Article May 25, 1918 Issue

Fear Dispelled

HENRIETTA A. FIELD

The two sat together in their favorite corner of the shaded porch, with the last rays of the setting sun filtering through the leafy branches that encircled it. They had been talking earnestly over the many perplexing problems of "the life that now is," and considering also "that which is to come," and the godliness which is profitable unto both, when the younger of the two women turned to her companion and laying her hand on her arm said timidly: "I want to tell you something that has troubled me all my life, but I have been ashamed to acknowledge it to anyone. I am now, and have always been, so afraid of the experience we call death, that all my efforts to overcome this fear seem utterly in vain."

There was a little silence while the one who had been questioned sought for divine wisdom with which to answer this cry of fear; then she replied gently: "I think the trouble is that you are expecting God to give you grace to meet a certain experience, thinking that experience inevitable. I know you well enough to be sure that you have often found God's help and grace sufficient for the need of the hour as that need has come. What He has done in the past is your guarantee for the future." There was a sigh of relief as the burden of years rolled away and gave place to a reasonable confidence in God's help when any need should come; while the self-evident fact that to-morrow's grace cannot be given us to-day, overbalanced the dread of the last enemy.

Not only has our Leader taught us to pray, "Give us grace for to-day" (Science and Health, p. 17), but again, in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 307), she says: "Never ask for to-morrow: it is enough that divine Love is an ever-present help; and if you wait, never doubting, you will have all you need every moment.... This sweet assurance is the 'Peace, be still' to all human fears, to suffering of every sort."

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