How Do We Know

6

FAITH GONE TO WORK

Holiness is religious principle put into action. It is faith gone to work. It is love coined into conduct; devotion helping human suffering, and going up in intercession to the great source of all good.

—FREDERICK D. HUNTINGTON

The above thoughts by an American clergyman (1819-1904) deserve some serious reflection. Here are a few of mine which I take pleasure in sharing.

Faith gone to work. For our work toward the restoration of freedom to be effective we must believe in our cause. As Goethe wrote, “Miracle is the darling child of faith.”

The turnabout from our growing socialism to the freedom way of life appears to fall in the miracle category. But we must believe it will happen or our doubts will postpone it to a far distant future.

As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.

—Richard Whately

In actual life every great enterprise begins with and takes its first step in faith.

—August Schlegel

Faith makes the discords of the present the harmonies of the future.

—Robert Collyer

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

—Emerson

It is love coined into conduct. Wrote Shakespeare: “Love works not with the eyes but with the mind.” Our finite minds cannot grasp Infinite Truth. Our role? Go forward step by step—from light to light. If our conduct be right, then the paralyzing fear of socialistic disaster will not plague us. We find in John IV: 18 the formula: Perfect love casteth out fear.

. . . devotion helping human suffering. There are two ways to aid those who are in distress, suffering from the lack of food and clothing and other life-sustaining items. The first is the practice of Judeo-Christian charity—voluntary assistance. When governments pre-empt the practice of philanthropy—food stamps, social security and other “welfare”*measures—the practice of private charity is dramatically abandoned. If a neighbor is starving, most citizens say, “That’s the government’s job.” Rid ourselves of this political nonsense and nearly everyone would share his or her last loaf of bread.

Charity, when properly practiced, has two disciplines: (1) never let the recipient be aware of the source and (2) let the giver take no personal credit for the gift—that is, avoid self-conceit. It works wonders!1

The second way to alleviate distress is as much a mystery to most citizens as the appropriate practice of charity. What is the real road to success so rarely believed? It is the free and unfettered market with government limited strictly to keeping the peace and invoking a common justice—no exception, none whatsoever, dictocrats in the past tense!

Why this blindness to freedom? ’Tis a megalomania: “a mental disorder characterized by delusions.” What is this popular delusion? The populace listens to the countless politicians rather than to the few statesmen. These know-it-alls, utterly unaware of how little they know, promise a heaven on earth and the millions are thus deluded.

There is a remedy for this delusion-egomania syndrome but it is no less difficult to grasp than appropriate charity or how freedom works its wonders. Freedom cannot be sold but only understood by an individual who really wishes to know. Here is my answer: The more one understands the more his awareness grows of how much there is to understand. There are others who share this view—three samples:

The first step to knowledge is to know we are ignorant.

—Richard Cecil

He fancies himself enlightened, because he sees the deficiencies of others; he is ignorant, because he has not reflected on his own.

—Bulwer

Fullness of knowledge always and necessarily means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance, and that is always conducive to both humility and reverence.

—Robert Millikan

When and if enough citizens become aware of their finite nature—how very limited their understanding of themselves, and thus of every other human being, past and present, our millions of dictocrats—know-it-alls—will become “dead-give-away-ers,” an appropriate slang expression. And then? The enlightenment: freedom, tiny bits of creative expertise freely flowing to the benefit of one and all!

. . . and going up in intercession [mediation] to the great source of all good. What this means is improving as a go-between—advancing in an understanding of The Divine Source and sharing with those who care to listen. God is one of the names which we give to that eternal, infinite and incomprehensible Source. My reference is always to Infinite Consciousness for it is a reality now and forever.

George Washington saw the light: “Labor to keep alive in your heart that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”

• 1See Science Is a Sacred Cow by Anthony Standen (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1950), pp. 63-64.