In the
gospel of Luke, also, Mrs. Butts read that she was to hope for
nothing again from her love, and that she was to be merciful, as her
Father in heaven is merciful. That is really the expression of the
IDEA in morality, and incalculable is the blessing that our great
religious teacher should have been bold enough to teach the idea, and
not any limitation of it. He always taught it, the inward born, the
heavenly law towards which everything strives. He always trusted it;
He did not deal in exceptions; He relied on it to the uttermost,
never despairing. This has always seemed to me to be the real
meaning of the word faith. It is permanent confidence in the idea, a
confidence never to be broken down by apparent failure, or by
examples by which ordinary people prove that qualification is
necessary. It was precisely because Jesus taught the idea, and
nothing below it, that He had such authority over a soul like my
friend's, and the effect produced by Him could not have been produced
by anybody nearer to ordinary humanity.
It must be admitted, too, that the Calvinism of those days had a
powerful influence in enabling men and women to endure, although I
object to giving the name of Calvin to a philosophy which is a
necessity in all ages.
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