Faith is a conviction which includes past, present, and future. Faith bases its optimistic hopes for the morrow upon the proven and received blessings of yesterday and to-day. Faith daily increases her store of confidence, and therefore awaits with patience the things which the future holds in store. Faith connects the individual with the reformers of all periods, with the idealists of the present age, and with that glorious company of men and women of the days to be who will be the reapers and gleaners in the fields of earnest endeavor wherein we have sown the seed of righteousness. Faith merges into understanding in one instance, only to progress as a higher form of faith, and is ready to take the next step in the line of light. Faith in certain truths becomes an understanding of these truths only as the Science of Life is gradually mastered, and demonstration supersedes belief, yet because of the infinitude of Truth the unattained and undemonstrated truths of life constantly demand the renewal of faith and the increase of hope. We no sooner win the objects of our high hopes than we gain glimpses of conditions beyond, on the future's horizon, which seem to reduce almost to miniature the things for which we have so laboriously toiled. Thus we learn that eternal progression constitutes eternal life, and that each day must be complete in itself.
We walk by faith oftener than by sight. The major part of daily living is made up of faith in action, subdividing itself into what is termed confidence, conviction, trust, optimism, hope, and courage. The first movement in mental action is invariably one of faith. True, it may be toward the acceptance of a demonstrable premise, but the acceptance of the premise as a proposition is a process of faith. Proof and visible results may follow allowing understanding to supersede mere faith, but the primary step still remains one of faith. The basic assumption of all being,—belief in the existence of a Supreme Being,—is premised upon a mental act of faith as set forth in the Scriptural declaration: "He that cometh to God must believe that he is." Thus faith opens to man the possibility of knowing the most High. Faith is spiritual patience, and patience is systematized faith. A uniform faith in the triumph of good over all evil manifests itself in poised optimism, good cheer, and directness of speech and action. The vitality of faith is unique, and its power beyond human estimate. How often throughout the course of life's way is the heart lifted to levels of celestial vision. How from time to time the distant fields, ever green and inviting, are in plain sight from the summit of exaltation occupied through this grace of God, above the ashes of some temptation or materialistic tendency overcome. And again, how often, O how often! are we called upon to go down into the valleys and low places of human experience, which lie between the mountains of vision, and work out the problem of life, illumined by the ever-present memory of the glory beheld on the heights. Here must faith become a guardian angel, here must trust, ever pointing to the vision given us, beckon to the practical attainment of that which has been seen and felt, not in comprehension or full understanding, but in that perceptive sense of future dominion which is the essential forerunner of the heavenly estate of man. Thus among the valley fogs of doubt and fear, amidst the earth damps of human misunderstanding, and in the center of the monotony of the commonplace, which for a time seems shorn of the ideal, are all called upon to "walk by faith, not by sight."
Faith, the song-bird of the everlasting Love in the heart of man, under such circumstances lifts the nature as "on wings of eagles," above the shadows, and enables every prayerful, honest heart to find its way upward to a still greater mountain-top of experience. Thus is fulfilled the promise, "He that endureth unto the end shall be saved." Faith is a form of universal encouragement. The success of every department of life is dependent upon it. Faith in God, faith in one's self as the image of the Eternal, and faith in the might of right and the omnipotence of Love,—these three types of spiritual confidence make progress in righteousness and brotherhood a certainty. Amidst the detail of conflicting human experiences faith is on the side of the long look ahead, while fear invariably takes its place on the short look about us. At just this point enlightened faith merges into understanding, and man can look calmly and fearlessly upon conditions once perplexing and fearful, but now seen as the fusing or disappearing of elements or errors in the chemistry of Mind,—God.
