Have Faith in the Future

With so many opportunities and so many uncertainties, it seems appropriate to say to those who are searching and seeking—to those who are learning and preparing for life: Have faith in the future.

This is not only desirable, but also absolutely essential to peace and progress, and to preparation. If there were no faith and no real reason for faith there would be no real point in preparation.

“There is no great future for any people whose faith has burned out,” said Rufus Jones. “Don’t be a cynic,” said Emerson, “don’t waste yourself in rejection.”

And in his essay On Heroes (written, however, for the ordinary man) Carlyle forcefully comments, “We have our mind given us, not that it may cavil and argue, but that it may see into something, give us clear belief and understanding about something, whereon we are then to proceed to act.” It is a sad thing, he says, for a man or a people to fall into skepticism or insincerity—”not to know Sincerity when they see it…The world does exist. A man lives by believing something; …a man who knows, as of old, that this world is a Truth, and no Plausibility and falsity; that he himself is alive, …and that the world is alive…Do sink yourselves in boundless bottomless abysses of Doubt, of wretched God-forgetting Unbelief;…it lies there clear, for whosoever will take the spectacles off his eyes and honestly look, to know!…A man lives by believing something…”

And so to the young—and to all others—we would say: Don’t be discouraged; don’t become cynical; don’t be into big a hurry. Be patient. The Creator is still in command. There are still principles, cause and consequence; there are still opportunities, limitless progress to be made, truth to be discovered, peace to be achieved, solid purposes to be pursued.

Go on learning. Prepare as fully and purposefully as you can. Walk from day to day in willingness to work, and in a consistent, sincere living of life—with belief in its goodness and purpose, and with faith in the future. “The future belongs to those who prepare for it.”