“In that greatest event of this [the 19th] century, the emancipation of our slaves, there is a wonderful illustration of the way of faith. The slaves received their freedom by faith, just as we must receive ours. The good news was carried to them that the government had proclaimed their freedom. As a matter of fact they were free the moment the Proclamation was issued, but as a matter of experience they did not come into actual possession of their freedom until they had heard the good news and had believed it. The fact had to come first, but the believing was necessary before the fact became available, and the feeling would follow last of all. This is the divine order always, and the order of common-sense as well. 

1. The fact. 
2. The faith. 
3. The feeling. 

But man reverses this order and says, 

1. The feeling.
2. The faith.
3. The fact.

Had the slaves followed man’s order in regard to their emancipation, and refused to believe in it until they had first felt it, they might have remained in slavery a long while.”

(From Hannah Whitall-Smith’s “The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life”, chapter 6)