Faith and the Faith by T. T. Eaton D. D., LL. D. Part 1 "Faith is a higher faculty than reason."—Baily "Kind hearts are more than Coronets, And simple faith, than Norman blood." —Tennyson "The stammering tongue of faith is preferable to the powerless silence of unbelief."— Van Oosterzee "There is many a thing which the world calls disappointment; but there is no such word in the dictionary of faith."— Newton "Intellige ut credas verbum meum, sed crede ut intelligas verbum Dei."—Augustine "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."—Francis Henry Newman "Man has nothing harder to endure than uncertainty, and generally, when in suspense, looks forward to had rather than to good news. And hearers of ill ride faster than messengers of weal."—George Ebers "I know whom I have faithed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."—Paul FAITH "O welcome, pare-eyed faith, white-handed hope, Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings."—Milton Thirty years ago I advocated making an English verb faithe to correspond with the noun faith, just as believe corresponds with belief. The lack of such a verb has led to confusion and misunderstanding. Years afterwards, in reading Shakespeare’s "King Lear," I found Edmund saying to Gloucester: "Make thy words faithed." So faithe was already an English verb, and used by Shakespeare. It is a pity that it has been for so long dropped. It ought to be revived. Without it, we have to make the verb believe do double duty and answer to both belief and faith; while belief and faith are by no means the same. Hence confusion. Belief is the assent of the mind—faith is the consent of the heart, including the will. Belief is speculative, faith operative. Belief accepts, faith acts. Ruskin says: "In so far as it alone assuredly did and it alone could do what it meant to do, and was, therefore, the root and essence of all human deed, it was called by the Latin’s fides, or the doing, which has passed into the French foi and the English faith. And therefore, because in His doing always certain, and in His speaking always true, His name who leads the armies of heaven is "Faithful and True." Faith is at once the source and substance of all human deed, rightly so called." The relation between faith and works, is the relation between doing and deeds. To say: "Show me thy faith without thy works and I will show thee my faith by my works," is equivalent to saying—show me thy doing without thy deeds and I will show thee my doing by my deeds. Of course there can be no doing without deeds and no deeds without doing. Faith is the basis of all effort, the foundation of all endeavor—as Ruskin puts it—"the source and substance of all human deed, rightly so called." The Spartans wrote over their fallen heroes at Thermopylæ the inscription: W x ein aggellein L akedaimonioiV , dti tnde keirqa, tois keinwn rhmasi peiqomenoi. "Oh! stranger! Tell the Lacedemonians, that we are lying here, having faithed their words—." All real progress in human history rests, not on scientific investigation, philosophical inquiry and logical deduction, but on the heroes, the workers and the martyrs; those who have been ready to dare and do and die; i.e., the men of faith. Cicero said of the Romans: "Though we have been surpassed in population by the Spaniards; in physical force, by the Gauls; in shrewdness and cunning by Carthage; in the fine arts, by Greece; and in mere native talent by some of our Italian fellow countrymen; yet in the single point of attention to religion, we have excelled all other nations, and it is to the favorable influence of this fact upon the character of the people, that I ascribe our success in acquiring the political and military ascendency that we enjoy throughout the world." And when Roman faith decayed, when the augurs laughed in each others faces, Roman power melted away. Cicero spoke particularly of religious faith, and that is the highest form of faith, because religion is the highest part of man, but I am speaking of faith in general. In no department of endeavor can anything be done without faith. James Anthony Froude is right: "Antecedent faith is the only basis possible for action of any kind." Faith is the basis of business; ninety-five per cent of the commerce of the world is on credit. A financial panic is the immediate result of a loss of public faith in the stability of the money market. Every industry rests upon faith; every financial enterprise has only faith for its foundation. The man who seeks to break down faith in financial circles is the enemy of business. It is true in trade—"without faith ye can do nothing." Faith is the basis of society. Go into the homes and put the husbands to doubting their wives, the wives to doubting their husbands and the children to doubting their parents and you have destroyed those homes. Break down the people’s confidence in government; make them feel that it is impossible to get justice according to law, and you have produced revolution. Convince the people that no government is worthy of confidence and you have brought to pass anarchy. Prof. T. H. Huxley well says: "No man who has studied history or even attended to the occurrences of every day life, can doubt the enormous practical value of faith." And Lord Lytton did not put it too strongly in saying: "Strike from mankind the principle of faith, and man would have no more history than a flock of sheep." Our own Lowell declares: "No man without intense faith in something can ever be in earnest." And certainly a man who is not in earnest cannot hope to accomplish anything worth while. Some time since I had a pleasant discussion with a university professor who held that faith and knowledge are in inverse ratio. As the area of knowledge enlarges, he claimed that of faith diminishes correspondingly. Once people accepted by faith what has since become known, and science has thus made faith superfluous in all such things. The professor admitted, however, it was not likely that knowledge would ever entirely banish faith; there would still remain some unexplored regions where faith could find room, and so preachers could still find a field for their activities. I came back at this professor with an argumentum ad hominem, "Is it true," said I, "that the more knowledge your wife has of you, the less faith she has in you? And is it true that the more you know of her, the less faith you have in her? In your home are faith and knowledge in inverse ratio? If so, I pity you both." It is not true that knowledge excludes faith. The more you know of your family physician, the more faith you have in him. The more soldiers know of their general, the greater their faith in him; else the army is in a bad way. The more we know of our friends the more faith we have in them. The greater a man’s knowledge of nature, the greater his faith in nature. Intelligent faith is not weaker than ignorant faith. So far from knowledge being in inverse ratio to faith, knowledge rests on faith and all progress in knowledge is by faith. Leaving out our intuitions, we acquire even the simplest knowledge by exercising faith. By means of our senses we get impressions of the outside world. We faithe these impressions, acting on them, and find they work. For example, through my sight I get an impression that there is a chair. How can I know that the chair is really there? Your idealist and your Christian (?) Scientist (?) deny the existence of the chair. I simply faithe my impression and act on it, by sitting in the chair. If there be no chair at the place, then when I attempt to sit in it, I will fall to the floor. If, however, the chair be real, it will support me. I put it to the test, sit in it, and then I know the chair is real. Thus we gain knowledge by faithing the testimony of our senses and finding we are not deceived. It is true that once in a great while our senses deceive us. If I put one hand in hot water, one in cold, and suddenly plunge both into tepid water, to one hand it is hot and to the other it is cold, the testimony of sense in one hand contradicting that in the other. Also in the case of a mirage in a desert, my sense deceives me. But this happens so seldom, the ratio of deceptions being so infinitesimal, that we go on faithing the testimony of our senses all the same. Progress in knowledge rests on faith. The boy at school, who would faithe nothing the teachers told him, insisting on demonstrating everything, when he was incompetent to make the proof, would make no progress. The scientific professor who would refuse to accept the work of others, but must demonstrate everything from the beginning, would never add anything to the sum of human knowledge. To make progress we must build upon foundations others have laid, and must add our work to theirs. It is the climax of egotism and absurdity for any man to claim that no valid work has been done by any of his predecessors, while his work will be valid. Yet that is the attitude of some of our modern apostles of progress. If each generation is to devote itself to tearing up the foundations laid by its predecessor, and putting in a new one of its own, then the world will never get beyond the foundation-laying period. A foundation is worthless in itself, its only value is in the structure to be reared upon it. Faith avails where knowledge is lacking. In following a guide in the Mammoth Cave, you fare as well as the guide, because you faithe him. He has knowledge and you have faith. The soldier obeying his general reaches the same results as if he were master of military science. Two men sit at the same table. The one is a distinguished professor of chemistry and physiology, who can tell you just what courses the elements of the dinner will take—which part will go to muscle, which to bone, which to nerve, etc., etc. The other is so ignorant that he cannot write his name, knowing nothing of the chemistry of food or of the physiology of digestion. Yet, other things being equal, the ignoramus will get as much benefit from the dinner as will the savant. Since faith is the motive power o the soul, doubt, the opposite of faith, brings paralysis and death. George Ebers says: "A lie stains the soul, but a doubt eats into it," and Shakespeare tells us: "Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might gain by fearing to attempt." Let a man starting in any enterprise be filled with doubts, and he has already failed. Let an army go forth to battle full of doubts about the ability of their commander, the justice of their cause and the courage of their men, and that army is defeated in advance. Doubt always brings paralysis and death. Yet, strange to say, there are men who pride themselves on their doubts, who fancy to doubt is a mark of intellectual superiority, and an assertion of liberty of thought. Just the opposite is true. Doubt is always weakness. The strong man is the man of faith. It is claimed that doubt is valuable in the advancement of knowledge; that by doubting the old, and commonly accepted view, men are led to investigate and to discover new truth, which would have remained unknown but for the doubt. It is claimed, for example, that had no one doubted the Ptolemaic theory of astronomy, men would have gone on believing the earth to be the center of our system and the Copernican theory would never have been known. This is a vain claim, and since it well illustrates the point, let us note how the Ptolemaic theory came to be overthrown and the Copernican theory came to be accepted. Certainly doubt was no factor in bringing to pass this result. Copernicus had no telescope, but, in order to study the motions of the planets, he made his house at Allenstein—still shown to the traveler—into a crude observatory, by boring holes in the walls and roof. Carefully observing and measuring the motions of the planets, he discovered facts which contradicted the Ptolemaic theory, land it was his faith in these new facts, and not his doubt of the old theory, that led him forward. Galileo, taking up the facts of Copernicus and adding to them what he observed with his telescope, faithed those facts and declared that the world moves around the sun. It was the expulsive power of a new faith, and not doubt, that overthrew the Ptolemaic theory. And it is ever so. Only by faith does knowledge advance. It is like climbing a ladder. Not by letting go the round below, but by getting hold of the round above, do we ascend. To let go, before we got hold, would land us at the bottom, and all ascent would be impossible. We let go only because we have taken hold higher. We should cultivate faith, and by all proper means strengthen it, getting rid of our doubts. It is only by faith that we appropriate truth. Truth is that which is to be trusted—truth and trust being radically the same word—and no truth is of any practical value until it is trusted and acted on. i. e., until it is faithed. Goethe well says: "Give me only your positive belief; of the problematical I have enough in myself already." Thomas Carlyle is right: "Great is belief, be it ever so meager and it leads captive the doubting heart." Describing the ruin of the French Revolution, Carlyle also says: "Here, indeed, lies properly the cardinal symptom of the whole wide-spread malady. Faith is gone out; skepticism is come in. Evil abounds and accumulates; no man has faith to withstand it, to amend it, to begin by amending himself." This is well echoed by James Anthony Froude: "To this had it come in the first capital of the world, and the most advanced nation of it, because, in the Hebrew language, they had forgotten God. They had no belief remaining in any divine rule over them. The cement was gone which held society together and the entire fabric of it had fallen into shapeless ruin." It is ever so. The history of doubt is the history of ruin and decay. Miss Havergal tells us: "Doubt indulged, soon becomes doubt realized," and Denham says: "Uncertain ways unsafest are And doubt a greater mischief than despair." Lamenting the modern decay of faith in certain quarters, to which decay he himself contributed, Frederic Harrison says: "A maudlin philosophy based on nothing but vague aspirations, hopes, and possibilities, so that all the central problems of life and man ended in the general formula—‘After all, perhaps they may be!’ this spread a dry-rot through the mental fabric." Such is ever the result of doubt. Pyrrhonism is destruction. Nothing can be built upon doubts. Interrogation points do not make foundation stones. Away with doubt. There is more truth than we will ever get faithed, do we our best, hence there is need for all the faith of which we are capable. It has been supposed that there is a conflict between faith and reason, and attempts have been made to reconcile the two. But there is no conflict and nothing to reconcile. Faith is unreasoning, but it is not unreasonable, and this is an important distinction. Describing a heroic act of faith Tennyson says: "Theirs not to reason why Theirs not to make reply Theirs but to do and die—" as into the valley of death rode the six hundred. Faith acts. It does not reason, and yet it is thoroughly reasonable. The soldier’s faith in his general is unreasoning. He does not argue out the propriety of the orders given; yet his faith is reasonable, because he knows the general, knows his career, his successes and his ability. To doubt would be unreasonable. Your faith in your physician is unreasoning. You do what he prescribes simply because he prescribes it, and not because you have reasoned the matter out and logically have reached the conclusion that this particular treatment best suits your case. So with trusting our friends. We do not trust them, as the result of argument, and yet our trusting them is reasonable; to doubt them would be unreasonable. What could be more reasonable than that men should faithe the truth? How then can faith and reason conflict? Reason can be no substitute for faith. Any attempt to live by reason, rather than by faith, must ever fail. Man cannot walk by reason but only by faith. The function of reason is negative; necessary, to be sure, but negative. I am not disparaging reason. Without it we would be lunatics. But the one use of reason is to enable us to avoid making mistakes. Immanuel Kant, the founder of "Critical Philosophy," says on this subject: "The greatest and, perhaps, the sole use of all philosophy, of all pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not an organon for the enlargement of knowledge, but as a discipline for its delimitation, and instead of discovering truth, has only the modest merit of preventing error." Prof. T. H. Huxley, who will not be suspected of any "theological bias," against reason and in favor of faith, in an article in the Nineteenth Century quoted this language of Kant and endorsed it. Reason’s function is to prevent error. By means of our reason we may avoid going wrong, but it is only by faith that we can go at all. The world needs more faith. Senator Beveridge is right: "The world is hungry for faith." We need more men like him Wordsworth describes: "One in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition." Ruskin says: "On the whole these are much sadder ages than the early ones; not sadder in a noble and deep way, but in a deep and wearied way, the way of ennui and jaded intellect and uncomfortableness of mind and body. Not that we are without festivity, but festivity more or less forced, mistaken, embittered, incomplete, not of the heart; and the profoundest reason for this weariness and sadness of heart is our want of faith." The pessimist is abroad in the earth, and weakened popular faith gives hint his opportunity. Prof. John Tyndall tells us: " ‘Did I not believe,’ said a great man to me once, ‘that an intelligence is at the heart of things, my life would be intolerable.’" Faith is the basis of hope. A faithless man is a hopeless one, and whatever weakens faith. darkens hope. The various forces, I need not enumerate them, which have weakened faith, have, to that extent, marred hope, until pessimism has become widespread and aggressive. Dr. A. H. Bradford tells us: "He who reads French, Italian, and indeed much of German literature, may easily imagine that pessimism is the dominant note of modern thought." In one of his latest books Ruskin says: "Everybody is interested in jockeys, harlots, mountebanks and men about town: but nobody, in saints, heroes, kings or wise men, either from the East or the West." While pessimism is no new thing in the world, there is more of it now than in previous years. While there is plenty of faith in money and in force, there is less in higher things. Dogmatism is decried, and definite conviction is discounted. The man who really believes something and stands for it, is discredited, while the man who is too be quite sure of anything, is exalted. To be certain on any point is said to close the mind on that point and to prevent all progress along that line. We are not to reach finality in anything, but are to ever "keep our minds open to new truth." This relieves us from all obligation to believe anything, since we have no assurance that what is now offered us will not be set aside next year, and there is certainly no benefit in believing now what will presently be proven false. Hence we become indifferent to truth and complaisant towards all forms of error. Emerson has well said: " ’Tis man’s perdition to be sale When for the truth he ought to die." Let us have more faith in the higher realm of life, even though it does make us dogmatic; though I have observed that doubt can be dogmatic as well as faith. Matthew Arnold was quite dogmatic, and once when a friend charged him with being as dogmatic as Carlyle, he replied: "That may be true, but you overlook an obvious difference. I am dogmatic and right and Carlyle is dogmatic and wrong." It goes without saying that we ought to faithe only what is true; but if err we must, let it be on the safe side. It is better to carry faith to the point of superstition rather than to doubt everything high and noble. No less a man than Goethe, speaking of the stories of Lucretia, Scævola, etc., said; "If the Romans were great enough to invent those stories, we should at least be great enough to believe them." It is a nobler type of man who sees in a purple flower a deity’s sorrow for his lost Hyacinthus, than the one who sees only so much oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and salts, combining at random and causing beauty by chance. Rouchefoucauld declared: "It is more shameful to be distrustful of our friends than to be deceived by them." Sir Humphrey Davy was no religious fanatic, and yet he said: "If I could choose what would be the most delightful and, I believe, the most useful thing to me, I prefer a firm religious belief to any other blessing; for it makes discipline of good, creates new hopes when earthly hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights, awakens life in death and from corruption and decay, calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of misfortune and of shame a ladder of ascent to Paradise; and far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palms and of aramanth, the gardens of the blest and the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the skeptic view only gloom, annihilation and despair." When William Blake was asked if he saw the sun rising he answered: "I see a heavenly host and I hear them chanting—holy! holy! holy! Lord God Almighty. Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory." It is by faith we walk along our life journey, and then at its end faith opens for us the gates of Paradise. Napoleon Bonaparte declared: "All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before one single word—faith." Our faith is our greatest treasure, and he who robs us of it inflicts upon us the greatest injury. The Arab proverb is true: "The strength of the heart is from the soundness of the faith." And Professor James has well said: "Believe that life is worth living and your belief will half create the fact." James Anthony Froude is right: "A living genuine belief is the greatest of all possessions." ─────────── So far we have considered faith in general. Let us now take up faith in the realm of religion, the highest form of faith. In Hebrews 11:1 it is written: "Now faith is giving substance (upostasiV ) to things hoped for, the testing (elegcoV ) of things not seen." Paul writes to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 1:3): "Remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope;" and to the Galatians (5:6) he speaks of "faith working through love." Other passages might be cited. Faith works, love labors and hope gives patience. Work is the result of power, while labor is the result of effort. There may be great labor and little work, and also great work with comparatively little labor. The best work in the world has been done by the greatest power, rather than by the greatest effort. A poor artist with the greatest effort will produce a picture far inferior to one produced by a great artist with little effort. Faith is the working power. At the close of the roster of faith given in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, we read of the works of faith of those not named, "who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire . . . turned to flight the armies of aliens." These were mighty achievements, and they were wrought by faith. Faith in religion differs from faith elsewhere in its object; and in religion faith finds its highest and noblest exercise. Faith in God enables us to rise above all earthly conditions, and to have fellowship with the Infinite. It may be compared to the condor of the Andes, the bird of highest flight. When the tempest comes, weaker birds fly to their coverts where they can be protected from the raging of the elements. Not so, the mighty condor. Turning his eye upward he cleaves his way to the empyrean and basks in the clear sunshine, above the tornado’s fury and beyond the storm-cloud’s power. Thus by our faith we can "mount up as on eagle’s wings," above the clouds and darkness that hover over the lowlands of knowledge and reason, into the ever lasting light that knows no shadow, flowing in peace and stillness from the Throne of the Eternal. It is strange that men should object to Christianity because it requires faith. The poet Shelley wanted a religion without faith, and hoped someone would invent such a religion. The thought is absurd. Everything that involves action requires faith. Wherever deeds are wanted there must be doing. "Without faith ye can do nothing" is true to the limit. A religion without faith would be a cold passive philosophy, powerless to benefit man and without influence upon conduct and character. Men are sinners. This fact requires no proof. The Scriptures tell us how God in His infinite grace has provided a remedy for sin in the atonement of Christ. how can a man get the benefit of a remedy unless he take it? Truth is of value only as it is trusted and acted on—i.e., only as it is faithed. Truth’s appeal is always to faith, and religious truth is no exception. How can a ship carry a man over the sea unless he go on board? Shelley’s wish for a religion without faith, is as if a man wished for a ship that would take him across the Atlantic without his going on board. It is necessary to apply the remedy God has provided for sin, and that applying is simple faith. It is necessary to use the means of transportation if you would cross the ocean, and that using is simple faith. There is nothing arbitrary in our Lord’s saying: "He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life, but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." It is as if He said: "He that goeth on board a ship shall be carried to the farther shore, but he that goeth not on board, shall not see the further shore but shall but shall abide on this side the sea." Necessarily there can be no salvation without faith. Sin is not simply mechanical, to be relieved by a mechanical process. Sin is "the transgression of the law;" it is the violation of right by intelligent moral beings, and so can be removed only by faith in the remedy provided. Men must have faith. It could not be otherwise. New Testament faith is far more than the mere acceptance of certain teaching. Faithing is more than believing. A man might believe everything in the Bible, from lid to lid, and still be lost. Gospel faith is a heart trust in Christ as Saviour and Lord, the heart including the will, so that action follows. Faith is not passive. It is the doing. Christian faith involves turning from sin to God, surrendering the will to Christ, and throwing one’s whole power into His service. The Master with stinging reproach asks: "Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord; and do not the things which I say?" How strangely do they miss the meaning of faith who hold what is called "faith cure," discarding the use of medicines and doctors. They say they have faith in God to cure them, and by this faith they hold still and do nothing. We would say to them—show us your faith without your works and we will show you our faith by our works. Faith does not hold still; faith acts. Faith in God involves acting in conformity with the order He has established. That man is lacking in faith who wishes the order of the universe changed to suit his convenience. Suppose a farmer should say: "I will make use of no means to secure a crop, but will simply have faith in God to give me a crop!" Would such a farmer really have faith? "But," it may be asked, "does not the Bible teach that God heals our diseases?" Certainly, and no disease is ever healed without God. All cures are of God. The physician treats, but God cures. This does not teach that we are not to use the means God has provided. It rather teaches that we are to use those means. "The prayer of faith shall save the sick," only after the remedial oil has been applied (James 5:14, 15). There are more passages in Scripture which teach that God will feed us, than teach that God will heal us. Shall we therefore discard all food and trust God to feed us? The farmer who makes the best use of the means God provides to secure a crop, shows most faith in God. The sick man who makes the best use of the means for cure God has put in his reach, shows far more faith in God than does his neighbor who seeks to be cured by faith without the use of means. Indeed what is passive is not faith. "Faith without works is dead." Christian faith is not only glad submission to God’s will, but heartily doing His will. Vain is the cry Lord, Lord; unless we do His will. The more confidence we have in the divine wisdom, power and love, the gladder will be our submission and the heartier our service in doing that will. Thus by faith are we raised to our lost nearness to the swift intuitions of the angels; nearer to that supreme knowledge which knows no surprise, that supreme power which knows no labor, that supreme wisdom which knows no bounds, no increase, no shadow of uncertainty. No wonder the Bible exalts faith. "According to your faith be it unto you" (Matthew 9:29b). "The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38). "We walk by faith" (2 Cor. 5:7). "By grace are ye saved through faith" (Eph. 2:8). "Without faith it is impossible to please Him" (Heb. 11:6). Even the trial of our faith is "much more precious than of gold that perisheth" (1 Pet. 1:7) "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4). Faith is the indispensable thing. Without it we could do nothing and have nothing; with it we can do all things and achieve all things, right and glorious. Not the faith that nerved Spartah arms at Thermopylæ, or that guided Columbus across the unknown sea, or that led Kepler and Newton through the starry heavens; but the faith that led Abraham into Canaan, that sent Paul to Macedonia, Carey to India and Judson to Burmah. It is the faith that relies, not on the wisdom of man, but upon the promise of God; the faith which shone not in the face of Curtius or of Porsenna, but of the martyr Stephen—where "the rest is one of humility and not of pride, and the trust, not in resolution we have taken, but in the hand we hold." Nowhere and at no time was there more urgent need for emphasizing faith than in our land and in our time. Signor Crispi is right—"The belief in God is the fundamental basis of the healthy life of the people." Faith in Christ is indispensable to salvation. In no other way has a bad man ever become a good man, and by faith multiplied thousands have been saved from vice to righteousness, from sin to God. All around us men are losing sight of this great and vital truth. They are substituting the golden dollar for the golden rule, their chief ambition being to make money rather than to work righteousness and to be comfortable rather than to be holy. As a recent writer put it: "On every side, instead of faith, hope and love, we have neediness, greediness and vainglory." The very charities which are the pride of our age, rest largely on a purely humanitarian foundation. The aim is to heal the body rather than to save the soul, and to remove ignorance rather than to take away guilt. The blackest of nights will settle over our fair land, if our people generally care for pleasing rather than saving, and regard pain, ignorance and poverty the great evils to be avoided, while they are complaisant towards pride and selfishness and lust. In his admirable sketch of Cæsar, James Anthony Froude has drawn an impressive parallel between the age of the early Roman Empire—the Apostolic age—and the times in which we live. Luxury and wealth had banished the simple habits of the Romans and had weakened the stern virtues of their fathers. Careless indifference that laughed in the faces of the augurs had taken the place of faith in the immortal gods. Men said then, as they say now, "There’s nothing new, and nothing true, and it does not signify." Into that age so doubting, so indifferent, came the earnest Paul, with a heart on fire and a soul aglow with resolute faith; and a voice, magnetic in its loving earnestness rang through the streets of careless Athens and of haughty Rome—This is new, "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3)," and rose again for our justification according to the Scriptures—this is true, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36). And it does signify by all that is grand in life and noble in death, by all that makes life worth living and eternity worth hoping for, it does signify that you turn from your sins to this Christ who will have mercy upon you, to this God who will abundantly pardon. This is the message needed today. This is the faith that overcomes the world and opens the gates of heaven. It has lost none of its power since the great Apostle, laying aside the armor of his warfare and reaching upward to take his crown, sent his shout of triumph across the centuries—"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7). ---------------------------
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 19:18:00 +0000
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