Everyman’s Hut

Camp News, Volume 3, Issue 123, 22 May 1942, Page 8

Everyman’s Hut

FEAR NOT. (By Sister Evacot Friedenshort) .One of the manifold, unsearchable gifts the Heavenly Child brought with Him down to earth is deliverance from fear. Ever since paradise was lost to Adam and Eve through the Fall, fear has dwelt on the earth. Alongside of the sin that introduced it, it has dominated the human race from generation to generation, and has come down even to our own day. But when Zacharias took his son in his arms he uttered a prophecy that ran through the lans like a triumph song. Speaking of the yet greater One Who would come after his own child, he said: — “That we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies should serve Him without fear . . . and all our days.” When the glory of the Lord shone upon the fields of Bethlehem, the first words the Angel said to the frightened shepherds were: “Be not afraid.” When the Angel Gabriel greeted the Holy Virgin, it was with the words: “Fear not!” sounded again and again used them again when he appeared to Joseph to comfort and soothe his sorrowful heart. . . . Those same words, “Fear not!” sounded agnin and again from our Lord’s own lips in the years of His earthly ministry, while He was preparing the disciples for apostleship.

And yet it was only after His resurrection and ascension, when the victory of the Son of God had been perfected, and when He had come to dwell in the hearts of His own in the person of His Holy Spirit, that there could be any actual experience of real deliverance from fear. But since then the lives of the apostles and the lives, of God’s true children all down the centuries have proved the fact that the emancipation is complete. Since then there are two classes of people: those in whom the redemption is not yet realised, who are bound by fear, and those who have received the redemption, and have been set free from the bondage of fear. If we look out over the heathen races of the world, wherever we turn, fear is the dominating influence. It is fear that inspires their worship and fear that is often the underlying motive of their actions. None but those who have lived among these people have a conception of the over-whelm-ing sway this abject agony of fear holds over them. It has penetrated every sphere of their lives and left its trace everywhere. Their lives are spent in one long effort to propitiate evil spirits to whom they often sacrifice all they value most, and always without avail. The brave Red Indian, who can face battle and death without a tremor, live in constant terror of spirits they imagine they must '< appease. The self-mastery and manly courage they show outwardly, only too often hide a trembling, troubled heart.

It is not only in China, in the South Sea Islands, among negroes and eskimoes, that the gloom of fear spreads its poison - through life; fear is no stranger in our own lands in spite of our civilisation and enlightenment and all the advantages of modern scientific discovery. We might classify this fear as we are ever meeting it in life into: The fear of suffering, The fear of the future, The fear of the invisible world, . The fear of death, The fear of inevitable judgment. (To be continued.)