Footnotes
[1]. 2 Kings 6:1-7.
[2]. "What are the Laws of Nature?" asks Carlyle, and continues"To me perhaps the rising of one from the dead were no violation of these laws, but a confirmation, if some far deeper law, now first penetrated into, and by spiritual force, even as the rest have all been, were brought to bear on us with its material force."
"'But is it not the deepest law of Nature that she be constant?' cried an illuminated class: 'Is not the machine of the universe fixt to move by unalterable rules?' Probable enough good friends. . . . . And now of you, too, I make the old inquiry: What those same unalterable rules, forming the complete statute book of Nature, may possibly be?
"'They stand written in our works of science,' say you; 'in the accumulated record of man's experience.' Was man with his experience present at the creation, then, to see how it all went on? Have any deepest scientific individuals yet dived down to the foundations of the universe, and gauged everything there? Did the Maker take them into his counsel, that they read his ground-plan of the incomprehensible All, and can say, This stands marked therein, and no more than this? Alas, not in any wise!" . . . .
"To the minnow, every cranny and pebble and quality and accident, of its little native creek may have become familiar; but does the minnow understand the ocean tides and periodic currents, the trade winds and monsoons and moon's eclipses, by all which the condition of its little creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (unmiraculously enough) be quite upset and reversed? Such a minnow is man; his creek this planet earth; his ocean the immeasurable All; his monsoons and periodic currents the mysterious force of Providence through aeons of aeons."—Sartor Resartus, Natural Supernaturalism, pp. 275-278.
[3]. Gen. 1:3.
[4]. "Everybody recalls how the Red Sea was rolled aside in order that the Isaraelites under Moses might pass over safely; how the river Jordan, a few later, was driven back, that Joshua and his army might cross; and how Sodom and Gomorrah were overwhelmed with fire and brimstone for their sins . . . . Geologists are now inclined to believe that the recession of the sea might have been caused by an earthquake pushing up a rock stratum under tremendous pressure. The water would return in some degree upon the subsidence of the stratum. The various miraculous events referred to occurred about the year 1500 B. C., and there is a curious similarity between them. It now appears probable from scientific research that these occurrences were the last of a series of terrific earthquake disturbances that changed the entire surface of the globe."—W. H. Ballou, D. Sc.
[5]. Ex. 14:21-31.
[6]. Joshua 10:12.
[7]. Ib. vv. 13, 14.
[8]. James 5:14.
ARTICLE THIRTY-SIX.
The Mainspring of Power.
The Moving Cause.—All power springs from faith. It is "the moving cause of all action" and "the foundation of all righteousness."[[1]] God did not create the principle of faith, but by means of it he created the worlds, and by means of it he continues to exercise control and dominion over them. It is the faith of Omnipotence that upholds the universe.
A Negative Opinion.—A Christian minister, not of the orthodox school, with whom I was conversing on the subject of faith, tried to convince me that it was anything but an admirable quality. He even called it contemptible, declaring that it consisted of a weak willingness to believe—to believe anything, however improbable or absurd. In short, it was mere credulity, nothing more.
A Spiritual Force.—When I referred to faith as a spiritual force, a principle of power, he said I was attaching to the term a significance that it had never borne, and for which there was no warrant. I then reminded him of the Savior's words: "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, 'Remove hence to yonder place,' and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you."[[2]] Whereupon he flippantly remarked: "Oh, it takes picks and shovels to move mountains."
Picks and Shovels.—And so it does—if one has no better way of moving them. But what about the faith necessary to handle pick and shovel? All energy springs from faith, and whether mountains are moved by man or by his Maker, it is faith that precedes the action and renders it possible. Yet here was a professed minister of Christ, ignoring the teachings of Christ, and denying what all true Christians believe—that the smallest as well as the greatest acts of our lives spring from the exercise of faith.
Misplaced Confidence.—In its incipient stages, faith may at times resemble mere credulity. The untutored savage who was told by one of the early settlers of New England, that if he planted gunpowder it would "grow" gunpowder, believed it, not yet having learned that the white man could lie. He therefore parted with his valuable furs, in exchange for a small quantity of powder, and planted it, showing his confidence in the settler's word. But of course the desired result did not follow; for faith, to be effectual, must be rightly based, must have a reasonable foundation. The Spirit of Truth must inspire it. This was not the case with the poor misguided Indian. He trusted in a falsehood, and was deceived. Still, some good came of it—he ascertained the falsity of the settler's statement. If the planting did not produce powder, it produced a wiser Indian.
Faith's Possibilities.—Had the red man's faith been perfect—an intelligent, rational, heaven-inspired faith—he could have produced gunpowder or any other commodity from the all-containing elements around him. And that, too, without planting a seed or employing any ordinary process of manufacture. The miracles wrought by the Savior—his turning of water into wine, his miraculous feeding of the multitude, his walking on the waves, healing of the sick, raising of the dead, and other wonderful works—what were they but manifestations of an all-powerful faith, to possess which is to have the power to move mountains, without picks and shovels, my skeptical friend to the contrary notwithstanding? Faith is not to confounded with blind ignorant credulity. It is a divine energy, operating upon natural principles and by natural processes—natural, though unknown to "the natural man," and termed by him "supernatural."
"As a Grain of Mustard Seed."—When the Savior spoke of the faith that moves mountains, he was not measuring the quantity of the faith by the size of the mustard seed. Neither was it an Oriental hyperbole. Jesus was speaking literally. Mountains had been moved before by the power of faith;[[3]] then why not now?[[4]]
An Impelling Force.—Faith is the beating heart of the universe. Without it nothing was ever accomplished, small or great, commonplace or miraculous. No work ever succeeded that was not backed by confidence in some power, human or superhuman, that impelled and pushed forward the enterprise.
Those Who Believe.—It was not doubt that drove Columbus across the sea; it was faith—the impelling force of the Spirit of the Lord.[[5]] It was not doubt that inspired Jefferson, Franklin, and the other patriot fathers to lay broad and deep the foundations of this mighty republic, as a hope and a refuge for oppressed humanity. It is not doubt that causes nations to rise and flourish, that induces great and good men in all ages and in all climes to teach and toil and sacrifice for the benefit of their fellows. It is faith that does such things. Doubt only hinders what faith would achieve. The men and women who move the world are the men and women who believe.
Mahomet and Islam.—Carlyle, in splendid phrasing, depicts the wonderful change that came over the Arabian people when they abandoned idolatry, the insincere worship of "sticks and stones," and became a believing nation. "It was as a birth from darkness into light; Arabia first became alive by means of it. A poor shepherd people roaming unnoticed in its deserts since the creation of the world; a hero-prophet was sent down to them with a word they could believe; see, the unnoticed becomes world-notable, the small has become world-great; within one century afterward Arabia is at Granada on this hand, at Delhi on that—glancing in valor and splendor and the light of genius, Arabia shines through long ages over a great section of the world. Belief is great, life-giving. The history of a nation becomes fruitful, soul-elevating, great, so soon as it believes."[[6]]
Achievements of Christendom.—The same philosophy, with far greater emphasis, applies to Christendom and its glorious achievements all down the centuries. What has caused Christian nations to flourish so mightily? What has enabled Christianity, in spite of its errors, to survive the wreck of empires and to weather the storms of time? Faith in the Christ, imperfect though that faith has been. The faith of any people—its trust in and reliance upon some power deemed by it divine—constitutes its main source of strength.
Faith Must Be Genuine.—But faith must be genuine. Pretense and formalism will not avail. Hypocrisy is the worst form of unbelief. Honest idolatry is infinitely preferable to dishonest worship. Better burn incense to Diana, believing it to be right, than bow down to Christ in hollow-hearted insincerity. Mighty Rome did not fall until she had ceased to worship sincerely the gods enshrined within her Pantheon. Glorious Greece did not succumb until her believers had become doubters, until skeptical philosophy had supplanted religious enthusiasm, and the worship of freedom, grace and beauty had degenerated into unbridled license and groveling sensuality. No nation ever crumbled to ruin until false to itself, false to the true principles of success, the basic one of which is To Believe.
Germany's Mistake.—The world in recent years has witnessed the sad spectacle of a great nation, or the ruling powers of that nation, turning from Christ and substituting for Christian faith a godless pagan philosophy. Discarding the just and merciful principles of the Gospel, and adopting the false notion that might makes right, the fallen Teutonic empire has shown, by the revolting cruelties practiced in pursuance of that doctrine, what science (kultur) is capable of, when it parts company with God and morality. The land of Goethe and Wagner, and alas! the land also of the Hohenzollern and the Hindenburg, far from winning the "place in the sun" that she so coveted, has lost the proud place already held by her when the mad ambition of her military chiefs plunged her into ruin. The one thing that can now redeem her and lift her up out of the pit into which she has fallen, is faith in the true God, and the works by which that faith is made manifest.
According to Their Faith.—God deals with men ac-according to their faith. The Savior wrought mighty miracles, by his own faith, but most of them were faith abounded in the hearts of the people. In other places he did not do many mighty works, "because of their unbelief." Faith is a gift from God, and they who serve him best have most of it. Faith is the soil that brings forth miracles. "All things are possible to them that believe."