The Lord is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear Even though the earth be removed And the mountains be cast into the sea. Be not anxious ... for your Heavenly Father understands that ye have need of these things. All things are yours. From facts like these some persons have drawn the conclusion that unquenchable thirst for possessions is in reality “thirst for the Infinite” mistaking its own nature. Another factor or phase of the motivation of business is thirst for power. But this, in turn, is not a single or uniform thing; it is complex and variable. What is it to experience power and to rejoice in it? It is to be able to express oneself; to have the experience of being a cause; to exercise some specific talent; to be noticed of men, or followed by them; to construct or create something, or to cause something to grow, and to have it to contemplate and to show to others (whether as farmer, breeder, artizan, author, artist, builder of a business or of a fortune); to feel stimulated instead of depressed in the face of obstacles; to feel that what one is doing is a game, a “sporting proposition”; to be fascinated by the everlasting “beyond”; to be thrilled by such an onward pull as a mountain climber feels who cannot be satisfied with any attained peak as long as a higher one is visible. Economic power may mean any of these; it may mean, too, possessing the means to do some desired thing outside the business, as patronizing art or learning, or carrying out a pet philanthropy. When the economic motive takes the form of thirst for power, how like some of the motives of religion it becomes! They that trust in the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles; They shall run and not be weary: They shall walk and not faint. I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me. On the other hand, the power-motive can include, often does include, desire for mastery over the personality of others, and pugnacity or even destructive fury when they resist or stand in the way. Desire for selfhood and for mastering and creatively reconstructing the conditions of life, taken socially (_our_ selves, _our_ world), is the heart of ethical living; but, taken egoistically, it nurtures conceit, self-will, ruthlessness, and the illusion that achieved strength can satisfy by inbreeding with itself without creating beauty, or discovering truth, or promoting fellowship.