Speaker 1: Let us have faith, faith necessary in every human undertaking.
You have faith in man, but are afraid to trust God.
The universe if governed by law. The law is in
operation everywhere. Don't be afraid. You are a part of
the plan. Fall in with the law, Have faith, Have faith.
When you take a journey by rail, you step into
the car, settle yourself, take out a book and read,
and give little or no thought to the engine or
engineer in charge of the train. You go rushing across
the country at the rate of fifty miles an hour,
with no thought of possible disaster or accident, and for
the time forgetting that there is such a person in
existence as the engineer. You have absolute faith in the
careful management of the road and in the intelligence of
the man who has been placed in the engine. The
lives of yourself and hundreds of fellow passengers are practically
in the hands of one man. And that man is
a stranger to you. You have never seen him, You
know nothing of his qualifications. You only know that the
management has picked him out to safely conduct you across
the country. You take a steamship to Europe and place
yourselves in the hands of a few men who are
total strangers to you. You stake your life on their skill, judgment,
and intelligence. You feel that they would not be where
they are unless the management of the line consider them competent.
It is all a matter of trust of confidence. The
same thing is true when you take your seat on
a trolley car, or on the elevated railroad, or even
in a stage coach or a private carriage. In each case,
you place yourself in the charge of another person in
whom you have a certain amount of confidence, although he
may be comparatively or wholly unknown to you. You place
your wealth in a bank, having confidence in its management.
You have business dealings with men whom you scarcely know,
trusting to their honesty of purpose. In every transaction in life,
you are compelled to have confidence in people. Your lawyer,
your physician, your grocer, your clerks are all taken on faith.
One cannot get away from it. If confidence were destroyed,
the wills of modern life would stop in a minute.
The so called hard headed practical man mays near at faith,
but it underlies a pre manifestations of the life of
his civilization. Man has faith and confidence in man, but
is afraid to trust God. He looks about him and
sees millions of worlds, each in its appointed place, each
revolving in its own orbit. He has faith that at
a certain time, each world will be in a certain position,
which position may be calculated centuries in advance. But he
lacks faith in the power that created these worlds and
keeps them in their places. He has faith in certain laws,
but he doubts the existence of the law maker. He
sees the wondrous manifestation of life in great and small.
He takes advancevantage of the telescope and the microscope, and
explores new regions, and finds the law in operation everywhere.
But he doubts the existence of the great law which
governs his life, his incomings and his outgoings, his great
deeds and his petty acts. He fails to realize the
truth of the saying that the hairs on his head
are numbered, and that not a sparrow may fall unnoticed.
He seems to think that if there is a God,
he must have made the world and then ran away
and left it to take care of itself. He fails
to see that the law must govern man's life as
it governs the unfolding of the leaf the development of
the lily. He fails to see that law is in
full operation within him as well as without him. He
fails to see that as he opposes the operation of law,
pain comes by reason of the friction. He fails to
see that the only true philosophy is that which teaches
one to fall in with the operations of law and
to let it work in him and through him. Do
you think for a moment that God does not know
what he is about? Do you doubt the supreme intelligence,
which knows all things and is conscious of all things.
Do you doubt the supreme power, which manifests itself in
all forms of power. Do you doubt the universal presence
which is in all places at all times. Do you
suppose that the manifestation is everything and the manifestore nothing,
poor man, Either the universe is without law, without meaning,
without reason, or it is the manifestation of supreme and
an infinite reason. Either it is the work of a
demon who sits somewhere and grins and glouts over our misfortunes,
our trials, our troubles, our pain, our follies. Or it
is the work of an all knowing, all powerful, all
present intelligence, power, presence which has taken into consideration everything
within the universe, down to the tinest thing, down to
the merest detail. And if this last be true, then
everything that happens must be in accordance with law. Everything
that happens to us must be the very best thing
that could happen to us at that particular time and
that particular place. Things are not run by blind chains.
There is law under everything. Everything has some connection with
every other thing. Every person has a relationship with every
other person. All is one. The manifestations are varied, but
there is but one reality. There is a great plan
underlying all life, and life itself is in accordance with
that plan. Nothing ever happens. Every occurrence has a bearing
on every other occurrence. Chance has no part in the plan.
Everything is in accord with well ordered laws. There is
always an end in view In every thought, word, or act.
We are constantly being used for the benefit of the whole.
There is no escape, and when we get to know,
we cease to wish to escape. He who understands not
law is constantly struggling, striving, fighting and contending against it,
and producing friction. He feels pain. He who understands something
of law, cease to content against it. He lets it
work through him, and is carried along with a mighty force,
doing each day the best he knows how, expressing himself
in the best possible manner, sailing to the right and
to the left, with the wind and against the wind,
but still being borne on by the mighty current, and
resisting it not. He enjoys every mile of the journey,
seeing new sights and hearing new sounds. Moving on. Ever,
he who understands not rebels at being swept along. He
wishes to stay where he is. But there is no
such thing as staying. Life is motion, life is growth.
If you prefer to pull against the tide, to row
up a stream by all means, do so. After a
while you will grow tired and weary, and will rest
on your oars. Then you will find that you are
moving on just the same to where the unknown seas.
And you will find that it is much easier work
rowing or sailing with the current, or from one side
of the river to another, than to attempt to stay
in the same place or to pull up the stream.
All this fretting, all this worrying, all this contention and strife,
comes from a lack of faith. We may assert feverently
that we know that all is good and that all
is best for us, et cetera, et cetera, But have
we enough faith to manifest it in our lives? See
how we endeavor to tie onto things, people, and environments.
How we resist the steady pressure that is tearing us loose,
often with pain, from the places to which we have
wished to stay fastened. Like a parnicle, The life horse
is back of us, urging us along, pushing us along,
and move we must. The process of growth, development and
unfoldment is going on steadily. What's the use of attempting
to resist it. You are no more than a water
bug on the surface of the river. You may dart
here and there, and apparently are running things to suit
yourself without reference to the current, But all the time
you are moving along with it. The water bug plan
is all right, just so long as we do not
attempt to stop the current or to swim right against it.
When we try this, we find out very quickly that
the current has something to say about it, And before
for long we get so tired that we are willing
to fall in with the law behind the current, and
yet even the opposition is good, for it teaches us
that the current is there. We gain by experience. The
new thought does not teach people to stem the current
or to swim upstream, although some teachers and some students
seem to be of that opinion. On the contrary, the
real new thought teaches us of the existence of the
stream and that it is moving steadily toward the sea
of good. It teaches us how to fall in with
it and be born further along in instead of attempting
to hold back and become Parnicles, or to try to
push back up the stream. It also teaches us to
live in the now, to enjoy the darting backward and
forward over the face of the waters. It also of
the direction in which the current is moving, that we
may move along that way without wasting our energies in
trying to go the other. It teaches us cooperation with
law and instead of opposition to it. Why do we
not have faith? Why do we not see the great
plan behind it all? Why do we not recognize law
as we have seen? We place our confidence in the
engineer of the train, the pilot, the captain, the coach driver,
and the other guiding hands, and yet we hesitate to
trust ourselves in the hands of the infinite. Of course,
it makes no difference to the infinite whether or not
we repose trust in it. It moves along just the same,
guiding and directing, steering and regulating speed. It minds not
our doubts and obstructions, any more than does the great
driving wheal mind the fly who is pershed upon it,
and who does not like the movement and attempts to
stop it by spreading out its wings and buzzing. The
great will of the universe is moving around steadily and mightily.
Let us go with it. And while we are going,
let us spare ourselves the trouble and fully of the
buzzing wings spreading business. Let us part with fear and worry.
Let us cease our imagining that we can run the
universe better than the engineer who has his hand on
the throttle. Let us cease imagining that God needs advice
on the subject. Let us stop this fully of saying,
poor God with no one to help him run things.
Let us trust the engineer. Let us have faith. Let
us have faith