become almost an equal confidence and an equal sensitiveness toward
his fellow believers. So it is throughout Scripture; you remember that
other psalmist who tells us how he had been tempted to doubt God's
providence and God's power to help the good man--"does God know and is
there knowledge in the Most High? Verily I have cleansed my heart in
vain and washed my hands in innocency." The psalmist immediately adds:
"If I had spoken thus, behold I had dealt treacherously with the
generation of God's children." If I had spoken thus, denying God,
I had dealt treacherously with the generation of God's children.
Unbelief toward God meant to him treason toward God's people; and the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews affirms the same double character
of true faith when he emphasizes just these two points in the faith
of Moses: "choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God," and
"enduring as seeing Him who is invisible," and God Himself through
Jesus Christ has accepted this partnership of His people in our
loyalty--"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren ye have done it unto me." I do not believe in the full
faith of any man who does not extend the loyalty he professes to
God to God's people as well, who does not feel as sensitive to his
brethren on earth as he does to his Father in heaven, who does not
practise piety toward the Church as he does toward her Head, or find
in her fellowship and her service a joy and a gladness which is one
with his deep joy in God, his Redeemer. Nay, is it not just in loving
people who are still imperfect, often disappointing, and far from
their ideal it may be, that in our relations to them we are to find
the greater proof and test of our religious faith? In these days such
a duty is unfortunately more complicated than with the psalmist. The
lines between God's Church and the world is not so clear as it was to
him, and the Church is divided into many and often hostile factions.
All the more it becomes the test of our religion if our hearts feel