The South Sea Islanders have a beautiful word for "hope." It is, rendered literally, "the swimming thought," the thought that keeps one's head, amid the tempests, above the water threatening to engulf him. How much more truly does this same thought characterize our "faith." Hope is tinged with doubt while faith, true faith, has no doubts. It is full of triumph, and thus it is that the apostle can exclaim, "What is that which overcometh the world? even your faith." Truth then is a triumpher. By it our feet are winged to bear us across the rough places of our wilderness journey, to carry us in victory at last into the very presence of God, our Creator, for is it not written "by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death "?

If we look at that long hero-roll in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, while perfectly natural, is it not yet a little striking that it is for triumph over earthly difficulties that we find their names emblazoned thereon? There is, no doubt, in this a salutary lesson for us, which is duly enforced by the principle of our Lord's utterance, "If I have told you of earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? " Reader, are not you and I apt often to be more sure of the heavenly than the earthly? Are we not more afraid about things down here than of righteousness and eternal judgment? Why is this? Is Christ less reliable in His promises as to earth than He is as to those concerning heaven? Can we be certain as to the future, if the present be clouded with doubt? Let us face the question.

The story of Zacharias in the temple affords us a remarkable instance of the inconsistency of real faith, or rather of the one who possessed it. He is in the presence of God. He is offering incense, without which in days gone by none could enter the presence of God and live. He is, doubtless, firmly convinced that it is Jehovah with whom he has to do, and yet when suddenly on the right hand of the altar there appears an angelic messenger from God, he is afraid. Not trembling in the presence of God, but trembling in the presence of His messenger! There are two things which we may notice about him. First of all, it says he was doing what was the custom for priests to do. Very possibly when he had first offered that incense to the holy God, he had done it in fear and trembling, but as day after day passed he had grown familiar with the truth that God would have him thus do, and his fear had taken wings and fled, or dissolved like the mist in the sunlight. An angel he was not accustomed to seeing, and he trembles.

But he saw the angel also, God, he did not see. Oh how the faint vision of our fleshly eyes will at times fill us to the blotting out for a time of all the eternal verities which are summed up in Him who is the great Verity, the living "Truth!"

There are two things also, which tend to lead to God's people being sure as to eternity, but to doubting as to time, and they are just those two things with which we have become familiar by hearing. First of all we have become well grounded in the eternal security of the believer. We have grown familiar with the thought,

" Death and judgment are behind us
Grace and glory are before."

We have reasoned much about God's word being pledged that heaven is inviting us to enter into its "love and light and song" through the merits of Jesus' blood, but we have not exercised ourselves in the same way about the present. We have not considered that God's word is just as surely pledged as to our security amid earthly troubles as it is as to safety from the storm of judgment, and consequently we doubt. How inconsistent it would be if it were not so terribly sad, that we should cringe before circumstances and be valiant before the consequences of our sin and all the marshaled hosts of hell! Somebody has very pithily remarked, "If a letter were written to that weighty gentleman ' Circumstance ' with how great truth might many of us subscribe ourselves, 'your very obedient and humble servant.'" But oh the shame of it!

But then again, circumstances we see, hell we do not see, nor yet do our eyes behold the Christ. The power of the senses is a potent factor in our life, and its importance is fully recognized in Scripture. '' If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen how shall he love God, whom he hath not seen?" And our Lord Jesus says, what should indeed be an encouragement to us:" Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed."

The next moment after his fear we find Zacharias has so forgotten it that he asks the angel how he shall know that his promise is true. Again we have a marvelous inconsistency, but what is the reason? What has made him forget his fear of God's messenger and question his word? Why he looks at circumstance. He says, "I am an old man" and consequently it seems impossible that a child should be born. We remember here also that thus, too, had Abraham, the pattern man of faith, been overcome. How solemn and sad that God as it were has to bring in other circumstance to convince Zacharias, and that for his lack of faith he is struck dumb!

O my reader, has not this dumbness fallen oft also upon you and me because of our unbelief. Have not our mouths been closed and our voice of testimony hushed because we could not trust God as to the things of daily life?

There are many degrees of faith! This fact has so impressed Cardinal Newman that he has written a book entitled the "Grammar of Assent" which is largely devoted to looking at these degrees of faith. His purpose in writing thus seems to have been a poor one indeed, but we can nevertheless gain much profit in meditating thereon. There are degrees of faith. What is your degree? Is it such as those had, to whom the Lord could not commit Himself, because it was only intellectual; or is it like Peter's who verily had faith enough to walk for a way on the waters, but whose faith in the power of the waves presently grew greater than his trust in Christ, and he began to sink? Do a thousand dollars in your pockets give you more rest of mind than a cheque on your heavenly Father's bank for full supply of all your need, yea of everything that is good for you? Does the assurance '' My God shall supply all your need " leave you still in doubt whether it was ever intended that you should trust Him for tomorrow's supply of bread? Do you take anxious thought for the morrow when your Lord has enjoined upon you so not to do, solemnly asseverating that your Father in heaven knows all about it and will care for it? If it be so, is it not better also for you to trust that a thousand charitable deeds will do more to save you from hell than all the pledged word of God? Most decidedly it is. O dear reader, let us have more faith in Christ than we do in circumstance!

Let me close this paper with a beautiful example of how to argue from circumstance and triumph over it. There was a violent earthquake once which greatly alarmed the inhabitants of a certain village. They rushed out of their houses, their faces full of consternation, fearing sudden destruction. There was one old woman, however, whose face was a marked contrast to those of the rest. It seemed to beam with joy. One of the villagers was so struck with it that he could not help asking her:"Mother, how is it you look so happy, aren't you afraid ?" "Oh no indeed, " came the bright answer, "I rejoice that I have a God who can shake the earth! " She saw the God who was in it all and well she might rejoice. Oh shall we not cry much to God to give us more a simple, child-like trust. It is a prize well worth striving for and will richly reward its diligent seeker. F. C. G.