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FAITH AND FEELING

Feeling should never be mistaken for faith, yet there is as much connection between faith and hallowed feeling as there is between the root and the flower. Faith is permanent, just as the root is ever in the ground. Feeling is casual and has its season. Just as the root or bulb does not always shoot up the green stem and beautiful flowers, so faith does not always produce ecstasy of feeling. Our faith may be just as strong when we are despondent as when we are filled with joy. As we feel the calamities of war, the pangs of disease and the hardness of poverty, our feeling sinks down to zero, while our faith may be as firm as the granite that underlies the cloud-kissing hills. Measure not God’s love and power by your own feeling. The sun shines as clearly in the darkest day as it does in the brightest: the difference is not in the sun, but in some clouds that are between you and the sun. So God loves as well when we see not the brightness of his countenance as when we do.

One of the things we learn by a Christian experience is that low measures of feeling are

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better than ecstasies for ordinary life. God sends us his rain in gentle drops, else tender plants and delicate flowers would be beaten to pieces. If our faith is founded on the immutability of God, our Christian life and love will flow steadily on like a deep river, not easily affected by a cold blast nor obstructed by despondencies. Moses was not governed by feeling when he stood on the margin of the Red Sea, neither was Abraham when he offered up Isaac, nor Israel when they compassed Jericho seven days. Have faith in God, move forward all along the line, and we shall have the victory.—Sel.

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— September 1, 1892 —