St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-01-21
TRUE BASIS OF RELIGION.
Implicit Faith Urged by Rev. Samuel
- G. Smith.
HEAVENS BANK CASHIER.
Scientific Forms of knowledge Not
Necessary to Frame Convictions for
a Humanity as to Its Duty.

e.. Smith yesterday morning at the
Grand opera house on the subject of
Faith" In the course of his remarks,
DR.. Smith said:
The word faith is used in the Bible
and in religious literature in several
senses. Sometimes it means the body
OF accepted truth. recognition Of pre-
ponderance of testimony, trust i'll per
son, or faculty of the soul. There is
an intellectual drift at the present time
toward the view that all knowledge
must be arrived at by processes purely
intellectual. This may easily be shown
to be fundamental error. for our most
valuable mental possessions come to us
through a union of thought and action.
1t is the smell Of powder, and not the
study of tactics, that makes the soldier.
There is a knowledge upborne to us
from sorrow and pain vaster than
words, and the realm of Scholarship is a
valuable one, but its domain is not uni
versal.
In the name of the achievements of
multtudeS of men and women, which
every practical man can at once recOg-
niZe, [ protest against the universal APP
plication of whatmaY be known as the
scientific form of knowledge. Briefly
stated, it is this: All data for thought
is furnished by the senses. and the con-
yictionS of man must be limited to the
fel,i of exact knowledge. The Christian
religion distinctly joins issue with this
view of man and of truth. 1t revelS in
the ideal, and the apostle distinctly
states that we look not at the things
which are seen, bat at the things which
are unseen. What may be named a
transcendental form of knowledge neS-
ties in the very heart of religion. But
faith is not used properly in any antag-
oniSm to the rational action of the soul.
The soul of man is unit; 1T can not
give conclusion with some faculties
which it denies with others. 1t never in
dulges in civil war. 1t is no more nee
eSSary to cruelty the rea on that we may
exercise faith than it is to
PUT OUT YOUR EYES
in order that you MAY hear, Or cut Off
your hands that you may walk. Man is
much larger than many people suppose;
when he has exhaust ed the possibilities
of knowledge through the senses and
the understanding, there is still an I'M
explored country of knowledge and I'M
used faculties of his nature. Science
teaches us that the bodily organs of ami
mails were developed by sense of need.
The environment acted upon the FORM
less cellular structure. and 10. in due
time the senses. fins, wings, arms I'D
legs. This sense of need in man gives
birth to the faculty of faith. There are
many things that we cannot know by
purely intellectual processes that we
need to know. The apostle affirins that
it is through faith we understand that
worlds were framed by the word of God.
matchmaking lies distinctly in the do
main of science, and that God made the
cesses of philosophy But neither
science nor philosophy are able
to disclose to US that this world
was made for us by good God and our
Father. 1t might be interesting to
know that an eternal force working in
the domain of time and space produced
the world, but this would not be prac-
ticaily valuable. The pestilence that
staiketh in darkness. the burning brow
of fever. the hauntS of hunger, the crash
of cyclones, the upheaval of earth
auakes, and the death of little children
are all arguments against the goodness
of God. In order to find God me must
go to the Bible and find his revelation
in Jesus Christ, or we must retreat
and by faith must know that God made
the world. Only His sympathy can
quiet our pain, Only faith in Him can
make us strong for the burdens
of life. Our whole nature pro-
tests against his absence. Science
comes to us with other analogieS; no
organ of any animal has ever been de
veloped into a disappointing world.
All organs have found use for them
selves us soon as fashioned. Through
them life has used the world, come into
harmony with the world and organiza-
tons have realized themselves. la like
manner this spiritual organ of faith,
rising triumphant amid the wreck of all
other endeayor, becomes the SOULS sur
viVal of the fitteSt. aud its eXiStenne is
its own proof of right to be. The stars
in their courses obey an intelligence
outside of themselves. and the whole
structure of the animal kingdom is de-
liyered from the limitations OF such
feeble knowledge as it has. By mag
the lower orders of life are sustained
and preserved. Mathematics, geog-
raphy, astronomy and meteoroiogy are
what may be named inmate sciences to
animal life. They are learned without
books or maps OF blackDoardS. In like
manner faith is the
INSTINCT OF THE SOUL.
1t recognizes the coming of the tenn
pest from afar and finds that God is
covert from the storm. The failing
hopes of man, like failing autumn
leaves, are his teachers. and
like the birds he spreads. the pin
ions of his soul and flies straight to God,
his everlasting summer land. Faith is
rightly the foundation of the conduct of
life, and so Christian experience goes
from faith to faith In the midst of the
darkness it accepts God as light; in the
midst OF evil God as providence. This
faith in God becomes the working
hypothesis of a human soul, and as
man clingS to this faith he finds his
sorrows softened, sins pardoned, land bur-
dens borne. Faith in bank is evil
dence of unseen cash in its vaults.
Conceive bank that will let you have
no money for dissipation. eXtravaganceS,
foolish Investments, but will alN avs
honor your checks i'll time of need, and
where you have an unlimited deposit
which you can never exhaust. Such a
bank is the universe, and God is its
cashier. Morality as we'll as religion
rests on faith, for morality depends on
conscience, but conscience is only DOW
erful as we have an implicit faith in
the veracity of its voice. Day by day
it says, if you do right it shall be
we'll; if you do wrong it shall be
ill, and this witness which we can
not cross examine. and which we
cannot corroborate, is either delusion
or it is the voice of the everlasting
God. Many facts of life seem to argue
against it. but it does not parley or COM
promise, and the same message that was
give in other days to cur fathers,i it bears
unto us. The supernatural limits our
knowledge, but it makes boundiess our
power and development. Man dwells
in two worlds; one. of sense. the other
of spirit, and he is essentially supernat-
ural. Faith is the natural organ of the
supernatural world. We read that in