What is the true meaning of faith?

Faith?—What is faith?

I know about it. I know that its object is the Son of God. The very devils know as much as that. I know that He is the Saviour. But how He saves, and how a lost soul can come to have a part in Him, woe is me, I cannot tell. I feel about faith, as I do about repentance. 

I think if I could repent, but for one short moment, repent truly, salvation would be mine.

But vain is trying, I cannot, cannot repent. At times, I feel as if I were very near that blessed experience, as if my being would dissolve in tears—ah, vainest deception!

Oh, for a tear—a single tear!

I keep sighing, Father of Mercy, but what boots the prayer of anguish if barren of faith?—Father of mercy, oh, grant me a tear!

Letters from Hell