Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/100

96 that we love them, what will we not do for the love of the true and the good, which is the love of God, which we would not do for a friend? Will not our hearts warm toward it? Will we not long for its presence within us? Will we not drop all selfish considerations for its sake? Will we not do all things, dare all things, surrender all things, to live for that, and that alone. While love for a friend will make us gentle, self-abnegating, watchful, diligent, on behalf of the person so loved; will not the love of the good and the true, for their own sakes and as exemplified by God on earth, make us all this and more, in all things, and toward all men? But whether we say the love of good, or the love of God, or the love of Christ, is it not all the same?

Now when this love begins to affect the soul, the greater light, of which our text speaks, is set up in the heaven, or spiritual region of the mind, to light our steps along all the pathways of life.

And what is faith? It is an internal belief in, or a certain conviction of the existence of, such a God, such a life, and such a love. A perfect faith has always understood, and, to a certain extent, realized that in which it believes. It cannot, therefore, be shaken. It believes in the goodness of God, in his mercy, his love and his providence, and, therefore, it sustains him who holds it amid the darkest episodes of life. Whether misfortunes come,