ly, logically and completely. When He bestows a life, therefore,
you may be quite sure that He is not going to stultify His own gift by
retaining unbestowed anything that is wanted for its blessing and its
power. You have had to trust Him for the greater; trust Him for the
less. He has given you the greater--no doubt He will give you the less.
'The life is more than meat, and the body than raiment.' 'Which of you,
by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye
thought for raiment?'

Then there is another thought. Look at God's ways of doing with all His
creatures. The animate and the inanimate creation are appealed to, the
fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, the one in reference to
food and the other in reference to clothing, which are the two great
wants already spoken of by Christ in the previous verses. I am not going
to linger at all on the exquisite beauty of these illustrations. Every
sensitive heart and pure eye dwell upon them with delight. The 'fowls of
the air,' the lilies of the field,' 'they toil not, neither do they
spin'; and then, with what an eye for the beauty of God's
universe,--'Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of
these!' Now, what is the force of this consideration? It is
this--_There_ is a specimen, in an inferior creation, of the divine care
which _you_ can _trust_, you men who are 'better than they.' And not
only that:--_There_ is an instance, not only of God's giving things that
are necessary, but of God's giving more, lavishing beauty upon the
flowers of the field. I do not think that we sufficiently dwell upon the
moral and spiritual uses of beauty in God's universe. That everywhere
His loving, wooing hand should touch the flower into grace, and deck all
barren places with glory and with fairness--what does that reveal to us
about Him? It says to us, He does not give scantily: it is not the mere
measure of what is wanted, absolutely needed, to support a bare
existence, that God bestows. He 'taketh pleasure in the prosperity of
His servants.' Joy, and love, and beauty, belong to Him; and the smile
upon His face that comes from the contemplation of His own fairness
flung out into His glorious creation, is a prophecy of the gladness that
comes into His heart from His own holiness and more ethereal beauty
adorning the spiritual creatures whom He has made to flash back His
likeness. The flowers of the field are so clothed that we may learn the
les