Editorial December 4, 1902 Issue

"As a Grain of Mustard Seed."

When Jesus said, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you," he gave unqualified assurance of the possible results of that "little faith" which is spiritual understanding,—the God with us who is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." He declared for the perpetuity and sovereignty of the smallest idea of Truth; and in this, his thought was very far in advance of the estimate and understanding of his disciples both then and now.

Men are ready to concede the swift and self-propagating power of an infinitesimal of evil, and upon this basis they have built up a philosophy of heredity and contagion which has ruled the nations with a rod of iron. Intense fear is aroused, and life is imperilled, in human belief, by the presence of a single infected molecule. The prevailing theories of disease would reduce the determinative factors of human history to the dimensions of an atom, and hang the issues of mortal life upon the favoring or unfavoring conditions of a cell.

If, on the other hand, we consider the prevailing mental attitude toward good, we find that while those larger assertions of Truth which are expressed in the irresistible movements of nature, and the universal moral convictions of men, have commanded consideration, and antagonism to them has been reckoned a defiance of God, the potency of the lesser manifestations and apprehensions of Truth has been minimized to a degree which has amounted to a denial of their practical efficiency.

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