A Wayfarer's Faith: Aspects of the common basis of religious life

by T. Edmund Harvey

All the explanations thus suggested have been too much akin to the physical one to touch the heart of the problem. It is when we realize the meaning of faith in our own lives here and now, that we cease to trouble about the future. In the realization of the supreme value of goodness, and the infinite meaning of it, we begin to understand that it must endure, in a sense far deeper than mere extension in time or space.

Faith is the organ of spiritual apprehension, and comes into play whenever we recognise in practice the claim of the ethical ideal as opposed [p.125] to the materialistic, when the will to do the good triumphs over the desire to get the good for our selves. In every act of the inward life by which being is set above having, and by which our own visible happiness is subordinated to that of our fellows, there comes into play this activity of the soul which we call faith, by which we come into contact with that which underlies our hopes, and put to test the things we do not see. [30]

As this faith comes to dominate and control our lives we are able to reach a point at which the old doubts cease to pain us. We may still repeat to ourselves the riddle of life, and seek for an answer; but though we may continue to puzzle to find an explanation, we are conscious that we have known something in the presence of which the ancient questionings cease to trouble. We feel that somehow we have come into touch with a presence which brings with it the solution of the greatest of all problems. In the depths of our lives we listen to the answer of faith.

Thus it is that the very words which ring with such a sense of awful despair in the poem of Omar may express nothing but peace to one who has gone through this experience: "He knows about it all, He knows, He knows." The difference lies in this, that to Omar there is as he writes no sense of contact with the Unseen, the Omniscient, in whose power he lies; but to him who [p.126] has heard the answer of Faith that sense of contact has come. He knows that in this deepest experience God has come into touch with him, and henceforth life to him both came and goes, out of God's hand into God's hand.

When Christ was confronted by the sceptical Sadducees with the problem of human life enduring beyond the grave, he pointed to their faith that the heroes of old time, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, had had knowledge of God, and told them that this knowledge of God meant life. A being that has come to have communion with the Eternal cannot be conceived of as passing away with the changing husk of things, the accidents of the body and the outer world. Eternal life does not consist in the duration for ever of an accidental process. If we could conceive of a jelly-fish continuing thus an indefinite existence, which should involve neither inward development nor the possession of higher powers than such a creature is commonly believed to be capable of, we should still surely be unable to speak of such existence as eternal life. For what we mean by this is not the mere continuity of existence from a present of transient accidents into a like future, but something which goes beyond death because it goes beyond life too, as life is ordinarily pictured.

But can we hope to tread ourselves this way of the Divine life? There are times when, the spiritual end which is ever present in our lives makes itself evident to us, and now and again [p.127] across the centuries come periods when the latent desires of men seem to come to the surface. Such was that epoch of spiritual unrest and stirring which came to England in the seventeenth century, in which the Quaker and Quietest movements had their birth, and it may be that we are not far away from the dawn of such another age to-day. Now, as then, men turn from orthodoxy in search of something deeper and wider than its mere creeds can give. The works of the old mystics are reissued from the press, and in the by-ways of literature men are seeking for paths that may lead them to inward peace. It is still twilight time. No prophet's voice is clearly heard calling us towards the full light of the day, but our eyes turn towards the horizon and watch for the signs of dawn.

We share a common life, and our need to-day is the same, though we may express it in different ways. We are conscious of something lacking in our lives, sensible at least at times of the evil there. We feel the darkness about us, and long for light and for a power that shall take us out of our lower natures, upward and onward. At such moments we may earnestly desire to come ourselves into communion with God, that his life may flow into ours and transform it. But how, after all, are we to attain to some dim realization of this knowledge of God which illumines the lives of the great mystics and brings peace to-day to many a life which otherwise would be full of painful failure? [p.128] Perhaps another saying from the book of Ecclesiastes may put us upon the path to find the answer. It is one of those words which come sometimes to poet and thinker, bearing within them fuller depth of meaning than was clear to the writer who first framed them, groping as he may have been at the edge of some great truth which he has never consciously apprehended. "Also He hath set Eternity in their heart." [31] The words were written in sadness, but there is within them the promise of hope. There lies at once the key to the mystery of human unrest and the hope for some deeper peace than the world without can give. Somewhere in the depths of his own life every man is in touch with the Eternal. Sometimes we are conscious of this higher reality surrounding us, as pervading all about us; on some glorious day alone with Nature the wonder of the world flashes upon us, and all things become radiant with a new light which fills both us and them. Or silently in the quiet of the night, before the mystery of the starry sky, a great peace comes over us in which our own tiny life seems to take its place amidst the ordered harmony of all the spheres.

But we come, too, to a vision of the Infinite in other ways; whenever we see a good deed done, and behold its goodness, we are touching the hem of the robe of the Eternal. In the inward recognition of the supreme beauty of unselfish love we are directly conscious of a flash of intuition [p.129] which illumines not the intellect alone, but our whole nature. We are brought into touch with God at the very centre of our lives. Nature is indeed the priest of the Eternal, and every high place has still its altar, where we may worship in spirit and in truth. But in an even deeper sense is the priesthood given to man. There is no man but is called to that true temple service wherein every good act is filled with meaning, not for himself only, but for his fellows. Every pure and unselfish deed is sacramental, bringing the soul of him who beholds it into touch with the God who inspired the act. And this contact with the Divine through goodness in another may come to us in spite of all intellectual barriers. If with our whole heart we honour a good deed done our nature does obeisance to the God who is working within it, who makes the deed of worth. Unknown to ourselves, we are drawn nearer to Him, and His life touches our lives, and transforms them a little nearer to His likeness. For every pure and lovely act that men do is not only a revelation but an inspiration and an influence drawing others upward. We have never had trust enough in the infectious power of a good deed.

Thus as we are faithful to the highest it has been given us to see, our sight will be strengthened to see further: at the moment of vision we are conscious that in the presence of the good thought, the good personality, we are in contact with the source of strength that we need. We must keep [p.130] close to the same source when the darkness is about us.

It is surely this truth that has helped to make the worship of the Saints the power for good which it has been in the lives of devout souls within the Catholic Church of Rome and of the East. They have done reverence to that in the Saints which was of God, and in drawing near to them they have been drawn near to Him also. The worship of the Saints has done harm, not only in the case of the false reverence of the market place, but whenever it has led men to turn from the source of the saint's power to the accidentals of his life and character, and to imitate the man, rather than to get into touch with his spirit. But the words of the old Creed, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," express a great reality. We can get the greatest help from this belief in the dark hours of the soul, and in all times of transition to fuller knowledge of the truth, if by belief in the Church we mean belief in the whole body of those who have come into touch with God through Christ, and through his spirit, and who can be recognised as his disciples because they bear in their lives his likeness. As we believe in the Church in this sense, we shall strive to feel the inner bond of union that connects together the good and holy of all creeds and nations, and to bring our lives into harmony with the same spirit of unity.