w. The universe, as we see it, is not holy, nor
just, nor good, nor right. The music of creation is full of discords as
yet altogether unresolved. And if we look to phenomena alone, there is
no solution of the great riddle. But in spite of all imperfections and
contradictions, the voice within, without vouchsafing to give us any
solution of the perplexity, or any sanction but its own authoritative
command, imperatively requires us to believe that holiness is supreme
over unholiness, and justice over injustice, and goodness over evil, and
righteousness over unrighteousness. To obey this command and to believe
this truth is Faith.

This is the Faith which is perpetually presenting to the believer's mind
the vision of a world in which all the inequalities of this present
world shall be redressed, in which truth, justice, and love shall
visibly reign, in which temptations shall cease and sin shall cease
also; in which the upward strivings of noble souls shall find their end,
and holiness shall supersede penitence, and hearts shall be pure of all
defilement. This is the Faith which holds to the sure conviction that
all things shall one day come to judgment; and whether by sudden
catastrophe or by sure development, the physical system shall surrender
to the moral. This is the Faith which supplies perpetual strength to the
hope of immortality; for though it cannot be said that the immortality
of the individual soul is of necessity involved in a belief in the
supremacy of the Moral Law, yet there is a sense, never without witness
in the soul, that all would not be according to justice if a being to
whom the Moral Law has been revealed from within is nevertheless in no
degree to share in the final revelation of the superiority of that Moral
Law over what is without. We cannot say that it is a necessary part of
the supremacy of the Moral Law that every one of those who know it
should partake of its immortal nature. We cannot even say that it is a
necessary part of the ultimate redressing of all injustice and
resolution of all the discords of life that the hope of it should prove
true in the individual as it will certainly prove true in the universe.
For we are unable to weigh individual merit or demerit, and cannot
assert for certain that the balance of justice is not maintained even in
this present life. But nevertheless the hope that it must and will be so
is inextinguishable, and Faith in an Eternal Law of Morals is
inextricab