d where a man is, there he
has the works (of God) before him, will you not desire to see and
understand them? Will you not perceive either what you are, or what you
were born for, or what this is for which you have received the faculty
of sight? But you may say, There are some things disagreeable and
troublesome in life. And are there none at Olympia? Are you not
scorched? Are you not pressed by a crowd? Are you not without
comfortable means of bathing? Are you not wet when it rains? Have you
not abundance of noise, clamor, and other disagreeable things? But I
suppose that setting all these things off against the magnificence of
the spectacle, you bear and endure. Well then and have you not received
faculties by which you will be able to bear all that happens? Have you
not received greatness of soul? Have you not received manliness? Have
you not received endurance? And why do I trouble myself about anything
that can happen if I possess greatness of soul? What shall distract my
mind, or disturb me, or appear painful? Shall I not use the power for
the purposes for which I received it, and shall I grieve and lament over
what happens?

Come, then, do you also having observed these things look to the
faculties which you have, and when you have looked at them, say: Bring
now, O Zeus, any difficulty that thou pleasest, for I have means given
to me by thee and powers for honoring myself through the things which
happen. You do not so; but you sit still, trembling for fear that some
things will happen, and weeping, and lamenting, and groaning for what
does happen; and then you blame the gods. For what is the consequence of
such meanness of spirit but impiety? And yet God has not only given us
these faculties, by which we shall be able to bear everything that
happens without being depressed or broken by it; but, like a good king
and a true father, He has given us these faculties free from hindrance,
subject to no compulsion, unimpeded, and has put them entirely in our
own power, without even having reserved to Himself any power of
hindering or impeding. You, who have received these powers free and as
your own, use them not; you do not even see what you have received, and
from whom; some of you being blinded to the giver, and not even
acknowledging your benefactor, and others, through meanness of spirit,
betaking yourselves to fault-finding and making charges against God. Yet
I will show to you that you have powers and means for gr