Editorial January 15, 1903 Issue

The Riches of Faith's True Inference

At a time when his disciples were bewildered with doubts and fears Jesus said to them, "Let not your hearts be troubled: ... In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you." In these words of loving and suggestive reminder, as well as in his references to the good Shepherd's far-seeking solicitude for the lone lamb astray, and to God's anticipation of the sparrow's need, he emphasized the propriety of all those inferences of intelligent faith which necessarily spring from the Christian assertion of our kinship with a God who is infinite Love, and who is the disposer of all good.

These inferences locate the treasures that are ours, though yet unmined; they bring the joy of to-morrow's achievement to the relief of to-day's struggle, and authorize the present exploitation of all that a well-grounded hope and an exalted spiritual sense may embrace.

The Christian's legitimate anticipations of Good! who shall undertake to measure or enumerate them, who essay to picture or define the riches of Love's unnamed purposes toward its own! We have all known somewhat of a father's and mother's love, its far-reaching plans for our enrichment and happiness, its unrestrained joy when we have shown unhesitating confidence and made large demands upon it, and Jesus taught us to find in these foreseeing and fore-planning impulses of parental affection, the symbols and assurance of a heavenly Father's interest in us which is beyond words, His readiness to measure up to our highest aspirations, our most daring anticipation and appropriation of Good. Indeed, infinite Love can know no self-limitation, it blesses and saves unto the uttermost of our reception and consent. The fetterless unreserve of this Love must have appeared to Paul when, in writing to the Ephesians he declares that God is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, and when he added, "according to the power that worketh [or is permitted to work] in us," he named Love's only seeming limitation.

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The Riches of Faith's True Inference

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