76 THE LIGHT OF DAY 



science, which goes entirely upon proof. It is a 

 moral rather than an intellectual certitude ; a con- 

 viction of the heart — to use the old phraseology — 

 rather than a persuasion of the mind. That is, it 

 is arrived at through an emotional process, rather 

 than through a mental or logical one. In an over- 

 intellectual and over-reflective age like ours, faith 

 undoubtedly suffers a decline. It thrives best in 

 stirring uncritical times. The scientific spirit is as 

 inimical to it as frost to vegetation. In all the 

 centuries of our era, except the present, reason has 

 been the willing servant of faith. Taith has said to 

 it, Go here, go there ; prove this, prove that ; and 

 reason has obeyed with alacrity. In our day reason 

 turns upon faith and questions its right to rule and 

 to lead, and the result is an almost ruinous shrink- 

 age of the old theological values. 



Dr. Fisher insists upon the proofs of faith, but he 

 fails to point them out. They are not to be appre- 

 hended by the rational faculties. They are subjec- 

 tive ; they are in the heart and conscience of the 

 individual, and cannot be communicated as proof. 

 That there is a power not ourselves, a power in 

 which we live, and move, and have our being, and 

 of which all things are the garment and expression, 

 is not a matter of faith, but of reason and sense. 

 That this power is a personal being, the moral 

 governor and ruler of the universe, as the old 

 theology has it, or the loving father and protec- 

 tor, as the new teaches, is a matter of faith. We 

 speak .of the creed of the church as a system of faith. 



