after all, the doers of the great deeds.
Seeing the things that are not seen is the secret of doing the things
that remain to be seen.

No worthier word was ever said of the divine Man than that which spoke
of Him as the leader and completer of faith. So great a work was
possible only with sublime confidence in the glorious possibilities of
mankind, only with unshakable assurance that all that was good and true
in the universe was working with Him for the good of all. With Him
faith was an eye that saw man's hidden good, a hand that grasped the
infinite might moving for the best.

FEAR AND FAITH

To many faith simply means denying the reason and relying on emotion.
They have what is called saving faith and are able to feel that the
Almighty forgives their wrong-doings, ceasing to be angry with them;
their faith being perfect when it takes away fear of punishment. To
these faith is that which they pay in the form of credence to whatever
is ecclesiastically asserted in exchange for the complaisance of diety
[Transcriber's note: deity?].

Those who deny all religion assert that it is founded on fear. There
is enough in that assertion to give it the colour of truth. Yet fear
of the unseen is but the survival of savagery. Faith founded on fear
becomes servile, debasing, superstitious. If religion has no higher
motive than that of fear, the trembling and dread before some great
omnipotent unknown, it can give the world neither help nor uplift.

What is there in God to fear? Is the Lord of life also the foe of our
lives? Is the author of a world so fair and lovely, inviting us to joy
and inspiring with feelings of pleasure, the foe of happiness? Has He
made the world a paradise and planted in man's breast the seeds of
kindness, gentleness and sweet thoughts only to glower over His world
in hatred and to damn it with dread of Himself?

All things that can be known argue the goodness of the unknown. As
soon as a man learns to live with nature he loses his fear of forest,
beast, and sea. Familiarity breeds confidence, affection and
reverence. Only the remote and unfamiliar fill us with dread. The
city bred tremble in the woods at night, where the native feels himself
amongst well loved friends.

In the same manner the fear of the divine, born of unfamiliarity,
instead of being an evidence of reverence or of religion, becomes the
mark of ignorance and cowardice. Rectitude of conduct, resulting
wholly f