"UNBELIEF KEPT QUIET"
We are often told that this is not an age of faith, that the day of the
beautiful, old, simple acquiescence is past, whether it ever comes again
or not. Some one has wittily suggested that the coat of arms of the
present age is "an interrogation-point rampant, above three bishops
dormant, and the motto 'Query.'" But, like a great many more witty
things, that saying leaves one questioning whether, after all, it be
really true. I venture, for my part, to assert that a great many more
people are really interested in this matter of faith than most of us
imagine. There is something that haunts men as with a sense of hidden
treasure about this wonderful thing in life called Faith, that always
seems to be going to disappear, and yet somehow does not. With a
strange, wistful persistence men linger about this pool, though there
are many to tell them that the "desired angel bathes no more."
I wish to speak a word of encouragement to-day to all who are finding
faith hard. "Fight the good fight of faith," says Paul to his young
friend, Timothy. Fight. I want to remind you that faith often implies
effort, that there is nothing in the idea of faith which is incompatible
with struggle, that the very form of Paul's advice implies an
antagonism.
It is true that many think of the "faith of the saints" as a quiet,
contented habit of gentle acquiescence, a sweet and beautiful state of
mind very far removed from the restless, questioning, analytic temper of
the man of to-day. Now, I do not say that faith is never seen now in
that placid form, but I do say that that was not the type Paul had in
mind when he wrote Timothy, it is not the figure which best described
his own faith, and it is certainly not the aspect he would require to
deal with, were he writing to the men of to-day.
For they are only too conscious of much inward suspense of judgment and
uncertainty concerning many things in Heaven and earth. And that inward
conflict seems to many of them a sign that faith is waning, if not dead.
They have forgotten that it is that very sense of inward conflict which
proves that faith is not dead. Dead things do not offer any resistance.
We ought by this time to have learned that a thing "may be for us an
intellectual puzzle, and yet a sheer spiritual necessity," and that the
Christian faith is, for every soul who has once caught it. There are a
great many earnest and honest men to whom it is the best of news that
Christian faith is not incompatible with very grave perplexities. The
real opposite of faith is not doubt, as so many suppose, but deliberate
and satisfied denial. Faith can live in the same life along with very
many doubts--as a matter of fact, in the case of not a few of the most
Christ-like men of our time, it is living beside them constantly. Paul
assures us that outside of him he found fightings and within him he
found fears. Yet he kept the faith for all that. They start up on all
sides, these spectres of the mind and reason, and they ask questions
which a man cannot answer. Yet Faith may be dwelling in his life in
very deed and truth, because faith is something more than the sum of all
his beliefs. It is the whole conscious and deliberate set and desire of
his being.
It is a well-known fact that a man may be truly courageous, acting,
speaking, thinking bravely at the very moment when panic fears are
gripping his heart. I like that fine old story of the soldier advancing
into the fire zone with steady step, and taunted by a comrade for his
pale face. "You're afraid," said the other. "I know I am afraid," said
he, "and if you felt half as much afraid as I do, you would turn and
flee." It is the very finest courage that dominates and controls a
sensitive organisation, and holds the shrinking other-half to its
purpose with firm grip. Just so is it with faith. A man keeps his
course, lifts up his eyes to the hills, lives for God and His Christ,
prays on, struggles on, and hopes for the home beyond the edge of life,
while often enough his mind is full of questioning and the puzzle of
God's deep mysteries. For faith is not what the intellect says merely.
It is what the whole man is struggling and trying to say.
"With me, faith means perpetual unbelief
Kept quiet, like the snake 'neath Michael's foot,
Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe."
Don't do yourself the wrong of thinking that faith has vanished because
the snake is felt to be writhing. "Perpetual unbelief kept quiet." Yes,
but what keeps the clamouring doubts and fears under foot? Just
yourself, just your highest self, the bit of you made for God, and
unable to do without Him! Faith is the vote of the whole man, of the
best of the man, in the face of a protesting minority. In other words,
fight is a splendid word to use in speaking about faith.
Let a man ask himself--Does he really wish that the best he has dreamed
or heard about God and His love for men, His passion to deliver them
from evil, and His pity and nearness to us all in Jesus Christ His
Son--does he wish all that to be true? No man is without faith who does
wish that, and is living in the direction of his desire. In that man's
life who, despite all the clamour and philosophy of Babylon, is keeping
his window open towards where he believes Jerusalem to be, there is that
vital element of faith that is linking his life to God even now, and
will bring him where he would be at last.
I do not think that the prodigal was at all sure of the welcome that
awaited him. Probably his mind, as he limped along in his rags, was
full of misgivings and fears. But the father hailed him as his son
whenever he saw afar off that the lad's face was set for home. I do not
imagine our Father will concern Himself very much about the gaps in our
creed if only our faces are turned homewards and towards Him. Let the
man I have tried to speak to be of good courage, and fight on with a
stout heart. Faith is not sight. It may not even be assurance, may be
only hope and longing, and a reaching towards the Highest. But I firmly
believe that no man, even though he may fall on the way home, and before
he knows of his welcome, I believe that no man shall be cast out at the
last, whose arms, as he fell, were outstretched in desire to God.