--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Anderson, Nephi collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 2 number: 5 published: 1899-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Anderson, Nephi, "From Faith to Faith," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 5 (March 1899): 332–334.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera25unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera25unse start_page: 332 end_page: 334 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera25unse publication_year: 1899 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # From Faith to Faith 'TROM FAITH TO FAITH/' BY NEPHI ANDERSON. As in the beginning God made all things spiritually before they took the form visible to mortal eyes, so ever after has it been the natural workings of the human mind to create first in the imagination the things that later have been fashioned by the hand or materialized in the daily life. The imagination flies before and spies out the land for the safer tread of fact. Faith leads to works. The idea precedes the expression. Fancy beckons from unknown lands. In vision we see the dim regions into which time soon sets us down and we experience its reality. "The fantasies of one day are the deep realities of a future one," says Hawthorne. The inventor builds his machine of the finer material of the mind ere it assumes tangible shape. The painter's most beautiful picture is on the sensitive canvas of the mind, and that which he puts on the coarse-grained cloth by means of his pigments and brushes, is but an imperfect copy. The song which echoes through the inner chambers of the poet's soul is not perfectly reproduced by the insufficient words of man. The novelist's characters walk and talk in spiritual reality before they are delineated by the pen. Take the child. His sole ambition is a pocket knife, the end of his brightest hope is to be in possession of a bag of marbles. A few years and these are trifles. His ideal has moved on until it is now perchance a horse or a bicycle. Then when these have become commonplace his fancy mounts higher, and the occupation of some exalted station, the reaching of some noble place in life, becomes his objective point. These are also reached, and then "FROM FAITH TO FAITH." 333 the ever mounting ambition soars still higher, and the mind through its subtle eye of faith sees newer and grander possibilities, which if life and energies last, may also be fully realized. Then old age comes, and the physical senses become dulled; but the ever-living soul within looks on and on. Death may be a short passage through a dark valley, but the hills are shining brightly beyond the shadow. To the believer, whose inner eyes are touched by the Spirit of God, the grave is not the limit of thought or hope, but merely an incident in the onward march, an experience in God's school of immortality. By a divine faith he sees far into the eternities of the Father, into the kingdoms of glory, and the soul leaps in joy at the beautiful sight. If the highest aspirations of the child come true, may we not from analogy reason that our highest conceptions of the future life will some day be realized? We are the children of God, created in his image, and holy writ assures us that when Christ reveals himself again, they who have had this glorious hope and have purified themselves as he is pure, will see that they are like him. In thus reasoning on this hope that "springs eternal in the human breast" we have many analyses to establish its truth. For example, we can plainly see the effect that environment has on life, both plant and animal. The geranium, which in Utah can reach to a height of about eighteen inches only, in other climates grows to the size of a small tree. The tall willow and pines of the temperate zone become mere dwafs in the arctic regions. Recently a French scientist has discovered the secret of the Hindoo mango trick, in which a seed is planted in the presence of the audience and made to grow to a plant a foot high in an hour. The investigation showed that a prepared earth was used, obtained from ant hills and charged with formic acid which wonderfully quickened the germination of the seed and the growth of the plant. So in like manner animal life depends very much on its environments, and man is no exception. The child has all the attributes of the man; training and favorable surrounding develop some, while others lie dormant. Is it not equally true that man is a child of the Eternal Father, inheriting all his nature in germ form as yet, very little of which may have made a beginning in growth? But all the attributes are there, and when the transplanting is done and the mortal is taken from out the stunting effects of earthly environments into the divine influence of heavenly elements, is it not possible that man's inherent energies will expand in all directions towards the perfectness of his Father and God? "I dimly guess from blessings known Of greater out of sight." says Whittier; but he does not put it nearly as strong as does the inspired apostle when he says: "Eye hath not seen, neither ear heard, neither have entered into heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him," May we, then, not safely go from faith to faith, and build our castles in the air? Build them of gleaming marble and shining precious stones, and adorn them with all the beauties that the imagination can supply. All we have to do is to place foundations under them and illumine their towers with that glory which poets have caught a glimpse of and which the unbeliever has called —"The light that never was on sea nor land."