And then live in your positives and not in your
negatives. I am tired of asking man what his religious faith is and
having him tell me what he don't believe. He tells me that he don't
believe in baptism or inspiration or in the trinity. If I asked a man
where he was going and he told me he was not going to Washington, what
could I know about where he was going? He would not go anywhere so long
as he simply rested in that mere negative. Be done with saying what you
don't believe, and find somewhere or other the truest, divinest thing to
your soul that you do believe to-day, and work that out: work it out in
all the action and consecration of the soul in the doing of your work.
This I take to be the real freedom of Christian thought--when the man
goes forward always into a fuller and fuller belief as he becomes
obedient to that which he already holds.
But yet I know I have not touched the opinion, the feeling, nay, I will
say the black prejudice that is upon many, many minds. "Ah, but you have
bound yourself," you say. "You have given your assent to a certain
creed, you believe certain dogmas. To put it as simply as you have put
it to us this morning, you believe a certain person. I, I am free, I
believe nothing, I can go wandering here and everywhere and disbelieve
to my heart's content." Yes, I do believe something, and I thank God for
it. But I deny with all my intelligence and soul the very idea that in
believing that something I have shut my soul to evidence.
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