234 Faith not based on Experience. CHAP. 



however, I will ask : What is the origin, and 

 what is the significance, of that instinctive faith 

 which expects to find Goodness at the foundation of 

 the universe 1 The world wherein we live is not so 

 sinless and so happy as to enable us to base such a 

 faith on evidence of any common kind. Yet it shows 

 itself not in declared believers only, but also in such 

 agnostics as Herbert Spencer, when they call the 

 existence of evil an anomaly and a perplexity; for 

 it would not be so if the constitution of the universe 

 were altogether unmoral. Such faith has no doubt 

 been very greatly strengthened by express revelation, 

 but it is not due to revelation in the special sense ; 

 on the contrary, we could not receive a revelation if 

 we did not believe, independently of revelation, that 

 God cannot lie ; l and it is not from experience that 

 we have learned this faith. And whence comes the 

 expectation that goodness and mercy may reasonably 

 be expected from God ; the faith wherein 



"We trust that God is love indeed, 

 And love Creation's final law, 

 Though Nature, red in tooth and claw 



With ravine, shrieks against our creed ? 2 



If it is true and I think it certain that Space, 



1 '0 &^eu57?s 9e6y. Titus i. 2. 



2 "Who trusted God was love indeed 



And love Creation's final law 

 Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw 

 With ravine, shriek'd against his creed." 



In Memoriam. 



