THE object of all thinking is the discovery of truth. And truth for us,
what is that? It is the reality of things as related to us. There has
been a good deal of metaphysical discussion first and last as to what
things are "in themselves." It seems to me that this, if it were
possible to find it out, might be an interesting matter, might satisfy
our curiosity, but is of absolutely no practical importance to us. I do
not believe that we can find out what things are in themselves, in the
first place; and I do not believe that, if we could, it would be of any
service to us. What we want to know is what things are as related to
us, as touching us, as bearing upon our life, upon our practical
affairs.
Once more: there has been a good deal of discussion as to whether the
universe is really what it appears to be to us. They tell us that it is
quite another thing from the point of view of other creatures, to
beings differently constituted from ourselves. Again, all this may be.
It might be interesting to me, for example, to look at the world from
the point of view of the fly or of the bird or some one of the animals;
but, again, while it might satisfy my curiosity, it could be of no
practical importance to me. It might be very interesting to me to know
how the universe looks from the point of view of an angel. But, so long
as I am not an angel, but a man, what I need to know is what the
universe is as related to man.
So truth, I say, then, is the reality of things as related to us.
I must make another remark here, in order perfectly to clear the way.
Philosophers and scientific men, a certain class of them, are
perpetually warning us of the dangers of being anthropomorphic. Some
one has said, "Man never knows how anthropomorphic he is." This means,
as you know, that we look at things from the point of view of
ourselves. We see things as men, as anthropoi. This has been erected in
certain quarters into a good deal of a bugbear in the way of thinking.
We are told we can never know the universe really, because we shape
everything into our own likeness, we are anthropomorphic, we look at
everything from the point of view of men.
I grant the charge; but, instead of being frightened by it, I accept it
with content. How else should we look at things except from the point
of view of men, since we are men? We cannot look at them in any other
way. Let us be, then, anthropomorphic. The only thing we need to guard
against is this: we must not assume that we have exhausted the
universe, and that we know it all. This is the evil of a certain type
of anthropomorphism. But I cannot understand why it is important for us
to be anything else but anthropomorphic. I want to know how things look
to a man, what things are to a man, how things affect a man, how I am
to deal with things, being a man.
This is the only matter, let me repeat again, which is of any practical
importance to us, until we become something other than men.
Truth, then, the truth that we desire to find, is the reality of things
as related to us. Now doubt and faith are attitudes of mind, and are
neither good nor bad in themselves, either of them. They are of value
only as they help us in the discovery of this reality about which I
have been speaking. If a certain type of doubt stands in our way in
seeking for truth, then that doubt so far is evil. If a certain
something, called faith, stands in the way of our seeking frankly and
fearlessly for the truth, that is evil. If -doubt helps us to find
truth, it is good: if faith helps us to -find truth, it is good. But
the only use of either of them is to help us discover and live the
truth.
The attitude of the Church and by the Church I mean the historic Church
of the past towards doubt and faith is well known to us. It has
condemned doubt almost universally as something evil, sinful. It has
extolled faith as something almost universally good. But in my judgment
and I will ask you when I get through, perhaps, to consider as to
whether you do not agree with me the trouble with the human mind up to
the present time has not been a too great readiness to doubt: it has
been a too great inclination to believe. There has been too much of
what has been called perhaps by the time I am through you will think
miscalled faith; and there has been too little of honest, fearless,
earnest doubt. This is perfectly natural, when you consider how the
world begins, and the steps by which it advances.
Let us take as an illustration the state of mind of a child. A child at
first does not doubt, does not doubt anything. It is ready to believe
almost anything that father, mother, nurse, playmate, may say to it.
And why? In the first place it has had no experience yet of anything
but the truth being told it; and in the next place it lives in a world
where there are no canons or standards of probability. In the child-
world there are no laws, there are no impossibilities, there is nothing
in the way of anything happening. The child mind does not say, in
answer to some statement, Why, this does not seem reasonable. The
child's reason is not yet developed into any practical activity. The
child does not say, Why, this cannot be, because there is such a force
or such a law that would be contravened by it. The child knows nothing
about these forces or laws: it is a sort of a Jack- and-the-Beanstalk
world. The beanstalk can grow any number of feet over night in the
world in which the child lives. Anything is possible. If father and
mother and nurse tell the child about Santa Claus coming down the
chimney with a pack of toys on his back, it does not occur to the child
to note the fact that the chimney flue is no more than six inches in
diameter, and that Santa Claus and his pack could not possibly pass
through such an opening. All this is beyond the range or thought of the
stage of development at which the child has arrived.
So in the childhood world. As I said, anything may happen. But you will
note, beautiful, sunny, lovely as this childhood world is as a phase of
experience, as a stage of development, sweet as may be the memory of
it, yet, if the child is ever to grow to manhood, is ever to be
anything, ever to do anything, it must outgrow this Jack-and-the-
Beanstalk world, this Santa Claus world, this world in which anything
may happen, and must begin to doubt, begin to question, begin to test
things, to prove things, find out what is real and what is unreal, what
is true and what is untrue, must measure itself against the realities
of things, learn to recognize the real forces and the laws according to
which they operate, so as to deal with them, obey them, make them serve
him, enable him to create character and to create a new type of
civilization, new things on the face of the earth.
Now what is true of each individual child has been true of the race.
The world started in childhood; and for thousands of years it believed
very easily, it believed altogether too much for its good, it believed
altogether too readily. Naturally, perhaps, necessary in that stage of
its development; but so long as it remained in that stage there was no
possibility of its becoming master of the earth.
Note, for example, the state of mind of the old Hebrews, I use them
merely as an illustration, because you are familiar with their story as
told in the Old Testament. Similar things are true of every race on the
face of the earth. They knew nothing about the real nature of this
universe. They knew nothing about natural forces working in accordance
with what we call natural laws. Consequently, they lived in a child-
world, a world of magic and miracle, a world in which anything might
happen. It did not trouble one of the people of that time to be told
that, in answer to the prayer of one of the prophets, an axe-head which
had sunk in the water rose and floated on the surface. There were no
natural laws in his mind contradicted by an asserted fact like that. It
never occurred to him to be troubled about it. There was nothing very
startling to him in being told that the sun stood still for an hour or
two to enable a general to finish a battle in which he was engaged. He
did not know enough about the universe to see what tremendous
consequences would be involved in the possibility of a thing like that.
He was not troubled when you told him that a man had been swallowed by
a great fish, and had lived for three days and three nights in its
stomach, and had come out uninjured. There was no improbability in it
to him. Simply, a question as to whether God had chosen to have the
fish large enough so that it could swallow him. To be told again that a
human body that could eat food and digest it, a body like ours, might
rise into the air and pass out of sight into some invisible heaven, not
very far away, there was nothing incredible about it. He knew nothing
about the atmosphere, limited in its range so that it would be
impossible to breathe beyond a certain distance from the planet. He
knew nothing about the intense cold that would make life impossible
just a little way above the surface.
The world in which our forefathers lived until modern times was just
this magic, Jack-and-the-Beanstalk world, a world without any
impossibilities in it, without any improbabilities in it. All this
thought of the true and the untrue, the possible and the impossible,
the probable and the improbable, is the result of the fact that man has
grown up, has left his childhood behind him, has begun to think, has
begun to study, has begun to search for reality, to find out the nature
of the world in which he lives, the forces with which he must deal, to
understand the universe at least in some narrow range, measured by his
so-far experience.
The world, then, until modern times has believed too readily, has
accepted things too easily. Let us note, for example, what have been
called by way of pre-eminence the Ages of Faith, the Middle Ages, the
age, say, from the seventh or eighth century until the thirteenth or
fourteenth. What was characteristic of those ages? Were they grand,
noble? They were ages of ignorance, of superstition, of cruelty, of
immorality, of poverty, of tyranny, of degradation. Almost everything
existed that men would no longer bear to-day; and hardly any of the
grand things that characterize modern civilization had then been heard
of.
Where did this modern civilization of ours begin? Did it ever occur to
you that it began when men began to doubt? It began, we say, with the
Renaissance. What was the Renaissance? The Renaissance was the birth of
doubt, the birth of question, the demand on the part of men, who began
to wake up and think, for evidence. It was the beginning of the
scientific age, the birth of the scientific spirit which has renovated,
re- created, uplifted the world. Men began to think, to look about
them, and to prove all things. And instead of holding fast all things,
as they had been doing in the past, they began to hold fast only the
things which they found by experience, and after testing and trial, to
be good.
Here began, then, the civilization of the world; and all that is finest
and highest in industry, in education, in discovery, in the whole
external civilization of the world, came in with the coming of this
spirit that questions and that asks for proof.
I do not wish you to understand me as supposing that all kinds of doubt
are good, equally good. The Church, as I said a little while ago, has
been accustomed to teach us that doubt was wrong; and there are certain
kinds of doubt that are morally wrong, certain kinds of doubt that are
disastrous to the highest and finest life of the world.
I wish now to analyze a little and define and make clear these
distinctions, that you may see the kind of doubt which is evil and the
kind of doubt which is good.
There are doubts which spring out of the fact that men, under the
influence of personal interest, as they suppose, or strong desire, wish
to follow certain courses, wish to walk in certain paths; and they
doubt and question the laws, moral or mental, religious or what not,
which stand in their way, which would prohibit their having their will.
As an illustration of what I mean, suppose a man is engaged in a
certain kind of business, or wishes to manage his business in a certain
kind of way. He suspects, if he stops and thinks about it, that the
interests of other people may be involved, that the way in which he
wants to conduct his business is a selfish way, that the interests of
other people may be injured, that the world as a whole may not be as
well off; but it seems to be for his own advantage.
Now it is very difficult, indeed, for you to persuade a man that he
ought to do right under such circumstances. He is ready to doubt and
question as to whether these laws of right are imperative, whether they
are divine, whether they may not be waived one side in the interest of
the thing which he desires to do. So you must guard yourself very
carefully, no matter what the department of life may be that you are
facing, if you find yourself doubting under the impulse of your own
wishes, if you are trying to argue yourself into the belief that you
may be permitted to do something which you very much want to do.
Be suspicious of your doubts, then, and remember that probably they are
wrong. Great moral questions may be involved, and doubt may mean wreck
here.
There is another field where doubt is dangerous and presumably an evil.
You will find most people, in regard to any question which they have
considered or which has touched them seriously, with their minds
already made up. They have some sort of a persuasion about it, they
have a theory which they have accepted; and, if you bring them a truth
with ever such overwhelming credentials which clashes with this
preconceived idea or prejudice, the chances are that it would be met
with doubt, with denial, not a clear-cut, intelligent, well- balanced
doubt, but a doubt that springs out of the unwillingness that a man
feels to reconstruct his theory.
Let me give you an illustration of what I mean, and this away off in
another department of life from our own, so that it will not clash with
any of your particular prejudices. Sir Isaac Newton won a great and
world-wide renown, and magnificently deserved, by his grand discovery
of the law of gravity. You will see, then, how natural it was for
people to pay deference to his opinion, to be prejudiced in favor of
his conclusions. It was perfectly natural and, within certain limits,
perfectly right. Sir Isaac Newton not only propounded this law of
gravity, but he propounded a theory of light which the world has since
discovered to be wrong. But it was universally accepted because it was
his. It became the accepted scientific theory of the time. By and by a
man, unknown up to that time, by the name of Young, studied Newton's
theory, and became convinced that it was wrong; and he propounded
another theory, the one which to- day is universally accepted through
the civilized world. But it was years before it could gain anything
like adequate or fair consideration, because the preconception in favor
of Newton's theory stood in the way of any adequate consideration of
the one which was subsequently universally adopted.
So you will find scientific men, I know any quantity of them, grand in
their fields, doing fine work, who are not willing to consider anything
which would compel a reconstruction of their theories and ideas. This
is true not only in the scientific field, but it is true everywhere: it
is true in politics. How many men can you get fairly to consider the
political position of his opponent? He not only doubts the rightness
and the sense of it, but he is ready to deny it. How many people can
you get fairly to weigh the position of one who occupies a religious
home different from their own? And these religious prejudices, being
bound up with the tenderest and noblest sentiments, feelings, and
traditions of the human heart, become the strongest of all, and so are
in more danger of standing in the way of human progress than anything
else in all the world.
People identify their theories of religion with religion itself, with
the honor of God, with the worship and the love of God, and feel that
somehow it is impious for them to consider the question whether their
intellectual theories are correct or not; and so the world stands by
the ideas of the past, and opposes anything like finer and nobler ideas
that offer themselves for consideration. And not only in the religious
field; but these religious prejudices stand in the way of accepting
truths outside the sphere of religion. For example, when Darwin
published his book, "The Origin of Species," the greatest opposition it
met with was from the religious world. Why? Had they considered
Darwin's arguments to find out whether they were true? Nothing of the
kind. But they flew to the sudden conclusion that somehow or other the
religion of the world was in danger, if Darwinism should prove to be
true. And it is very curious to note I wonder how long the world will
keep on repeating that serio-comic blunder from the very beginning it
has been the same; almost every single step that the world proposes to
take in advance is opposed by the constituted religious authorities of
the time because they assume at the outset that the theories which they
have been holding are divinely authorized and infallible, and that it
is not only untrue, this other statement, but that it is impious as
well.
The doubt, then, that springs from preconceived ideas is not only
unjustifiable, but may be dangerous and wrong.
Then there is another kind of doubt against which you should beware.
There are certain doubts that, if accepted and acted on, stand in the
way of the creation of the most magnificent facts in the world. Take as
an illustration of what I mean: when Napoleon, a young man in Paris,
was asked to take command of the guard of the city, suppose he had
doubted, questioned, distrusted, his own ability; suppose he had been
timid and afraid, the history of the world would have been changed by
that one doubt. Take another illustration. At the opening of our war or
in the months just preceding the beginning of active hostilities the
man then occupying the presidential chair had no faith, no faith in
himself, no faith in the perpetuity of our institutions, no faith in
the people; and so he sat doubting, while everything crumbled in pieces
around him. And then appeared a man in whom the people had little faith
at first, and who had no great faith perhaps in his own ability; but he
had infinite faith in God, faith in right, faith in the people, faith
in the possibilities of freedom trusted in the hands of the people. And
this faith created a new nation.
If there had been doubt in the heart of Abraham Lincoln, again the
history of the world would have been &hanged. He believed that "Right
is right, since God is God, And right the day must win: To doubt would
be disloyalty, To falter would be sin."
You see, then, here is another field where you had better be wary of
doubt. Do not doubt yourself, do not doubt the possibilities of noble
action, noble character, of achievement. We say of a young man entering
life, brimful of enthusiasm, that all this will be toned down by and
by; and we speak of it as though the enthusiasm itself somehow was a
fault or a folly. And yet it is just this enthusiasm of the young men
that moves and lifts the world. It is this faith in themselves and in
the possibility of great things, it is this faith that lies at the
heart of every invention, of every great discovery, of every
magnificent achievement. Read the history of invention. The world is
full of stories of men who got a new idea. They were laughed at, they
were told it was impracticable; and, if they had been laughed out of
it, it would have been impracticable. It was their faith in the
possibility of some great new thing, their faith in the resources of
the universe, their faith in themselves as able to discover some new
truth and make it applicable to the needs of the world, it was this
faith which has been at the root of the grandest things that have ever
been done.
It is this which was in the heart of Columbus as he sailed out towards
the West. It is this which was in the heart of Magellan as he studied
the shadow of the earth across the face of the moon, and believed in
the story that shadow told him against the constituted authorities of
the world.
But now let us turn sharply, and find out where doubt does come in, and
where it is as honorable, as noble, as necessary as faith.
People misuse this word "faith." Doubt applies to all questions of fact
that may be investigated, to all questions of history, to all questions
open to the exercise of the critical faculty. For example, if I am told
that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, and I say I accept that statement on
faith, I am abusing the dictionary. I have no business to accept it on
faith. Faith has nothing whatever to do with it. It is a pure matter of
scholarship. It is a matter of study, of investigation, a matter of
clear and hard intelligence and nothing more.
Suppose I am told that the Catholic Church is infallible, and I am
asked to accept it as an article of faith. Here, again, the
introduction of the word "faith" into a domain like that is an
impertinence. Faith has nothing whatever to do with it. That is a
question of fact. We can read history for the last eighteen hundred
years. We can find out what the Catholic Church has said and what the
Catholic Church has done, as to whether it has proved itself absolutely
infallible or not. It is a matter of study and decision intellectually;
and it is my duty to doubt that which does not bring authentic
credentials in a field like this.
Take the question of the authorship of the Gospel of John. Was it
written by the apostle John, who lay in the bosom of Jesus, and was
called the beloved disciple? Have I any business to say I have faith
that it was written by him, and let it rest there? Faith has nothing to
do with it. We can trace the history of that book, find out when first
it was referred to, follow it back as far as possible, find out whether
it was in existence before the apostle John had died or not. It is a
pure matter of criticism, a matter of study; and I have no business to
accept it as a matter of faith, because, if I do, I am in danger not
only of deceiving myself, but of misleading the world. And truth, we
cannot say it too often or too emphatically, truth is the only thing
that is holy in investigations of this kind. Men's beliefs and
mistakes, old, venerable, reverenced though they may have been by
thousands and for hundreds of years, are no less unworthy longer to
delude the minds of men. Truth is divine, truth is the one object of
our search.
Now let us come to consider for a moment the nature of faith. I said a
little while ago that the word is very frequently misused. Nine times
out of ten, when I hear people using the word "faith" and I see the
connection in which they use it, I discover they do not know the
meaning of the word. That which has favor generally under the name of
faith is simple credulity. It is closing the eyes and accepting
something on somebody's authority without any investigation. That,
remember, is not faith.
Let us see now if I can give you a clear idea of what faith really is;
and now I have the Bible and I am glad to say it behind me. This
magnificent chapter,* a portion of which I read as our lesson this
morning, gives precisely the same idea of faith as that which I am
going to outline. What is faith? Faith is a purely rational faculty. It
is not irrational, but it is perfectly understandable. Suppose there is
a man suddenly accused of a crime, and I never saw him before, I do not
even know his name; but I go into court when he is brought up for
trial, and I say that I have faith in that man, and I do not believe
that he committed the crime. Do you not see that I am talking nonsense?
I have no business to have faith in him, there is no ground for faith,
it is an entire misuse of the word. But now take another case. Here is
a man that I have known for twenty years. I have seen him in business.
I have seen him in his home, among his neighbors and friends, and in
the street. I have met him in all sorts of relations. I have talked
with him, I have tested him. I have been intimate with him. He is
suddenly accused of crime, and is brought into court. I appear, and say
I have faith in that man, I do not believe that he committed the crime.
I do not know that he did not commit it; but I have grounds here for
faith. In the light of his past life, of his experience, of his
temptations, of his opportunities to go wrong, and of his having gone
right, in the light of all this past experience of years, I have faith
in this man; and I say it, and I am talking reason and sense. In the
other case I am talking folly.
Faith, you see, is a rational faculty. Let me give you another
illustration. Suppose I am driving along through the country some
morning when there is a very thick fog hanging over the landscape. The
fog is so thick that I can see no more than ten or fifteen feet ahead
of me; but I discover that I am near the bank of a river, and I come to
the entrance to a bridge. I can see enough to know that here is an
abutment of a bridge and an arch springing out into the fog. I drive on
to that bridge with simple confidence. I do not know that there is any
other end to the bridge. I have never seen it before. I have seen other
bridges, however; and I know that, generally, bridges not only begin
somewhere, but end somewhere. So, though I do not know for certain that
the bridge ends on the other side of the river, for aught I know there
may be a break in it, the bridge may not be completed, something may
have happened to it, I confidently drive on; and in ninety-nine times
out of a hundred my faith is justified by the result. This is a pure
act of faith, but faith, do you not see, based in reality, springing
out of experience, and so a purely rational act of the mind.
Let me give you one illustration of the scientific use of faith, very
striking, beautiful, as it seems to me. The only time Mr. Huxley was in
this country, I happened to be in New York, and heard him give the
opening one of a brief course of three lectures in Chickering Hall. He
was very much interested then in the ancestry of the horse. Most of you
are probably aware of the fact that they have traced its ancestry to a
little creature having five toes, like ordinary animals. At the time
that Mr. Huxley was here, one link in this chain was missing; that is,
one of the forms in the line of the horse's ancestors had not been
discovered.
But here, for example, was the first one and the second one, we say,
and the third one was missing, and here was the fourth one, and here
was the horse itself. Now, in the light of the presumable uniformity of
nature, Mr. Huxley went on to describe this missing animal. He said, if
the remains of this creature are ever found, they will be so and so;
and he went into an accurate detailed explanation as to what sort of
creature it would be. He had not been at his home in England a year
before Professor Marsh, of Yale College, discovered this missing link
in Colorado, and it answered precisely to the description which
Professor Huxley had beforehand given of it.
Now here is a case of scientific prophecy, scientific faith, a faith
based on previous scientific observations, based on the experienced
uniformity of nature. Mr. Huxley did not know, he could not have known;
but he believed. He believed in the universe, he believed in the sanity
of the universe, he believed in the uniformity, the order, the beauty
of the universe; and the result justified his faith.
Faith, then, is a purely rational faculty. It has nothing to do with
the past, but is always the evidence of things hoped for, the substance
of something not yet seen. It is always looking along the lines of
possible experience for something as possibly or probably to be.
Now at the end I wish to suggest a few things that are in the rightful
province and field of faith, fields where we can fearlessly exercise
this grand faculty, where indeed we must exercise it if we are to
achieve the highest and finest results in the world.
And, in the first place, quoting the words of the old writer, let me
say, "Have faith in God." I do not mean by this, accept certain
intellectual statements or propositions about him, though they may be
mine, and though I may thoroughly accept and believe them.
You may doubt the representation of God that is made in any one of the
theologies of the world, as to whether the statements made about him
are accurate. It is not this intellectual belief that I am talking
about at this minute. Have faith in God! You may not even use the name.
I am no such stickler for phrases as to condemn a man who cannot say
"God." I have known a good many men, who have hesitated to pronounce
the name, who were infinitely more divine in their life and character
than those who are glibly uttering it every hour of their lives. It is
not this I mean. It is something deeper, higher, grander than that. As
you look along the lines of history from the far-off time when we begin
to trace it until to-day, and see the magnificent march of advance, an
orderly universe lightening and glorifying as it advances, becoming
ever finer and higher and better; as you observe the order and truth
and beauty and good dominant, and ever coming to be more and more
dominant as the years advance, believe in this and trust this, trust to
all possibilities of something finer and grander by way of outcome in
the future. Have faith in God!
And, then, have faith in truth. I meet only a few people that seem to
me to have utter faith in truth, who really believe that it is safe to
tell the truth, always tell it. I talk with a great many people I wish
to mention this as an illustration of what I mean who speak in the
greatest commendation of the Roman Catholic Church. They say, We do not
know what we should do in this country if we had not the Roman Catholic
Church to keep a certain section of the people down, to keep them in
order. I wonder if people ever realize just what this means. It means a
lack of faith in God and faith in truth and faith in humanity, all
three. If it is not safe to tell the truth, then I am not responsible
for it. I propose to say it, although people tell me that there is
danger of the explosion of the universe on account of it. If there is,
I am not responsible for making it true. Oh, I get so tired of this
kind of timidity, this playing hide-and-seek with people! I have had a
minister tell me that he wished he was free to tell the truth in his
pulpit, as I am; and then I have had people in his congregation tell me
afterwards that they wished their minister would preach the truth
plainly, as I did. Simply playing hide-and-seek with each other!
You remember the story of the man in Italy, who asked the priest if he
really believed the religion of the country; and the priest said, "Oh,
no! we have to go slowly on account of the people; they believe it."
And when the people were asked if they believed it, they said, "Oh, no,
we are not such fools; but the priests believe it." And so people play
hide-and-seek with each other, not daring to tell the magnificent,
clear truth of things.
Have faith in the truth. It is feared that it is not quite safe to tell
people the truth, because they are not quite ready for it; and I have
had no end of conversations during the religious discussion of the last
two or three weeks right in this line. It seems to me very much like
saying that, because a man has been shut up in a dark prison for a long
time, you had better keep him there, because it would be such a shock
to him suddenly to face the light. Undoubtedly, it would be a shock.
Undoubtedly, it would trouble and stagger people for a little while to
be told the simple truth; but how is the world ever to get ahead, if
you keep on, as a matter of policy, lying to it for ages? How is it
ever going to find the truth? Shall I lie for the glory of God, the
supposed honor of God? I will take no such responsibility.
Let us have faith in the truth, then. Tell it fearlessly, simply,
utterly; and, if God is not able to take care of his own world, why,
the sooner it ends and we get into a stage of existence where it is
safe to tell the truth, the better.
Have faith in men. Have faith in the people. This it is that we trust
to in all our hopes of progress for the future. This it is which
distinguished Lincoln among our statesmen. You remember that grand
saying of his, true and humorous, so that it sticks in our memory, and
we can never forget it, "You can fool all the people a part of the
time; you can fool a part of the people all the time; but you can't
fool all the people all of the time." Here is the basis on which we
rest our republic. Our republic is fallen unless the people are really
to be trusted.
Have faith, then, in the people, faith in their healthy instincts,
faith in their general sanity, faith in their desire for the right and
the true; and this is a genuine exercise of faith, for the past history
of the world justifies it.
And, then, have faith in yourself as a child of God. I do not mean
conceit now. I do not mean an overestimate of your ability, but belief
that you can do great, grand, noble things, belief that you can become
something great, noble, grand; belief in the possibility in this life
or in some other life of unfolding all that is highest, truest,
sweetest, in manhood and womanhood. It is this faith that is able to
create the fact and make that which it trusts in.
Let us then believe in God, believe in truth, believe in humanity,
believe in ourselves; and then we may work towards the coming of that
far, grand time when the dreams of the world shall be realized and its
faith shall become reality.