THE word faith is what might be termed one of the difficult words in the Bible. The human mind, that is to say, has given to it almost as many shades of meaning as there are of human temperament. Yet its true definition is surely, from a metaphysical point of view at any rate, to be found in that famous sentence in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." A great bishop of the third century was fond of insisting that there was no faith in accepting anything of which you had proof. He may, or he may not, have been the originator of the doctrine of blind faith, but it is certain that he had no concord with the point of view of the writer of the Epistle, for evidence, or what the Revision calls proof, is the very word by which the Greek is rendered in the English Bible. And this Mrs. Eddy very clearly saw, when she wrote, on page 297 of Science and Health: "Mortal testimony can be shaken. Until belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual understanding, human thought has little relation to the actual or divine."

Belief is the first stage in a man's grasp of any subject. It is a wavering conviction based on some prima facie evidence. When this evidence is subjected successfully to a fuller examination, the belief gradually develops into faith. Because one or two tests have proved satisfactory, that is to say, the student's faith in his original conviction gradually strengthens into a much deeper conviction that he is dealing with some phase of truth. Only, however, as the evidence accumulates, does the element of uncertainty which separates faith from understanding disappear. Then there comes the complete certainty of knowledge. This is the exact process which is gone through by every student of Christian Science. He is told or reads something about Christian Science, and as he listens or reads he finds himself beginning to believe in the theory. But this, of course, is not enough. He sets to work to accumulate evidence of the reliability of his belief, and as this evidence grows he discovers that his belief has been changed into a faith which assures him that the evidence he has secured is itself sufficient to give him assurance of a complete description. This assurance, which is the very word used in the definition of faith, by the translators of Hebrews in the Revision, has to be gained by his own personal demonstration. He sets to work, if he is wise, to prove the healing power of Christian Science for himself by a process of induction. For, as Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 461 of Science and Health: "Christian Science must be accepted at this period by induction. We admit the whole, because a part is proved and that part illustrates and proves the entire Principle." As his proofs accumulate, his faith disappears in understanding, with the result that no matter what the clamor of controversy or the vehemence of criticism, he finds himself suddenly grasping the full intention of Paul's saying to the elders of the church at Ephesus, at his meeting with them in Miletus, "None of these things move me"

If, then, a man has faith, he has the substance of things hoped for. Now substance is the reality, and so a man who walks in faith pursues his way with the realization of realities. These realities constitute all that is eternal, as Mrs Eddy points out on page 468 of Science and Health, where she says: "Substance is that which is eternal and incapable of discord and decay. Truth, Life, and Love are substance, as the Scriptures use this word in Hebrews: 'The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' " Such faith will, of course, move mountains, that is to say it will brush away the intangible material counterfeits of substance, and leave a man face to face with reality. Thus he finds in his faith the evidence or proof of things unseen by the material senses, but existing all the time for those with eyes to see.

It is obvious from all this that faith as understood in Christian Science is something very different from the blind belief gloried in by a Gregory. It is more in the nature of the faith of the student of mathematics, who, as he sees the problems submitted to him solved, finds in these solutions a faith in his ability to solve those further problems which his knowledge is not yet equal to. That is why, when the storms of malice and persecution begin to howl round him, he is able to remain utterly unmoved. He does not feel that he has got to be busily engaged in all sorts of human arguments and material contendings in order to prove himself to be in the right. He knows that all he has to do is to be unmoved by the storm, and to go on finding further proofs of Principle, each of which will bring him nearer to that scientific knowledge of God or Truth which will in turn free him from all the false suggestions of evil. In other words, it is his own faith which he has to strengthen, and not that of his neighbors. The world always imagines that the way to strengthen its own position is to persuade others that it is right. But the fact is that the others are not persuaded by much speaking, but by their observation of the faith of those who are proving their faith by their works. That surely is why James declared, "Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works."

Clearly, from James' point of view, faith was the evidence or proof of things unseen, since the demonstration of faith was to be the proof of those unseen things. When a man has seen sickness healed by reliance on the fact that the unseen or spiritual is the real, and the material or seen is the counterfeit, he has obtained that proof by induction which Mrs. Eddy says is to assure him of the reality of Principle. His faith, in other words, is the assurance of all of that which he hopes, and which it has become the object of his faith to prove. He is not in the least likely, therefore, to be worried by the hurly-burly of human contentions. He sets all these things aside and goes forward unmoved, from day to day, in demonstrating Principle for himself, knowing quite well that that is the only way in which Principle can be demonstrated for his neighbors. In this way he lays down his materiality for his friends, and so proves his understanding of love, for love is no sensuous attraction of the human mind or of sex; it is the substance of that understanding of Principle for which a man hopes, and the evidence of his faith in the omnipotence of Spirit. The man who understands this is not compelled to take away his neighbor's character in order to prove himself to be in the right, much less to indulge in slander and gossip for the purpose of discrediting somebody to whom he imagines himself to be opposed. All these things are the glaring evidence of want of faith. They are the product of the uncertainty and turmoil of the human mind, which never imagines it is doing anything unless it is doing nothing by giving proof of its own materiality. The exact reverse is, of course, the truth. "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding" is not acquired by petty human efforts to steady the ark, and to fashion Truth in a preconceived pattern, but by the calm certainty bred of faith that God, good, governs, and that Truth must prevail.

Frederick Dixon.