what He meant. My difficulty is practical, not
theoretical."

And by the same token you have shifted the question from "Why we
believe" to "Whence we believe;" you no longer seek the authority of
your faith, but its genesis. You believe what God says, because He says
it; you believe He did say it because--the Church says it. You are no
longer dealing with the truth itself, but with the messenger that
brings the truth to be believed. The message of the Church is: these
are God's words. As for what these words stand for, you are not to
trust her, but Him. The foundation of divine belief is one thing; the
motives of credibility are another.

We should not confound these two things, if we would have a clear
notion of what faith is, and discover the numerous counterfeits that
are being palmed off nowadays on a world that desires a convenient,
rather than a genuine article.

The received manner of belief is first to examine the truths proposed
as coming from God, measure them with the rule of individual reason, of
expediency, feeling, fancy, and thus to decide upon their merits. If
this proposition suits, it is accepted. If that other is found wanting,
it is forthwith rejected. And then it is in order to set out and prove
them to be or not to be the word of God, according to their suitability
or non-suitability.

One would naturally imagine, as reason and common sense certainly
suggest, that one's first duty would be to convince oneself that God
did communicate these truths; and if so, then to accept them without
further dally or comment. There is nothing to be done, once God
reveals, but to receive His revelation.

Outside the Church, this procedure is not always followed, because of
the rationalistic tendencies of latter-day Protestantism. It is a
glaring fact that many do not accept all that God says because He says,
but because it meets the requirements of their condition, feelings or
fancy. They lay down the principle that a truth, to be a truth, must be
understood by the human intelligence. This is paramount to asserting
that God cannot know more than men--blasphemy on the face of it. Thus
the divine rock-bed of faith is torn away, and a human basis
substituted. Faith itself is destroyed in the process.

It is, therefore, important, before examining whence comes our faith,
to remember why we believe, and not to forget it. This much gained, and
for all time, we can go farther; without it, all advance is impossibl