TJ Tolstoy had decided that for him at least life was simply not possible without faith. And by the logic of the heart he moved up to that position which Pater, by a curiously similar process, attained: that since there are certain presuppositions,
390 LIFE BY FAITH
postulates, beliefs, without which a man simply cannot live, is not this a presumption that these presuppositions, postulates, beliefs, do signify the permanent, universal truth ?
" I had only to know God, and I lived : I had only to forget Him, not to believe in Him, and I died. What was this dis- couragement and revival ? I do not live when I lose faith in the existence of a God ; I should long ago have killed myself if I had not had a dim hope of finding Him. I only really live when I feel, and seek Him. What more then do I ask ? And a voice seemed to cry within me, ' This is He, He without whom there is no life ! To know God and to live are One. God is Life ! Live to seek God and life will not be without Him.' And stronger than ever rose up life within and around me, and the light that then shone never left me again." x
(4) It is by such faith that men endure. Faith is an attitude of the soul which is instinct with tremendous moral power. It is an energizing principle of such potency that where it operates the whole current of the life is changed. It fills the soul with a new inspiration. It uplifts the most sordid. It emboldens the most timorous. It banishes the fear of the craven and slays the lust of the profligate. It impels the slothful to a life of holy activity, and sends the most selfish forth into the world in self- forgetting service. Let faith live in a human heart, and there is nothing man will fear, nothing he dare not attempt. All things are possible to him that believeth. Let a statesman only believe in his cause and there is no toil that he will not endure, no ridi- cule that he will not brave, no opposition that he will dread to encounter. His faith is able to transform his whole character. And when a man from the depths of a sincere heart can say, with St. Paul, " I believe God," his creed is no impotent shibboleth, but an imprisoned energy in the soul, a moral dynamic, which will change his whole life. Potentially he is already one of God's heroes, one of that noble roll whose deeds are written on the sacred page, "who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens " (Heb. xi. 33, 34).
By faith men endure in the midst of the greatest troubles
1 J. A. Hntton, Pilgrims in the Region of Faith, 143.
HABAKKUK n. 4 391
and calamities. They so confide in the righteous God and in His declared promises, they remain so entirely loyal to the heavenly vision and hope which are beyond the ken of the natural man, that they are secretly strengthened in the darkest hours to hold fast their integrity. Faith in God means confidence in Him, fellowship with Him, devotion to Him ; and such whole-hearted trust is the inspiration and guarantee of highest character, even when the stress and strain of life are most severe.
God ! Thou art love ! I build my faith on that.
Even as I watch beside Thy tortured child
Unconscious whose hot tears fall fast by him,
So doth Thy right hand guide us through the world
Wherein we stumble. . . .
I know Thee, who hast kept my path, and made
Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow
So that it reached me like a solemn joy;
It were too strange that I should doubt Thy love.1
1 Browning, Paracelsus.
The City Without Walls.
3«
Literature.
Adams (J.), The Man among the Myrtles, 51. Barry (A.), The Parables of the Old Testament, 181. Cooke (G. A.), The Progress of Revelation, 51. Greenhough (J. G.), The Cross in Modern Life, 148. Jordan (W. G.), The Song and the Soil, 104.
„ „ Prophetic Ideas and Ideals, 289.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Ezekiel to Malachi, 273. Smith (D.), Man's Need of God, 227.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, x. (1864), No. 604. Christian World Pulpit, xlv. 170 (H. R. Rae) ; lxxiii. 24 (R. F. Horton) ; lxxxiv. 363 (J. Macmillan).
394
The City Without Walls.
Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, by reason of the multitude of men and cattle therein. For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and I will be the glory in the midst of her.— Zech. ii. 4. 5-
The prophet Zechariah lived in a time of discouragement and distress. It was that pathetic yet heroic crisis in the national history when a remnant of Israel had returned from the long captivity in Babylon. Few if any of them had ever seen Jerusalem. They had been born in exile ; but their fathers had told them of the dear Homeland, and they had been dreaming of it and yearn- ing for it all their days ; and now at length in the providence of God they were brought back. They had travelled across the desert in high hope, eager to see the land of their dreams and the Holy City and the encircling mountains; but their arrival was a cruel disillusionment. They found Jerusalem a desolation and her Temple a ruin; and they had to face the task of recon- struction.