Wisdom Vault — onlinknow.co.za

38 BEING GREAT. THE SOCIAL POINT OF VIEW. VITHOUT faith it is impos- sible to please God,” and without faith it is impos- sible for you to become great. The distinguishing characteristic of all really great men and women is an unwavering faith.

We see this in Lincoln during the dark days of the war; we see it in Wash- ington at Valley Forge; we see it in Livingstone, the crippled missionary, threading the mazes of the dark conti- nent, his soul aflame with the deter- mination to let in the light upon the accursed slave trade, which his soul abhorred; we see it in Luther, and in Frances Willard, in every man and woman who has attained a place on the muster roll of the great ones of the world. 39 THE SCIENCE OF Faith—not a faith in one’s self or in one’s own powers but faith in prin- ciple; in the Something Great which upholds right, and which may be relied upon to give us the victory in due time.

Without this faith it is not possible for any one to rise to real greatness. The man who has no faith in principle will always be a small man. Whether you have this faith or not depends upon your point of view. You must learn to see the world as being produced by evolution; as a something which is evolving and becoming, not as a fin- ished work.

Millions of years ago God worked with very low and crude forms of life; low and crude, yet each per- fect after its kind. Higher and more complex organisms, animal and vege- table, appeared through the successive ages; the earth passed through stage after stage in its unfoldment, each stage perfect in itself, and to be suc- ceeded by a higher one.

What I wish you to note is that the so-called “lower 40 BEING GREAT. organisms” are as perfect after their kind as the higher ones; that the world in the Eocene period was perfect for that period; it was perfect, but God’s work was not finished.

This is true of the world to-day. Physically, socially, and industrially it is all good, and it is all perfect. It is not com- plete anywhere or in any part, but so far as the handiwork of God has gone it is perfect. THIS MUST BE YOUR POINT OF VIEW: THAT THE WORLD AND ALL IT CONTAINS IS PERFECT, THOUGH NOT COMPLETED.

“All’s right with the world.” That is the great fact. There is nothing wrong with anything; there is noth- ing wrong with anybody. All the facts of life you must contemplate from this standpoint. There is nothing wrong with nature.

Nature is a great advancing presence, working benefi- cently for the happiness of all. All things in Nature are good; she has no 41 THE SCIENCE OF evil. She is not complete, for creation is still unfinished, but she is going on to give to man even more bountifully than she has given to him in the past.

Nature is a partial expression of God, and God is love. She is perfect but not complete. So of human society and govern- ment. What though there are trusts and combinations of capital and strikes and lockouts and so on. All these things are part of the forward move- ment; they are incidental to the evolu- tionary process of completing society.

When it is complete there will be no more of these inharmonies; but it can- not be completed without them. Morgan is as necessary to the coming social order as the strange animals of the age of reptiles were to the life of the suc- ceeding period, and just as these animals were perfect after their kind, so Morgan is perfect after his kind.