Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 224, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1915 — THE SOUL'S ANCHOR [ARTICLE]

THE SOUL'S ANCHOR

Faith Is Optimism, the Highest Form of Optimism, the Faith That Saves. "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul sure and steadfast which entereth into that within the veil.” It recently was my privilege to stand beside an old Greek anchor which had lately been unearthed. We never look upon a relic of this kind which has been buried for 20 centuries or more without the feeling of reverence and awe. We think of the story that it might tell of that far-away age. We think of the hands that once grasped it, now long moldered into dust. We think of the names long since forgotten. We look back through the vista of the centuries which have intervened during which men have lived lives just like ours with the same sorrows, the same joys.

We wonder what story this relic has to tell. And it does have its story, for in spite of rust and corrosion I saw in large Greek uncials the words Zeus hypsistos, which we must translate, “God is the highest.” These words speak volumes. Think you not that the Greek sailor in his little craft, rude, primitive, a plaything of the waves, felt more secure because he knew that down there in the slime and ooze and mud of the ocean’s bottom his anchor bore the name of God Supreme? Perhaps the apoßtle had seen such an anchor and thin had led him to the beautiful figure of faith as an anchor of the soul.

What Is Faith? What is faith? It is not something that can be analyzed in the crucible of scientific investigation. It is intuitive knowledge. I watch a vine as it reaches out its tendrils and mounts higher upon the trellis. I see a fledgling as it tests its wings and soars into the sky. I see a man bowed down with sorrow raise his head above the clouds. The vine might have argued: “I have not hands to feel, I have not eyes to see,” but it turns toward the sunlight and it is not deceived. The little bird might say: “My wings are so tiny and the ether is so vast,” but something told it to spread its pinions and to fly far above our earth, and it was not deceived. So man when he looks upward to the stars will never, never be deceived. That is faith. Faith is not synonymous with dogmatic opinion. We sometimes speak of it as such when we say: “A man has not the right faith.” When a word with such purity of meaning has been incrusted with other significations it is well for us often to substitute another term for the Greek plstis, and such a term might be "trust.” There have been heresy trials about a man’s “faith,” but there has never been a heresy trial concerning one’s trust in God. In the British museum I saw the prayer book which Lady Jane Grey carried with her to the scaffold, and she had underlined these words on which her eye last rested: "In thee, O Lord,- have I trusted; let me never be confounded.” That is faith. Faith is optimism, the highest form of optimism, which is confidence in the ultimate triumph of truth and righteousness. Atheism in Its Worst Form. Pessimism is atheism, and it is the worst form of atheism. A man said to me the other day: “I am growing old and I fear that life is losing its charm.” What a sad commentary on his life! I thought of what was almost the last utterance of Senator Hoar: “Gentlemen, yesterday was better than the day before; today is better than yesterday; and tomorrow will be better than today.” That is faith.

Near my old home in Massachusetts is a Faith monument, to the fathers who landed on that forbidding shore. It stands with face serenely tranquil pointing to the skies. I have seen It when the .accumulated snows of winter have rested heavy on its head; I have seen it when the burning heat of summer beat down upon that barren hill. But in storm and sunshine, in winter’s cold and summer’s heat, it has stood as it stands at this hour, with finger pointing toward the stars. Faith points us toward the stars, but more than this. It points us to some poor soul who does not see as plainly as we that the stars are shining—perhaps he does not know there are any stars above him —and he demands that we take him by the hand and point him to the stars. This is Christ’s faith. This is the faith that saves.—Rev. H. C. Holman