But because, also, Christ was Lord of heaven and earth; therefore—­if I may make so bold as to guess at the reason for anything which He did—­He seems to have interfered as little as possible with those regular rules and customs of this world about us, which we now call the Laws of Nature.  He did not offer—­as the magicians of His time did offer—­and as too many have pretended since to do—­to change the courses of the elements, to bring down tempests or thunderbolts, to shew prodigies in the heaven above, and in the earth beneath.  Why should He?  Heaven and earth, moon and stars, fire and tempest, and all the physical 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 so built up a whole literature of unreason, which remains to this day, a doleful monument of human folly and superstition.