Chapter X: Dead Faith and Living Faith

"HAS my Amy thought of any Scripture type?" said her mother, turning towards her.

Amy hesitated a little; she was always distrustful of herself, and in this was a great contrast to Elsie.

Mrs. Temple smiled encouragingly upon her little girl. "I see that there is something in your head," she said; "tell us, my dear, what you have thought of. If you have made a mistake, I will try to set you right; we are at least likely to gain some increase of Scriptural knowledge by talking over such subjects as these."

"I thought at first that I should never find out anything," said Amy; "though you explained to us so much about types yesterday, dear mamma, I felt quite puzzled when I tried to make out one for myself. At last, a verse from the third chapter of John came into my mind, and I wondered whether our Lord Himself taught Nicodemus about a type? Perhaps Nicodemus understood the Lord's meaning, but I could not understand it—that is to say, not clearly—so I thought that I had better ask you about it, mamma."

"What is the verse?" asked several voices at once.

Amy spoke reverentially as she repeated the sacred words. Mrs. Temple would never allow her children to gabble over carelessly any verse of Scripture.—"'As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.'"

"You told us all about it last Sunday, mamma," Elsie eagerly said; "I remember the story quite well. The people had been wicked, very wicked, and so fiery serpents came amongst them and bit them; and many—I don't know how many—Israelites died, because no doctor knew how to cure them."

"Were those deadly bites a type of sin whose wages are death?" asked Lucius.

"Indeed they were, my dear," said his mother. "Man had no way of saving those who had received the deadly wound, so God Himself showed Moses a way. The Lord bade him lift up on high a serpent of brass, and promised that whoso 'looked' upon it should live."

"I cannot imagine how mere 'looking' could do the least good to a person dying of the poison of a snake-bite," observed Agnes.

"God Almighty willed that it should be so," said Mrs. Temple; "He willed that the look of faith should bring healing to a sick body, as the look of faith at a crucified Saviour still brings healing to the sin-wounded soul."

"What do you mean by the look of faith?" inquired Agnes.

"Faith is simply 'believing,'" replied Mrs. Temple. "To look to Christ is to believe that He is able and willing to save us, and that none can save us but He."

Dora, who had chosen, as we know, to sit a little drawn back from the circle, and with a screen in her hand, now dropped the screen on her lap, and leant forward so that the red flickering gleam of the firelight shone on her face as she anxiously asked, "Then are we quite, quite safe, sure never to be punished for any thing evil that we have done, if only we have faith that the Lord will save us?"

"Yes, if the faith be 'real' living faith," replied Mrs. Temple.

"Are there then two kinds of faith?" inquired Lucius.

"Yes," answered his mother; "we read in the Bible of two kinds of faith or belief—one dead and one living."

"I cannot understand that at all," said Amy.

"I will try to explain," said her mother; "and I ask you, my children, to give me your full attention, for this is a matter of the greatest importance. You all believe, do you not, that there is an Emperor of Germany?"

"Yes, yes," replied the children; and Elsie added with a little nod, "I believe there is such a man, though I never have seen him."

"Now does your belief in the existence of the Emperor—that is, your 'faith' in it—does it make the smallest difference in your actions, or words, or feelings?" inquired Mrs. Temple.

"No; why should it?" cried Lucius.

"The Emperor does not care for us; he knows nothing about us," said Elsie.

"Then your faith in the Emperor is a 'dead' faith, it has no effect on your hearts," observed Mrs. Temple. "And this is the kind of faith which many persons, alas! have in the Lord. They believe, in a careless sort of way, that Christ once lived in the world, and died on the cross, but they believe only with the head, not with the heart. And this is 'dead' faith, a kind of faith which never can save us."

"But what is a 'living' faith, then?" asked Amy.

"When our belief makes us really love Him who first loved us; when the thought of Christ's dying for sin makes us hate sin that cost Him so dear, then our faith must be living faith; and thus looking to the Lord we are saved."

Dora sighed and drew her head back again into the shadow. Hers was not a faith that had kept her from sin—hers was not a faith that made her now obey the whisper of conscience, confess her fault to her mother, and make what amends she could for what she had done.

"Depend upon it, that when an Israelite had been cured of his wound by looking at the brazen serpent, he did not go and stroke and play with the fiery reptiles that had bitten him," observed Lucius, who had the clearest head amongst the party, and best entered into the meaning of types.

"No, he would run away from the horrid creatures, or try to kill them; he would put his foot upon the fiery serpents and crush them—crush them!" cried Elsie, stamping her little foot on the hearthrug to add force to her words.

"So every one who has living faith dreads and hates sin, and tries to destroy it," observed Mrs. Temple. "We shall not carelessly trifle with it 'if we believe from our hearts' that our blessed Redeemer suffered because of our sins."