OF FAITH. Confidence was bearer of the palm; for it looked like conviction of desert: Majesty and beauty are commingled, in moving with immutable decision, For such an one seemeth as superior to the native instability of creatures: And many fearless chiefs have won the friendship of a foe. Confidence is conqueror of men; victorious both over them and in them; A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will turn the tide of battle, The tenderest child, unconscious of a fear, will shame the man to danger, But true or false, the twain are faith; and faith worketh wonders: Never was a marvel done upon the earth, but it had sprung of faith : Nothing noble, generous, or great, but faith was the root of the achieve ment; Nothing comely, nothing famous, but its praise is faith. Leonidas fought in human faith, as Joshua in divine : Xenophon trusted to his skill, and the sons of Mattathias to their cause: (*1) Margaret by faith was valiant for her son, and Wallace mighty for his people: Faith in his reason made Socrates sublime, as faith in his science, Galileo: Ambassadors in faith are bold, and unreproved for boldness: Faith urged Fabius to delays, and sent forth Hannibal to Cannæ : Cæsar at the Rubicon, Miltiades at Marathon: both were sped by faith. There is faith towards men, and there is faith towards God; The latter is the gold, and the former is the brass; but both are sturdy metal: And the brass mingled with the gold floweth into rich Corinthian ; Yet more for confidence in man, even to the worst and meanest, Fling thine unreserving trust, even on the conscience of a culprit, For the hand so stout against agression, is quite disarmed by charity; Or cautious doubts and bitter thoughts will tempt the best to foil thee; In wholesome sorrow will he bless thee; yea, and in that spirit may repent; Thus, wilt thou gain a soul, in mercy given to thy faith. Look aside to lack of faith, the mass of ills it bringeth; All things treacherous, base, and vile, dissolving the brotherhood of men. Bonds break; the cement hath lost its hold, and each is separate from other; That which should be neighbourly and good, is cankered into bitterness and evil. O thou serpent, fell Suspicion, coiling coldly round the heart,— For if, in thine own home, a cautious man and captious, Thou hintest at suspicion of a servant, thou soon wilt make a thief; Thou hast injured the texture of his honour, and smoothed to him the way of lying: Or if thou observest upon friends, as sceking thee selfishly for interest Take heed, for the pit may now be near, a pit of your own digging,— Man verily is vile, but more in capability than action; His sinfulness is deep, but his transgressions may be few, even from the absence of temptation : He is hanging in a gulf midway, but the air is breathable about him: Thrust him not from that slight hold, to perish in the vapours underneath, For, God pleadeth with the deaf, as having ears to hear, Christ speaketh to the dead, as those that are capable of living; And an evil teacher is that man, a tempter to much sin, Who looketh on his hearers with distrust, and hath no confidence in brethren. All may mend; and sympathies are healing; and reason hath its influence with the worst; And in those worst is ample hope, if only thou have charity, and faith. Somewhiles have I watched a man exchanging the sobriety of faith, Old lamps for new,-even for fanatical excitements. He gained surface, but lost solidity; heat, in lieu of health; And still with swelling words and thoughts he scorned his ancient coldness: But his strength was shorn as Samson's; he walked he knew not whither; And turned again to simple faith more simply than before. It is not for me to stipulate for creeds; Bible, Church, and Reason, But I must stipulate for faith; both God and man demand it : Verily, the skeptical propensity is an universal foe; Sneering Pyrrho never found, nor cared to find, a friend: How could he trust another? and himself, whom would he not deceive? His proper gains were all his aim, and interests clash with kindness. So, the Bedouin goeth armed, an enemy to all, The spear is stuck beside his couch, the dagger hid beneath his pillow. For society, void of mutual trust, of credit, and of faith, Would fall asunder as a waterspout, snapped from the cloud's attraction. Faith may rise into miracles of might, as some few wise have shown: Faith may sink into credulities of weakness, as the mass of fools have witnessed. Therefore, in the first, saints and martyrs have fulfilled their mission, Therefore, in the last, the magician and the witch, victims of their own delusion, Have gained the bitter wages of impracticable sins. They believed in allegiance with Satan; they worked in that belief, For, faith hath two hands; with the one it addeth virtue to indifferents; Yea, it sanctified a Judith and a Jael, for what otherwise were treachery and murder: With the other hand it heapeth crime even on impossibles or simples, He trusted in his intercourse with evil, he sacrificed heartily to fiends, A great mind is ready to believe, for he hungereth to feed on facts, his own, So will he cavil at a truth; how should it be true, and he not know it ?There is an easy scheme, to solve all riddles by the sensual, And thus, despising mysteries, to feel the more sufficient: For it comforteth the foul hard heart, to reject the pure unseen, And relieveth the dull soft head, to hinder one from gazing upon vacancy. True wisdom, labouring to expound, heareth others readily; False wisdom, sturdy to deny, closeth up her mind to argument. The sum of certainties is found so small, their field so wide an universe, Faith, by its very nature, shall embrace both credence and obedience' |