"MacDONALD, George - Faith, the Proof of the Unseen" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonald George)

whatever else you do; you cannot be wrong then. The same holds with you as with
the beginner who is troubled as to whether there is a God or not. But you that
believe in a God do not trust Him; whereas, the other is not sure that there is
a God; and you think it very horrible of him to doubt the existence of a God.
And yet you, believing that there is a God, are afraid of the trouble, the
poverty, the opinion of the world, and are ambitious to get on this way or that!
Oh, had almost sooner say you do not believe in a God than say that you believe
in God, and yet He is nothing to you. And when you feel inclined to say heavy
and hard things about your atheistic neighbour, think that there may be a beam
in your own eye even worse--if we can bear to call it so--than the mote in his.
Indeed, friends, it is because our life does not shine that men have stood up
and said "There is no light." You see a man greedy and grasping--as much taken
up with the things of this world as if he were to live--I will not say to the
age of Methusaleh-- but to the age of seventyfive or eighty. He works in the
world as if he were to live for ever in it; and sometimes, I think, the
punishment that would fit him best would be to be condemned to live for ever in
the world. What a thing that would be! Ah!, the man who is most sure that there
is no God and that he can get on pretty well--he won't say first rate--but
pretty well without Him; I think the better way would be just to let him live on
and on and on, until he got heartily sick of himself and hated himself, and
would gladly yield anything to get out of himself. Ah, friends, there is a worse
thing than dying never to wake again. There is a worse thing than dying for
ever, and going soul and brain to the dust, and that is to wake up and find that
there is no God. That is the horror of horrors to me. But to tell me that I am
to live for ever, and that there is no God! For anything any man knows who does
not believe in a God it may be so. He cannot tell with certainty that he is
going to die forever because he sees no more of those that have gone before. Why
should not they go on to some other sphere as they came into this one? Without
any warning or any choice, they do not know until they find themselves here. Why
should it not be so in another state of existence? But to find yourselves there
without a God! There is no use praying to be killed, because there is no |God to
hear your prayer. You can no more annihilate yourselves than make yourselves;
the whole thing would be utter misery, especially when the man has such ideas
that he is satisfied with himself. But what is to be done with you and me, who
cannot finish ourselves? Poor creatures! we feel that if God is like us, He had
better cease and we had better all cease; but if we see He is like us--only He
is perfect, absolute in grandeur and loveliness, ah then,"I shall get rid of
this bad in me--this poor, mean stuff in me, and I shall become glorious, true,
and excellent like Him." That is worth living for; nothing else is; it is for
that that Christ tells us to put confidence in Him and obey His word, and we
shall see the Father. "He that heareth and openeth the door, I will come in, sit
down with him, and sup with him and he with Me." When God is seated at the very
fireside of our hearts, then there is no more doubt. I say, friends, it is a
good thing that you should have doubt until you see that nothing less than that
will do, and until you come to desire that, and to turn your judgments, your
thought, and feeling in that direction. Oh! friends; I know nothing else in the
world worth knowing. I could go on talking to you all the day long about this,
but I should weary you. Faith is the trying of the things unseen--the putting
them to the test, and whatever your doubts or your fears are try Him by
obedience, and then you will get help to carry you on. Less than that won't do.