Editorial August 5, 1922 Issue

Salvation from Fear

Ella W. Hoag

All the world would prefer not to be afraid, for it is quite willing to admit that "fear hath torment;" but how to be saved from fear is a question which has puzzled both Christian and infidel, both the sage and the unlettered. The first recorded fear is found in Genesis, where we read: "The Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid." And why was he afraid? Because he had disobeyed God. In other words,—as the teaching of Christian Science explains,—Adam had accepted the belief that he had a mind apart from God with which he could defy God, good.

To believe that one can act contrary to the purpose of God, good, is immediately to believe that there is an opposite to good, or evil, and that one can be controlled by it. This necessarily implies a belief in a power that can harm. From such belief there follows every conceivable form of fear. From the days of Adam to the present, mortals have gone on believing that each one has a mind of his own apart from God, with which he can decline to obey God, good; and so men have continued to believe they were subject to evil and its harmful elements. Thus they still seem to be the victims of fear with all its supposititious torments.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 308), Mrs. Eddy writes: "Until the lesson is learned that God is the only Mind governing man, mortal belief will be afraid as it was in the beginning, and will hide from the demand, 'Where art thou?'" This shows clearly that all fear is caused by the belief in a mind apart from God. It follows as a necessary consequent that, as such belief is relinquished, and the truth that God, good, alone is Mind and that man, governed by Him, is subject to good and good alone is accepted, salvation from fear will result.

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