The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-07-14
WHAT IS FAITH?


mans mind as an arrow is delivered
from a bow? Is it thought or feeling
going out from us in kind of solitary
venture to find home in God or His
truth, and so going out from us, de-
tached from us, and to be commended
and blessed because it is that visitor sent
from man to his Maker? That is the
too common conception. Something
sent out from us and then no more of us
or identified with our living. An act for
moment piercing our surrounding
darkness ike blazing arrow shot into
the night.
But that is not Biblical idea of faith.
That idea is man accepting God s
presence and power and working, work
ing with them in his daily conduct.
What was Abrams faith? Was it a
sentiment, possibly to be united with
action, and possibly to be held back from
it? Abrams faith was Abram going to
Canaan in the name and company of
God. What was Enoch's faith? Walk
ing with God as preacher of right
eousness to men. What was the faith
of Moses parents? 1t was the self-de-
nying, consecrated energy that sent that
little cradle off on the flood of the Nile.
And what was Moses own faith. but the
surrender of Egypt and tie choice of
Gods fellowship and service? And so
we might 90 on calling the roll of that
eleventh chapter of Hebrews, discover
ing in every one of those heroes of faith
the identity $50 far as impression on the
world is concerned) of their convictions
and their conduct, the fact that their
faith found existence only in the ex-
preston of it. And so also in the New
Testament The faith of Matthew and
the other apostles comes out in their fol-
lowing. They make no profession and
they utter no creed, but they pour their
life into their new calling. They for
sake all and follow Christ, and in that
forsaking and that following their faith
shoots up like northern lights at mid
night. unanalyzed, unmeasured, but
sublime.
Their faith, then, is not sentiment,
but great energy. A sentiment, in
deed, it may be first of all, an invisible
and tremulous feeling in the heart, but
as the world knows it, and alone can
know it, it is a great and sustained
energy that moves the life along. The
block coal that fills our hills and prairies
was once quivering sunlight. 1t is sun
light now packed away by nature to be
converted into heat for the activities of
the world. And so is Gods presence
around the soul the light of its seeing,
the source and reality of its faith, and
when that presence is accepted in
human soul it is no more the impOnder-
able wave of Divine light. but it is the
ponderable and measurable stored
energy for driving the great activities
of human soul. 1t was light and heat
once, as it emanated from the Divine
presence. 1t shall be light and heat
again, when, having passed into
human action indissolubly. connected
with human energy, it impresses itself
upon the world. Our theological
chemistry may tell us it was light,
but we know it only in its transformed
nature as spiritual force. Let us,
then, correct the error of thought or
error of training in which we make
faith separable and separate entity of
the human mind. Faith is only an ac-
ceptance of God pro. ected into the field
of our work. The farmer goes forth to
SOW and tend his grain. He does not
take any formal or scientific account
of the cooperation of nature with him.
But his faith in that cooperation is
supposed and apparent in all by his
conduct. 1t is the underlying feeling
that sets his every step. He does not
plant in the winter. Faith in the warm
ing sunlight is not with him as dis
tant and isolated conception, and yet it
is the motive power behind every step
he takes. He does not know the chem
istry that connects sunbeam with
grain of wheat in moist grave. But
faith in the mysterious working and the
sufficient plenitude of Heavenly power
is the constant support and inspiration
of his toll And so, Christian faith is
the presupposed condition of Christian
work. It so fundamentally underlies
and is so intimately inwrought with our
energy it can hardly be thought of as a
thing separate from our life.
1t is the man working according to
Divine inspiration. 1t is the acceptance
of God in the potency of grace, help
ing the man along his every step. 1t is
like breathing. We can, indeed,
breathe by separate volitions and meas
ure our breath. But when our breath
is doing most for us; sustaining us by
its rhythmic regularity in our ordinary
work, or in quickened respiration hold
ing us up in some great excitement, we
are unconscious of its movement And
so in some hours of speculation, when
we have nothing else to do, we may
Measure that inspiration of Christianity