Belief in God is almost universal and the effect of this belief is so vast that one is appalled at the thought of what social conditions would be if reverence for God were erased from every heart.  A sense of responsibility to God for every thought and word and deed is the most potent influence that acts upon the life—­for one man kept in the straight and narrow way by fear of prison walls a multitude are restrained by those invisible walls that conscience rears about us, walls that are stronger than the walls of stone.

At first the fear of God—­fear that sin will bring punishment—­is needed; “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  But as one learns to appreciate the goodness of God and the plenitude of His mercy, love takes the place of fear and obedience becomes a pleasure; “His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”

The paramount need of the world to-day, as it was nineteen hundred years ago, is a whole-hearted, whole-souled, whole-minded faith in the Living God.  A hesitating admission that there is a God is not sufficient; Man must love with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength,—­and to love he must believe.  Belief in God must be a conviction that controls every nerve and fibre of his being and dominates every impulse and energy of his life.

Belief in God is necessary to prayer.  It is not sufficient to believe that there is an Intelligence permeating the universe; nothing less than a personal God—­a God interested in each one of His children and ready to give at any moment the aid that is needed—­nothing less than this can lead one to communion with the Heavenly Father through prayer.  Evolutionists have attempted to retain the form of prayer while denying that God answers prayer.  They argue that prayer has a reflex action upon the petitioner and reconciles him to his lot.  This argument might justify one in thinking prayer good enough for others who believe, but it is impossible for one to be fervent in prayer himself if he is convinced that his pleas do not reach a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God.  Prayer becomes a mockery when faith is gone, just as Christianity becomes a mere form when prayer is gone.  If the words of the Bible have any meaning at all one must believe that God “is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

Belief in God is necessary to that confidence in His providence which is the source of the Christian’s calmness in hours of trial.  We soon reach the limitations of our strength and would despair but for our confidence in the infinite wisdom of God.  David expresses this when he says, “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness.  He ... shall not be afraid of evil tidings:  his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord” (Ps. 112).

In my youth, my father often had me read to him Bryant’s “Ode to a Waterfowl” and it became my favourite poem.  I know of no more comforting words outside of Holy Writ than those in the last stanza: