THE VICTORY OF FAITH by Cuyler

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 3, 1867

THE VICTORY OF FAITH.

By Cuyler

The great historical event of the year now closing has been the successful submersion of the Atlantic Cable. When the telegraphic squadron set off from the shores of Ireland, in July, they carried what the world had come to consider a “forlorn hope.” The idea that a slender wire could be stretched through the dark dungeons of the deep, among sunken wrecks, and rocks, and slimy sea-monsters; and that the messages of daily life and love could find their “dim, perilous way” across it, was pronounced by many sagacious men a rank absurdity. But the wise men on board of those vessels believed in their cable just as implicitly when they started from Valencia as they did a month later, when that cable was sending back the President’s telegram to Valencia with the speed of the lightning. Fools cannot deny its success now when they read news from London in the papers received within a few hours. But Cyrus W. Field read those telegrams with the eye of faith ten years ago! He and his brave associates “endured as seeing what was yet invisible” to others. “The victory that overcame was faith.”

Their scientific faith was a similar mental exercise to that spiritual act of the mind which believes in every word revealed by God, and patiently waits for the fulfillment of his promises. Religious faith is simply a firm belief in God. There must be a certain degree of knowledge in order to intelligent faith. Field and Canning knew the laws of electro-magnetism, or they never would have believed in their Atlantic Telegraph. Knowledge of God underlies all faith in God. “How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have never heard?”

The Christian knows, from his Bible, that God is wise and good, and therefore commits his way unto the Lord. He knows from the Bible that God is true, and will not break his promises; therefore he has faith in prayer. That single precious promise that God is “the rewarder of those that diligently seek him” is linked with every labor of love, with every act of obedience, with every effectual prayer. God rewards labor. Does not every farmer act in faith when he puts in the plough, and drops his grain into the mellowed earth? Every pastor prepares his sermon; every mission-school is built, and its lessons taught each Sabbath; every pious parent tills the soil of the child’s teachable heart in the simple faith that God rewards labor.

God rewards obedience also. He enjoins upon the sinner the forsaking of his sins, and the acceptance of Jesus as his Saviour. The sinner that repents and accepts Christ does so through a firm confidence that his Heavenly Father will reward obedience. “By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, prepared an ark to the saving of his house.” An unbelieving generation hooted at the “fanatic” who was squandering his life on that huge, unwieldy vessel. But every blow of Noah’s hammer was an audible proof of Noah’s faith in the Lord as the rewarder of obedience.

God rewards believing, earnest prayer. “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened.” God hears prayer, and God answers prayer in his own time and way; upon these two great facts the Christian plants his knees when he bows to his fervent supplications. Oh! the long trials to which we are often subjected, when God would test our faith, or would strengthen our faith by its own exercise! Christ kept the Syro-Phenician mother at arm’s length for some time, in order to try the degree of her faith. It won its victory at last. Godly wives are often left to press their earnest petitions through many a year before the answer comes in the Spirit’s work upon a husband’s heart. I came to-day from the bedside of a man who was lately converted, though his noble wife has been pleading for him ten years “without ceasing.” “The grief that weighs me down,” said a Christian mother, “is the fact that of my six children not one loves Jesus. I am alone.” But this Hannah, of a sorrowful spirit, continued her supplications by night and by day. She did her own duty, and then prayed for a blessing. Five of those daughters gave themselves to Christ in one revival. “Mother,” said one of the converted young women, “let us all unite in a day of fasting and prayer for our unawakened sister.” They did so; and ere many days she, too, was added to that Christian sisterhood. The victory that overcame was a believing woman’s faith.

We could enumerate cases of prayer answered long after the lips that breathed it had mouldered into dust. When Captain K—, of Philadelphia, sailed on his last voyage, he left a prayer for his infant child, written out and deposited in an old oaken chest. After his death at sea, his widow locked up the chest, for the use of her child when grown up to manhood. He grew up a licentious, dissolute youth. On her dying-bed the mother gave him the key of the oaken chest; which he did not dare to open, lest he should find something there of a religious character to trouble his conscience. At the age of fifty-six he determined to open it, one day, from sheer curiosity. He discovered on the bottom a neatly-folded paper, on which was written, “The prayer of Mitchell K—, for his wife and child.” He read it, put it back with his father’s quadrant into the chest, and determined never to unlock it again. But the prayer wrought upon his conscience—burning it like live coals; his remorse became so great that the mistress with whom he lived in guilt thought him deranged! He ceased not to cry for mercy. Faith in Jesus, the pardoner, brought him peace and healing. He made confession, married the woman whom he had wronged, united himself with Christ’s church, and lived to old age an exemplary Christian. God was the rewarder of a faith that had lain for half a century locked up in secret! O! Lord, INCREASE OUR FAITH!—Cuyler.