ense with faith and compel us to accept the inference
drawn. He intentionally describes faith as occupying in reference to
spiritual realities the place of demonstration. Faith in the unseen is
itself a proof that the unseen world exists. It is so in two ways.

_First_, we trust our own moral instincts. Malebranche observes that our
passions justify themselves. How much more is this true of intellect and
conscience! In like manner, some men have firm confidence in a world of
spiritual realities, which eye has not seen. This confidence is itself a
proof to them. How do I know that I know? It is a philosopher's enigma.
For us it may be sufficient to say that to know and to know that we know
are one and the same act. How do we justify our faith in the unseen? The
answer is similar. It is the same thing to trust and to trust our trust.
Scepticism wins a cheap victory when it arraigns faith as a culprit
caught in the very act of stealing the forbidden fruit of paradise. But
when, like a guilty thing, faith blushes for its want of logic, its
only refuge is to look in the face of the unseen Father. He who has most
faith in his own spiritual instincts will have the strongest faith in
God. To trust God is to trust ourselves. To doubt ourselves is to doubt
God. We must add that there is a sense in which trust in God means
distrust of self.

_Second_, faith fastens directly on God Himself. We believe in God
because we impose implicit confidence in our own moral nature. With
equal truth we may also say that we believe all else because we believe
in God. Faith in God Himself immediately and personally is the proof
that the promises are true, that our life on earth is linked to a life
above, that patient well-doing will have its reward, that no good deed
can be in vain, and ten thousand other thoughts and hopes that sustain
the drooping spirit in hours of conflict. It may well happen that some
of these truths are legitimate inferences from premises, or it may be
that a calculation of probabilities is in favour of their truth. But
faith trusts itself upon them because they are worthy of God. Sometimes
the silence of God is enough, if an aspiration of the soul is felt to be
such that it became Him to implant it and will be glorious in Him to
reward the heaven-sent desire.

An instance of faith as a proof of the unseen is given by our author in
the third verse. We may paraphrase it thus: "By faith we know that the
ages have been const