Your Faith

I came to your door and I met your faith. I had met faith at various times, but not your faith. Faith indeed had much to do with my experience with life. When I had come to the borderland where the country of knowledge ends, Faith had taken my hand and led me forward and shown me things that were strange and of wondrous interest. But your faith had an individuality of its own, and impressed me with directness and with power. Perhaps that was because I was weary. I do not know. I only know that I was glad to rest awhile and to bask in the sunshine of your faith.

The way had been toilsome and long. There had been the mountains to cross, and there had been avalanches and great storms. There had been the forest, where wild beasts roamed at large and where to lose one's way was easy enough. At times my strength seemed unequal to such a journey, but I had undertaken it, and my mind was a citadel where resolution had entrenched itself and where it was not likely to yield to conditions of difficulty and opposition from without.

The sun was declining in the west and a golden shaft of light fell upon your door as I stood there before you for the first time and met your faith. There was music as of many birds singing, and then your faith enveloped me as with a mantle of peace.

Conspicuous elements of your faith were kindness, tranquillity and strength. You received me as I was and took for granted that my intentions were the best. As I looked upon your faith, it translated life into beauty. It cheered me with the hope of higher and better things to come. It sat upon you with outstretched wings as a thing meant to soar. I still think of your faith as I met it that day.

And your faith has not lost anything with the passing of years. When illness entered into my dwelling, the memory of you and your faith was there as a soothing balm. And then - wondrous to relate - your faith became my faith and this with no loss to you. I mean that my faith took on the hue and colour and power of your faith, which seemed greater than mine had been heretofore. When pain assailed my tabernacle of flesh, Faith stood beside me. His locks were all gold, and his eyes were bright with the shining of joy. When he smiled upon me, the darkness passed away, and I knew there were ministering angels at hand, and I was enabled to look beyond the present things to those realms where love and peace abide forever.

Oh, I am glad - glad because of victories gained along the trail that runs through the years. Glad because of stars and flowers and the songs of birds. Glad because of white-robed peaks that spear the sky and whisper of eternal realities that shall not fade with the fading of earth. Glad because that once when I was weary, and my heart was heavy after a toilsome way, and when the vanities of life looked down upon me with sombre eyes, after the mountain had been crossed, I came to your door and I met your faith, and it led me to heights where today I can look up and see the smile of God.

I sat me down in earth's benighted vale,
And had no courage and no strength to rise;
Sad, to the passing breeze I told my tale,
And bowed my head and drained my weeping eyes.
But Faith came by, and took me by the hand;
And now the valleys rise, the mountains fall;
Welcome the stormy sea, the dangerous land!
With faith to aid me, I can conquer all.