Have Faith in God - Charles W. Savidge

Introductory

ARE it is, in this year of our Lord 1914, that we happen upon a man of action in the ranks of the clergy; rarer still is it to find such a man unmindful of the gibes of scholarly critics against our Christian faith, unchanged by the flimsy cults of the last half century, whose chief purpose in life is the demonstration of the Christian religion.

The career of Charles W. Savidge is one for which heredity and environment can offer no adequate explanation. If you wish to read a work which is the spiritual counterpart of the present history, you must delve into the biographies of the last century, yet his idea of philanthropy is in advance of his own day.

It is becoming no uncommon spectacle to see a man who, dissatisfied with the husks of religion, reaches out for visible results. Such a man seldom adds to his ministry other than an earnest human effort for the temporal reclamation of men.

My father, on the other hand, has staked everything on the literal demonstration of God's supernatural promises. He will tell you of his success.

MARK M. SAVIDGE.

Foreword

N THINKING over the title of this book I desired to express as clearly as possible the contents, and I know of no title that so fully describes what I have tried to tell in this volume as this text.

And again, this text is the most precious to me of all in the Bible. To me it expresses the love and power of God and instructs me in my duty to Him; it also conveys to me my privileges with respect to Him.

When I first started out in my independent work, this text was given me from God Himself. I was told to make much of this truth and I was instructed to place it on my house, and without consulting anyone about it, I at once told the workmen to prepare a smooth board, having the dimensions f two by three feet; to make it in black and gold so that I might hang it on the side of my house where the hundreds who passed every day could read it.

That text was there for years and caused some criticism and sport, but I have found out that it helped many with despondent and breaking hearts. That text is on my new home-today in plain, beautiful letters, lighted by electricity at night. This is the way it reads: "Have Faith In God. Rev. Chas. W. Savidge."

I also have it on my church and House of Hope, and on my personal cards. I do not know when I shall die, but I hope that at my funeral this text will be put in flowers and I hope the fact will be emphasized that this was my motto during my life; that I believed this truth in my deepest heart and that as far as I knew how. I strove to demonstrate it; and I offer this prayer, that as this text has been an inspiration to me, so may it now to the thousands who shall see it on the cover of this book be a true source of help and divine inspiration.


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