We sometimes hear an individual admiringly described as being fearless, apparently with the implication that others are not free from fear. Among the priceless gifts which Christian Science bestows is the understanding that in absolute reality all are fearless. The student of Christian Science finds in this understanding a courage that transcends the ordinary concept of this quality as being subject to fluctuation, according to varying human conditions.

Christian Science blesses the individual with immunity from fear by utterly destroying its claim to reality or power. On page 410 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Christian scientific practice begins with Christ's keynote of harmony, 'Be not afraid!'" But how, one may ask, am I to "be not afraid" when this or that situation confronting me presents so many difficulties that appear to warrant fear? Christian Science teaches us that fear is untrue because the inharmonious conditions seeming to cause it are also untrue. God, good, could not be the cause or source of an inharmonious condition or the fear seeming to attend it; hence both are unreal.

The student of Christian Science learns that he cannot temporize with fear, and therefore deals directly and specifically with any of the false arguments it may present. Spiritual understanding has revealed to him that God is omnipresent Life, Truth, and Love, and he avails himself of the present applicability and availability of the Apostle John's comforting assurance: "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. . . . There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear."

The fear of tomorrow or of the future, which seems to be so generally accepted, can be overcome by spiritually understanding one's sonship with God. The perverse demand of fear that is admitted to one's consciousness and permitted to continue its arguments of inharmonious or dangerous possibilities for tomorrow, is spurious, and one can reject and destroy it.

Building a mental wall of fear or doubt between our righteous hopes and ourselves or our loved ones, believing that we are becoming involved in a set of present or potential difficulties for which there may be no solution, is simply assuming that we have no help beyond human resourcefulness or ingenuity, and constitutes a direct denial of divine Love's omnipresence, omnipotence, and changeless availability.

Contemplating our own seemingly limited capacities and resources, and circumscribing our hope of freedom within these confines, instead of turning unreservedly to God and His infinite resources, is like believing that a house must be pervaded only by darkness when the mere lifting of its window shades would admit the sunlight. Even those not spiritually enlightened involuntarily resist evil as inimical to their normal well-being, and by this resistance show that the human mind is inherently aware of the illegitimacy of discord and fear. To attempt to get rid of inharmony, whatever the means employed, is certainly to show that one does not accept inharmony as normal.

In keeping with the record of perfect spiritual creation, as given in the first chapter of Genesis, Christian Science teaches that man is spiritual and perfect, reflecting the Mind which created him and endowed him with spiritual understanding and perfect being. Man is not, therefore, capable of fear, but is divinely gifted with the ability to discern Mind's creation as perfect and harmonious.

Fear is always error, nothingness. It does not gain reality simply because mortals have accepted it as true. Fear is without selfhood, authority, or source.

Fear is a presumptuous false belief that something good is about to cease or diminish, as if Mind could become bereft of any of its own ideas, or could cease maintaining, sustaining, and constantly refreshing and renewing its own perfect manifestation. Could Love ever cease beholding its own reflection with tender affection, or could an idea of eternal Mind ever become less than beautiful, harmonious, and whole? God is good; therefore His ideas are good. This is a changeless fact, for there could be no change in the idea without a corresponding change in its source; and it is an eternal fact that there is one God, and that He could never be less than Himself.

Thus the ideas and qualities of Mind, such as health, harmony, intelligence, ability, capacity, spontaneity, joy, and so on, are always expressed in man, Mind's likeness, and man can no more be separated from these qualities than he can be separated from Mind, the source of the qualities which constitute and maintain him as God's image and likeness. Fear, therefore, is simply a lie about God and His creation, without any actual source or authority, and therefore without any reality or power to govern man.

Mrs. Eddy writes on page 567 of Science and Health, "To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death." Love's tender care, therefore, is all we need to anticipate in connection with each unfolding experience; for, in our Leader's words from her poem, "Mother's Evening Prayer" (Poems, p. 4),