His gifts?'

Did you ever think such thoughts as these? If you did not, not much
matter, for you have all acted, more or less, in your better moments
as if you had them. There are more things in a man's heart, thank
God, than ever come into his head. Many a man does a noble thing by
instinct, as we say, without ever THINKING whether it is a noble
thing or not--without THINKING about it at all. Many a man, thank
God, is led at times, by God's Spirit, without ever knowing whose
Spirit it is that leads him.

But he OUGHT to know it, for it is WILLING, REASONABLE service which
God wants of us. He does not care to use us like tools and puppets.
And why? He is not merely our Maker, He is our Father, and He
wishes us to know and feel that we are His children--to know and
feel that we all have come from Him; to acknowledge Him in all our
ways, to thank Him for all, to look up lovingly and confidently to
Him for more, as His reasonable children, day by day, and hour by
hour. Every good gift we have comes from Him; but He will have us
know where they all come from.

Let us go through now a few of these good gifts, which we call
natural, and see what the Bible says of them, and from whom they
come.

First, now, that common gift of strength and courage. Who gives you
that?--who gave it David? For He that gives it to one is most
likely to be He that gives it to another. David says to God, "Thou
teachest my hands to war, and my fingers to fight; by the help of
God I can leap over a wall: He makes me strong, that my arms can