The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, December 1882: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific CircleChautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Religion
The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, December 1882: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
Take the second thought, a perfect faith. There is not a woman, if
she is the woman she ought to be, that is married, who has not had a
perfect faith in some man, or she would not have been married. That
woman has had perfect faith in that man, and that man has had perfect
faith in that woman. We show it in the use of money. We do not
discover any want of faith, except now and then we find a counterfeit.
We pay a debt with our money with perfect faith. We get on the railroad
and check our baggage; wise people do, although once in a while people
take all their luggage in the cars, a bandbox, bundles, and satchels
with them, and it is a great deal of trouble to them. So people try to
get to heaven. Why not check the baggage? We find it at Chautauqua, or
Lakewood, or New York.
You say, “I don’t know about faith.” But you have faith in some men,
and some men would trust you forever. There are some men I would trust
to the end of time. So it is with friendship; you have perfect faith
in men. Children have perfect faith in their fathers until they are
deceived. When I used to look up to my father, I believed that he could
do anything. When I went to him with my griefs, I knew, I trusted they
would be right; I believed in him with all my heart. I say if men are
capable of perfect faith in each other in the domestic and social
relations, they are capable of perfect faith in God. I say these things
are written down in common sense and in the constitution of humanity.
Third, perfect love. Suppose I go into yonder house, and I see a lady
with a sweet baby in her arms, a year old it may be, just coming to
the cunning stage. I see that woman kiss that child. I say, “Mother,
you think a good deal of that baby.” “Yes,” she says, “I love her with
all my heart.” Suppose I say, “I doubt it, madam, I don’t believe you
do.” She would turn to me with supreme contempt, and say, “There is the
orifice left by the carpenter in the side of the room for such as you.”
I am dismissed. It is a slander upon her. I see her at night, when that
babe is sick. I see her on her knees praying, with tears running down
her cheeks, “God, spare my babe!” Day after day, night after night, she
does not sleep. You say it is not a perfect love. I say it is a perfect
love, as perfect a love as she can have for the child.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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