One day, at a little prayer-meeting, our deacon, Yi Chun Ho, startled the Koreans, as well as the missionary, by the suggestion that the natives should put up the new church without foreign aid. I at once said: “You have raised twenty yen, and believed that you had done all you could; it will take almost one thousand yen to put up the church. Can you do it?” I felt strongly rebuked by his quiet reply: “We ask such questions as ‘Can you do it?’ about men’s work, but not about God’s work.”—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”
(1030)
See [Achievement]; [Guidance, God’s]; [Triumph in Death].
FAITH, A CHILD’S
A child’s faith and good will are manifested in connection with his idea of a personal, intelligent power in the world. In the latter part of his fourth year, a little boy was awakened one night by a violent thunder-storm. He was much frightened, and called to his mother with trembling voice, “Mama, God won’t let the thunder hurt us, will He?” When assured that the lightning was governed by God’s laws, and that there was little or no danger, he quieted down and slept soundly during the rest of the storm. So far as was known, this child had never been told that God protected him under such conditions. It was evidently an inference drawn from his own thoughts about the personal influence he felt to pervade the world. (Text.)—George E. Dawson, “The Child and His Religion.”
(1031)
FAITH AND POWER
When the soul of man is full of faith it is in a changed condition. The man is the same, but his state is not the same, and he in the new state develops new powers and new capacities. To be full of faith is to be full also of power of a new kind. For faith is spiritual dynamite.
Cold iron is precisely identical with iron heated in the fire; but tho the metal is the same, the fire that has entered it entirely transforms its condition and endows it with a new potency. And the fire also by entering the iron takes upon itself new action, making of the metal a vehicle of its dynamic potency. So does the Spirit of God transfuse and transform and vivify and fortify human nature. (Text.)