4. "Everybody recalls how the Red Sea was rolled aside in order that the Isaraelites under Moses might pass over safely; how the river Jordan, a few later, was driven back, that Joshua and his army might cross; and how Sodom and Gomorrah were overwhelmed with fire and brimstone for their sins . . . . Geologists are now inclined to believe that the recession of the sea might have been caused by an earthquake pushing up a rock stratum under tremendous pressure. The water would return in some degree upon the subsidence of the stratum. The various miraculous events referred to occurred about the year 1500 B. C., and there is a curious similarity between them. It now appears probable from scientific research that these occurrences were the last of a series of terrific earthquake disturbances that changed the entire surface of the globe."--W. H. Ballou, D. Sc. 5. Ex. 14:21-31. 6. Joshua 10:12. 7. Ib. vv. 13, 14. 8. James 5:14. ARTICLE THIRTY-SIX. The Mainspring of Power. The Moving Cause.--All power springs from faith. It is "the moving cause of all action" and "the foundation of all righteousness." [1] God did not create the principle of faith, but by means of it he created the worlds, and by means of it he continues to exercise control and dominion over them. It is the faith of Omnipotence that upholds the universe. A Negative Opinion.--A Christian minister, not of the orthodox school, with whom I was conversing on the subject of faith, tried to convince me that it was anything but an admirable quality. He even called it contemptible, declaring that it consisted of a weak willingness to believe--to believe anything, however improbable or absurd. In short, it was mere credulity, nothing more. A Spiritual Force.--When I referred to faith as a spiritual force, a principle of power, he said I was attaching to the term a significance that it had never borne, and for which there was no warrant. I then reminded him of the Savior's words: "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, 'Remove hence to yonder place,' and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you." [2] Whereupon he flippantly remarked: "Oh, it takes picks and shovels to move mountains." Picks and Shovels.--And so it does--if one has no better way of moving them. But what about the faith necessary to handle pick and shovel? All energy springs from faith, and whether mountains are moved by man or by his Maker, it is faith that precedes the action and renders it possible. Yet here was a professed minister of Christ, ignoring the teachings of Christ, and denying what all true Christians believe--that the smallest as well as the greatest acts of our lives spring from the exercise of faith.