The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-12-05
FAITH AND ITS ANAL0GIES.


| it. He must believe or enterprise is
dead.
There is no unbelief.
| Whoever plants a leaf beneath the sod
| Aud waits to see it push away the clod,
He trusts in God.
Whoever sees, meath winters field ofsnow
The silent harvest of the future grow,
Gods power must know.
Whoever says, tomorrow, ''the un-
known"
s'The future trusts unto that Power
alone
He dare disown.
The heart that looks on when the eyelids
close,
And dares to live when life has only woes,
Gods comfort knows.
There is no unbelief,
And day by day and night, unconsciously
The heart lives by that faith the lips
deny,
God knows the why.
Faith is a kind of prescience. The
whole realm of animated nature is
permeated with this invigorating
foresight. Every moment in ma
ture is a forecasting of the future.
Both human and animal existence is
moved by miraculous, impressional
insights of things and conditions to
come. Note the instinct of birth and
the incubation of fowls and birds.
By what miracle does the mother
bird seek seclusion and safety and
build her nest? Why is her house
prepared for the needful warmth as
we'll as secrecy? By what wisdom
does she sit the appointed time upon
the waiting eggs? In the hunt for
her own food why does she return
within the moment that would be
fatal to the expectant life of her
young? Who shall declare that there
is not here an impressional fore
knowledge of coming events, an in
stinctve faith in the advent of the
progeny for which she prepares an
habitation and devotes the warmth
of her body9 Without affirming that
the mother bird is conscious of this
material foresight, yet she executes
her labors as if the future were open
to her inspection. So unerring is the
instinct and 80 universal to its class
that we are led up to premise that ma
lures conduct in the present is prep
aration for the future. The de-
velopment of the embryo in mamma
liza may go on without the conscious
ness of maternity. Nevertheless they
are positive proof of the coming
being. One kind of insect will de-
post their germs of life in flesh, an
other in wood, another in living ami
mails, another in the soil, others in
water, in birds, in fishes, but always
with an unerring foresight of the
wants of the living being that is to
be.
They work by faith and not by
sight of the being that will have
need.
There is also a practical foresight
in vegetation, analogous to faith in
man. The oak hath wrought in the
acorn; the wheat in the kernel, the
corn in the germ, and the flower in
its seed. The labor in not in vain.
It is unerring. The future existence
of each germ and species is abund-
antly provided for because the in
stinct of faith hath made liberal pro-
vision for every future necessity.
The providential supply is assurance
that future awaits the posterity of
each particular kind.
Moreover, the individual in other
cases provides for itself in manner
which implies faith in its future.
The silkworm builds herself house
of thousand yards of silk in seven
ty hours of time. She keeps out
water and storm and cold. She
practically foreknows that herself
will long be the tenant of that silken
house. She has adapted the building
to the ends in view. Her instructive
faith hath been equal to a rational
one. The wisdom of the present hath
provided for the necessities of the
future. 1t is as if the insect mother
Elaborated the material for the several
stages of being through faith and
not by observation.
Aud is there not a natural theology
in all these things which bears upon
the doctrine of mans Immortality
The prenatal foresight of the coming
being and of the coming necessities,
is proof of existence yet future. Man
himself is also possessed of this pres
cience. Faith in what he hath not
yet seen is the chief force behind
his ambitions and the supply of his
daily bread. Man has a conscious
ness of perpetual being. From youth