The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-07-10
LIVING AND BELIEVING.

One of the moral fallacies of the
times is that it makes no difference
what one believes. From the fallacy
that ones eternal destiny for veal or
woe depends upon his assent to certain
propositions of theological nature, the
popular mind seems to have largely re-
bounded to the other extreme. Instead
of making belief the peg to hang eter-
nal destinies upon, people are saying
now that no interests are affected by it;
it makes no difference, either to life or
to destiny, what one believes. This
must be mistake. To say that it
makes no difference whether one cher
ishes in his heart a truth or a false
hood; that his life or his destiny, taking
root in either, will be the same, is to say
that truth and error are alike in their
results III human affairs. By the very
nature of the case this cannot be true.
To say that it makes no difference what
one believes, is to subvert the whole
unwritten order of the universe; to set
truth and falsehood not in antagonism,
but in fellowship. 1t does make rad
ical difference what we believe. We
must believe that which is true. Our
lives must take root in truth, or life
must be in every case failure more or
less disastrous. Every grain of error
makes the failure worse and more in
evitable.
We know this partly on philosophical
grounds; because, as we have said, to be-
lieve anything else is to entangle the
laws and consequences of truth and
error. We believe it also upon moral
grounds, and these mainly. We believe
that true living comes out of true be-
lieving, because we know that the life
which Jesus led came germinally out of
the things he believed. He believed
in the absolute verify of the precept,
BLESSED are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God," and so became pure in
heart. He believed in the precept,
blessed are the merciful, for they shall
obtain mercy" and so he made his life
full of compassion. He believed in the
precept, blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they
shall be filed" and so he made it his
meat and his drink to do the will of
the Father. His life, as he lived it from
day to day, came radically out of the
beliefs he cherished.
1t is to faith in those great moral
principles which he laid down in the
sermon on the mount +; to the convic-
ton that we ought to love our enemies;
that we ought to be perfect as our
Father in heaven is perfect; that we
ought to be merciful that we ought to
be meek that we ought to be peace
makers that we ought to hunger and
thirst after righteousness; to faith in
these as the imperative obligations of
our religion that we owe the present
blessings of our social and religious life.
We take these tremendous "oughts,"
add to them the knowledge that the alb
solute despotism of them, Jesus pledged
his life, and find here the basis of our
religion. Jesus great desire was that
all men should have the same faith in
them that he had, and should live ger
minally out of them; that these moral
virtues should underlie all human
thought and action; that out of them
should come manner of living which
should become truly and worthily Chris
tian. To this end he died: and in dy-
ing left his cross, standing fast in our
religion, a symbol of his own faith and
trust, and proof to us that whatever
life may have to offer us, it can never
offer anything more inestimable than
these simple eternal principles. Into
hearts warmed by an unselfsh affec-
tion for himself, he dropped these holy
seeds of truth, then by his death erected
them into perpetual forces in human
life. 1t is the knowledge of these