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Updated: June 22, 2025
Both Ignorance and Little-Faith would have had their revenge and satisfaction upon Christian and Hopeful had they seen those two so Pharisaical old men taken in the Flatterer's net.
Christian and Hopeful had just come down from their delightful time among the Delectable Mountains, and they were as full as they could hold of all kinds of knowledge, and faith, and hope, and assurance; when, most unfortunately, as it turned out, they first came across Ignorance, and then, after quarrelling with him, they fell out between themselves over the case of Little-Faith.
Yes, said one who had known him all his days, if the child is the father of the man, then Little-Faith, as you so unaccountably to me call him, must have been all along a good man. It was said long ago in Vanity Fair about our present Premier that if he were a worse man he would be a better statesman.
It would have been far more becoming and far more profitable if Christian and Hopeful, instead of falling out of temper and calling one another bad names over the sad case of Little-Faith, had tried to tell one another why that unhappy pilgrim's faith was so small, and how both their own faith and his might from that day have been made more.
At the same time, it must be admitted that Christian and Hopeful would have been more than human if they had not both felt and let fall some superiority, some scorn, and some impatience in the presence of such a silly and upsetting stripling as Ignorance was; as, also, over the story of such a poor-spirited and spunging creature as Little-Faith was.
If they who are strong were thus to bear with the weak, as they ought, how much more love, peace, and unanimity would prevail! Excellent! See the nature of Christian love; even to be ready to spare to a brother, what we ourselves have occasion for. The character of Feeble-mind seems to coincide, in some things, with that of Fearing, and in others with the description of Little-faith.
In short, and to put it bluntly, had Little-Faith been a worse sinner, he would have been a better saint. "O felix culpa!" exclaimed a church father; "O happy fault, which found for us sinners such a Redeemer." An apostrophe which Bishop Ken has put into these four bold lines "What Adam did amiss, Turned to our endless bliss; O happy sin, which to atone, Drew Filial God to leave His throne."
But Little-faith, though it was his lot to have but a little faith, was by his little faith kept from such extravagances, and made to see and prize his jewels more than to sell them, as Esau did his birthright. When their minds are set upon their lusts, they will have them whatever they cost.
Hope, love, humility, meekness, patience, longsuffering, compassion, and mercy, are gracious dispositions wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost. Little-faith cannot come all the way without crying. Oh! I saw that my gold was in my trunk at home, in Christ my Lord and Saviour. Now, Christ was all; all my wisdom, all my righteousness, all my sanctification, and all my redemption."
My little-faith, my ready-to-halt faith, raised its head above the encompassing waters; the wild turmoil and torment died away: ... after the earthquake and the fire and the whirlwind, the still small voice....
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