between hope and the things hoped for. It saves us from
building castles in the air or living in a fool's paradise. The phantoms
of worldliness and the phantoms of religion (for they too exist) will
not deceive us. In the course of his discussion in the Epistle the
author has used three different words to set forth various sides of the
same feeling of confidence. One refers to the freedom and boldness with
which the confidence felt manifests its presence in words and
action.[252] Another signifies the fulness of conviction with which the
mind when confident is saturated.[253] The third word, which we have in
the present passage, describes confidence as a reality, resting on an
unshaken foundation, and contrasted with illusions.[254] He has urged
Christians to boldness of action and fulness of conviction. Now he adds
that faith is that boldness and that wealth of certitude in so far as
they rest upon reality and truth.

We can now in some measure estimate the value of the Apostle's
description of faith as an assurance concerning things hoped for, and
apply it to give force to the exhortations of the Epistle. The evil
heart of unbelief is the moral corruption of the man whose soul is
steeped in sensual imaginations and never realises the things of the
Spirit. They who came out of Egypt by Moses could not enter into rest
because they did not descry, beyond the earthly Canaan, the rest of the
spirit in God. Others inherit the promises, because on earth they lifted
their hearts to the heavenly country. In short, the Apostle now tells
his readers that the true source of Christian constancy and boldness is
the realisation of the unseen world.

But faith is this assurance concerning things hoped for because it is a
proof[255] of their existence, and of the existence of the unseen
generally. The latter part of the verse is the broad foundation on which
faith rests in all the rich variety of its meanings and practical
applications. Here St. Paul, St. James, and the writer of the Epistle to
the Hebrews meet in the unity of their conception. Whether men trust
unto salvation, or develop their inner spiritual life, or enter into
communion with God and lift the weapon of unflinching boldness in the
Christian warfare, trust, character, confidence, all three derive their
being and vitality from faith, as it demonstrates the existence of the
unseen.

The Apostle's language is a seeming contradiction. Proof is usually
supposed to disp