It's a ladder rising from bottom round to topmost. It means to be persuaded that a thing is true; then to place confidence in it, to trust. And _trust_ always contains the idea of _risk_. The heart-meaning always is that you _risk_ something very precious to you, risk it to the point of heart-breaking disaster if your trust proves wrong. Our English word is of very close kin. It runs the same sort of sliding scale, from something valuable and precious in itself, on to something that _satisfies you_ regarding the matter in hand. You are not only satisfied but pleased, content. And so there is the same trusting and risking, the same leaning your whole weight upon the thing. Deep down at its root, _believe_ is a close kinsman to _love_. They both spring out of the same warm creative womb. When we dig a bit into that word _believe_ in the usage of common life it means three distinct things, each leading straight into the other,--knowledge, belief, trust. That is, _facts_, facts _accepted_, facts _trusted_ in regard to something that takes hold of your life. You hear something. You believe it's true. But there must be the third thing, risking something valuable. There's no belief in the heart-meaning without this thing of _risking_. The trust that risks is the life blood of faith. The rest is only the bony skeleton with tendons and sinews and flesh. There's no life without the blood. There's no belief without trust. And the word _witness_ is the same pure-gold sort of nugget, assaying full weight. John's native word and our own are just the same in meaning. Their meaning is _to tell what you know_. We shall be running across this word again, and digging a bit deeper into it. But this is the thing that stands out in it. You tell something that you yourself know. There's personal knowledge. There's a telling some one else this thing you know. And yet more, there's the purpose in the telling, that others may know what you know, and get all the good that comes with knowing it. The _witnessing_ is that others may _believe_. It is a striking thing in John that the _thought_ of witness is more common than the _word_. The word occurs several times, and always in a leading way. But the thought of witnessing is the colouring of every page, and the chief colouring. I said that these two words were twins, born at the same time, of the same mother. That warm-hearted brooding mother is the word _wooing_. Originally _wooing_ means bending towards, inclining forward or reaching out towards another. And the purpose of the reaching out is to get the other to reach forward towards you. And that purpose puts the warm feel into the reaching out.