XIV.

THE RELATION OF CHARITY TO FAITH.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.—1 Corinthians xiii. 13.

THIS text is one which commends itself to the judgment of almost all men in the present stage of Christianity, but it was very puzzling to many minds in past ages. For instance, it must have harmonised very ill with the cherished views of many of our old English Puritans; in their opinion faith was the one virtue, and unbelief the one deadly sin. All goodness was comprised in faith, and all wickedness in unbelief; and consequently this saying of St. Paul's must have seemed strange to them, and they must have felt inclined to deal with this beautiful chapter in some such way as Luther dealt with the Epistle of St. James.

Our temptation in these days is very different; we are in danger rather of exaggerating than of slighting the value of the words of our text, or, rather,

we are in danger of putting on the Apostle's words a modern interpretation quite alien from the sense which he intended them to bear. We do not usually mean what St. Paul meant when we extol charity, and in comparison with it depreciate faith; and, consequently, though externally we seem to harmonise well with the teaching of this chapter, in reality our point of view and that of St. Paul are wide asunder as the poles. Our reading of this passage often 7 is this: "It does not signify what a man believes provided he is good-natured," whereas St. Paul meant that though faith was of inestimable value, the fruit 7 of faith was still fairer and nobler.

Charity, in St. Paul's teaching, is simply this— faith grown gray in the service of Christ. Charity is greater than faith, just as the goodness of a veteran soldier of the Cross is more real and profound than the unconscious goodness of the child who knows not evil. Charity is greater than faith, just as the ripe fruit of some goodly tree is better than the root, though, of course, the root is absolutely necessary. But, in order to understand thoroughly the real drift and import of this passage of Scripture it may be well first to glance at the most current perversions of it.

(1) The word "faith" is commonly much misunderstood, and this radical error vitiates all the reasoning

founded on it. It is commonly supposed that by faith St. Paul meant the acceptance of a bundle of dogmas about religion, the acceptance of what is called a scheme of salvation, the agreement of the soul to the terms of salvation, its apprehension of pardon solely through the blood of Jesus and the imputation of His righteousness. And then men naturally come to think that this is nothing very grand or noble, though it may be very necessary, and that it is plain enough that active goodness or charity is far above this merely passive reception of benefits. Nay, more, men often seem to suppose that faith and charity are almost opposed to each. other, and that the votaries of the one seldom care very much for the other; the rigid dogmatist tramples upon charity, and the good-hearted man of the world either scorns or patronises faith.

The atmosphere supposed very commonly to be that in which charity flourishes best, is an atmosphere of profound indifference to faith. In short, our position in these days towards faith and charity is exactly the reverse of that of the old Puritan. To him the text was a paradox, to us it is a truism. We think that charity may well excuse our unbelief; he was too apt to think that his faith might excuse his want of practical charity. But after all the abuse which has been heaped upon the Puritans, I cannot help

thinking that in many respects they were wiser and better than we are. Their religion was at all events a reality and not a sham, a real conviction of the soul and not a mere garment of conventionalities, worn to satisfy the requirements of society.

Doubtless the Puritans erred much in their conception of the nature of faith, but I cannot think that they erred at all in their conception of its importance. They got hold of the wrong sort of faith, and therefore they were often uncharitable. An equally profound and earnest faith, of a more enlightened sort, is the true root of the noblest charity.

St. Paul meant by faith something very different from the acquiescent reception of a bundle of dogmas. He had known in some of its keenness the misery of doubt. He had felt by practical experience man's need of faith for the health of his moral and spiritual nature. Alone he had gone down into the depths of his being, and had gazed with saddened eyes on the forlorn spectacle of his soul's ruin. He had dwelt long in darkness. He had sat for weary days amidst the wreck of God's most cherished temple. Alone on the vast cheerless ocean of doubt, he had sought some light to guide him to a safe harbour, and had found none. Sin and doubt had reduced him to despair.

No help came to that shipwrecked mariner; the stars hid their light-he must die in darkness-his frail plank could last no longer. He must descend for ever into the black gulf of hopeless and eternal corruption. But he would not die in silence. He gathered up his strength for one last loud piercing cry for help, as it were the last agonising cry of the damned soul, as it passes for ever into the hideous and loathsome hell of unmitigated evil. It was supreme and despairing sorrow which wrung from that worn soul the exceeding bitter cry, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" And this cry had pierced the heart of the All-merciful, and brought aid to the exhausted sufferer.

On those poor tired eyes, worn by many a fruitless vigil, there dawned at length the light of life, a light indeed most "kindly," streaming from the throne of God, shining in the humanity of that Jesus whom the poor erring soul had once persecuted. Then Jesus bid him walk with Him on the boisterous waves of the sea, and fear nothing. Then, though that little plank to which Paul had been clinging was swept away, still he was of good courage, and dared to obey the Divine voice, and walk boldly on the waves, upheld by the hand of his Divine deliverer.