Editorial February 22, 1913 Issue

"FEAR YE NOT."

Archibald McLellan

Throughout Science and Health Mrs. Eddy points Christian Scientists to the need for faithful endeavor on their own part that they may attain to the freedom from all evil which is man's heritage. She holds out no hope that those who seek ease and comfort for ease and comfort's sake shall progress very far toward the goal in Christian Science, but keeps before them the paramount requirement of salvation as laid down by the Master, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." No one, however, has put greater stress than has she upon the encouraging promises of both the Old and the New Testaments which open heaven to them that love God. Nor is this the far-away heaven for the attainment of which one must pass through the dark portal after having patiently endured the trials with which he believed himself to have been afflicted as a test of his faith. Rather is it a present-day realization of the peace that passeth understanding, of the harmony which is an outward manifestation of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, of the establishment of the kingdom of God in the hearts of men. Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you alway;" and it is the consciousness of this divine ever-presence, too pure to know or behold evil, which dispels the illusion of inharmony, casts it out for the nothingness that it is, and points us to Him who is "our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."

Perhaps few but Christian Scientists fully appreciate these promises, because only those can trust God in all things who have recognized that "a higher and more practical Christianity, demonstrating justice and meeting the needs of mortals in sickness and in health, stands at the door of this age, knocking for admission" (Science and Health, p. 224). Christian Scientists regard all these promises as possible of fulfilment, and they also realize that the first step toward their fulfilment must be the recognition of the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of God, and the consequent unreality of all which is unlike Him. With this recognition of the allness of God, and of man in His likeness, the element of fear which so largely enters into every human problem is eliminated, and in its stead is the consciousness that to one thus guarded belongs the assurance of the psalmist: "There shall no evil befall thee."

The Master announced his mission to humanity in the words of the prophet Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised;" and wherever he went the shackles with which error would assert its dominion over the sin-sick and suffering fell away at his word. Such, too, was the commission laid upon his followers, that they should likewise heal the sick and comfort the sorrowing, rouse men from the sense of lethargy and despair to claim the freedom which is theirs by the gift of God.

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