goddess Fides was not represented as credulous at all. Believing was not her prominent characteristic. It was rather faithfulness; and from the same word as a root we have fidelitas, which is usually translated faithfulness. Her faith, in as far as it was belief at all, was merely that confidence in others and other things which made her faithful or reliable. She was the goddess who was always true; and that (into which the meaning of confidence always glides) was her characteristic as a goddess, and her virtue as a model. To have faith, accordingly, is to have the disposition of the ancient Fides, with reference to God and religious things; to be true in your whole duty, which includes all there is in merit, and may, therefore, be properly made the all-inclusive virtue of a religion. It is to be true to God and men, to all your relations in life, and implies, of course, only so much belief or opinion in God and men and things as is necessary to be so true. The trueness or fidelity, however, and not the opinion, is the meritorious or substantial part of faith. The confusion of the word belief for faith, and so the gradual taking of opinion for faithfulness, doubtless arose from a peculiarity of the Greek language. In Greek there is one word for "faith" and " to have faith," the noun and the verb. The word motis means the same as the Latin fides, or fidelity, and the verb from the same root, notɛvo, means to have this quality of fides, or " to be faithful." But as neither the Latin nor the English language has any verb from the same root as faith, it has had to take another word to express the exercise of this faith, or muotis, or fides, and so, to all subsequent confusion, it adopted the word credo, or "believe." Hence belief in these latter languages has come to mean the same as faith, and "to believe" is "to have faith." In the original Greek, "to have faith," or morevo, was to have the quality of ruotis, or Fides; and this word was no doubt adopted by Christ as expressing most nearly and fully all the virtues and all the duty of man, and so made the most appropriate quality of his religion. Faith, in the true sense of the original, therefore, indicates - something more active than we are apt to suppose, a life or way of living rather than an opinion or way of thinking. It is religion itself with all its duties, or rather the faithful performance of these. To have faith is to do all that God would have us do, which of course is only another word for faithfulness to Him. It is the life and work of the good man, including "good works," not as a consequence but as a component of it; that is love, kindness, tenderness, charity, honesty, and all that goes to make up the faithful conduct of the Christian. God has charged him with doing something, and to do that is to have or keep the faith; and it is that faithfulness, as it is most rational that it should be, that justifies him before God, or renders him approved. In this sense all that is alleged of faith in Scripture can be understood, and made to hang together as consistent. When, for example, we are told that by faith Abraham and the long list of worthies mentioned by Paul, did their mighty works, if we substitute the word faithfulness for the common meaning of faith, we readily make sense out of the whole passage, which on any other meaning of faith we cannot do. It was in faith, as the words might just as literally be translated, or in the very performance of faith, or of the work committed them by God, that they did all this. Their doing it was their faith. The characteristic expressed by the ancients in Fides, or faith, was to be such that another could have confidence in you, confidence that you would do your work just referred to. It was to be faithful, as we have said, and faithfulness or fidelity implies confidence reposed by others. It does not so much express confidence by one's self. The faithful wife, as we have seen, is not one who has any special confidence or trust herself, but one in whom another can so trust. Her fidelity in as far as it is an opinion or confidence is in another, and only regards or concerns her. Her quality or fides, i. e., her being faithful is something very different. Now this meaning of the original word is found also in the Christian faith, when we consider the God side of it, it being one of those common transitions in language where the term for the quality of the object passes into that of the thought of the subject about it, and the same term is used indiscriminately for both. To be a faithful man, or to have faith in the Christian sense, is to be one in whom God can have faith, or put His trust, one who can be relied on to be always found at his post, and in the right. In this aspect God must have the faith: the trust is felt by Him, and is concerning man. A man is said, in this sense, to have the faith, or to have credit or good standing with God. He has this credit as a business man of credit may be said to have credit with others, who may become his creditors, and who are said to have faith in him. He is for the same reason and in the same sense said to find favor with God. He has done so well, and is known to do so well, that he can be trusted. God credits him, and entrusts more to him. God has, in short, faith in him, and he has a good standing in His rating. Hence it is said that faith is of God; by which it is meant, not that faith is a feeling in man given by God, but that it is a feeling in God, a confidence of His in the good man. If it were a feeling in us given by God, it would be no merit of ours that we have it, and not a suitable ground for favor with God; whereas, it being merely God's confidence in us, on account of our general faithfulness, we can readily see why we are justified by (or in) it. Faith, then, considered as a confidence or opinion, is not something that we exercise, but something that God exercises. It is God's faith in us rather than our faith in God that is important. It is being faithful that is our part, and not having faith or confiding in one who is faithful. God is always faithful, and it does not require much merit to believe it. We are not, therefore, to ask whether we have faith in God; but rather, has God faith in us? We are the object of faith, and not the subject of it. We are justified by faith, justification being something in God's mind which He exercises when He has faith in us, which is when He sees us faithful. faith (or opinion) as the world has always said, would be no properground for such justification. Our faith, or the sense we Our must give to the term when we exercise it, is faith toward God, or faithfulness. Faith, as applied to man, is simply his faithfulness in carrying out a trust, as a trustee. The principal part of the faith required in a trust transaction is not in the trustee, but in the party who assigns him the trust, in the assignor. The assignor's faith consists in confidence in that trustee, a confidence that he will do the work entrusted to him. He relies on him, and in that reliance feels easy. The trustee has faith of a kind, but his goodness does not consist in believing he has the trust, or that God gave it to him, but in being willing to do it. The Christian faith is a trust committed to him and accepted by him, to do everything good in life, and doing it. When we resolve and enter on this work we are converted, and are as truly Christian, as we can ever be. To continue a Christian is to keep doing this trust. Faith without works, we are told, is dead, because it is a trust that it is not being attended to, a formal trust, or mere nominal affair, like many legal trusts that are neglected; and in this sense it is no wonder that the failure to keep the faith is made so serious in Christianity, since it is a failure of one's whole life-work. From all that we have said it will be seen that faith in the sense in which it is emphasized in the Scriptures is simply doing right, or performing the will of God to His satisfaction, and having what opinions, feelings and purposes are necessary thereto. It is doing something instead of believing something, and expressive of character instead of opinion. Wherein it is intellectual it would seem to be in God instead of mau, His confidence and not ours, His acceptance and approval of us, and not ours of Him, He being the author and finisher of faith, it beginning and ending in Him, and remaining in Him, and never appearing in us. ARTICLE III. A Study of American Archæoloчy. PART TWO. THE LITERATURE ON THE SUBJECT. Epochs of growth or development may be noticed in many of the various branches of science. These epochs are not necessarily similar, and when similar, do not always follow the same consecutive order. These various stages are preserved by the literature on the subject. United States archæology has been no exception to the usual rule of growth, unless it be in the fact that speculation has both retarded its progress and kept pace with investigation, even from the earliest moment of discovery. Although the history of archæology in our country dates back more than sixty years, yet the science is still in a comparatively chaotic condition, owing to that perpetual tendency to theorize. There is no hard line of demarkation between the different epochs, nor does one gradually pass into another, for each period, when once originated, continues to survive, without any tendency to give way, but exists side by side with the rest, and in one instance independent of the others. Four general or principal epochs may be said to have governed the history of this subject, viz., (1) time when the remains were first noticed, (2) period of speculation, (3) scientific investigation, and (4) era of generalizing. The first epoch may be called the accidental period, for during this time the ancient remains were neither sought out nor investigated. Public attention was simply called to them through letters published in various magazines or newspapers. These notices would in time cause the wiseacres to officially promulgate their opinions, especially that portion particularly ignorant of the nature or contents of the ruins. The swift witnesses did not wait. for the facts, or the careful consideration of the remains, for these were considered to be of a secondary nature, and conse |