For it is very
easy to lose it, this faith in God. We are tempted to lose it, all
our lives long.
Our forefathers, in the days of Popery, lost it; and because they did
not trust in God as a good God, who took good care of the world which
He had made, they fell to believing that the devil, and witches, the
servants of the devil, could raise storms, blight crops, strike
cattle and human beings with disease. And they began, too, to pray,
not to God, but to certain saints in heaven, to protect them against
bodily ills.
One saint could cure one disease, and one another; one saint
protected the cattle, another kept off thunder, and so forth--I will
not tell you more, lest I should tempt you to smile in this holy
place; and tempt you, too, to look down on your forefathers, who
(though they made these mistakes) were just as honest and virtuous
men as we.
And even lately, up to this very time, there are those who have not
full faith in God; though they be good and pious persons, and good
Protestants too, who would shrink with horror from worshipping
saints, or any being save God alone. But they are apt to shut their
eyes to the beauty and order of God's world, and to the glory of God
set forth therein, and to excuse themselves by quoting unfairly texts
of Scripture. They say that this world is all out of joint; corrupt,
and cursed for Adam's sin: yet, where it is out of joint, and where
it is corrupt, they cannot show.
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