Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/82

66 this present condition of things a great conflict between Good and Evil, and on the side of goodness, we see the forms of Righteousness, Justice and Truth, supported by Faith, Hope, and Charity; amid the smoke and roar of battles and revolutions, the destructions of nations, and the downfall of empires and of churches, we realise that these are abiding influences; that either in this world, or in some other, these things shall ultimately prevail, because these are the Angels that stand about the throne of the Ruler of the Universe. This state of mind is Faith, and it is to be nurtured by effort, partly in action, partly in thought. Bacon bids us nurture it by "cherishing the good hours of the mind." St. Paul says nearly the same thing in different words: "Whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Are you surprised at this? Does faith seem to you, on these terms, a possession of little worth—this quicksilver quality which varies with every variation of our spiritual atmosphere? Why surely everything that lives and grows is liable to flux. You do not disparage bodily health because it is dependent on supports and influences, and liable to changes; why then disparage spiritual health because it is similarly dependent? No doubt one would not be willingly a religious valetudinarian; a man's spiritual constitution ought not to be at the mercy of every slight and passing breeze of circumstance; but at present there is little danger of spiritual valetudinarianism. Physical "sanitation" is on every one's tongue; but no one thinks of the necessity of good spiritual air and of the evils of bad spiritual drainage. We do not recognize that there are laws of our spiritual as well as of our material nature. We wilfully narrow our lives to the sabbathless