"ACCORDING TO THY FAITH"
"Where there is Faith there is Love,
Where there is Love there is Peace,
Where there is Peace there is God,
Where there is God there is no need."
There is a divine voice within us which only speaks when every
other voice is hushed,--only gives its message in the silence.
"I shall study law," said an ambitious youngster, "and those who are
already in the profession must take their chances!"
The divine self-confidence of youth, the unshaken faith that believes
all things possible, often makes cynics and world-weary people smile.
Yet it is the grandest, most helpful attribute of man, the finest gift
of the Creator to the race. If we could retain through life the faith of
ambitious, self-confident, untried youth, its unquestioning belief in
its ability to carve out its ideal in the actual, what wonders we should
all accomplish! Such faith would enable us literally to remove
mountains.
All through the Scriptures faith is emphasized as a tremendous power. It
was by faith that Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, through
the waters of the Red Sea, and through the wilderness. It was by faith
that Elijah, Isaiah, Daniel, and all of the great prophets performed
their miracles.
Faith was the great characteristic of Christ Himself. The word was
constantly on His lips, "According to thy faith be it unto thee." He
often referred to it as the measure of what we receive in life, also as
the great healer, the great restorer. Whenever He healed He laid the
entire emphasis upon the faith of the healer and the one healed. "Thy
faith hath made thee whole," "Believe only and she shall be made whole,"
"Thy faith hath saved thee." Or He reproved His disciples for the lack
of faith which prevented them from healing, as when He addresses them,
"O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and
suffer you."
Faith believes; doubt fears. Faith creates; doubt destroys. Faith opens
the door to all things desirable in life; doubt closes them. Faith is an
arouser, an awakener of our creative forces. It opens the door of
ability and arouses creative energies. Faith is the link in the Great
Within which connects man with his Maker. It is the divine messenger
sent to guide men, blinded by doubt and sin. Our faith puts us in touch
with Infinite Power, opens the way to unbounded possibilities, limitless
resources. No one can rise higher than his faith. No one can do a
greater thing than he believes he can. The fact that a person believes
implicitly that he can do what may seem impossible to others, shows
there is something within him that has gotten a glimpse of power
sufficient to accomplish his purpose.
Men who have achieved great things could not account for their faith;
they could not tell why they had an unflinching belief that they could
do what they undertook. But the mere fact of such belief was evidence
that they had had a glimpse of interior resourcefulness, reserve power
and possibilities which would warrant that faith; and they have gone
ahead with implicit confidence that they would come out all right,
because this faith told them so. It told them so because it had been in
communication with something that was divine, that which had passed the
bounds of the limited and had veered into the limitless.
Men and women who have left their mark on the world have been implicit
followers of their faith when they could see no light; but their unseen
guide has led them through the wilderness of doubt and hardship into the
promised land.
When we begin to exercise self-faith, self-confidence, we are
stimulating and increasing the strength of the faculties which enable us
to do the thing we have set our heart on doing. Our faith causes us to
concentrate on our object, and thus develops power to accomplish it.
Faith tells us that we may proceed safely, even when our mental
faculties see no light or encouragement ahead. It is a divine leader
which never misdirects us. But we must always be sure that it is faith,
and not merely egotism or selfish desire that is urging us. There is a
great difference between the two, and no one who is true to himself can
possibly be deceived.
When we are doing right, when we are on the right track, our faith in
the divine order of things never wavers. It sustains in situations
which drive the self-centered egoist to despair. The man who does
not see the Designer behind the design everywhere, who does not
see the mighty Intelligence back of every created thing, cannot
have that sublime faith which buoys up the great achievers and
civilization-builders.
Our supreme aim should be to get the best from life, the best in the
highest sense that life has to give, and this we cannot do without
superb faith in the Infinite. What we accomplish will be large or small
according to the measure of this faith. It is the man who believes in
the one Source of All who believes most in himself; it is the man who
sees good in everything, who sees the divine in his fellow-man, who has
faith in everybody, who is the master man. The skeptic, the pessimist,
has no bulwark of faith, none of the divine enthusiasm that faith gives,
none of the zeal that carries the man of faith unscathed through the
most terrible trials.
Without confidence in the beneficence of the great universal plan we can
not have much confidence in ourselves. To get the best out of ourselves
we must believe that there is a current running heavenward, however
much our surroundings may seem to contradict this. We must believe that
the Creator will not be foiled in His plan, and that everything will
work together for good, however much wars and crime, poverty, suffering
and wretchedness all about us may seem to deny this.
The abiding faith in a Power which will bring things out right in the
end, which will harmonize discord, has always been strong in men and
women who have done great things in the world, especially in those who
have achieved grand results in spite of the most severe trials and
tribulations.
It takes sublime faith to enable a man to fight his way through
"insuperable" difficulties, to bear up under discouragements,
afflictions and seeming failure without losing heart; and it is just
such faith that has characterized every great soul that has ever made
good. Whatever other qualities they may have lacked, great characters
have always had sublime faith. They have believed in human nature. They
have believed in men. They have believed in the beneficent Intelligence
running through the universe.
Some of the most important reforms in history have been brought about by
very fragile, delicate men and women, not only without outside
encouragement, but in the teeth of the most determined opposition. They
have agitated and agitated, hoped and hoped, and struggled and
struggled, until victory came. No one could even attempt the herculean
tasks they accomplished without that instinctive, abiding faith in a
Power superior to their own,--a Power which would work in harmony with
honesty, with earnestness, with integrity of purpose, in a persistent
struggle for the right, but which would never sanction wrong.
Think of what the faith of St. Paul enabled him to do for the world!
Think of what Christ's little band of chosen disciples succeeded in
accomplishing in spite of the might of the Roman empire pitted against
them! The power of the greatest benefactors of the race came largely
from the inspiration of faith in their mission, their belief that they
were born to deliver a certain message to the world, that they were to
make an important contribution to civilization. Think of what the faith
of the inventor has done! It has kept him at his task, kept him nerved
and encouraged in the face of starvation, kept him at his work when his
family had gone back on him, when his neighbors had denounced him, and
called him insane. Think of what the faith of Columbus, of Luther, of
the Wesleys, has accomplished for mankind! It has ever been men with
indomitable faith that have moved the world. They have been the great
pioneers of progress.
An instinctive faith in the Divine Force which permeates the universe,
which is friendly to the right and antagonistic to the wrong, has ever
been the unseen helper that supported, encouraged, and stimulated men
and women to accomplish the "impossible," or that which to lower natures
seems beyond human capacity. It is this which sustains brave souls in
adversity and enables them to bear up, to believe and hope and struggle
on when everything seems to go against them. It is the same principle
which supported the martyr at the stake and enabled him to smile when
the flames were licking the flesh from his bones.
Faith has ever been the greatest power in civilization. It has built our
railroads, has revealed the secrets of nature to science, has led the
way to all our inventions and discoveries, and has brought success out
of the most inhospitable conditions and iron environments. In fact, we
owe everything that has been accomplished to faith, and yet when we come
to its practical application in our everyday affairs how few of us avail
ourselves of this tremendous force! The vast majority are looking for
some power outside to help, when we ourselves hold the key which has
ever unlocked, and ever will unlock, all barred doors to aspiring souls.
If people could only realize what a potent building, creative force
faith is, and would exercise it in their daily lives, we should have
very few paupers, very few failures, very few sickly, diseased or
criminal among us. If, by some magic, a strong, vigorous faith could be
injected into the men and women of the great failure army to-day, the
larger part of them would get out of this army and get into the army of
the successful.
It is not alone in our life work, or in great or special undertakings
that faith is necessary. We need it every moment of our lives, in
everything, great and small, that concerns us. It is just as necessary
to your health as it is to your success. To build up the faith habit,
faith in human nature, the habit of believing in yourself, in your
ability, of believing that you are sane, sound, and level headed, that
you have good judgment and good horse sense, that you are victory
organized and that you are going to attain your ambition, is to blaze a
path to success.
A man begins to deteriorate, to go toward failure, not when he loses all
of his material possessions, not when he fails in his undertakings, but
when he loses faith in himself, in his ability to make his dreams come
true.
When we remember that self-faith characterizes successful people, and
lack of it the mediocres and the failures, one would think that
everybody would cultivate this divine quality which by itself alone has
done so much for the individual and for the world.
The reason why faith works such marvels is that it is the leader of all
the other mental faculties. They will not proceed until faith goes
ahead. It is the basis of courage, of initiative, of enthusiasm. Much of
Napoleon's power and early success came from his tremendous faith in
his mission, the conviction that he was a man of destiny, that he was
born under a lucky star, born to conquer. Shorn of his mighty belief in
his star, stripped of the faith that he was born to rule, he would have
been no more of a power in human affairs than the dullest private in the
ranks of his army. When warned by his generals not to expose himself to
the enemy, he would reply that the bullet or the cannon had not been
cast which could kill Napoleon. This invincible belief in his destiny
added wonderfully to his natural powers.
It was her conviction that she was chosen of God to free France from its
enemies that made Joan of Arc, the simple, ignorant peasant girl of
Domrèmy, the saviour of her country. Her mighty faith in her divine
mission gave her a dignity and a miraculous force of character, a
positive genius, that made all the commanders of the French army obey
her as private soldiers obey their superior officers. Faith in herself
and in her mission transformed the peasant maiden into the greatest
military leader of her time.
There is no doubt that every human being comes to this earth with a
mission. We are not accidental puppets thrown off to be buffetted by
luck or chance or cruel fate. We are a part of the great universal plan.
We were made to fit into this plan, to play a definite part in it. We
come here with a message for humanity which no one else but ourselves
can deliver, and faith in our mission, the belief that we are important
factors in the great creative plan, that we are, in fact, co-creators
with God, will add wonderfully to the dignity and effectiveness of our
lives, will enable us to perform the "impossible."
If every child were brought up in the firm belief that he was made for
health, happiness, and success; if it were impressed on him that he
should never entertain a doubt of his power to attain them, as a man he
would be infinitely stronger in his powers of self-assertion and in his
self-confidence; and these qualities strengthen the ability, unify the
faculties, clarify the vision, and make the attainment of what the heart
yearns for a hundred per cent. more probable than if he had not been
thus reared.
A child's faith is instinctive, and if not tampered with, destroyed by
wrong training, would continue through life. We see this sort of
instinctive faith illustrated by the lower animals. Take the birds, or
the domestic hen, for example. See how patiently she sits on the eggs
week after week until the chickens are hatched. She cannot see the
chickens when she begins to sit, but her belief that they will come if
she does her part induces her to give up her liberty for weeks, and to
go sometimes for days without food, that she may keep the eggs at the
right temperature in order to produce the chickens.
The trouble with most of us is that we do not have sufficient faith in
the creative power of the vigorous determination to do a thing, in the
persistent endeavor backed by self--faith to accomplish what we desire.
We give up too easily under discouragement. We haven't sufficient
stamina and grit to push on under disheartening conditions. We want to
see clear through from the beginning to the end of whatever we
undertake. We refuse to have faith. Yet much of the time throughout life
we may have to work without any goal in sight, or at least without any
clear light to see it, but if the mental attitude is right we know that,
somehow, we shall attain our heart's desire. We have merely been shown a
program which we are capable of carrying out, a table of contents of our
capabilities, the signs of the corresponding realities, for faith is not
an idle dream, an illusive picture of the imagination. We have not been
mocked by ideals and aspirations, soul-yearnings and heart-longings for
the things which have no possible realities. Faith is not a cheat. There
is ability to match the faith.
There is something about devotion to one's inward vision, the intense
desire and concentrated effort to fulfill what we believe to be our
mission here, that has a solidifying influence upon the character, gives
poise and peace of mind and also helps us to realize our vision.
The probabilities are that the iceberg which sent the _Titanic_, with
sixteen hundred souls, to the bottom of the ocean did not even feel a
tremor at the shock. More than seven-eighths of its huge bulk was below
the water, deep down in the eternal calm of the sea, beyond the reach of
storm or tempest. Like the giant iceberg, faith reaches down into the
serene within of us, into the eternal calm of the soul. It is not
disturbed by the surface commotions. A life poised in faith rides
steadily, triumphantly, through the tempests and the hurricanes of
existence.
You will constantly be confronted with things which tend to destroy
faith in God and faith in yourself. There are many times in life when
about all we can do is to hold on to the hand of the Divine Guide until
we have run through the storm zone. We have to learn to turn away from
the heart-breaks of life and to face toward the light. We have to
disregard the criticisms and the discouragement of others, as well as
the assaults of fear and doubt, and press on to our goal.
If you go in business for yourself, if you are struggling to get an
education, if you are making desperate efforts to realize your ambition,
whatever it is, you will find plenty of pessimists who will predict your
failure. They will tell you that you never can build up a business
without a lot of capital and outside help in these times of terrific
competition, that you cannot work your way through college, that you
can never be whatever you are dreaming of and longing to be. You will
meet plenty of obstacles and much opposition, and it will take a very
stiff backbone, a lot of sand and grit to keep pushing on towards your
goal against great odds, but faith is more than a match for all these.
Nothing else will enable you to win out.
Remember it is not other people's faith in you but your faith in
yourself that counts most. It is a good thing to have other people's
good opinion, to have their confidence in us, their faith in the success
of our efforts, but it is not imperative. Our own is. No man ever gets
anywhere or does anything great in this world without faith in himself,
without a superb belief that he is on the right track, that he is doing
the thing he was made to do, that he is going to stick to it through
thick and thin to the end. It takes faith to look beyond obstacles, to
see the way over difficulties, to brave opposition and to allow nothing
to swerve us from our course.
You cannot keep any one from succeeding who has an unshakable faith in
his mission. You cannot crush the faith that wrestles with
difficulties, that never weakens under trials or afflictions, that
pushes on when everybody else turns back, that gets up with greater
determination every time it is knocked down.
In the sacred Confucian scriptures we are told that a very devoted
disciple of Confucius, on a pilgrimage to his master, was stopped on his
journey by a broad river. As he could not swim and could not procure a
boat, the zealous disciple resolved that he would walk on the water.
Believing that the necessity of seeing his master was most urgent, and
being filled with zeal in the performance of his mission, he boldly made
the attempt--and succeeded. The record of this miracle is supposed by
followers of Confucius to be just as authentic as the Bible account of
the walking of Christ on the water.
If, like this zealot, you have faith in your power to overcome
difficulties, nothing can keep you from your goal. If, like Joan of Arc,
you believe you are appointed by God to perform a certain work, it will
help you wonderfully to make good. It will dignify your life and your
efforts, and thus save you from a thousand temptations to waste your
time in frivolous pursuits. It will put a higher value upon your
importance to the world. To feel that you have a divine mission that no
one else can perform, that you came here with a sacred message for
mankind, and that it is up to you to deliver it will add a wonderful
motive for effectiveness in your life work. The consciousness that you
are keeping faith with your Creator and with yourself, that you are
keeping faith with your fellowmen and earning their respect and love,
that you are keeping faith with a splendid life purpose, with your
holiest vision, gives a satisfaction which nothing else can afford.
Cling to your faith no matter what happens. It is your best friend. Like
the magnetic needle on the ship's deck, which will find the north star,
no matter how dense the fog, how dark the night, or how threatening the
tempest, your faith, even though you cannot see, will find the way. It
sees the open road, beyond the mountain of difficulties which shuts out
the vision of the other faculties.
Some time ago, during one of our periodical business crises, some
newspapers made merry over a statement of President Wilson that the
condition of the United States, illustrated by the fact that eighty
thousand freight cars were at the time side-tracked along the lines of
one of our great railroads alone, could be changed by psychology. One of
these papers sarcastically suggested that if we should take a dose of
the psychology remedy and go to sleep somewhere in the misty, cloudy
lands of theory, and dream that those eighty thousand empty freight cars
were moving, we should see them move.
Now, in spite of newspaper skepticism, I believe that the psychology
remedy if applied in every financial, business, or other crisis would
prove absolutely effective. If all the people of this country would
persistently hold a mental attitude of faith in our prosperity, which is
the birthright of the inhabitants of this land of plenty; if they would
have faith that our vast resources would enable us to carry on business,
regardless of conditions in Europe or elsewhere, and if they would act
in accordance with their faith, there would be no idle freight cars, no
lack of work, no lack of money at any time.
It is the mental attitude of the people of the United States that
causes financial panics and recurrent "hard times." And there is
something dead wrong in a state of mind which produces periodical
crises, intervals of nationwide stagnation in a land with resources
great enough to make every one of its citizens rich, in a land where the
State of Texas alone could give every one of them a better living than
the majority get to-day.
Before we can make business conditions stable we must have faith in the
stability of our limitless wealth, in the opulence of the earth over
which the Creator has given us control. We have got to hold the
prosperous vision, to see better times with the mental eye, not dimly in
the future, but now, to have more faith in our Maker, in our nation, in
ourselves individually.
Why, if we analyze the matter, we will see that our unparalleled
national prosperity has been built up largely by psychology. Its
foundations had their root in the faith of our forefathers, in their
belief in our country's possibilities.
We all know that faith has preceded every achievement in the world's
history. The activities of the whole country to-day are based upon
psychology, upon the mental attitude, the faith, the hope, the
expectation of its inhabitants.
"Without a vision the people perish," and when our vision, our faith,
shrivels, when it is obscured or displaced by doubt, fear, anxiety, lack
of confidence, all our activities suffer accordingly.
With abundant crops, with a lowering death rate and increasing longevity
of our people, with constantly growing educational facilities, America
ought to register every day of every year a high water point of
prosperity. But when a large portion of the people lack faith in the
future, when, from time to time, uncertainty is in the air, when
everybody is doubting and fearing, waiting to see what is coming next,
of course business will stagnate. It will follow the prevailing mental
attitude, hesitate, waver, doubt, stand still like the idle freight
cars.
We are just beginning to see that faith is as much a real force as is
electricity. It is faith that removes mountains--mountains of
difficulty, of opposition, of doubt, of distrust. It clears the track
of all obstructions. It makes stepping stones of stumbling blocks. Faith
is the most powerful, the most sublime of human attributes. Without it
the bottom would drop out of civilization. It is the fundamental
principle of life. Faith is the basis of health, of success, of
happiness, of love itself. It believes in, hopes, trusts, clings to the
loved one in spite of all faults and sins. It is faith that heals, that
achieves, that hopes. The very feeling of harmony between ourselves and
our God, that which gives assurance, a sense of protection and of safety
which nothing else can give, is born of our faith in Him, in whom we
live and move and have our being.
We must realize and appreciate more and more our divinity, the fact that
we are made in the image of our Creator and that we must partake
consciously of His qualities. Then we will have more faith in our
powers. When we are conscious of having qualities like His we can rise
above apparent limitations, above hereditary weakness. It is all
preëminently a question of holding the right thought--the thought that
builds, the thought that creates, that produces, the thought that we
have within us unlimited possibilities, which can be realized. A sublime
self-faith is absolutely indispensable to all great achievement.
Let no one shake your faith in yourself. That is what brings you into
closest connection with God. It is your mainstay. There is no magic like
faith; it elevates, refines and multiplies the power of every other
faculty.
Whether we are starting out in life, or going downhill on the other
side, facing the transition we call death, faith is our bracer, the
trusty leader that will never fail to guide us to the home of our
heart's desire.
If you are filled with a great faith you will not fear, though you walk
through the valley of the shadow. Though the way may be dark faith will
lead you into the light. The Power that has sustained you every moment
of your existence, and without which you could not exist a fraction of a
second, will certainly not leave you in your greatest need.
If you bade your child jump into your arms, he would not hesitate even
though it was so dark that he could not see you. He would jump because
of his faith in you. He would know that he would be perfectly safe in
doing whatever you told him. Why should we fear to jump into the arms of
the Infinite when we come to death's door, which is only the entrance to
another life? Why should we fear to cross the valley that leads to the
new life when we know that our great Father-Mother-God is on the other
side waiting with outstretched arms to receive us?
"I will not doubt; well anchored in the faith,
Like some stanch ship, my soul braves every gale,
So strong its courage that it will not fail
To breast the mighty unknown sea of Death.
Oh, may I cry when body parts with spirit,
'I do not doubt,' so listening worlds may hear it,
With my last breath."