There are people who feel that they can only tread where the ground is
solid; where they see quite clearly what is ahead; who take no risks;
who venture nothing. Yet it is utterly impossible to live so in real
life. Most of the business transacted in the world is based on a
system of credits; and credit is but another name for faith in personal
honesty. The financial investments that are made are ventures of faith
as to profits and returns. Business foresight which is a great asset
to success in life relies upon the invariableness and calculated
changes likely to occur. The invalid carries out the doctor's
instructions to the extent of his faith in his physician. The reader
of the daily newspaper has faith in the reliability of the news served
up to him. The history that men read, or the school textbooks used by
children, postulate the veracity of the authors of these works.
Friendships are an impossibility without the repose of faith. In short
everywhere and in every department of life there can be no knowledge
nor growth nor progress without faith. As I write the International
Conference is taking place at Genoa where the chief obstacle to the
task of putting Europe upon a peaceful economic basis is the
suspicions, the lack of faith in one another that prevails, not without
cause, among the nations.
So when God, Who is Spirit, tells us He can only be apprehended by
faith it is childish to quarrel with this necessary condition, because
He is only asking of His children the same attitude towards Him which
is everywhere adopted by humanity in its social relationships,
consciously or unconsciously, as an essential condition of human
happiness and progress.