Beyond His love and care.”
Many things remain unexplained. The mysteries are not all dissipated. But I see enough light to enable me to hold a steady course onward, and I have an inner confidence in God which nothing in the outward world can shatter. This is the message from Habakkuk’s watch-tower: There is a faith which goes so far into the heart of things that a man can live by it and stand all the water-spouts which break upon him.
Josiah Royce once defined faith as an insight of the soul by which one can stand everything that can happen to him, and that is what this text means. You arrive at such a personal assurance of God’s character that you can face any event and not be swept off your feet. If this is so, it means that the most important achievement in a man’s career is the attainment of just this inner vision, the acquisition of an interior spiritual confidence which itself is the victory.
William James used often to close his lecture courses at Harvard with what he called a “Faith-ladder.” Round after round it went up from a mere possibility of hope to an inner conviction strong enough to dominate action. He would begin with some human faith which outstrips evidence and he would say of it: It is at least not absurd, not self-contradictory, and, therefore, it might be true under certain conditions, in some kind of a world which we can conceive. It may be true even in this world and under existing conditions. It is fit to be true; it ought to be true. The soul in its moment of clearest insight feels that it must be true. It shall be true, then, at least for me, for I propose to act upon it, to live by it, to stake my existence on it.
This watch-tower of Habakkuk is a similar faith-ladder. He sees no way to explain why the good suffer, or to account for the catastrophes of history, but at least he has found a faith in God which holds him like adamant: “Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.... He will make me to walk upon mine high places.” Faith like that is always contagious. The unshaken soul kindles another soul who believes in his belief, and the torch goes from this man on his watch-tower to St. Paul, and from him on to the great reformer, and then to an unnamed multitude, who through their soul’s insight can stand everything that may happen!
III
LIVING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ETERNAL
Some time ago I received a letter from a young minister who was about to settle for religious work in a large manufacturing town. He and I were strangers to each other in the flesh but friends through correspondence, and because we were kindred spirits he wrote to me to say: “I have before me the great work of living in the eternal God and in a humanity toiling in factories and shops. Oh, if I could only make the presence of the Eternal real to myself and to my people!” Another minister, laboring in a large suburb of New York City, also a stranger to me except through correspondence, wrote to say that he was glad for every voice which holds up before men the reality of the invisible Church and the idea of the universal priesthood of believers. These letters coming within a week—and they are samples of many similar ones—are signs of the times, and show clearly that thoughtful men all about us are done with the husk of religion and are devoting themselves to the heart of the matter. There is a deep movement under way which touches all denominations and is steadily preparing in our busy, hurrying, materialistic America a true seed of the vital, spiritual religion that will later bear rich blossoms and ripe harvest.
I want for the moment to return to the central desire of the young minister, in the hope that it may inspire some of us, especially some of our young ministers who are facing their new spiritual tasks: “I have before me the great work of living in the eternal God and in a humanity toiling in factories and shops. Oh, if I could only make the presence of the Eternal real to myself and to them!”