Article April 15, 1939 Issue

Fear Not!

ELIZABETH S. MURRAY

In the Gospels is the story of Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, who came to Jesus asking him to come to his home and heal his daughter, for, as it is related, "he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying." Any parent can understand the anguish in the father's heart, and the longing hope to which he clung, that Jesus would be able to save his beloved little girl. But even as he went with Jesus, he was told by others, who had received word, that his daughter was dead, and that he need not trouble the Master any further. But Jesus said to him, "Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole." Even in the face of death itself the father was told to be unafraid. Jesus then proved that there was no need for fear, for, when he reached the house, he raised the little girl to life and health. Jesus knew that, to spiritual sense, life and health had never departed, and he said, "The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth."

Jesus never admitted or acknowledged the lying claims of the physical senses, for he knew they did not exhibit the truth about man. In this instance, although the people around him laughed him to scorn for denying the testimony of that which seemed real to them, he proved that in reality there is no death, and that the fear of death was powerless and needless. What joy there must have been in that household! The father, to whom it had seemed real and powerful, saw death proved to be unreal—nothing.

When we learn in Christian Science that evil or error is never true, no matter whether in the form of sin, sickness, or death, but is simply a suggestion of Satan, or mortal mind, whom Jesus termed "a liar," we learn not to fear evil, but to turn from it as unreal and overcome it through Christ, Truth. As long as we fear error, we admit it as a reality; but when we realize that evil has no power whatever, and that the apparent power we give it in our own thinking is false, we find there is nothing to fear, because God is omnipotent.

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"Thy kingdom come"
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