love one to another," said Christ. He did not say: "If you believe this or that," but "if you have love." Faith with different people, and in different times, may differ, but love is one and the same at all times and with all people.
2. The true faith is one—to love all that is living.
Ibrahim of Cordova,
3. Love bestows blessedness on people because it unites man with God.
4. Christ revealed to men that the eternal is not identical with the future, but that the eternal, the unseen, dwells within us right now, in this life, and that we attain eternal life when we become one with God, the Spirit in whom all things move and have their being.
We can attain this eternal life through love alone.
IV.
Faith Guides the Life of Man
1. Only he truly knows the law of life who does that which he regards as the law of life.
2. All faith is merely a reply to this question: how must I live in the world not before men, but before Him who sent me into the world?
3. In the true faith it is not important to be able to talk interestingly about God, about the soul, about the past or the future, but one thing alone is essentiaclass="underline" to know firmly what you ought to do and what you ought not to do in this life. Kant.
4. If a man does not live happily, it is only because such a man has no faith. This may be the case with entire nations. If a nation does not live happily, it is only because the nation has lost its faith.
5. The life of man is good or evil only as he understands the true law of life. The more clearly man understands the true law of life, the better is his life; the more hazy is his understanding of that law, the worse is his life.
6. In order to escape from that mire of sin, vice and misery wherein th^y live, people have need of one thing alone: they need a faith in which they would live, not as now—each for himself—^but a common life, all acknowledging one law and one purpose. Only then might people repeating the words of the Lord's Prayer: "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven," hope that the Kingdom of God will indeed descend upon earth.
Магггт.
7. If any faith teaches that we must give up this life for life everlasting, it is a false faith. To give up this life for life everlasting is impossible, because eternal life is already in this life. Hindu Philosophy.
8. The stronger the faith of man, the firmer his life. The life of man without faith is the life of a beast.
V.
False Faith
1. The law of life, namely to love God and your neighbor, is simple and clear. Every man on attaining reason recognizes it in his heart. Therefore, if it were not for false teachings, all men would adhere to this law, and the Kingdom of Heaven would reign upon earth.
But false teachers, at all times and in all places, taught men to acknowledge as God that which was not God, and as God's law that which was not God's law. And men believed in these false teachings and departed from the true law of
life and from the fulfilment of His true law, and this made their life harder to bear and more unhappy.
Therefore one must not believe any teachings that do not agree with love of God and of your neighbor.
2. It must not be thought that because a faith is ancient, it is therefore true. On the contrary, the longer people live, the more clearly they grasp the true law of life. To think that in our times we must believe in the same things in which our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers had believed is to think that when you are grown to man's estate, the garments of your children still might fit you.
3. We are perturbed because we can no longer believe in that in which our fathers used to believe. We must not let this perturb us, but try instead to establish within us such a faith in which we can believe as firmly as our fathers believed in their faith. Martineau,
4. In order to know the true faith, man must first for a season give up that faith in which he had blindly believed, and then examine in the light of his reason all that which he had been taught since childhood.
5. A laborer who dwelt in the city was proceeding homeward one day after his work was done. As he was leaving his place of employment he met a stranger, and the stranger said: "Let us go together, we are bound for the same place, and I know the road well." The laborer believed him, and they departed together.
They had walked for an hour or more, when the laborer noticed that the road was different from the one he was in the habit of taking into the city. And he said: "I think this is not the right road." And the stranger replied: "This is the only true and the shortest road. Believe me, for I know it well." The laborer believed him and continued to follow him. But the further he went,
the worse the road proved to be, and the more difficult the walking. And he was compelled to spend all his earnings to sustain himself, and still failed to reach home. Yet the further he walked, the more firmly he believed that he was on the right road, and finally he was convinced himself that it was v so. And the reason why he became so convinced was because he did not like to turn back, and always hoped that the road would finally take him to his destination. And he strayed a long, long way from home, and was wretched for a long time.
Thus it is with people who do not listen to the voice of the spirit within themselves, but listen to the voice of strangers regarding God and His law.
6. It is bad not to know God, but it is worse to acknowledge as God that which is not God.
VI.
External Worship
1. True faith is to believe in that <^ne law which befits all the people in the world.
2. True faith enters the heart in stillness and solitude only.
3. True faith consists in living always a good life, loving all men, doing unto others as you would have others do unto you.
This, indeed, is the true faith. And this is the faith that all truly wif^ men and men of saintly life have always taught among all nations.
4. Jesus did not say to the Samaritans: Leave your beliefs for those of the Jews. He did not say to the Jews: Join the Samaritans. But he said to the Jews and to the Samaritans: You are alike in error. Not Garisim, nor yet Jerusalem avails anything. The time will come.
nay, has already come, when men will worship the Father neither in Garisim nor yet in Jerusalem, but true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in the truth, for such are the worshippers whom the Father seeketh.
Jesus was seeking such worshippers in the days of Jerusalem. He is seeking them still in these days.
5. A master had a laborer. The same lived in his master's house and saw the master face to face many times each day. The laborer little by little neglected his labors, and finally grew so lazy that he would do nothing at all. The master noticed this but said nothing and merely turned his face from him whenever he met him. The laborer saw that his master was not satisfied with him, and planned to regain his master's favor without laboring. He sought out his master's friends and acquaintances and begged them to intercede with the master so that he should no longer be angry with him. The Master learned of this, and caUing the laborer said: "Why do you ask people to intercede for you? You have me always with you and you can tell me face to face whatever is needful." But the laborer did not know what to say and departed. And he conceived a new plan: he gathered eggs belonging to his master, caught one of his master's fowls, and took them to him as a present to avert his wrath. And the master said: "First you ask my friends to plead for you, although you can freely speak to me for yourself. Then you mean to propitiate me with presents. But all that you have is mine already. Even if you brought me what is truly yours, I require no presents." Thereupon the laborer adopted a new scheme: he composed verses in his master's honor and standing outside his master's window loudly shouted and sang his verses, calling his master's great, omnipresenti all-powerful father, merciful benefactor.