Editorial September 19, 1908 Issue

"PERFECT LOVE CASTETH OUT FEAR"

Archibald McLellan

There recently appeared in The Boston Herald, under the caption, "The Enemy—Fear," a somewhat remarkable editorial, from which we quote as follows:—

There is nothing men need fear. Fearlessness conquers the evil that was feared, annihilates it, transforms it into the classification of the has been or the never was. Fearlessness is not rashness, it is wisdom. Fear is ignorance, born of the ignorance that forges all the fetters which man has worn and chafed in since first he walked the earth. What you fear are phantasms. You make them forces by fearing them. Every four years this nation fears a presidential election. It is a foolish fear. The country has had experience enough to teach it this. It can trust the people. And yet men stand in corners and say: "We don't know what will happen." They fear what they call "uncertainty," and so create a certainty of uncertainty. They let business slacken, withhold investments, sit on the fence and wait. Is this the famous American optimism? Get courage. Work. There is nothing to fear. Don't take half-inch views. ... Shun the men who have fears. They are worse than the plague. Nothing but yourself can injure you. Nothing but the city can injure the city or the nation the nation. Fearlessness is wisdom, and the first part of wisdom is mastery of self. It is also the last part. It is the sum of life.

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