Transcriber's Note:
Daily quotations from the Bible are bolded. Daily quotations frompublished prayers are italicised.
Inconsistencies in spelling (e.g. "Savior" and "Saviour") and inhyphenation have been retained.
Minor changes have been made to the format of biblical references;and corrections made to apparent punctuation errors elsewhere in thetext.
The Meaning of Faith
Author of "The Manhood of the Master,""The Meaning of Prayer,"
"The Challenge of the PresentCrisis," Etc.
ASSOCIATION PRESS
New York: 347 Madison Avenue
1922
Copyright, 1917, by
The InternationalCommittee of
Young Men's Christian Associations
Printed in the United States of America
The Bible Text used in this volume is taken from theAmerican Standard Edition of the Revised Bible, copyright 1901, byThomas Nelson & Sons, and is used by permission.
MY MOTHER
IN MEMORIAM
PREFACE
A book on faith has been for years my hope and intention. And now itcomes to final form during the most terrific war men ever waged, whenfaith is sorely tried and deeply needed. Direct discussion of the warhas been purposely avoided; the issues here presented are not confinedto those which the war suggests; but many streams of thought withinthe book flow in channels that the war has worn. Since the conflicthad to come, I am glad for this book's sake that it was not writtenuntil it had Europe's holocaust for a background.
Against one misunderstanding the reader should be guarded. If anyoneapproaches these studies, expecting to find detailed and special viewsof Christian doctrine, he will be disappointed. The perplexities ofmind and life and the affirmations of religious faith, with whichthese studies deal, lie far beneath sectarian doctrinal controversy. Ihave tried to make clear a foundation on which faith might build itsthoughts of Christian truth. And while I have spoken freely of God andChrist and the Spirit, of the Cross and life eternal, I have notintended or endeavored a complete theology. I have had in mind thatelemental matter of which Carlyle was thinking when he wrote: "Thething a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certainconcerning his vital relations to the mysterious Universe, and hisduty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thingfor him, and creatively determines all the rest. That is hisreligion."
As in "The Meaning of Prayer," the Scripture has been used for thebasis and interpretation of the daily thought. The Bible is oursupreme record of man's experience with faith; it recounts in terms oflife faith's sources and results, its successes and failures, itsservants and its foes. And because faith is not a tour de forceof intellect alone, but is an act of life, prayers have been used forthe expression of aroused desire and resolution.
My indebtedness to many helpers is very great. But to my friend