But For Us There Are

Faith, Then, Generically, Is Confidence In A Personal Being. Specifically, Religious Faith Is Confidence In God, In Every Respect And Office In Which He Reveals Himself. As That Love Of Which God Is The Object Is Religious Love, So That Confidence In Him As A Father, A Moral Governor, A Redeemer, A Sanctifier, In All The Modes Of His Manifestation, By Which We Believe Whatever He Says Because He Says It, And Commit Ourselves And All Our Interests Cheerfully And Entirely Into His Hands, Is Religious Faith.

The Infidelity That Springs From The Heart Is Not To Be Reached By A Course Of Lectures On The Evidences Of Christianity; Argument Did Not Cause, And Argument Will Not Remove It.

We Are To Regard The Mind, Not As A Piece Of Iron To Be Laid Upon The Anvil And Hammered Into Any Shape, Nor As A Block Of Marble In Which We Are To Find The Statue By Removing The Rubbish, Nor As A Receptacle Into Which Knowledge May Be Poured; But As A Flame That Is To Be Fed, As An Active Being That Must Be Strengthened To Think And To Feel -- And To Dare, To Do, And To Suffer.

Whatever Capacities There May Be For Enjoyment Or For Suffering In This Strange Being Of Ours, And God Only Knows What They Are, They Will Be Drawn Out Wholly In Accordance With Character.

To Be Energetic And Firm Where Principle Demands It, And Tolerant In All Else, Is Not Easy. It Is Not Easy To Abhor Wickedness, And Oppose It With Every Energy, And At The Same Time To Have The Meekness And Gentleness Of Christ, Becoming All Things To All Men For The Truth's Sake. The Energy Of Patience, The Most Godlike Of All, Is Not Easy.