Article December 26, 1953 Issue

"BE NOT AFRAID"

JAMES MOOREHOUSE

"Christian scientific practice begins with Christ's keynote of harmony, 'Be not afraid!'" declares Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 410). These same words, "Be not afraid" (Matt. 28:10), were used by Jesus when addressing the two women who had previously sought him at the empty sepulcher. Is it not significant that among our Master's first words after his crucifixion and his resurrection were, "Be not afraid,"—or, as Moffatt translates it, "Have no fear!" Jesus knew that fear must be removed before mankind can either hear his words or understand his works.

Fear might be said to be faith going in the wrong direction. It is trust in evil, rather than in God, good. When we analyze any situation, we find that fear is always a false suggestion about something that has no existence in God, something then that is untrue and has no entity, power, reality, activity, intelligence, or personality. In other words, fear is nothing pretending to be something.

On page 287 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes: "God being everywhere and all-inclusive, how can He be absent or suggest the absence of omnipresence and omnipotence? How can there be more than all?" Let us then ask ourselves, "Is there any place where God's love, care, and protection are not an ever-present help to bless and heal? Could God be ever less than infinite? Does not God fill all space? Does He not constitute all-power, all-presence, all-knowledge, all-action? Is God, the All-in-all, ever less than All?" We should know that anything which does not originate in God is false. And since God has created all that exists and pronounced it good. He has never made anything to fear.

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