ysical forces in the universe,
were fulfilling His will already; doing their work right well according
to the law which He had given them from the beginning. He had no need to
disturb them, no need to disturb the growth of a single flower at His
feet.

Rather He loved to tell men to look at them, and see how they went well,
because His Father in heaven cared for them. To tell people to look, not
at prodigies, comets, earthquakes, and the seeming exceptions of God's
rule: but at the common, regular, simple, peaceful work of God, which is
going on around us all day long in every blade of grass, and flower, and
singing bird, and sunbeam, and shower. To consider the lilies of the
field how they grow: which toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say
unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
these.--And the birds of the air: They sow not, neither reap, nor gather
into barns; and yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. How much more
will He feed you, who can sow, and reap, and gather into barns?--O ye of
little faith, who fancy always that besides sowing and reaping honestly,
you must covet, and cheat, and lie, and break God's laws instead of
obeying them; or else, forsooth, you cannot earn your living? To see
that the signs of God's Kingdom are not astonishing convulsions, terrible
catastrophes and disorders: but order, and peace, and usefulness, in
creatures which are happy, because they live according to the law which
God has given them, and do their duty--that duty, of which the great poet
of the English Church has sung--

Stern Lawgiver! Thou yet dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face.
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

But men would not believe that in our Lord's time; neither would they
believe it after His time. Will they believe it even now? They craved
after signs and wonders; they saw God's hand, not in the common sights of
this beautiful world; not in seed-time and harvest, summer and winter;
not in the blossoming of flowers, and the song of birds: but only in
strange portents, absurd and lying miracles, which they pretended had
happened, because they fancied that they ought to have happened: and