Article February 20, 1926 Issue

Overcoming Fear

HANNAH M. FRANKEN

On no one point does mankind agree more definitely than on the so-called fact that disease is due to fear. So common is this that we find in daily conversation the expressions, "I am afraid," "I fear," used promiscuously. John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, tells us, "Perfect love casteth out fear;" and this perfect love was revealed to John by his adherence and obedience to the teachings of the great master Metaphysician, Christ Jesus. The truth that love casts out fear was demonstrated clearly by the Way-shower for all ages. It is the understanding of Love, the omnipotent divine Principle, God, which Christian Science clearly and consistently elucidates and proves.

It therefore becomes the privilege and duty of all to understand God; for it is only through the understanding of what God is that we can find ourselves in possession of man's birthright of dominion. John also tells us that "God is love." It follows then that to eliminate, or cast out, the fear that torments, the fear which separates loved ones and which opposes itself to all good, we must understand the magnitude of "perfect love."

On page 373 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," its author, Mary Baker Eddy, has a paragraph with the marginal heading, "Love frees from fear." She says: "The fear of disease and the love of sin are the sources of man's enslavement. 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,' but the Scriptures also declare, through the exalted thought of John, that 'perfect Love casteth out fear.'" Since God is Love and Spirit. He can be understood only through spiritual sense. The love, then, which is classified as love by human sense, is limited, finite, and changeable, subject to the mutations of physical sense.

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