The World of Religion

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23489, 28 October 1939, Page 5 (Supplement)

The World of Religion

By PHILEMON

THERE is a wholesome place for fear, as distinguished from being afraid, in human life. "If I heard a man say that ho had never felt fear I should not believe him; if it were true I should not admire him," said Professor Waterhouse in a recent broadcast address on "The Hoots of Fear and Joy." Oiico the mere print of a man's foot upon the seashore brought consternation to him Avho discovered it. It is one of the tensest moments in our fiction and Defoe takes fifty pages to describe his hero's fear, and hoW lie took steps to make good his security by doubling the barriendo about hia rough dwelling and making ready the nrms ho had rescued from the ship. There ib a letter of Charles Lamb in which he tolls of his encounter with rt rattlesnake. Ho had carelessly struck the cago which guarded the creature and it flew at him with its "toadmouth wide open." "I forgot in my fear," ho says, "that lie Was secured. 1 did not recover my voice for a minute's space. Then I hallooed out quite loud and felt pains all over my body with the fright." The incident recalls how Charles Darwin, testing his power of self-con-trol, often put his forehead against the glass caso which confined the cobra nt tho Zoological Gardens, but invariably shrank back when tho reptile struck nt him, though both will and reason were at work to prevent the reaction. Natural Instinct Fear then has its proper and necessary place in human life. It is a natural and self-guarding instinct far removed from cowardico. But like all the instincts man must keep it under control lest it dominate tho will and sweep him into panic and helplessness. It is part of tho function of religion to give man this control of himself amid the most untoward events and to free him from thraldom both to real and imaginary foes. Many passages of Old Testament Scripture give urgent counsel to this end, but it is in tho Gospels that tho most constant warnings against submitting to the mastery of fear are found. .Testis Himself stands out as a Man of tho supremest courage, whom no threat or peril could deflect from His chosen mission, and it was but a few hours before the Cross that, knowing what awaited Him, He uttered the amazing words: "Be of good cheer, I have overcome tho world." Merely to read tho story of inch a life invigorates the will and confirms every Avorthy resolution. And as He Himself was, so He would have His disciples to be. "Fear not," Ho said to Jairus in the presence of death and bitter bereavement. "Why are ye so fearful?" Ho cried when the angry storm was stilled. "Fear them not," were the inspiring -tfords with which He sent His preachers forth to face the oppQsition and contumely of men. Even martyrdom was not to make them quail. "Be not afraid," He said, "of them that kill tho body and after that have no more that they can do." Unswerving Faith And there is another side to the Master's teaching. Those whom He would deliver from the enslavement of fear are to rise to an unswerving faith in God's control of events. The words spoken in the perilous tempest—"Wlru are ye so fearful?" are followed immediately by "Have ye not, yet faith?" And the two contiguous questions reveal the life He inculcated. He would have us maintain a confident and courageous trust that all the bluster and aggression of evil is but "sound and fury signifying nothing," and that God is high over all. Ip there any element in our Lord's teaching that better fits the need of these tragic days? No man in such an hour as this can stay himself upon a light aud flattering philosophy of life. Fear and Faith, Courage and Sacrifice are no longer the abstract words of the moralist. They have become "things," flaming realities before our eyes, cherished to the uttermost lest the gains of centuries should perish from the earth. Depend upon it our holy religion was never more needed than to-day. The forces of which we do well to stand in fear are many. There has been in our time a renewal of the ancient .belief that a realm of spiritual evil has power to break in upon our human life and work grievous ill among us. St. Paul, the philosopher of the New Testament, found in this view the explanation of many things and it has persisted with vigour through the centuries. But apart from this there is a strange stubbornness of evil within the human soul which, whatever its origin, can never be lightly regarded. Men find themselves torn by an interior conflict between good and evil, in Which real issues are being decided and where, if the good is to prevail, the highest forms of courage are demanded.