Faith, qualified by inaction, is doomed to decadence and ultimate inanition; not, perhaps, a certain kind of abstract impersonal faith, which might be perhaps, after all, with more congruity termed spiritual patriotism, but the living sacramentally-nourished faith does, when only stubble and chaff are fed to the soul; when the imagination and lips only are brought into action,— and hurried at that—whilst the mind and heart lie in the stillness of spiritual slumber, which is incipient eternal death. We ought to personalize our faith, making it actual rather than habitual, making it a matter of earnest personal study and conviction, rather than the impersonal and habitual idea of lineage.
If, I repeat, one should plead a lack of poetic gift or the talent to see cities in forests, wherein one's ungifted eye perceives only a mass of timber but no cities or palaces, we do not reproach him nor quarrel with him. We declare in calm submissiveness to the decree of heaven that the poet, after all, is born and not made. "Unless man be born again, of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." This pronouncement removes all doubt that you and I are christian poets. Here we have the art, the temperament, that only awaits the science and the spirit to be productive. We are born so, in baptism. The wonders and glories of revelation, that recast and uplift the soul are spread around us on every side, wonders surpassing the human understanding, and, God has infused into us the
gift of divine poetr}', of spiritual imagination and ethereal temperament, the transcendental faculty of understanding, whereby, we are free with an eye for heavenly color to discern the noblest,hyperfleshly ideals and enrich our spirit-life with the contemplation of the most bewitching panorama, made up of unworldly beauties, fascinating soul-shapes, pictures inspired, and of—to the mere poet of nature unimaginable—glory and bliss.
In our faith, we have a mine more precious than that of gold and silver, but we must work it, burrow, else we must find ourselves standing bankrupt before heaven. We have to sink a shaft. We, all, without any exception, have to dig and percolate, if, eventually, our lives are to be rich in soul-treasure. The superior charm of the divine poetry of faith lies in its contemplation, not of dreams and romances nor of mere shadows dancing before one's brooding fancies, but, of the substantial, solid and ever-enduring realities, that improve the mind with knowledge, energize the will with a strength and iron determination and, at the same time, exhilarate the whole being with a sense of such pleasureableness as forereminds us of everlasting bliss and, out of its memories, aid and abet us against the seducer's art in dangerous hours. "He that is hungry dreameth and eateth, but when he is awake his soul is empty: and as he that is thirsty dreameth and drinketh, and after he is awake is yet faint with thirst, and his soul is empty." (Is. xxix, 8.) To be sure, all are not required to have the same degree of spiritual knowledge. Our state in life, our talents, our relative circumstances, should regulate this matter; simply, each one will make the soul and salvation a matter of daily, strenuous study, the most serious, yes, the one, affair of life. This will suggest, of course, the supreme necessity of each one's using the means adequate to meet with success in the first business of life. How can a man practise his faith, unless he knows it or is in a position to employ the resources ordained for its accomplishment: "And I myself also, my brethren, am assured of you, that you also are full of love, replenished with all knowledge." (Romans, xv, 14.) Repose your love and religion on a basis of ignorance, a lack of solid enlightenment, and lo, "These men blaspheme whatsoever things they know not: and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted." (Jude x.) The resultant fact of our ignorance speaks with eloquence to the effect that the eternal in us is swept by the board to make room in our lives for the corruptible body and its petty and phosphorescent interests. The body before the mind, the man before the Christian. This is the order or, rather, disorder, that follows as a sequel to our mundane enthusiasm, breeding such materialistic adages as "Breakfast before prayer" and such reckless folly as "Selling bread to purchase hyacinths."
