Editorial September 16, 1922 Issue

Overcoming Fear

Duncan Sinclair

With no phase of mortal belief is the Christian Scientist more familiar than that of fear. It is one of his greatest foes. He encounters it times without number in himself, and meets it in every case of sin and sickness that comes to him for help. Sometimes its presence is palpably apparent; frequently it is more obscure, hidden under some subtlety of the so-called human mind; but it certainly will always claim to be where there is divergence from spirituality; that is to say, wherever thought is dwelling in the material sense of things. Fear and material sense are correlatives; and fear will claim to burden and persecute the human race until each belief of materiality has been replaced by spiritualized consciousness. Nevertheless fear never has been and never will be a reality.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 391) Mrs. Eddy writes, "Fear is the fountain of sickness, and you master fear and sin through divine Mind; hence it is through divine Mind that you overcome disease." Here our Leader analyzes the human situation as it pertains to sickness, and actually characterizes fear as "the fountain of sickness," the supposititious source of disease. It is plain that if fear and sin were overcome, sickness would be healed. And the question which confronts us is, How can fear be scientifically met and destroyed? Obviously, since it is invariably related to material sense, the method of its destruction must lie in the overcoming of this false sense.

In the quotation given above, Mrs. Eddy states that fear and sin can be mastered through divine Mind. So that the solution of the question as to how fear and sin can be met and destroyed is to be found in spiritual understanding, in that spiritual understanding which is the knowledge of the divine Mind. How, then, is this spiritual understanding to be obtained? Through Christian Science, as embodied in the works of its Discoverer and Founder, and the Bible, spiritually understood through the knowledge gained from the study of Mrs. Eddy's works. There is no other way to the complete overcoming of fear and sin than this of spiritual understanding. The illusion must be displaced by spiritual truth.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

"His only textbooks"