Faith & Spirit Quote by B. C. Forbes

Faith here isn’t treated as piety or dogma; it’s framed as a private technology for surviving public chaos. Forbes, a business journalist who made his name translating the jittery moods of capitalism into readable narrative, pitches belief as an “inward reservoir” - a stored supply you draw on when the headlines (or the balance sheet) insist you’re finished. The metaphor matters: a reservoir implies depth, replenishment, and insulation from surface weather. This is less altar-talk than risk management for the soul.

The line’s real muscle is in its doubleness: “to the world it may appear to come out most badly.” Forbes grants the visible evidence of failure, even catastrophe, and then refuses to let that evidence have the final say. That move is rhetorically savvy because it anticipates the skeptic’s best argument - look around - and answers without trying to win on the skeptic’s terrain. Faith becomes a kind of counter-public, an interior jurisdiction where verdicts aren’t handed down by markets, crowds, or timing.

Subtextually, this is a defense of morale as a moral good. Courage, calmness, “assuring trust” aren’t presented as naive optimism; they’re portrayed as stabilizers that keep a person functional when external narratives turn hostile. In the early 20th century - boom-and-bust cycles, war, social upheaval - the promise that “all will come out well” reads like an editorial stance: you can’t control outcomes, but you can refuse the tyranny of appearances.