Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/769

Rh we gain rest in belief often by putting reason out of doors. Maudsley says: "To say that the great majority of men reason in the true sense of the word, is the greatest nonsense in the world; they get their beliefs as they do their instincts and their habits, as a part of their inherited constitution, of their education, and the routine of their lives."

That this is true is shown by popular superstitions. Almost every hamlet in Europe has its own ghost story, believed ardently by the local inhabitants, and scoffed at by those of the next village.

We have insisted that, because belief is a function of the active nature, whatever conduces to greater physical or mental activity will conduce to believing. We are prepared to believe, then, that in joy we believe more than in grief. A low state of mind—sorrow, remorse, melancholy—is a field where doubts grow rank, but the cheerful, successful, hopeful mind finds belief easy. It is failure that makes us cautious; success emboldens us and like rumor, multiplies as it goes, loosing our fancy and making credible what was but just now impossible.

Again, inaction kills belief, while action of any sort nourishes it. Phillips Brooks was fond of saying, "Do something with your religion, and your religion will not die." So with all our beliefs. Though it is often bred in our mind by pondering things over, calling up images until they become fixtures, belief is oftener born and nourished in earnest action. Lincoln's life gives a notable example. In his pioneer days he was a skeptic. Both Lamon and Henderson say that up to the time Lincoln went to Washington as President he was not a professing believer in any Christian faith. But during the days of the war, when Lincoln bore tremendous burdens of action and anxiety, embodying and enforcing the will of the nation, he became thoroughly religious. It is told that in 1864, when the tension was at its highest, and Lincoln's life was like the action of the heart of the whole people, in that time the President was found more than once on his knees at prayer. Lincoln's faith did not come to him by reasoning, but in the stress and strain of life. He laid hold upon certain great truths with the grip of a hungering and thirsting nature. It is in this way, I believe, that the strongest faith is attained. With his whole nature stretched to its highest tension, no man can avoid conviction. So long as he merely rests, remains inactive, passive, he may get along without a faith; but when his soul is awakened and his feeling is aroused, believe he must.

We have seen that in both sets of conditions for belief, physiological and psychical, the same thing holds; because belief is a function of our active nature, whatever stimulates and rouses to action promotes belief.