re. A MAN’S FAITH By WILFRED T.*GRENFELL, M.D. OF PRIN gr "EQ DEC 6 - 1826 < a RS eo OGICAL Ra THE PILGRIM PRESS BOSTON ss New Edition Copyricnut, 1926 By Sipney A. Weston Printed in the United States of America THE JORDAN & MORE PRESS BOSTON FOREWORD In surgical work we find nothing so helpful as “follow up” inquiries after our patients have passed from our treat- ment. After years have passed away, the real results are much more likely to be» correctly recognized: It) 1s’ hike watching the coming up of seeds one has sown. ‘Therefore, when the editors invited me to review this little book preparatory to sending out a new edi- tion, it was with great interest that I reread what | had written a quarter century previously. I see little or nothing to change. The new knowledge of this marvelous , period has made faith far easier from an intellectual standpoint, and has en- abled us to be more patient in waiting to see the truth, not as now “through a glass darkly,” but face to face. It seems undeniable that somewhere with- in him, deny it or doubt it as he may, Bad FOREWORD every man has faith in God — that in his best moments he realizes that he has it, and that in his best acts he shows it. ‘Christian’ is no longer a term of opprobrium;— to say any man is a ‘real Christian” is undeniably the highest honor we can confer upon him. Every man has his doubts at times — in them there is often much real faith. Personally, I believe every human be- ing has faith in God, in spite of the re- action of his fallible brain material. Nay, I am more and more hopeful that it is true that all men have it. le [vi] A Man’s Faith CHAPTER I EN will always go on wanting knowledge. That is only natu- ral. If Iam going to invest my money, I want to know, not to believe. But that is just what we cannot do in this world. We should all be million- aires otherwise, and there would be no kind of domestic trouble, because we should be wise enough to know that it doesn’t pay. There would be no crimi- nals. They know only too late what fools they have been; and indeed we should all be saints on earth, because we should always do in advance the things we would like to have done when we look back afterwards. No, the whole secret of this earth is that it is ; run on a faith basis. ‘That is what makes it such a wonderful world and saves it from being a world of machines, [1] A MAN’S FAITH a deadly dull world, a world not worth living in. Yet mankind goes on striv- ing to believe that it knows, when it doesn’t. It strives to have knowledge that it knows it has not and cannot have. ‘Thank God the men who know, if there are any such, whom we call “scientists,” are content at last to teach that there are things we cannot know here. Thus we cannot know 274° below zero, Centigrade scale, nor can we know 187,000 miles a second velocity. If you could do either of these things you would be living in some other world where the laws of this finite world with its limitations do not exist. That is probably what is going to happen. We are going to live in a world which is less limited, or even un- limited, and that is what makes this one explicable. When we have trained in a world of faith and finality, and found out a few things, we shall be ready to go into another world with [2] A MAN’S FAITH larger scope of knowledge and larger op- portunities for chivalry and knighthood and achievement. The very thought of it changes my whole idea with regard to this life. Life is not a miserable failure, to be gotten rid of as soon as possible, with its highest ideal a Nir-. vana in which we forget everything and do nothing. It is a glorious step- on a ladder to bigger things. My reason tells my faith that it is justified in going ahead on that basis — and if you only go deep enough down all the world agrees. Personally, I accepted long ago that I have got to begin somewhere and must exercise that which is essentially my own, my will; and it seems to me in- ' creasingly as reasonable to will to be- lieve this as it is to will to smile, or to will not to eat too much, or to will to exercise my body as well as my mind, or to believe that J] not only do not know it all, but that I cannot know it all until I possess a machine very dif- [3] A MAN’S FAITH ferent to the limited brain machine that I have now —a machine that is capable of interpreting it all. This doesn’t stultify me to myself or mean that I never expect to be able to under- stand it all. On the contrary, it digni- fies me to myself; it says that I cannot understand it all now, but I am going to do the best I can to prepare myself for the day when I am going to under- stand it all. In fact, I have decided that it is rational to employ the will to believe things I can’t understand. That is why I ate my breakfast. I hadn’t the machines to test it out. That is why I drink daily of the water in my glass; it has done me good so long that I just don’t believe that there is a ty- phoid or cholera bacillus in it so long as I have taken reasonable precautions, and on that ground I am just going to believe it is good and swallow it. And that is what I do with what appears to me to be the water of life, the kind of refreshment that seems to have vital- [4] A MAN’S FAITH ized men all through the ages into actual living sons of God; men who by faith took the water of life at the hands of God and used it without understand- ing quite what it was, but with a grow- ing appreciation of it through the acceptance of it by faith and the use of it in life, knowing that some day they would know all about it. A man’s greatness is measured not by how little — he believes but by how much. We are talking about a man’s faith, and that is not a fool’s credulity. It is the faith of a red-blooded, normal human being. Faith is the power by which human beings with limited ca- pacities visualize the possibilities of what they hope for. They are all around us. Flaglerwasone. He visu- alized the future of Florida long before the boom in lots in Miami, and the men who are rich in Florida today are not the men who knew it all, and knew that Florida could be the world’s play- ground. Half a dozen men went in on [5] A MAN’S FAITH faith and bought lots, and when the others saw that they were making money, they tried to get in; and many of them got in too late and were left. That was because they waited till they knew. ‘That’s the story of the world everywhere. It is the same in every department of life. It does one good to read the letters of a man like Doctor Alexander Bell in which he says: “‘Some day we shall actually be able to speak by telephone from office to office, and home to home, and city to city.” He was finding it hard to interest the men who “‘knew it all,” the “‘practical’’ men, the men who talk about faith being “sloshy stuff,’ and piety being good for old women, the men who would not dare to put five cents into a venture that would have netted them five mil- lion dollars if they had had the faith. If I had only known what a share in the Ford business was going to give as a return for an investment, I would have had shares in the Ford business long [6] A MAN’S FAITH ago. But I thought I knew, and so I did not go in on faith; and I lost out, as men are losing every day in the great- est of all ventures, the putting of their own hands into the hands of God Al- mighty in the faith that in that way only can they get the really worthwhile returns of their little day on this planet. There are a thousand other examples. Think of old Ehrlich trying out chemi- cal composition after chemical compo- sition, because he wished to save the world from the curse of an almost in- visible microbe called the spirochaete. It decimated humanity, and it cursed the world for centuries. ‘Think of him trying out one after another until he got into the hundreds. It was six hun- dred and six before he got to one that gave him what he wanted. It is men of faith who have saved the world, not men of knowledge. Orville Wright was a farmer’s boy. He did not have what men call educa- tion. He knew he did not know as [7] A MAN’S FAITH much as the mathematicians. ‘They knew absolutely that no machine heay- ier than air could fly in the air. They proved it by mathematical demonstra- tion and put it in books that it could not be done. But he had the silly faith that thought it could, and he worked out a mathematics of his own, and he made a machine and he took it down to Kittyhawk Beach. A leading mathematician of the day came down to see the experiment. But he knew so well that it could not be done that he went away and wrote an article for the American Scientific Encyclopedia, which proved that it could not be done. It stood there for ten years after the farmer’s boy, full of faith, had made a machine and flown in it, and demon- strated to the world that progress de- pends not on knowledge but on faith. There is no progress possible without faith. We all wish afterwards that we had been men of faith. We all wish that we had been like the farmer’s boy, [8] A MAN’S FAITH Banting of Toronto, who was fool enough to waste time and money, of which he had very little, trying to find out what was the use of some silly looking cells in a hidden gland called the pancreas. Banting is saving hun- dreds of thousands of lives every year. Don’t we wish that we saved one every year? We should begin then to feel our life was worth while. There is many a man on the stock market today who wishes he did not have to act on faith. But all knowl- edge has to be won — like every other thing that is worthy of us sons of God. The faith we are speaking of is not mere assent — it is adventure. A re- porter wrote the other day, “Faith is not ascent.” ‘That is exactly what it is. It is the ladder to truth. Truth isn’t revealed cheaply by spirits through mediums. If it were, that would be a more profitable profession. The proof of the correctness of faith is the proof of its value, and that is [9] A MAN’S FAITH exactly why a man’s faith in Christ is justified, because in the school of ex- perimental life it has justified itself in every line where it has been tried. He himself bade us use that test. I asked Mr. Orville Wright once how it was he came to go up in the first airplane, when he must have known perfectly well that he would be killed, because science had proved it so. ‘Well,’ he said, “I just tried it out.”’ So faith is not a sloppy thing that fools can laugh at. Christian faith has been betrayed many times by those who claimed to possess it. But faith in Christ is ever justifying itself more and more, and whenever any man does anything worth while now anywhere around the world everyone speaks of it as ‘‘Christlike.” The reason why the non-Christianworld does not accept the information that Christianity is all one needs to make him good and happy, is only because it is not Christlike. We don’t give them exhibitions of real faith in Christ. [10] A MAN’S FAITH Some flimsy production labeled “‘Chris- tianity”’ does not attract anybody, and yet it is so often all we offer. We don’t today show any exuberance of love as a nation toward those whose skins happen to reflect less white ain than ours. The best definition of faith that I know is that it is reason grown coura- geous. Moreover, that is all that Christ ever asked us for, and the reason he asked us for that was because he wants to use us. He needs our help. It is almost impossible to believe it. But God Almighty wants our help, so Christ tellsus. ‘Theoretically or mathe- matically this is unintelligible, that God should want human help. But that is the bottom of all Christ’s teach- ing. ‘The faith he asks for is not to understand him but to follow him. By that and that alone can man convert the tragedy of human life, full of dis- appointments, disillusionments, and with so-called death ever looming ahead, [11] A MAN’S FAITH into the most glorious field of honor, worthy of the dignity of a son of God. What Christ asks is that we shall try it out. He actually dares us to follow him. In that way, he says, you shall win that prize in life, for which any man can with perfect reason afford to give everything else. ‘That is the pearl of greatest price, viz., the actual knowl- edge of the meaning of it all ahead of time, so that we can invest it well; and with that the absolute assurance of our high destiny, so that we can walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil. It is perfectly reasonable, for we now know nothing is wasted. Energy and matter are inde- structible. So why not life? Christ did not ask his immediate dis- ciples to understand him. He said to the traitor Judas, to that monument of doubt, ‘Thomas, to the men who ran away and betrayed him: “Go out and preach the gospel. Do as I am doing.” What he was calling for was action [12] A MAN’S FAITH based on faith, and that is what he is calling to us for. He is not offering us an insurance ticket; he is offering us the water of abundant life, just as we are; and as a return, he assures us, and we know it to be true, that we shall have the secret of the meaning of life. We can be rich all life through because we know. ‘The faith he speaks of is the vision of God that lifts us through high moral purpose into greater moral power and freedom. All prizes of life that are worth while are won by the faith that makes us act. Without faith we win no real prizes and taste no lasting joys. ‘This is equally true in business, science, politics, citi- zenship and domestic life. ‘Think of a runner gloating over a prize that he has won without any competition. Worth- while prizes we know have got to be won. ‘The man who lives on remit- tances is never any good. ‘The things that make a man good are the things he works for; and what a man works for [13] A MAN’S FAITH is what he believes in. Faith makes us act and act quickly and fearlessly. I have had men tell me: ‘‘Doctor, I cannot consent to acton faith. It does despite to my manhood. I have got to know things first.”” It sounds like the man from Missouri. But it is all rub- bish. It’s sheer impossibility, and would just leave you stranded. A man said that very thing to me on the bridge of my little steamer one sum- mer. We were off the north coast of Labrador and we were running past some nasty looking rocks. He hap- pened to say, “‘I wish I had your faith, but ‘Ll «cannot, have it.) 7 Wihy see asked. ‘“‘Because I have been taught to rely upon my intellect, and that would wrong it.” “This is an un- charted shore,” I replied, ‘‘and I am piloting this ship. It is four years since I have been on this part of the coast. You are taking a big venture of faith if you think you are going to get north and back again safely. Knowl- [14] A MAN’S FAITH edge would say to you, ‘Get out and sit on that rock.’ You would be much safer. I guess I shall stop and land you, only you must make up your mind quickly.” “I think I will stay,”’ he re- plied. ‘I thought you would,” I an- swered. And he did, and we got there and got home again, and accomplished something. If he had acted on knowl- edge, he would have sat on that rock all night but he would not have gotten anywhere. What Christ demands is a reasonable faith, as he demands the service of our reason. Faith is like the little bubbles of air which cling to the body of the beetle. They appear to be only air, but they lift the beetle to the surface of the ocean. Faith 1s the air that goes into the last cell in the lung and gives life to the corpuscles and the body. Some people may think it is only “hot air,’ but the world is learning now that hot air is as material as cold lead. [15] A MAN’S FAITH If any one wants a little knowledge as to what faith does and can do, let him read history. Or let him read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, which is history of the men who “‘through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteous- ness, 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, of whom the world was not worthy.” Youth is the time for faith and that is the time when man can do things. In that way, by the time youth is grown up, it will know things. It is the young men who go into the cotton pit to buy. The old men cannot stand the excitement of taking the ventures. It is the young men who buy on the curb, on the grain and the stock mar- kets. You cannot do it when you are old. ‘The older fellows know too much, and while they are for that very reason [16] A MAN’S FAITH hesitating to make up their minds, they lose their chance. It is the young men who have more courage, and courage is the very es- sence of faith. Faith is not the cow- ardly motive that leads a criminal to squeal for mercy in the hope of escaping his just punishment. The weakling who cannot will to fight a good fight, or to run a winning race, or to control his animal passions and keep his body under, will find himself in dire need of an insurance ticket when his time-glass has run out. But that isn’t faith — that’s fear. What, on the other hand, is knowl- edge? It is the conviction gained by our own faith put into action, the ex- perience resulting from venture, which is the kind of knowledge that we trust most. How often we say, “Well, I ought to know, because I have tried it out!’ ‘The people whose opinions we ask, as the nearest thing to knowledge, are the experts who have tried the [17] A MAN’S FAITH things out. We would hardly allow a man to tinker with the engine of our motor car who had only just read books about it. We want the help of the mechanic who has run the engine. We don’t expect to know how to play the violin by listening to lectures on the subject. Sometimes we act, owing to the implicit faith we have gained by close association and contact with an- other fellow whom we trust so much that we accept his experience as if it were our own. Or we accept the book that a man has written whom we have not personally known, but whom the world has accepted; and with our limi- tations we are sometimes obliged to act on the general idea that “‘Securus judi- cat orbis terrarum.” But we know that all these are liable to error. Nor must we think anyhow that these tests are infallible. Our own interpretation may also be wrong. I have known a man to see a red house in a green field and think it was a green house in a red [18] A MAN’S FAITH field. He was a perfectly reliable good fellow, honest as the day, and no fool either, but his deductions were wrong because his machines were wrong. He himself was all right. Does Einstein tell the truth, or doesn’t he? No one impugns Mr. Einstein’s honor. Was Newton right, or wasn’t he, in his laws about gravitation and parallel lines? Everyone knows Newton was abso- lutely honest, but even he may have been wrong. Wilson was a noble man and more than half America believed in him, but he may have made mis- takes; . In’ his. time, \heaps’ of men thought Lincoln was wrong; some of his cabinet did; and there seems little doubt that the man who killed him honestly thought he was wrong, and was willing to sacrifice his own life be- cause he thought so. Still, as time goes on the world increasingly acclaims Lincoln. I have always felt that among the people who killed Christ there were many who were by no means criminals. [19] A MAN’S FAITH Some of them were fanatics, just mis- taken. The trouble is that they thought they knew, and the most dan- gerous people all through the ages are the “infallible.” It has not been the mystic, the humble man of faith, who has been the menace to the world’s peace; it has always been those who knew they knew it all. History invariably proves that knowl- edge or science passes away. Most rightly do we talk of “‘current knowl- edge.”” ‘Therefore, those who insist that all others but themselves are wrong are always somewhat dangerous peo- ple. Just there is one reason for our faith in Jesus. People rightly mar- veled at him because he spoke as no man ever spoke; and yet wherever his voice has echoed around the world, ad- vancing civilization has been the result. The people wondered in his day how he spoke with such authority, and the peo- ple of today are wondering that he alone, of all mankind, has never been [20] A MAN’S FAITH shown to have made a mistake. We have to accept that what he said is right for every succeeding age. Without faith, no progress; without faith, no knowledge; without faith, no victory; without faith, no business; without faith, no joy. We have to speak and live and act on faith. It is humiliating but true that many of the most valuable discoveries of science have been made not even by deductions from past knowledge. The value of quinine for malaria, antimony for tropical diseases, mercury for syph- ilis, insulin for diabetes, even the vita- mines of cod liver oil and green vege- tables, and a host of other life-saving compounds, had to be discovered by faith acting through human beings ahead of knowledge. It is not fatuous credulity which leads man to suppose that life is inde- structible. He has always surmised it from his knowledge of the things around him. Spring has followed winter, the [21] A MAN’S FAITH butterfly the cocoon, and the science of today confirms the faith of yesterday. For it asserts that not only is energy in- destructible, but so also is matter. No man can intellectualize where life comes from, or where life goes to, but he does not know either where matter or energy came from or where they go, or where anything beyond this bourne of time and space will be employed. It is no answer to say that energy comes from the sun. Where did the sun come from? ‘The puzzle as to which was created first, the hen or the egg, is only a parallel to that of the sun first or the energy first which made the sun. Beyond this so far as anything called knowledge, which man possesses, is con- cerned, he surmises that if any energy came from anywhere, then all that in- exhaustible mass of energy which is in the sun came from somewhere or, as most prefer to think, it came from someone. It is not stupidity to think of its com- [22] } A MAN’S FAITH ing from someone. Is not our person- ality indestructible? Who or what can ever destroy it? Who has ever known it destroyed? The baby’s body con- tains personality. Throw away the baby’s body, the young man’s body contains the same personality. Re- move the arms and legs, the same per- sonality remains. Break the neck and paralyze everything except the lungs and the heart, which are innervated by the long wires direct from the brain, and when I have myself talked to a man in that condition, he argued that he was the same personality. Person- ality may be hidden or obscured, or the power to reveal it may be greater or less, but that depends not on the altered personality but on the machines that reveal it. I cannot see a tubercular bacillus or a cholera bacillus without a microscope. Many fatal ones we can- not see at all. But even though I can- not see it, that won’t in any way alter the personality of the cholera bug. [23] A MAN’S FAITH Nor if I swallow it in a glass of water, just because the revelation of it was poor, shall I escape the consequence of the mistake. It certainly is the theory of every nation, however rudimentary and humble, however savage and pri- meval, that there is a Someone be- yond and above mankind whom we call God, and that the purposeful ar- rangements and the purposeful acts and things that we see constitute life on earth, reasonably suggest a pur- poser. This is unquestionably the deduction of reasonable people, practical people, so practical that they have moved this world more than any other people, and have always moved it in the right direction; people who have experi- mented in the field of their own daily lives on the faith that Christ actually revealed God to us and was the mani- festation of him in human life, by try- ing themselves to follow him. But what is more, the nearer they have [ 24 ] A MAN’S FAITH come to following him exactly, so much more powerful and valuable have been their lives. The silly folk who thought that human intellect, or force, or money, or rank were more powerful for achievement than faith, in the lapse of time, as results became unques- tionable, were forced to admit that they were wrong; that it isn’t man’s knowl- edge but the righteousness bred of faith that exalteth a nation; that it is not man power of any kind, but justice, mercy, and truth that make it perma- nent and successful; and that a live faith in Christ always tends to that end. Indeed, it is quite common to- day to have the testimony of the heath- en Hindu and the fanatical Moslem that the powerful but professed non- Christian leader Mahatma Gandhi is truly a ‘“‘Christlike man,’ because though they see little or no value in Western Christianity, they see very clearly what Christ was and did. They see that the spiritual is the real, and [25] A MAN’S FAITH that in Christ the mystic and the prac- tical man were united as in no other being on earth. As one looks back through the ages, all the great men are men of faith: the Newtons, Faradays, Darwins, Mar- conis, men with faith which they con- firmed by experiment. Luther and Garibaldi, Washington and Lincoln, men of action as well as thought, were primarily men of faith. But infinitely above all, Jesus himself is the supreme example of a man of faith. Even on his cross he was absolutely confident, though as far as any human eye could see then, his faith, judged by results, was “unreasonable.”? ‘The same is ab- solutely true of social life. The men who are really great and loved in social life are those who have faith in the meaning of life. Faith is the main fac- tor in achieving the loftiest goal in any department of life. Careful statistics taken in the United States in 1926 show that over eighty per cent of her [26] A MAN’S FAITH leaders are men with faith in God, and that man needs this power outside himself to help him manage his own life. ‘Today such men as Woolworth, Colgate, Heinz, Kresge, Rockefeller, Welch, Wanamaker, Roosevelt, Wil- son, Taft, Babson, Mayo, Graham Bell, Ford, Cushing, Osler, Vail, Coolidge and Morgan are men with faith in God. It is not unreasonable to say that that which succeeds in reality cannot be altogether foolish. That which makes man accomplish things cannot be sneered away because we do not al- together understand it. Radio and television have shown us how ridicu- lous it is to deny the possibility of everything which we do not under- stand. ‘To us it seems that the records of the juvenile courts in Denver, the adult criminal courts in Cleveland, the work of the George Junior Republic, and generally the method of having faith in even those who do not deserve it, though it looks dangerously like [27] A MAN’S FAITH credulity, have proved as a remedial element in punishment that it is more practical than mere philosophy would have ever permitted us to suppose. These illustrations could easily be car- ried further. But I will satisfy myself by stating that a simple faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God has been so commonly the basis of action in the right direction that it has been well said that no more irresistible impulse could be conceived of than that which would animate a body of, say, Scotch Presbyterians coming straight from their knees with the faith that they were about to do God’s will. The result of childlike faith has been obscured by the endless dilution of its simplicity. But the experience of the passing years clinches in my own mind ever more firmly the conviction that nothing succeeds in transforming the individual as it does. It still performs miracles. It still turns bad men into good ones, and good men into more use- [28] A MAN’S FAITH ful ones. ‘“The life which I live,” said St. Paul, “I live by faith in the Son of God.” Paul certainly lived a more useful life than any other man of his time in introducing righteousness, joy, and peace into a moribund world. His was a triumphant life. It is the kind of life I should like to look back upon when I pass the last bar, and have nothing else but my record to take with me. We must not forget, however, that men do not all gauge success in the same way, though if they stopped and thought more, they would be much more unanimous on that point and dollars would not loom so large in their estimation. I have myself seen that faith is so practical a thing and for sO many reasons so intensely desirable a thing, that I don’t consider myself a prejudiced witness when I make this statement. I want to believe in Jesus Christ because I want to attain the ends I know such a faith insures. I [29 | A MAN’S FAITH consider faith, as Peter did, a most precious thing. It alone can make me master of myself and of the world. The apostle said this two thousand years ago and I am sure he was right. It would be foolish to expect that it would be in exact accord with the wis- dom of any particular day. Paul wisely claims that it is based not on the wis- dom of men, but on the power of God, which any honest observer can see it exemplify. Paul did not want it based on the wisdom of his day. He most wisely stated, “Our knowledge is always incomplete; it will eventually all be cast aside.” In 1883 while I was working at the London Hospital I chanced to turn in to one of D. L. Moody’s great tent meetings in the slums of East London. I was amazed to see on the platform with him several men whose athletic prowess was world-famous. ‘That was a credential to me that it was worth stopping to listen to what was going to [30] A MAN’S FAITH be said. I still believe athletic success is an invaluable asset to a preacher. Christ, | am sure, wants football, base- ball, and track-team men in an” age when theological expositions, however deep and learned, when orthodoxy, conventionality, or even correct vest- ments and ritual, have so little attrac- tion for the young men who will be leaders tomorrow. I stayed, listened, and learned at once one thing: that if I had any faith it was not the kind these men possessed. As far as I could judge I possessed an unreal, spectral image of the - genuine article. | would always attend a place of worship to please any one who wished me to, rather than be con- scious of offending him. But my faith must have been the nearest resemblance to a Grand Bank fog that anything in that line can be. I can honestly say I had all my life been a more or less regu- lar attendant at Sunday church ser- vices. But the numberless parsons I [31] A MAN’S FAITH had listened to had never succeeded in teaching me that God gave us faith as a potent factor in life to enable us to do things, and therefore that I should expect direct results from it. I can scarcely believe they ever tried hard to do this, or at any rate were disappointed in any way at their lack of success, as their Master certainly says he will be. I learned at that meeting that what the men who spoke possessed was a faith worthy of strong men, and I went out into those sordid slums knowing I wanted it. Now that is certainly the first step to getting anything. It is the attitude of mind we must have if we are to obtain any valuable thing. Men often come seeking faith as they did of old, demanding a special portent for them- selves. ‘That is, they begin by saying, “If you don’t convince my mind of such and such a thing, I’m going to ac- cept none of your faith.” As a rule valuable things are not picked up in [32] A MAN’S FAITH this world in that way. A farmer, after listening to a long temperance lecture, soliloguized as follows: “I” preacher proved it weren’t no good to no one, and he proved it done a lot of harm to every one, but he did not prove I did not like ’un’, so I means to have ’un’ aicer)all.?’ How are men to learn to want this faith? For four years at college I lived with an able lecturer of the Christian Evidence Society. Many of his de- bates with unbelievers I attended. I cannot remember a single one being led to faith through these debates, though some who had faith already were strengthened by it. On the other hand, I remember well how the loving, unselfish ministrations of a Salvation Army lass, who attended one of the most vehement of his opponents when he was sick and forgotten, brought that man to a lively faith that made a new man of him. His intellect was no longer a stumbling-block. His heart [33 ] A MAN’S FAITH was won. Intellectual humility is an essential stepping-stone to faith. If my mind fails to understand the “how” and the “why,” I do not dream of denying the possibility of a solution be- ing found on that ground. | Are you seeking faith? How are you to get it? Eve saw the apple. Eve saw it was good. Eve wanted it. So she just put out her hand and took it. The poor fisherman was washed over the side. Somehow his captain saw him struggling in the dark waters and threw him a life-buoy that would save him. Still he had to reach out his hand and take it. So every man has to do. Man can’t give it to him; God won’t force it upon him. He must just take it. [34] CHAPTER “II The mistake about the use of faith is the worst mistake in the world. It makes young manhood despise faith. We mix up the use of faith with black coats, clerical collars, monkish gowns. We think of the life of faith as unnum- bered religious services, convent or monastic practices, refraining from cards, theaters, wines, smoking, swear- ing,: etc. We think of the “soul’s awakening” as a desire to cross the hands on the chest, and turn up the eyes and carry a large book about, and probably wear a long gown like a Chi- nese woman’s, ill adapted for easy movement and exceedingly undesirable. To youth, whose chief joy is in achieve- ment, Christ is presented as the man who went about telling folks not to do things. ‘The idea of Christ in a mod- ern dress suit or baseball flannels en- joying the pleasures of our day is al- [35] A MAN’S FAITH most as impious as meeting him at a theater. And yet play is as necessary as ‘“‘work, worship, or love to man, to live by.”” To divorce Christ from our daily life is no way to use faith. It seems impious to think of wearing rational dress, of baseball, of swimming, boating, or of doing anything else we really enjoy, in heaven. ‘Thus we asso- ciate, in a dumb sort of way, the use of faith here below with abstinence from everything the healthy young human animal naturally loves, and with the infliction of numberless exercises that he hates. We stimulate him to volun- tarily endure these by the prospects of a future that we paint as even more distasteful. How often I have thought I would far sooner not be wakened out of my grave if I had to listen to ever- lasting harp-playing! I have looked at the goody-goody pictures; I have read the goody-goody books. I have hoped I should not have to lead a lamb around on a string. [36] A MAN’S FAITH With all the boys of my acquaint- ance, I hated going to church. I have made my nose bleed more than once to escape evening service, and had head- ache and made excuses all I dared. My brother was flogged for melting toffee on the hot-water pipes in church; we left some of the silver paper behind and that betrayed us. He was almost expelled from school for putting bees- wax on the boys’ seats in front of him, to the detriment of several pairs of trousers. We did all we could to en- liven the time we had to put in there, and thought it well worth the risk of the stick afterwards. ‘There were two prayers in the morning service and one in the evening I could always sleep through safely, to be awakened in time to get up when the others rose from their knees. The only Sunday service I loved was the hour of reading before tea, when my mother read to us books like Hesba Stretton’s, Mrs. Walton’s, Mrs. Gaskell’s. We used to lie on the [37] A MAN’S FAITH floor, or anywhere about. I can tell those stories now. I have lived those hours over again many times since. I have read out of those same books in lodging-houses, hospitals, and fishing vessels, and they have brought tears into eyes I never saw them in before. There is a great deal of the child left in all of us men and women, and the hatred of the child for the conventional use of faith is perpetuated in manhood. ‘The way that repels the child is not the way to attract the heart of the adult. The right use of faith is not to make the whole thing hateful and contempti- ble. In the countries where Jesus is nomi- nally most eloquently and frequently advertised, as far as words and sermons and ceremonies go, the bulk of the people never think of faith in Christ at all as a valuable practical asset; as a factor for a better community, or pub- lic safety; the police, the law, politics, diplomacy, are considered infinitely [38] A MAN’S FAITH more practical than any love of God. For plain joy or pleasure, a mug oO’ beer, the latest motor car, an evening in a dive, a house-party at Newport — anything is rated higher and more de- sirable than faith in Christ. I have known the same man to give twenty dollars for an electric belt and fifty cents to the parson for his yearly dues. I was talking to a poor fellow convicted of stealing. He had been well brought up, that is, he had been made to go to church, to read the Bible, and to say lasuprayers.” Yet the) idea. of ;Christ caring had so little occurred to him, I could see instantly the reflex face ex- pression which showed me that he thought, “Now for some cant.” It was the sort of look the men in the ten- cent lodging-houses used to assume when, after listening to one’s feeble efforts at preaching, they sidled up to “borrow sixpence for a night’s lodg- ing.” We well knew this to mean a whiskey. ‘That is to say, they thought [39] A MAN’S FAITH all preaching was done by fools or hypocrites. What is wrong then? Is it the faith itself? I donot pretend to know many things, but I do know that is not at fault. Once I was blind. Now I see. That’s the sort of evidence I base my knowledge on, and I no longer feel a ' shiver when some scientific magnate pooh-poohs the Master; for I have seen new men made out of old ones, prodigals return to newness of life, through the simplest faith in him who is infinitely too great for man’s finite intellect to understand. Only love born of faith can do that. ‘Think of it! The professors of the inexact sciences pooh-poohing the Son of God! One of my hardest trials in life has been to have to keep the secrets of so many people. As a doctor in mission- ary life, one finds out so many skeletons in cupboards. It is hard not to tell news. It is harder still not to tell good news. Not to do it makes you feel as [40] A MAN’S FAITH a boy felt after a Christmas dinner — as if he *‘must burst.” But it is worse again when you have a truth that you know to be a truth, a truth of infinite practical daily value forever to those you love best, and yet you cannot tell it. You can say it. You can quartet it. You can monotone it. You can say it in a black coat, in vestments, at matins, at evensong, at the solemn feasts, at the new moons. But still you have not conveyed your truth to your dearest friend, the man who shared your rooms, and studied and competed with you, who played on the team with you, and who trusted you with a pass five yards from the enemy’s goal line. Yet he won’t take it from your lips that faith in Jesus Christ is worth a red cent — won’t accept it, be- cause it can’t be gotten that way. We believe in him not because any one told us, but because we have seen him ourselves. Alas! the heathen, the stranger, who [41] A MAN’S FAITH knows not your inner life, is more likely to listen. Where is the fault? Is the faith in Christ really not of value? Or is it that your use of the faith fails to commend it? If you are really eager to give that inestimable gift to your friend, your husband, your darling boy, and fail, is there something wrong in your use of it, your method of commending it? Does it not make a man’s heart cry out, “My God, is my conventional use of faith the cause of preventing others from accepting Em Ne : We are in the deepest trouble as I write. ‘Two boys that we loved and trusted have been found to have been for weeks betraying our trust. ‘There is no question in our hearts of revenge or retributive punishment. ‘The whole issue is, what remedy can save these lads that we still love, save them for usefulness for the Master that we know they are capable of? Is faith in Christ able to do it, and how shall we [ 42 ] A MAN’S FAITH use it? I am absolutely certain it can.! But I know you will ask, How shall the converted man use faith in his own life? How shall he do God’s will? First, he must absolutely, finally de- cide he is willing to use faith, willing to do God’s will as far as he knows it every time, willing to pray with Jesus in deed as well as word, “not my will but Thine.” Beyond that no human being can lay down the law for another. It must be understood that no reserva- tion must be allowed. Jesus could not come down from his cross. All your heart, all your soul, all your strength — either give it all consciously, or give it all up, I should say. Lukewarm ad- herents will be turned out anyhow. The problem of the use of faith was first presented to me when I was a medical student in East London. I knew well enough that singing and praying about faith added no strength 1Both these lads now, twenty years later, are earnest, clean, Christian men, bringing up families in the love and fear of God. [ 43 ] A MAN’S FAITH to it. One reason that had kept me from the pious men, or “‘pi-men” as they were called, had been that I con- sidered them good at little else but piety. My tastes had not all altered because I had become a Christian man, nor had my common sense deserted me. I wanted to use my faith. Frequent meetings at night in rather stuffy rooms, attended mostly by women, had no more attraction for me than before. At these, also, so many prayed for things I could not raise any enthusiasm for, and as my Master prayed mostly alone, I decided there was, at any rate, no necessity for me to trespass further on my evenings. Moreover, I very soon abandoned attending two services on Sunday. ‘There is a selfishness in singing hymns and prayers that God may do things for us and others, while we do nothing but the singing. I knew more than one good soul, usually in Mayfair, with spiritual indigestion [ 44 ] A MAN’S FAITH and irritability from over-indulgence. Our parson, good man, gave us a Bible reading Sunday morning, and made his evangelical appeal at night. ‘The first pleased me, because I always gauge the value of a sermon by the new thoughts I can write into my Bible from it. Many a pilgrimage I-made to hear Dr. Joseph Parker. ‘The second pleased me because it enabled me to leave and go out into the highway and echo the ap- peal as well as I could, which I did from the top of a box many times. Among the Christians, so called, of my own circle, whom I knew at that time of my life, none were actively “doing anything at it” that attracted me. ‘l'wo energetic acquaintances went on Sundays to fasting Communions (alas! I never saw much difference be- tween them and any one else in any other way). If I must confess the truth, in a dilemma like this, even then it still seemed strange to ask God about so everyday a matter as what I ought [45 ] A MAN’S FAITH todo. If any of my college friends had told me they had done something as an answer to prayer, the result of my own deductions would have been that I should have been hugely amused at the joke. It would have brought a blush to my face to venture to tell them any- thing of the kind; indeed it should have done so, for it would have been quite unnatural. To prove my esti- mate of the value of personal prayer at that time, I was giving an hour a day before breakfast, in Victoria Park, to throwing the sixteen-pound hammer, and an hour at night to running around the Hackney common in the dark to train my body, for I knew that was practically valuable. But I seldom troubled myself to repeat more than a sleepy general petition before going to bed.! 1After twenty more years, I still think the truest prayer is most often unexpressed words. Prayer is so like one’s breathing or the heart beating; it is really unconsciously go- ing on. The words Christ gave us are enough for some natures. The short prayer of the man in the street may be as real as the longer ones of the monk or the mystic. [ 46 ] A MAN’S FAITH Long prayers have not now become a habit with me. The Master himself at times prayed for long hours, and there are special occasions, perhaps, when we all can feebly imitate him there. But I don’t for a moment be- lieve now that we are to be heard one whit more for our much speaking. Hard-work praying is quite another matter. If we are willing to submit our will to his, he knows our hearts, and can guide our actions and words today as quickly as he did Nehemiah of old in the king’s presence. I have attended live, helpful prayer- meetings. But if ’m tempted to gos- sip, or scold, or be vain and selfish, or to waste time and talent, or to set a poor example, what is the use of wait- ing for church time or prayer-meeting? A brief ‘“‘“God help me” at the time is more reasonable. Or again, if [ve done a mean act to any one, the only honest or effectual prayer is to go and put it right. That is the only kind of [47] A MAN’S FAITH prayer that calls for Christ’s spirit, and helps out more next time. Surely in a matter so closely affecting his own kingdom as prayer, Jesus gave his dis- ciples the best advice possible when they asked him. ‘The wording he gave was exceedingly brief, and the main petition was that we might do his will in his strength. The answer to my prayer for work was the offer of a boys’ class in a Sun- day-school, which it cost me no little effort to accept. From the few sugges- tions made and requested, it might have have been as easy a task as teaching my terrier to situp. As far as I judged, a few words at a weekly meeting, asking God to do the bulk of the work, was sufficient qualification for success. | was soon to be sorely undeceived. If ever I felt like a fish out of water, it was when I walked into that, my first, Sunday-school, and heard myself called “teacher” by a number of unkempt urchins. Even the illustrations from [ 48 ] A MAN’S FAITH the ‘“‘guide-book to the lesson’? seemed lamentably ineffective in appealing to them, and I went out discouraged. By plodding along, I taught them who killed Goliath, and much more useful _knowledge, a good deal of which was not in the guide-book; as for instance, that it did not pay to come to school as long as you sucked peppermints, and that the use of hair oil meant ‘“‘out you go.” But I seemed as far from their hearts and confidences as ever. Here, how- ever, I must state my deepest convic- tion that absolutely the only essenitzal, initial assets are devotion to Jesus Christ and common sense if you wish to be a successful worker in the King- dom. Our English Sunday-schools are very different to the American, and mine did not commend itself to me any more after my conversion than before it. It was altogether too mild an en- tertainment to satisfy my desire for work. As I knew, however, what had [ 49 | A MAN’S FAITH appealed to me, I decided to try that. I started a movable gymnasium in our sitting-room with one night a week for boxing, fencing, and gymnastics. ‘The parallel bars were the only trouble to fix. This, at least, taught the boys we could beat them at other things be- sides Bible stories. In this way we learned to trust and to love one an- other, and this soon gave me an entry into their homes. But the idea of boxing displeased our parson, and I was ignominiously dismissed from the roll of teachers. The adaptable dining-room, however, served excellently for a class- room, and when [ started anew all my old pupils, unbidden, sought a place. Using. my faith on the same princi- ple, I regularly took my poor lads with me for my summer holidays, rather than leave them in their sweat-shops and on my return tell them what a good time I had been having while I prayed for their souls. My boys learned to swim, to row, to sail a boat, to play [50] A MAN’S FAITH football, to box, to drill, to handle a gun, etc., and the class increased largely in numbers and some are still among my best friends today. ‘The outlay called for by my faith along that line has paid me personally all the way. The afternoon class, however, left Sunday night free, and I had the good luck, as I thought, to fall in with a young Australian doctor who was study- ing at the hospital and preaching in the slums of Radcliffe Highway on Sunday evenings. I have long since learned to consider this an answer to my prayers. It makes me now feel that religion has grown with me to be altogether ‘“‘too respectable’ as I think of the ragged school we held there, and the short evening services in six or seven underground lodging houses. No one steals the hymn-books now, or comes to service with his eyes blacked by the 1 During the past twenty years, testimonies from old pupils, now fathers of families, have made'me realize how my feeble efforts were repaid a hundredfold and what a splendid laboratory a Sunday-school is for a teacher. [51] A MAN’S FAITH police, or breaks the pictures and fur- niture because you get in a minute or two after time, or kicks you hard as you throw him out for misbehavior. It seems strange how much we two en- joyed that odd work. Perhaps it is be- cause we liked things by contrast, be- cause it gave one a better change and, therefore, more rest, than going down for a week-end to some friend in the country and having an extra dinner, with a cigar and a snooze afterwards on a lounge in the conservatory, even if one salved one’s conscience for the loss of opportunity by subsequently attending ,evensong. ‘There is a terrible danger to faith in too much respectability. The world’s smile has danger for the follower of Jesus Christ, and it kills the spirit with all the subtlety of a nar- cotic, being pleasing to the sense from the beginning. When the Church of England became too respectable, God raised Methodism, and with Method- ism, the Salvation Army. [52] A MAN’S FAITH How to use faith among my com- panions and my superiors was quite another question. I was then unable to give an answer if my equals said that Huxley and Tyndall, Berthollet and Voltaire, Froude and Renan, Morley and Mrs. Humphry Ward and others had pulverized the claims of Jesus. I could only argue that I believed, be- cause I did, like the woman who sank in the pond for the last time, snapping two fingers to indicate “‘scissors.” It was worse with my superiors. Every time that I found a man sneering at faith whose intellect I bowed down be- fore, as a student will before his teach- ers, a cold shiver would run down my back, or would leave my heart like lead till I got back to the tonic of my boys of the ragged school. All my life I had been nominally a Christian, and yet I certainly had no experience to argue from. ‘The results of previous years had left in my mind only the un- expressed deduction that Christianity [53 ] A MAN’S FAITH was nearly a failure, and its adherents among young men only those poor- spirited ones who sought a through ticket to heaven. I cannot help inserting here an inci- dent that greatly helped to clinch in my mind that the right way for me to use faith was to live it. We had been playing a big football match, and I was captain of our team. Afterwards we dressed in a saloon parlor. While dressing, a great crowd of men were in the room and someone, mounting on the table, began reading and vilely commenting on a portion of the Bible. It seemed natural enough to ask the man to refrain till I was no longer forced to be present, to which, sheep- ishly enough, he assented. Some years later, a poor student who had gone wrong, to my great surprise came to ask advice from me. He had ap- parently been in the saloon at the time of the above incident. He told me that my feeble protest had gone home [54] A MAN’S FAITH to his heart. Such unimportant trifles apparently are the right use of faith, and I feel sure that a protest against doubtful things naturally and modestly made in places where such things would be expected to go unchallenged, does more for Christ’s cause than much more voluble ones made in gatherings where everyone is looking out for such things. God forbid I should underrate the value of being able to enter a word of intelligent protest against false state- ments, such as that missionaries are the cause of half the wars, that men of science have given up faith in miracles, etc. But when the brain is not able to devote time to learning answers to every question, a man must be satisfied with some other way. More than that, I feel that to refute an argument is never so powerful an advertisement for Christ as an act that is a testimony to his power to change men. One more personal experience I feel [55] A MAN’S FAITH constrained to relate. I have often been asked how I came to choose Lab- rador or the deep sea as a field for a life work. It is my habit to ask God con- “ stantly, to teach me each day how to rightly use my faith. J have never had any doubt that he does so. Yet I can honestly say that I never went through any great crisis of deciding to renounce the pleasures of life and accept the “‘self-sacrificing life of a missionary.” On the contrary, I ardently looked for a niche in the world suitable for my talents, and left it entirely with Him whose guiding hand I have been able to see in the events of my life as plainly as ever I saw a pilot’s hand directing my vessels on the many coasts I’ve sailed along. My idea of pleasure has always been a realization of utility, either to the body, mind or soul. Cards waste time; they literally ‘‘kill it’ — they have some value sometimes, possibly; but so has everything, even the swill [56] A MAN’S FAITH for the pigs. Few theaters really help, though I feel an increasing number do, for which I thank God, for the drama could be more widely instructive than the lecture room. Alcohol, even in small quantities as a beverage, is un- necessary. It is responsible for end- less sin and gross cruelties. My hatred of it as a drink increases with the ex- perience of the years. No good soldier, willing to go over the top for Christ, can use it, much less sell it for profit. Christ, however, made no list of taboos; and I cannot do so either without un- justly criticizing others, like those who, from my own childhood, I have seen using these things. Christ puts them on the basis of “Love your brother as yourself,’ and Paul says nobly, “If meat make my brother offend, I won’t touch it till the world ends.” It gave me the keenest pleasure to go to sea. It was a perfect delight to find that I was the only, and, therefore, the best doctor there. The display [57] A MAN’S FAITH and waste of long dinners, the shallow gaiety and tawdry pride of the ball- room, the endlessness of intellectual dialectics, the twaddle of voluminous correspondence, and the unreliable pad- ding of the Sunday papers held no at- tractions whatever for me. I couldn’t tolerate the display of costly jewelry — for me it added no attractions to a per- sonality — very much the reverse as a rule. So I found no great deprivation in the simple life among the fishermen. Theology was unknown; there were no sects at sea, and when the work sought me absolutely without any seeking on my part, I gladly accepted it. ‘That doesn’t account for Labrador. No, it doesn’t. ‘There has been a little effort, possibly, about leaving home. But for enjoyment of life, body, soul and spirit, ‘I can only say that each field of life I go into seems more delightful than the last. From this I argue that the right way of faith must be an enjoyable use of it. I don’t for a moment believe [58] A MAN’S FAITH God intends his servants to have long faces; and if their work is a misery to them, they ought to get out of it. For it cannot be where they are intended to be. ‘To be like Jesus certainly can- not be to be unhappy and look wretched, as the medieval pictures of conven- tional religion represented him. Knowledge has greatly increased with these passing years. ‘The new modesty of science is the best contribution of the past twenty-five wonderful years. Now we may even understand how the spir- itual is the real — how Christ’s resur- rected body could pass through walls and doors — how nothing can be de- stroyed, and that, after all, matter is only a manifestation of energy. Intel- lectually, faith is much easier than it was when twenty-five years ago our scientists knew it all. The East too is calling loudly for it. People there are confessing that Christ is necessary to save them — the world is getting near enough to him to be able to appreciate [59] A MAN’S FAITH him better with mere intellect. But faith is still the supreme necessity as it ever must be in a finite world. We know now how knowledge vanishes away —we are beginning better to understand how Faith, like Hope and Love, is eternal. Towards God the use of faith is unquestioning trust and submission. ‘Towards man it means to cease arguing and disputing and to begin to echo that love which Christ himself evinced for all mankind, good, bad, or indifferent. He who loveth best, serveth best, and will readiest overlook wrongs done him- self. Unlike Mrs. Grundy, the Master was not everlastingly scenting errors and exposing the sins of others. ‘The Master said hard things about hypoc- risy and much about want of faith, but very little about the Magdalene and the man who stole his brother’s share of the property. [ 60 ] CHAPTER III My first aid to retaining faith was a determination to keep it. I deter- mined that if intellectual difficulties arose, I would wait till, like Henry Drummond’s unanswered letters, they answered themselves. And if they never did, well, I would wait till the mystery of life itself was solved. Asa rule [ found on that principle that in a week or two I forgot all about them. The fact was I had a lot of medical work to do. What did eternal punishment, eter- nal reward, eternal personal identity, the time the last day should arrive, predestination, postmillennialism, the meaning of the horned beast, the scar- let woman, the authenticity of St. John, the science of Genesis, the authorship of the Pentateuch, the puzzle about Cain’s wife, infant baptism, the misdeeds of parsons and so-called Christians, mat- [61] A MAN’S FAITH tertome? I hada kind of intellectual puzzle-box, and into that they all used to go, and I then got time to “‘keep-a- going.” ‘The story of Lot’s wife helped me more than Guinness’s ‘“‘Approaching End of the Age.”? Our Lord’s remarks about the man who put his hand to the plow and looked back did me more good than all the books of the Christian Evidence Society. As for conferences, I got behind the cloak of that magnif- icent patriot and hero, the cupbearer “ Nehemiah, and declined invitations even to Keswick, because that was the only time I had to take my Sunday- school class to camp in North Wales; and later to Northfield, also, because that is my busiest season among the fishermen. I cannot give any reasons why, be- yond what I see Christ doing in the world today, but simply state the fact that now, forty-three years since I / heard D. L. Moody and his men tell what faith in Christ can do, I believe [ 62 ] A MAN’S FAITH my faith has grown into knowledge. If that great man could rise from the grave and walk in here now, I fancy myself simply getting up and saying, “Mr. Moody, you were plumb right.” Perhaps under these unusual circum- stances I should, however, add, ‘“‘Were you not?’ Shall I ever forget the only other time I ever saw him? It was fourteen years later in a Boston hotel. “Mr. Moody,” I said, ‘“‘fourteen years ago I put my faith in Jesus Christ after hearing you. preach.” “Oh,” he. re- plied, looking me up and down, ‘‘and what have you been doing since?” On my replying, he said, “Well, you don’t repent it, do you?” “Certainly not.” “Well, come to Tremont ‘Temple this afternoon and tell them just that, and then you can go in the upper gallery and speak to your next-door neighbor. We were rather short of Christians up there yesterday. Good-bye.” He never asked me a single question about being a premillennialist, or even one from the [ 63 ] A MAN’S FAITH Shorter Catechism. Can any one suppose God will ask us those conun- drums? Some one may say, “‘Your way to re- tain faith is just stultifying yourself. God gave you reason to know the truth.”” Agreed, but we don’t all learn it out of Mill’s Logic, or the Greek Lexicon, or the new theology, or Ger- man criticism, or the Koran, or the Vedas, or the book of Mormon Doc- trine, or “Science and Health.” No, nor out of the New Testament either. Though I personally believe the New ‘Testament to be the Word of God, still I am doubtful if Christ ever intended us to pin our faith on the New Testa- ment or any other book solely, to say nothing of verbal inspiration. I think he would have written a book himself, and made sure of guaranteeing its au- thenticity for all time; or at least he would have seen that more than two out of the twelve apostles gave an ac- count of his life in writing. Job was [ 64 ] A MAN’S FAITH anxious to have his words written in a book with leaden and iron letters, and so they were eventually, though I do not know that I could not get along very well if they had not been. But we have no record that Jesus Christ’s words, though they advance such stu- pendous claims and include such abso- lutely appalling statements that they have upset kingdoms, swept the civi- lized world, and transformed the nations who listened to them, were, so far as I know, ever written down at his per- sonal request, or even at all till a very long while, many years, after his death. With him ‘The worp was made flesh and dwelt among us.”’ And the proof of its truth lies in the abundant life it everywhere carries with it. Jesus wrote in far more indelible letters. He wrote in language in which the knowledge of the succeeding ages, as it grew in extent and showed the science of the past to have been foolish- ness, has as yet found no flaw. He [65] % A MAN’S FAITH wrote in letters which the wayfaring man, though a fool, could understand; yes, can understand today, if only he will. He wrote in letters “which those who run may read,” and that is a very necessary calligraphy to the twentieth century. For every one is so much on the run, he has less and less time to devote to bell, book, and candle. He wants sky signs, and what is more, I believe these are there for him on every hand if he will only take time to look at them. Mahatma Gandhi in India, the Sadhu Sundar Singh, the Christian General in China, the ac- knowledgment of the historic Jesus by some of the leading Jews in America, are all witnesses to the living Spirit of the Christ among us. A year spent in “ visiting modern mission stations right around the world has made me wonder how the prejudice against ‘“‘Missions”’ can justify the ignorance which there is of the marvels that are being done in Christ’s name, —in Egypt, in Pales- [ 66 ] A MAN’S FAITH tine, in Kashmir, in a hundred different ways, by the preacher, by the teacher, by the healer, by the social worker, — all around the world our intellects were absolutely convinced of how alive and active the Master is in his world today! Young men fresh from victories of faith in China, India, Japan, and the uttermost parts of the earth always get a hearing as they tell in plain English what they have seen. Many men wonder why there is such an increas- ing number of student volunteers. It is because these men know they will ““see something for their money.” Men get fired with enthusiasm and will give themselves and their all as readily to- day as by the Galilean lake for the real article, for that which does things, for that which “gets there.”” Men with capacity of Mackays will go to Uganda to live and die among savages, to engi- neer for Christ. Clowes will go to India to build canals; men of the per- [67] A MAN’S FAITH sonality of Livingstone will go to Africa to explore for Christ; men of the business capacity of Duncan will go to Metakatla to build cooperative enter- prises for redskins. Military magnates like Charles Gordon will live in the slums of Greenwich, and we may all know men of wealth and social position today away in the outermost places of the earth living their whole day of life out there for Christ, just as well as they would have done in the first cen- tury. Not a solitary one of that kind of preacher has ever come home whin- ing that no one will listen to him, and that his churches are empty. Write and preach in the language and letters in which Jesus told us the same message of good news; work in the ways and the spirit he worked in; walk in the footsteps he trod, and men may argue and talk and criticize higher or lower till doomsday, but the masses of man- kind will still flock to hear you, and you won’t merely tickle their ears, you will [ 68 ] A MAN’S FAITH renew their lives. You cannot help retaining faith in a fountain you see giving the water of life to men dying of thirst. Recently I saw a man stand up before a large audience on the Lab- rador Coast quite unexpectedly. He said simply: “I came to this harbor blind for years. My home was ruined, my children hungry, and I was broken and wishing to die.”” ‘Then pointing to a white-headed man, he said, ‘That man gave me sight. I paid him noth- ing. When I asked him why he did it, he said, ‘For Christ’s sake.’ ’’ Seven- teen years has this surgeon been a volunteer on our far-off coast. Then, if you are “‘losing faith in the Gadarene pig story,’ you won’t miss that one miracle so much if you have to abandon it. For, if it is not irrev- erent to say so, you will have a dozen solid facts you could swear to in a court of law from your own personal experi- ence, which will be ten times more help- ful to yourself and to other men today [ 69 | A MAN’S FAITH than your final decision as to the fate of those unfortunate animals. If you have the evidence of “‘that which you have seen and heard” to give, instead of being ruled out of court by the ma- jority of men because they appraise your evidence as unconvincing and in- admissible as mere book knowledge, you will be the most valuable witness for the Christ, and the most dangerous foe to the devil of doubt. You'll be on the same level as the imperturbable but undeniably blind man, whom all the priests and learned men could not faze because he entirely upset them all by sticking to the fact, ‘fone thing I know.” ‘One thing at any rate I do know, and that is, | was my- self blind, and now I see.” If you are anxious to help others to retain faith, get out and do something for Christ’s sake. Moreover, if you want your own faith to be anything but a weakling, —a “‘sensitive plant,’’— use it, keep it about [70] A MAN’S FAITH with you. Don’t be ashamed to show it and speak of it naturally as one would of one’s business or pleasure. ‘The hot- house of an artistic edifice, the ornate trappings of faith’s environment, may give it a spur when it is drooping, but it is a poor environment in which to keep it permanently. It will surely make a weed of it if you don’t get it out into the open again very soon. Fads and faddists will be the outcrop. The cold storage of the convent or cloistered cell, the high fence of eccen- tric garments, would be no help to me. These seem only like keeping your plant in a pot in the house, where plants that survive healthily for long are very rare indeed. It was the evidence of the great growth of the Kingdom which Jesus founded, and still possessed without display of physical force, that so im- pressed the great Napoleon. The fact is, to help faith all men want testi- monies; whether it be an applicant for [71] A MAN’S FAITH a position, an investment for money, or a family doctor, we ask for “‘recom- mendations.” Men want to see that faith in Christ means regulated social problems and political problems, and transformed human hearts and homes. There is a growing revolt against conventional religion. ‘Thought is free, and the expression of it ever getting freer, both in word and action. ‘Thank God for it. Men are beginning to see what they need, and so better to say what they want. Who needs preachers without a life-giving message? Such men are worse than useless as adver- tisements for faith nowadays. Here is a good advertisement. A certain poor working-girl lived near a struggling widow with four children in a large city. She had no money to give her, though faith prompted her to do so. So she went and taught her the way in which she earned her own living, that was by special washing of fine articles, and eventually shared her [72] A MAN’S FAITH rooms, and so she successfully bore the widow’s burden with her. Here is another. A man with four children was left on this coast with one barrel of flour to face the winter, when December set in. He could buy more only if he caught some fur, and would then have to go and haul it nearly twenty miles himself, weak as he was from poor diet. While I was sitting with him, one of his neighbors suddenly came to his door and told him that his family of seven had eaten their last crust two days before. The man, for Christ’s sake, gave the fellow a baking- pan heaped full of flour, out of his one barrel. Here is a man whose sole support for his family depended on a four-hundred- dollar net in which he had invested his all. Yet, for the sake of his neighbors he, a professed follower of Christ, would not go out to save it from drift-ice on a Sunday. ‘The one did for Christ; the other gave for Christ. ‘The last made [73 ] A MAN’S FAITH a sacrifice at great cost for Christ. Which makes you love and believe in Christ, these humble evidences of his power today, or those non-committal disquisitions, that correct ritual, that flowery language from the (Pee last Sunday morning? My faith having partly come through the foolishness of preaching, I do not think of preaching as folly. But my personal faith now is far more helped by seeing the fruit faith bears than by anything else. Personally, therefore, I preach (or try to) as an adjunct to my professional or other work, rather than as the principal remedy for unfaith, or the most effectual weapon for Christ. Our staff is a company of doctors, engi- neers, teachers, sailors. I have lis- tened to an appeal for faith in Christ made by the cook on my steamer, which was more eloquent than many I have heard from lawn sleeves! It was impossible to sleep through that discourse, or tobe indifferent to it. It [ 74] A MAN’S FAITH was simply a series of facts, which, as I knew the speaker, I knew were true, and they went right home to their mark. It is true that much excellent, unself- ish work is being done without any definite recognition of faith in God, or perhaps, of the deity of Jesus Christ as its base. Most helpful as have many such efforts been to me, Hull House in Chicago, or Dr. Edward Everett Hale’s work in Boston are far from making me feel “‘there is, therefore, no room for Jesus Christ today.” I err, if err I do, on the other side. A while agoon a journey I lodged with a revival preach- er, and we fell to talking of a certain fisherman who had been plucky enough to add the work of a cooperative store- keeper to his daily work, that he might thereby help to fight the hateful truck system of trade, which was holding his fellows in slavery. ‘The evangelist, a right good man to my knowledge, re- gretted the storekeeper was not a [75] A MAN’S FAITH Christian. I quoted, ‘‘Christ says, ‘He that is not against us is for us.’ ” “No,” he replied, “Christ doesn’t say that; he says, ‘He that is not with us is against us.’”’? I was glad when we looked up chapter and verse that he expressed no sorrow that Christ had made such a generous criterion. I feel the spirit of Christ often dwells where no label is attached. Labels are untrustworthy things anyhow. It’s safer to judge by the fruits which the tree bears. Whatever factor it is that makes men do good or unselfish work, let us by all means welcome and praise it. But | can only say still that I have found that faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God makes men do that which nothing else will, and bear and suffer with equanimity that which nothing else would. I have seen walk into the anzsthetising room and lie down on the table with a bright smile on her face, a delicate girl, who was to undergo a [ 76] A MAN’S FAITH severe operation that meant life or death to her. The dread of the knife is magnified by the unfamiliarity of the people on the coast with modern surgi- cal statistics. At Assuit in Egypt, the wealthy young son of the mayor, a Mohammedan of the strictest type, walking one fine day across the great granite dam over the Nile, saw a beg- gar baby girl fall off into the seething cataract thirty feet below. ‘Taking off his fez and coat, he climbed to the para- pet and leaped over to try to save the child. He laid down his life. He didn’t lose it. Afterwards, in his note- book, I saw in his handwriting, “Jesus said, ‘A man must lay down his life for others.’ ”’ Faith in Christ is precious for other purposes than as a motive power to service. More than once I have had to go to the door of some tiny cottage; within was a happy wife, a loving mother, and prattling babes; the hum- ble surroundings of the home have [77] A MAN’S FAITH eaten into my soul, as they cried out of the hard toil and the loving care of him on whom even the bare necessities of life depended. For I was there to carry the news that the strong hand that toiled would never again bring help and comfort, that the brave heart which meant all the world to these helpless ones was lying silent in death. At that moment, if ever, I have known what faith in Jesus Christ meant, both to me and to others, a knowledge I can personally only lose when for me, also, all the apparent paradoxes of our hu- man. life shall be solved, or silenced, by our last friend or grim enemy. I have said nothing about the ration- ality of using the will-power to maintain our faith, the determination to keep it. It seems to me just as rational as a determination to keep anything else at any cost. Faith is a living thing, and will die if its environment is permitted to become incompatible. ‘This is in our control, and that control must be [78] A MAN’S FAITH exercised. Faith’s immediate environ- ment is body, soul, and spirit; and their health means its health, and their health depends on their environment. Too much fasting or feasting will under- mine the health of each of these. We can overfeed the body. An Alexander can die of surfeit. We can overtax the mind; much learning can make men mad. We can lay burdens on men’s spirits which they are unable to bear; or, again, we can wrongly feed or under- feed the body; we can let the mind atrophy, or choke it with rubbish; we can let the spirit starve for want of its “daily bread.” The health of the body involves avoiding doubtful indulgences, and a man is not to be condemned if he avoids alcohol, coffee, tobacco, or rich foods or meat under certain circum- stances. It is surely a sign of wisdom to exercise the will in selecting food for the mind. Endless trashy literature, unnecessary conventional correspond- [79] A MAN’S FAITH ence, special and extra-special editions of useless information, are not condu- cive to mental salubrity. Too many conventions, multiplication of “‘ser- vices,’ just as much as narrow puritan- ism or dry-as-dust ecclesiasticism, are a danger to the soul. Mr. Moody said, with his sound common sense, “‘Once to take in on Sundays is enough for the Christian man. He would be a strong- er man if he used the rest of his time giving out.” Again, the wisdom of Christ stands out before the ages. He kept the Sab- bath, the feasts; he observed the Jew- ish ordinances. But he did not con- demn the Samaritans or his disciples for eating corn on the Sabbath, and he left no hard-and-fast rules for observing the first day of the week. Yet our ab- stinence in little things may be more far-reaching as a help in retaining faith than we might suppose, and a man is not necessarily a hypocrite because he won’t work on a Sunday, won’t play [80] A MAN’S FAITH cards for money, or is a total abstainer. If the white men in the South have voted “‘prohibition”’ solely for the sake of their black population, who is to throw stones at them? Six years ago all the States voted prohibition. 'The rich and the rumsellers are trying to defeat the law made against themselves. Law is essential but the only laws that can make a new world are made in faith for himself by each individual. While the body is growing it needs more care in its treatment. More con- scious educational efforts are conceded to the mind while it is young and ex- panding. But the spirit never reaches maturity this side the grave; it must grow or die. So surely we must exer- cise effort on its behalf with sedulous care to life’s very end, when the ‘“‘gates of pearl” are closed behind us. Thus control and exercise of the whole man are essential for the maintenance of a faith that has life. We cannot drift to heaven like dead fish down a stream. [81] A MAN’S FAITH Salvation must be worked out. Who, then, is to exercise this supreme con- trol? Is it my will only, or God’s will? “Not my will, but Thine,’ was the Mas- ter’s goal of prayer. ‘““Teach me to do Thy will” must be the petition and de- sire in the heart of the man who wishes to retain faith. The practical issues of the above are obvious. The choice of food should be by knowledge rather than by natural appetite. How many babes on this coast perish from the ignorance of mothers, how much suffering and loss of power and how much expense are in- curred in this very harbor from sheer ignorance and want of effort to know more of dietetics! How much time men lose in reading books that would not receive the endorsement of one wise man as useful, or even as fit food for the mind! Fiction enough to stimulate our imagination and keep us human is surely sufficient. To me no book has heen as helpful [ 82 ] A MAN’S FAITH as the Bible. I do not believe in mak- ing people promise to read so much each day, as if it were a nasty medicine, or in binding one’s self to do that. Common sense tells us that if it is to ‘be good fertilizer for a seedling faith, we must use it so as to understand it. To me the Twentieth Century New Testament has been a great help be- cause it is in newspaper language, and that is specially designed to convey ideas easily. The English of the Au- thorized Version may be as improving as the Latin of the Vulgate or the Greek of the Septuagint. But I go to my Bible for practical information as much as I do to the medical journals. If my skipper confined his reading of the Coast Pilot to versions printed in King James English, I should soon look out for someone else to keep me off the rocks and bring me to the haven where I would be. We don’t blame men in Wall Street for reading the financial news in modern American, and the [ 83 ] A MAN’S FAITH Christ needs men in his service to be more up-to-date and alive and efficient even than stock-brokers. His men should be ahead of their day, as he was of his. The only commentary for ref- erence I ever cared for was Matthew Henry’s. I heard Mr. Spurgeon say, “Tf a man hasn’t got it, he should sell his ‘coat ‘and set 1tY?)\ Itsas practreat as Mrs. Beaton’s cookery books. But I am no authority on books for helping faith. I scrawl all over my copies of the Bible. It makes them feel more like old friends. They are cheap enough, and when one gets illegi- ble, you can invest in another. It isa great help to me to look back and see how my own faith has grown since last I annotated the same passage. Much mental economy can be ef- fected and much strain avoided also by regulation of the use of all the modern luxuries of civilization — especially the telephone. I often wonder if having one’s number in the book doesn’t really [ 84] A MAN’S FAITH make one lose more than one gains. Cases of too much Christian work for the best health of the spirit have been reported. But mortality from that cause has not been a serious item in my small experience. I think I have seen more danger from a condition corre- sponding to “‘nervous prostration,” and induced by similar causes — too little work, not enough fresh air and exercise, too much introspection, and on this coast too much of that excellent text- book, The Family Doctor. ‘This always reminds me of a friend who purchased a black bear for a pet. He put it to hibernate in a barrel when winter came on, and then he buried it. But he kept wanting to see if it was still there. So he dug it up after a few weeks only, and thereby woke it up and nearly killed it altogether. Faith must be used to keep its vital- ity. No faith can survive long with the sleeping sickness. It soon becomes flabby and useless. [85] A MAN’S FAITH Again, it will do the man who willing- ly indulges in pursuits and practices that he believes to be wrong no harm to find out that he has no real faith. The same may be said of the man who does not make every possible reparation for transgressions. But there is no ex- cuse or authority for such a man’s allowing the devil of shame or the fear of man’s ridicule to prevent him from again coming to the Christ for the cleansing that must precede renewal of faith. The fatal apathy into which so many such victims fall is probably the most fatal malady that befalls hu- manity. So I must end where I began. I am determined, God helping me, that no man shall rob me of my faith. I won’t hide it away. I’ll keep it right around with me, if I can. I will see it gets exercise. I will feed it all I can, so that it shall not starve. J won’t force it if I can avoid it, and make it weedy and weakling. It shall say no things [ 86] A MAN’S FAITH it does not believe. When in real dan- ger, if I can, I will go to someone stronger than I to help to keep it safe. But when that necessity arises to whom shall I look for help? Surely, directly to Him who I believe gave it to me. For I know ‘‘Whom I have trusted, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep it against that day.” [87] Ti 1 1012 01197 > ae a Mer, neta er 4 «