er at the back of nature there is a
Will and an Intelligence that are working and trustworthy. However, that
is a subject that I do not need to touch upon here. Faith is trust,
trust in a Person, trust that, like the fabled goddess rising, radiant
and aspiring to the heavens, out of the roll of the tempestuous ocean,
springs from the depths of absolute self-distrust and diffidence. There
is a spurious kind of faith which has no good in it, just because it
did not begin with going down into the depths of one's own heart, and
finding out how rotten and hopeless everything was there. My friend, no
man has a vigorous Christian faith who has not been very near utter
despair. 'Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee.' The zenith, which
is the highest point in the sky above us, is always just as far aloft as
the nadir, which is the lowest point in the sky at the Antipodes, is
beneath us. Your faith is measured by your self-despair.

Further, why is it that I must have faith in order to get God's power at
work in me? Many people seem to think that faith is appointed by God as
the condition of salvation out of mere arbitrary selection and caprice.
Not at all. If God could save you without your faith, He would do it. He
does not, because He cannot. Why must I have faith in order that God's
power may keep me? Why must you open your window in order to let the
fresh air in? Why must you pull up the blind in order to let the light
in? Why must you take your medicine or your food if you want to be cured
or nourished? Why must you pull the trigger if your revolver is to go
off? Unless I trust God, distrusting myself, and the spark of faith is
struck out of the rock of my heart by the sharp steel in the midst of
the darkness of despair, God cannot pour out upon me His power. There is
nothing arbitrary about it. It is inseparable from the very nature of
the case. If you do not want Him, you cannot have Him. If you do not
know that you need Him, you cannot have Him. If you do not trust that He
will come to you and help you, you will not have Him.

So then, brother, your faith, my faith, anybody's faith is nothing of
itself. It is only the valve that opens and lets the steam rush in. It
is only the tap you turn to let Thirlmere come into your basins. It is
not you that saves yourself. It is not your faith that keeps you, any
more than it is the outstretched hand with which a man, ready to
stumble, grasps the hand of a stalwart, steadfast