The faith which St. Paul defined, pistis in Greek, is better translated as trust, confidence.  The word pistis is derived from the verb peitho, which in its active voice means to persuade and in its middle voice to trust in someone, to esteem him as worthy of trust, to place confidence in him, to obey.  And fidare se, to trust, is derived from the root fid—­whence fides, faith, and also confidence.  The Greek root pith and the Latin fid are twin brothers.  In the root of the word “faith” itself, therefore, there is implicit the idea of confidence, of surrender to the will of another, to a person.  Confidence is placed only in persons.  We trust in Providence, which we conceive as something personal and conscious, not in Fate, which is something impersonal.  And thus it is in the person who tells us the truth, in the person who gives us hope, that we believe, not directly and immediately in truth itself or in hope itself.

And this personal or rather personifying element in faith extends even to the lowest forms of it, for it is this that produces faith in pseudo-revelation, in inspiration, in miracle.  There is a story of a Parisian doctor, who, when he found that a quack-healer was drawing away his clientele, removed to a quarter of the city as distant as possible from his former abode, where he was totally unknown, and here he gave himself out as a quack-healer and conducted himself as such.  When he was denounced as an illegal practitioner he produced his doctor’s certificate, and explained his action more or less as follows:  “I am indeed a doctor, but if I had announced myself as such I should not have had as large a clientele as I have as a quack-healer.  Now that all my clients know that I have studied medicine, however, and that I am a properly qualified medical man, they will desert me in favour of some quack who can assure them that he has never studied, but cures simply by inspiration.”  And true it is that a doctor is discredited when it is proved that he has never studied medicine and possesses no qualifying certificate, and that a quack is discredited when it is proved that he has studied and is a qualified practitioner.  For some believe in science and in study, while others believe in the person, in inspiration, and even in ignorance.

“There is one distinction in the world’s geography which comes immediately to our minds when we thus state the different thoughts and desires of men concerning their religion.  We remember how the whole world is in general divided into two hemispheres upon this matter.  One half of the world—­the great dim East—­is mystic.  It insists upon not seeing anything too clearly.  Make any one of the great ideas of life distinct and clear, and immediately it seems to the Oriental to be untrue.  He has an instinct which tells him that the vastest thoughts are too vast for the human mind, and that if they are made to present themselves in forms of statement which the human mind can comprehend, their nature is violated and their strength is lost.