him have dominion
over all things on the earth'? Be sure, that God would not have
made man, and given him all these powers, and sent him upon this
earth, unless this earth had been a right good and fit place for
him. Be sure that if you obey the laws of this earth where God has
put you, you will never need to be anxious or fret; but you will
prosper right well, you and your children after you. For 'Consider
the fowls of the air, they neither sow, nor reap, and gather into
barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them; and are ye not much
better than they?' Surely you are, for you _can_ sow, and reap, and
gather into barns. And if God makes the earth work so well that it
feeds the fowls who cannot help themselves, how much more will the
earth feed you who _can_ help yourselves, because God has given you
understanding and prudence? But as for anxiety, fretting, repining,
complaining to God, 'Why hast Thou made me thus?' what use in that?
'Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?'
Will all the fretting and anxiety in the world make you one foot or
one inch taller than you are? Will it make you stronger, wiser,
more able to help yourself? You are what you are: you can do what
God has given you power to do. Trust Him that He has made you
strong enough and wise enough to earn your daily bread, and to
prosper right well, if you will, upon this e