Faith

Without Faith it is impossible to please Him.— Heb. 11: 6.

The remarkable statement given above, taken from what Mr. Gladstone calls, “The great epic of Faith,” —is, strange to say, very unfamiliar to thousands of professing Christians. There are many quite willing to admit frankly that they do not possess what is demanded here; and others, and by no means a small number of individuals, seem to regard this condition as an evidence of intellectual superiority. This is doubtless due to the unfortunate confounding of Faith with something wholly different from it,—even credulousness.

It may be well to note at the start, that these two widely differing conditions of thought are nearly always mistaken for each other, and it is only when the deceived heart grows weary of feeding on ashes, that its ceaseless demand for the real, causes it at length to find the Faith of the Son of God.

Before proceeding to show what is being done by Christian Science at this period in rekindling this sacred fire in the Church of God, we had better go back to the dawn of Christianity, and see what part it played in the events of that period. As we do so, however, the Genius of Sacred History points us to the older time when God called Abraham out of the very service of idolatry in Chaldea, bade him forsake a like tradition of his forefathers, and all his kindred, and go where this faint, glimmering sense of truth should unfold into a perfect understanding of the One God, — One Mind.

So Abraham’s was, “the Faith that makes faithful,” and which laid the foundation of all the power that ever existed in the Jewish nation.

As the centuries roll on. we see most clearly that when Faith in God dominated the thought of the people, prosperity followed; where it was replaced by a belief in materiality, disaster came down upon the Nation, —famine, sickness, defeat, and exile.

When at length the Christ appeared, the life of Faith sprang up as never before, and the history of that time is written in victories over sin, sickness, and death, so splendid that the ages still stand awed by the mighty deeds done, and their explanation was sought and found in all that had been given by the prophets of old. Ritualism and dogma were swept aside, the sick were healed by the word of power, and it is hardly necessary to say that the early Christian Church unfolded into greatness from this vital element.

As we look over that momentous era, so full of rich promise for the race, the one important question is, What hindered its unfolding into completeness? St. Peter bids his hearers add to their Faith knowledge (2 Peter 1:5, 6), and for a time the Church of Christ grew, fulfilling the Saviour’s word.

But anon we find mere credulity usurping the place of Faith in the living God, and a blind belief in the dead bones of the saints, leading even the Church through a degrading superstition down to the acknowledgment of matter as a healing and saving power.

But God has never “left himself without witness,” and so the Reformation dawned at length, —and what was its keynote? Even the deathless thought spoken by Habakkuk, uttered anew by Paul, and heard by the Monk of Erfurt in the solitude of the cloister, “The Just shall live by Faith.”

It were vain to attempt to recount what followed the widespread rekindling of the sacred flame in Europe. Perhaps no period in human history exemplifies more fully the power of Faith as an active, mighty, and yet unseen agency in the world’s development, in the purifying and ennobling of religion, the mighty impetus given to the newly inspired human thought flowing through every channel of experience, the family life, into literature and art, and in a remarkable degree bursting forth in some of the noblest musical compositions ever given to the world. But again darkness came down upon human thought, and it was said, Faith may do for the infancy of the individual or of the race, but the manhood of the world demands something different; give us Science. So a strange light came, and for a little time the old visions of the Holy and the Just seemed to tremble and threaten to disappear.

Jesus once said, “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” So it is no wonder that in the light of Science, “falsely so-called,” doubt touched with withering finger the mighty works of prophet and apostle, and even the transcendent demonstrations of spiritual law given by the Lord Christ, and recorded in the Gospels.

Christian people would read some book, possibly a novel, attacking the Bible, and in spite of the denunciations of the pulpit would admit that their Faith (?) was shattered, and would actually warn others to avoid such reading, —knowing, themselves, nothing which would stand the test of even such a slight shock. But in this very hour of need God said again, “Let there be Light,” and the day star of Christian Science arose as of old, in deathless splendor, with healing on its wings. And what shall we say of this reappearing? Those who were “waiting and watching” in the darkness for the help which only God could give, sorely beset by the fiends of doubt and dismay, were lifted up, one by one, on the crest of a wave of sorrow, perchance, and felt, in an almost hopeless hour, a new life thrilling their very soul,—the Faith of the Son of God.

The shadows of sickness, sin, want, and despair vanished in the light of Science, and there was rest for a time; then the eager questioning, “What is this Faith which is newly born in me? Will it stand the test of every circumstance? In what have I Faith?” And the answer comes,— In God, in Good, in Truth and Love, in the Divine Mind, in God’s Word, in God’s purpose to bring good out of the varied experiences of being.

It is easy to see that hope, faith, and aspiration are inseparable from each other, and from human life; and so we go to our old guide-book, the Bible, called by our dear Mother, “The wise man’s directory,” and we find that the word Faith and its derivatives occur within it three or four hundred times,—indeed it is a ceaseless demand of the higher life. All feel this, but all need to understand it, and in order to do so, we go to the blessed messenger, Science and Health, and learn therein, that Faith is first of all, “a chrysalis state of human thought,” and when we are further told that “our Faith should enlarge its borders, and strengthen its base, by resting upon Spirit, instead of matter” (S.& H. p. 427), we awaken to what is needed to complete the Christian life.

In a gallery in Berlin is a picture called “St. Anthony’s Vision.” The saint, whose trials and temptations have illustrated much of the earlier literature of the Church, is shown here alone in the desert. Suddenly he sees beside him a little child, and he takes him up tenderly and clasps him to his heart. As he does so, an Easter lily springs up at his feet, and then a vision unfolds of radiant cherubs with their bright presence dispelling all the darkness of the lone wilderness.

So we in Christian Science, who have taken into our hearts the Christ-Idea, see the dreary desert of mortal sense transformed into the garden of the Lord. But this is not all, for even yet we but “see through a glass darkly,” and as we take each step in Science, realize that it is in the strength of our glorious but unseen Divine Principle, God; so we “walk by Faith, not by sight” yet.

Sometimes the waves dash over us,—”tribulations, distresses;” and what holds us? Even the anchor of Faith; and though the night may seem long there are those before us through the ages singing their great songs of triumph, and their meaning we no longer guess blindly, we know the secret of their overcoming, it is ours,— the ever present Christ, Truth.

What matter the Babel voices of mortal belief and opinion? What avails the evidence of material sense? It is written in the Word, and in our lives, “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our Faith.”