Faith necessary in every human undertaking--You have faith in man, but
are afraid to trust GOD--The Universe if governed by Law--The Law is
in operation everywhere--Don't be afraid--You are a part of the
plan--Fall in with the Law--Have faith, have faith.
When you take a journey by rail, you step into the car, settle
yourself, take out a book and read, and give little or no thought to
the engine or engineer in charge of the train. You go rushing across
the country at the rate of fifty miles an hour, with no thought of
possible disaster or accident, and for the time forgetting that there
is such a person in existence as the engineer. You have absolute faith
in the careful management of the road, and in the intelligence of the
man who has been placed in the engine. The lives of yourself and
hundreds of fellow passengers are practically in the hands of one man,
and that man is a stranger to you--you have never seen him--you know
nothing of his qualifications--you only know that the management has
picked him out to safely conduct you across the country.
You take a steamship to Europe and place yourselves in the hands of a
few men who are total strangers to you. You stake your life on their
skill, judgment and intelligence. You feel that they would not be
where they are unless the management of the line considered them
competent. It is all a matter of trust--of confidence. The same thing
is true when you take your seat on a trolley car or on the elevated
railroad, or even in a stage coach or a private carriage. In each case
you place yourself in the charge of another person in whom you have a
certain amount of confidence, although he may be comparatively, or
wholly, unknown to you.
You place your wealth in a bank, having confidence in its management.
You have business dealings with men whom you scarcely know, trusting
to their honesty of purpose. In every transaction in life you are
compelled to have confidence in people. Your lawyer, your physician,
your grocer, your clerks are all taken on faith. One cannot get away
from it. If confidence were destroyed the wheels of modern life would
stop in a minute. The so-called hard-headed practical man may sneer at
Faith, but it underlies every manifestation of the life of this
civilization.
Man has faith and confidence in Man, but is afraid to trust GOD. He
looks about him and sees millions of worlds, each in its appointed
place, each revolving in its own orbit. He has faith that at a certain
time each world will be in a certain position, which position may be
calculated centuries in advance--but he lacks faith in the Power that
created these worlds and keeps them in their places. He has faith in
certain Laws--but he doubts the existence of the Law-maker. He sees
the wondrous manifestation of Life in great and small. He takes
advantage of the telescope and the microscope and explores new
regions, and finds the Law in operation everywhere--but he doubts the
existence of a great Law which governs his life--his incomings and his
outgoings--his great deeds and his petty acts--he fails to realize the
truth of the saying that the hairs on his head are numbered, and that
not a sparrow may fall unnoticed.
He seems to think that if there is a GOD, he must have made the world
and then ran away and left it to take care of itself. He fails to see
that Law must govern Man's life as it governs the unfolding of the
leaf, the development of the lily. He fails to see that law is in full
operation within him as well as without him. He fails to see that as
he opposes the operation of Law, pain comes by reason of the friction.
He fails to see that the only true philosophy is that which teaches
one to fall in with the operations of Law, and to let it work in him
and through him.
Do you think for a moment that GOD does not know what he is about? Do
you doubt the Supreme Intelligence which knows all things and is
conscious of all things? Do you doubt the Supreme Power which
manifests itself in all forms of power? Do you doubt the Universal
Presence which is in all places at all times? Do you suppose that the
manifestation is everything, and the manifestor nothing? Poor man!
Either the Universe is without Law--without meaning--without reason,
or it is the manifestation of Supreme and Infinite Reason. Either it
is the work of a Demon who sits somewhere and grins and gloats over
our misfortunes--our trials--our troubles--our pain--our follies, or
it is the work of an All-knowing--All-powerful--All-present
Intelligence-Power-Presence which has taken into consideration
everything within the Universe, down to the tiniest thing--down to the
merest detail. And if this last be true, then everything that happens
must be in accordance with Law--everything that happens to us must be
the very best thing that could happen to us at that particular time
and that particular place.
Things are not run by blind chance--there is Law under everything.
Everything has some connection with every other thing--every person
has a relationship with every other person. All is One--the
manifestations are varied, but there is but One reality. There is a
great plan underlying all Life, and Life itself is in accordance with
that plan. Nothing ever _happens_. Every occurrence has a bearing
on every other occurrence. Chance has no part in the plan--everything
is in accord with well ordered laws. There is always an end in view in
every thought, word or act. We are constantly being used for the
benefit of the whole. There is no escape--and when we get to
_know_ we cease to wish to escape. He who understands not Law is
constantly struggling, striving, fighting and contending against it,
and, producing friction, he feels pain. He who understands something
of Law ceases to contend against it--he lets it work through him, and
is carried along with a mighty force, doing each day the best he knows
how, expressing himself in the best possible manner, sailing to the
right and to the left, with the wind and against the wind, but still
being borne on by the mighty current and resisting it not. He enjoys
every mile of the journey, seeing new sights and hearing new
sounds--moving on ever. He who understands not, rebels at being swept
along--he wishes to stay where he is, but there is no such thing as
staying--life is motion--life is growth. If you prefer to pull against
the tide--to row up stream--by all means do so. After a while you will
grow tired and weary, and will rest on your oars. Then you will find
that you are moving on just the same toward the unknown seas, and you
will find that it is much easier work rowing or sailing with the
current, or from one side of the river to another, than to attempt to
stay in the same place or to pull up the stream.
All this fretting--all this worrying--all this contention and strife,
comes from a lack of Faith. We may assert fervently that we know that
All is Good, and that all is best for us, etc., etc., but have we
enough faith to manifest it in our lives? See how we endeavor to tie
on to _things_, people, and environments. How we resist the steady
pressure that is tearing us loose, often with pain, from the places to
which we have wished to stay fastened like a barnacle. The Life force
is back of us, urging us along--pushing us along--and move we must.
The process of growth, development and unfoldment is going on
steadily. What's the use of attempting to resist it? You are no more
than a water-bug on the surface of the river. You may dart here and
there, and apparently are running things to suit yourself without
reference to the current, but all the time you are moving along with
it. The water-bug plan is all right, just so long as we do not attempt
to stop the current or to swim right against it--when we try this we
find out very quickly that the current has something to say about it,
and before long we get so tired that we are willing to fall in with
the law behind the current. And yet even the opposition is good, for
it teaches us that the current is there--we gain by experience. The
New Thought does not teach people to stem the current or to swim up
stream, although some teachers and some students seem to be of that
opinion. On the contrary, the real New Thought teaches us of the
existence of the stream, and that it is moving steadily toward the Sea
of Good. It teaches us how to fall in with it, and be borne further
along, instead of attempting to hold back and become barnacles, or to
try to push back up the stream. It also teaches us to live in the
Now--to enjoy the darting backward and forward over the face of the
waters. It also tells us of the direction in which the current is
moving, that we may move along that way, without wasting our energies
in trying to go the other. It teaches us co-operation with Law,
instead of opposition to it.
Why do we not have Faith? Why do we not see the great Plan behind it
all? Why do we not recognize Law? As we have seen, we place our
confidence in the engineer of the train--the pilot--the captain--the
coach-driver, and the other guiding hands and yet we hesitate to trust
ourselves in the hands of the Infinite. Of course, it makes no
difference to the Infinite whether or not we repose trust in it. It
moves along just the same, guiding and directing--steering and
regulating speed--it minds not our doubts and obstructions any more
than does the great driving-wheel mind the fly who is perched upon it
and who does not like the movement and attempts to stop it by
spreading out its wings and buzzing. The great wheel of the Universe
is moving around, steadily and mightily. Let us go with it. And while
we are going let us spare ourselves the trouble and folly of the
buzzing, wing-spreading business.
Let us part with Fear and Worry. Let us cease our imagining that we
can run the Universe better than the engineer who has his hand on the
throttle. Let us cease imagining that GOD needs advice on the subject.
Let us stop this folly of saying "Poor God, with no one to help him
run things." Let us trust the engineer. Let us have faith--let us have
faith.