It is our privilege to be as wise in our generation as the children of this world; and not only so, but it is our duty to be as wise in our generation as the children of this world. We have the true light and knowledge and we ought to know as much as the philosophical world, or as any other people on the earth. We ought at least to know as much about politics as do the political world, or as do any other people. I expect that we do; and if we only apply our minds in the proper time and channel, we know as much {404} about the Christian world as do any other people, and we ought to know as much about the whole world as do any other people. In fact, we ought to know more upon all those matters than any other people; for we are privileged with far superior advantages, through faith and obedience to the Gospel. 4:356. We pray for wisdom, but God will as soon put bread and meat in our cupboards without any endeavor of ours, as he will give us wisdom without our trying to get it. If a man wants a farm, let him make it; if he wishes an orchard he plants it; if he wants a house for his family to live in, he must gather the materials and build it. He will give us wisdom in these things, but he will not come down to do the manual labor. 9:250. This people are increasing in the wisdom which cometh from God, and their power to organize the crude elements around them into the necessaries of life is in ratio to their increase of intelligence and application of labor. In this way we ought to understand these great principles. We need not seek for a revelation to know how to make cloth, when the mode is plainly marked before our eyes. Sheep produce a textile material, and how to make it into cloth has been known time out of mind; we can raise sheep in abundance. I do not look for power from the heavens that will produce for us wool, cloth, iron, food, or anything we need, without being made with hands. We should understand what is required of us to sustain ourselves. 9:255. It is the privilege of man to search out the wisdom of God pertaining to the earth and the heavens. 9:242. Real wisdom is a real pleasure; real wisdom, prudence, and understanding, is a real comfort. 19:96. I want our children to go and hear all there is to hear, {405} for the whole sum of it will be wound up as I once heard one of the finest speakers America has ever produced say, when speaking on the soul of man. After laboring long on the subject, he straightened himself up--he was a fine looking man--and, said he, "My brethren and sisters, I must come to the conclusion that the soul of man is an immaterial substance." Said I, "Bah!" 14:198. {406} CHAPTER XXIII _SELF CONTROL_ _The Will of Man_--You call it will. It is the divinity God has placed in his intelligent creatures. 8:209. Have we a will? Yes. It is an endowment, a trait of the character of the Gods, with which all intelligence is endowed, in heaven and on earth,--the power to accept or reject. 9:106.