Editorial September 10, 1910 Issue

NO BASIS FOR FEAR

Archibald McLellan

A physician in a recent letter to a New York newspaper calls attention to the varied and groundless fears which he alleges govern mortals from their earliest to their latest experience, and, speaking doubtless from experience of the effect which indulgence of these fears procures in the way of physical and mental disorders, he makes an earnest plea for their overcoming. He did not, however, point the way to this overcoming, and whatever good his article will do, though written with the best of intentions, will probably be limited to awakening the thought of his readers to the abnormality of the conditions which he described.

Merely calling on men and women to cease being afraid is not sufficient; it is not enough even to point out to them that their fears are foolish and groundless, and dilate on the baneful effects that follow in their train; they must be thoroughly assured that there is no cause for fear. To do this, it is necessary to go to the bottom of the question and indicate a remedy, and this cannot be effectually accomplished so long as the attempt is made on the basis that evil is real. Men do not fear that good will come into their experience; they hope and pray that it will. When they come to understand that God, good, is infinite Love and the only power, and therefore that evil has neither existence nor potency, they will cease to fear it, and no longer be its victims.

The apostle Paul had learned this lesson when he wrote to the church at Rome: "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." As Christian Scientists we have come out from the bondage of the fear of evil of any sort, for we know in whom we have put our trust, and that He is able to deliver us; in other words, we have entered into "the glorious liberty of the children of God." Likewise, we rest assured that, if faithful to the teachings of our Leader, "we can, and ultimately shall, so rise as to avail ourselves in every direction of the supremacy of Truth over error, Life over death, and good over evil, and this growth will go on until we arrive at the fulness of God's idea, and no more fear that we shall be sick and die" (Science and Health, p. 406).

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