RADIANCIES OF FEAR
Fear is the greatest enemy of mankind. It is the creator of evil, for
many people sin through fear. It is the maker of cowards and moral
weaklings, the foe of all progress, the barrier to advancement,
physical, mental, spiritual. He who is afraid dares not, and he who
dares not, knows not, feels not, enjoys not. The fearful do not live;
they merely exist, in bondage to a terror that leaves them neither night
nor day. They know few of the delights of achievement, for they are
afraid to dare. Fear throttles endeavor, stifles hope, murders
aspiration. It is a hydra-headed monster of protean forms. It is a liar
and a coward, a beguiler and a thief, a sneak and a poltroon, a
slanderer and a cur. It comes in a thousand guises--sometimes as
caution, then as tact, again as consideration for others, but ever and
always as a deceiver and a destroyer.
If there is one thing above another that I wish I had learned in
earliest youth, and I wish I had known enough to teach my children in
their earliest days, it is perfect fearlessness. The only thing I fear
to-day is fear. To go through life afraid of this and that and the
other, is to take away all joy, all spontaneity, all freedom, all
aspiration, all endeavor.
I used to believe and teach that we should "fear God." But the word
"fear" as here used is not the abject, groveling, contemptible feeling
that so many people imagine it to be. God has made us in His own image.
He wishes us to stand upright, and greet Him as filial beings should,
proud and glad to come to Him as "Our Father."
Fear makes us whine and whimper before God, and go to Him in the same
spirit of dread that leads the Indian to feel he must always be
propitiating the powers that be. If he does not pray and sing and dance
and smoke the good powers will be offended, and will injure him, and the
evil powers will be made more evil and do him more harm than they
otherwise would. Hence month in and month out, because of fear, he seeks
by his dances, and smokings, and songs, and prayers to protect himself
from evil by soothing their possible anger and quieting their fury
against him.
There is much of this same spirit in our old-time theology, and our
present-day life. We are afraid of God. God doesn't want us to be
afraid. Every man should therefore stand upright, afraid of neither God,
man, nor devil. God is no tyrant to be turned from His purposes by
sycophantic worship, or by "much speaking" and importunity. He is a
reasonable God, a loving God, a just God, a merciful God, and abject
fear will never change His plans as to His treatment of any human being.
As to being afraid of men, why should one man ever be afraid of another?
Let us stand upright as men--one man just as good as another--_if he is
as good_, and if he isn't as good, knowing that all the potentialities
of godhead are within his own soul. We are gods, says Browning, though
but as yet in the germ. Let us fearlessly develop the germ, or give it
opportunity for development.
And as to being afraid of the devil, I have long since learned that the
proper way to deal with what I suppose to be the devil--or his
henchmen--is simply to straighten up my back, look him squarely in the
eye, and definitely and positively bid him "Go to hell!" Even the most
modest and refined of preachers, whether of the new or old type, will
agree that that is the only place for the devil and his myrmidons.
I would have my children, myself, and the world afraid of nothing but of
evil--and by evil I mean those sins that I myself know are
evil--selfishness, pride, uncleanness, as well as the sins of the
decalogue. But even here I would not let it be a fear that dreads
falling into these sins. I would not anticipate or expect anything of
the kind. Hence, in one sense I would not have them afraid of evil.
Resist evil and it will flee from you. Harbor it not, do not dread it,
but resolve to slay it by its opposite good. The evil is null if you
live its opposite. There is no need for an unselfish man to fear
selfishness. A man who gives freely never need fear that he will become
a miser.
Yet people go through life afraid, and teach their children to be
afraid, and thus lose nine-tenths of the love and joy and power and
blessing of life.
Fear holds a large and powerful grip upon the human race. Scarce one
woman in a thousand of the so-called civilized portion but is afraid of
child-birth--a perfectly natural process that should be attended with
all the angels of Love and Joy and Welcome, instead of the horrible
demons of Fear. From the time of birth until its body falls into the
grave the mortal is taught fear. We pay preachers, teachers, lawyers,
and doctors, and much of their work consists of fostering our fears. I
have a picture before my mind's eye now of one of the noblest and best
women that ever lived. Her whole life was a self-sacrifice, an unselfish
devotion to others, yet, such was the theology that had been taught to
her that she was constantly in dread lest she had done wrong, she was
ever sitting on the stool of repentance, and life was a gloomy, somber,
awful thing to her, because of her "dread of an angry God."
Thousands of people fear death because they have been taught that when
they die they may "go to hell" for sins done on earth.
A mother was telling me only a few days ago of the perfect fearlessness
of her boy until (when about six years of age) he went to a Sunday
school, where they taught him their ideas of the devil and hell and
God's method of punishing sin. That night he dared not go to bed without
a light and woke up several times crying that he was afraid of sinking
into hell.
Whatever preachers may feel it to be their duty to teach of hell and
God's anger to grown men and women, I deem it monstrously cruel to put
such fears into the plastic and trustful souls of the young.
Teachers, lawyers, and doctors are as bad as the preachers. We must
avoid "night air," and draughts, and getting our feet wet, and not
eating enough, and eating too much. We must not eat this and that, and
must not do that or the other. Fear is instilled into our minds all
along the pathway of life until if we are not healthy enough to throw it
away and live our own fearless life, we are weighted down by the burden
of our needless and senseless fears. All quack doctors work on the
foolish and ignorant fears of the people, or their nostrums would never
sell enough to pay a thousandth part of what their advertising costs.
Fear is the club that scoundrels use to beat the ignorant into paying
tribute to them.
I do not believe in these fears--to me they are all bad, and nothing but
bad. I would banish every one of them from the human heart.
But, says an objector, you surely would not let your child go and handle
a deadly rattlesnake, or send your growing and innocent girl into the
company of expert _roués_, or willfully sleep in a miasmic atmosphere,
or inhale the poisonous gases of a badly cared-for plumbing system? Of
course not. But neither would I be afraid of them. There is all the
difference in the world between _knowledge of danger_, and _fear_ of
that danger. Let a child be taught definitely and positively the danger
of handling a rattlesnake, but do not fill his soul with fear of it;
impress forcefully and strongly the wisdom of avoiding evil company upon
your daughter, but teach her to be absolutely fearless in the presence
of the debauchee; seek to the full how to avoid all miasma and deadly
plumbing, but be fearless about them. Fear is the product of ignorance;
fearlessness of knowledge. If my child knows all the harm a rattlesnake
can do, and all the power it possesses, he can avoid it as easily as
not. Therefore why should he be afraid? The feminine fears of mice,
rats, spiders, and snakes are evidences either of ignorance, or of a
developed hereditary tendency to fear. In the former case the fearful
one should be trained so as to remove her fear, in the latter she should
resolutely set her will to work to overcome it, in which all her friends
should sympathetically aid her.
Fear has ever been the foe of progress. Every advance step in all life
has been taken by him only who had throttled his fears. Fire was
conquered for the human race by the man who dared brave the strange and
weird flames that grew and then disappeared. Prometheus--the
fearless--is the type of all who have helped the race to progress. It is
the same in every field of endeavor, on every plane of thought. Galileo,
Newton, Savonarola, the barons of King John's time, Cromwell, Luther,
Bacon, Captain Cook, Washington, Lincoln are but a few of the thousands
of names of men who have dared, who have bid their fears depart, and in
so doing have advanced the human race.
Joaquin Miller in his grand poem _Columbus_ clearly shows what would
have become of him and the discovery of the new world had he let the
fears of the mate and his sailors affect him. Read it carefully with
this thought in view. Indeed it is well worth memorizing as a standing
lesson against fear.
COLUMBUS
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores;
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admir'l, speak; what shall I say?"
"Why, say: 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"
"My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak."
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
"What shall I say, brave Admir'l, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
"Why, you shall say at break of day:
'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'"
They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now, not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Admir'l; speak and say----"
He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on!"
They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
"This mad sea shows his teeth to-night.
He curls his lip, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
Brave Admir'l, say but one good word:
What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
"Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! and then a speck--
A light! A light? A light! A light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!"[C]
[C] This poem has recently been set to music by Dr. Carlos Troyer, of
San Francisco, that is as thrilling and soul-stirring as are the words.
Copies may be had by sending sixty cents in postage stamps to Dr.
Troyer, 1236 19th Ave., Sunset District, San Francisco, Calif.
Sydney Smith once well said: "A great deal of talent is lost to the
world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves men
who have remained obscure because of timidity. The fact is that, in
order to do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand
shivering on the brink and thinking of the cold and danger; but jump in
and scramble through as well as we can. It will not do to be perpetually
calculating risks, and adjusting nice chances. It did very well before
the flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an intended
publication for a hundred and fifty years, and live to see its success
for six or seven centuries afterward. But at present a man waits, and
doubts, and hesitates, and consults his father, brother, cousin,
friends, till one fine day he finds he is sixty-five years of age. There
is so little time for our squeamishness that it is no bad rule to preach
up the necessity of a little violence done to the feelings and of
efforts made in defiance of strict and sober calculation."
Too often elderly friends, with the best of intentions, inculcate this
fear into the hearts of the young. Never was there a greater mistake or
_real_ unkindness. It is nothing that the intent is good. One's intent
may palliate any judgment rendered against the offender, but, the
unfortunate result, the implanting of the fear, cannot so easily be
forgiven. Oh that I could prevail upon older people to refrain from this
terribly demoralizing habit of giving advice to the young that
inculcates fear. Let me illustrate:
A young man is a clerk in an office. He sees an opening to which his
heart and brain strongly impel him, but there is a little, perhaps a
great deal, of risk connected with it. He goes for advice to his older
friends. They, with their life-work practically finished, valuing their
rest and content more than desiring to reënter the battle of life,
naturally are wary about an uncertainty. "Why not leave well enough
alone? Why run the risk? What will you do if this fails? You will have
given up a certainty for an uncertainty," and so on.
Ah! worldly wise though it _seems_, it is the most injurious and harmful
advice that the young could possibly receive. Where would progress and
advancement be to-day if many had not totally disregarded such smug,
self-contented, unheroic advice! Thank God, youth is the time for
adventure, for striking out, for _making mistakes_, for learning, for
testing, for "proving _all_ things," and holding fast to that which is
good. Old age has had its day. It has made its mistakes and profited by
them. Let it keep its hands off the young. Let them have their
opportunity.
Herbert Spencer tells of throwing up a good job as civil engineer in
order to experiment with a matter that a fortnight proved to be utterly
impossible. Yet fifty years later he thus reviewed this apparently
self-injurious act: "Had there not been this seemingly foolish act, I
should have passed a humdrum and not very prosperous life as a civil
engineer. That which has since been done would never have been done."
In other words, the act that shook him out of the rut, the contented,
common, mediocre path, compelled him to find a new path for himself, and
this called upon all the resources of his great and, to him and others,
unknown nature, and he developed into the transcendent genius, the
profound philosopher, whose writings had greater influence, perhaps,
upon his century than those of any other man.
Hence I want to radiate the spirit of complete fearlessness, not only
for myself, but for my young friends of both sexes, all the sons and
daughters of men. I would calmly watch them plunge overboard into the
ocean of life, trustful and confident, having first taught them the
first few strokes of swimming--the principles of true and godly
living--and then stand, fearlessly, and watch them strike out for
themselves. I swam,--why should not they? God is in His heaven to-day
watching the sparrows fly just as He was a score, a hundred, a thousand
years ago.
In the mental world how fearful people often are of breaking away from
old ideas. Only the other day a friend wrote me that he had been to a
funeral, conducted by an orthodox clergyman. He said: "I imagine his is
a very orthodox denomination, if he is a fair sample of what they
believe. Glimmerings of a soul that hungers for larger things than its
creed allowed was evident in his talk, however. Is it not pitiful, and
more, is it not tragical, how people allow their soul-instincts and
natural outreachings to be killed, or hampered, or stilled by what their
befuddled brains or the brains of others have decided is proper, or
accepted as proper, to believe?"
I can remember when good Methodists and Congregationalists were "kicked
out of the church" for daring to hope that all men would ultimately be
saved, and I have heard preachers and doctors fulminating against
Christian Science and everything else that did not conform exactly to
what they believed, and seeking to work upon the fears of their
congregations to prevent any investigation. This kind of fear is
unworthy the human soul. Be in a daring, a receptive, an investigative
state of mind. I would radiate a readiness and willingness to listen to
anything that has proven, or seems to have proven, a truth to another. I
want to welcome truth from wherever it comes, whether popular or
unpopular, wanted or unwanted. I would broaden my horizon, heighten my
aspirations and deepen my conceptions of truth and be glad to receive
from any source. I well remember John Ruskin saying to me: "Never read
that book or listen to that sermon which you know beforehand you will
agree with. By so doing you deepen the ruts of your own mentality." I
want no mental or spiritual ruts. Good roads are never "rutted." I wish
to be a broad, wide, well-paved, solid road, over which all truth may
run, welcome, free, untaxed, life-giving.
In his _Memory and Rime_, Joaquin Miller in speaking of poets refers to
them as "these men who have room and strength and the divine audacity to
think for themselves."
When a man strikes out for himself, in thought and action, he does have
to be audacious, in the higher sense of the word. He has to dare his
fellow men, dare their criticism, dare their disapproval, dare to shock
them, dare to grieve them, perhaps. He has to dare himself, throw down
the gauntlet to himself in his struggle to become completely what he
believes to be highest and best. It takes a great deal of courage to do
all that, a great deal of resolution--an initiative that may seem
impudence, a fearlessness that may seem recklessness.
The strength that makes it possible to do this must be a strength like
to the divine strength. A strength ordained from the foundation of the
earth as a part of man's birthright, to become a part of himself, when
he begins to try for himself to conceive of higher good and to live it.
The man who thinks only as other men think, dares act only as other men
act, is as a babe in swaddling clothes, helpless, dependent. One can
never be strong until he learns to walk alone, independent of another's
hand to cling to or another's strength to steady himself by. One must
learn to stand on his own feet, learn to keep his own balance, learn to
step by his own volition. If he does not he becomes a cripple. Most
lives are as the lives of cripples, and we help to make them so by our
continued trying to force people to cling to us and our ideas,
frightening them into believing that they are in great danger if they
try to step alone. A little trembling of the legs as one first stands
alone is nothing to be alarmed at. A few falls and bumps as we first
step out never seriously injure us.
It is only when a life has strength to stand out alone, independent of
its fellows, that its soul can take hold of God.
And I fancy that it is only when a life thinks and acts for itself, and
allows its fellow men to think and act for themselves, that it is in a
condition to really give help and to receive help, really in a state of
mind to fulfill the commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself."
It is one thing to be brave enough to do something which is hard to do
but which your fellow men will approve of your doing, and an entirely
different thing to do something hard but which your fellow men will not
approve of your doing. Therefore I want to radiate into actual, living
potentiality my belief that life consists in expression and not
repression. By many this is taken to be a plea for license and want of
self-control. Do not believe it! That is not what I mean. The expression
of evil is not the expression of myself, for I long to do only good.
Read what St. Paul says on the subject. And by "I," I mean my real self,
as Paul did--not my lower self, my evil heredity, or whatever it is that
seeks to drive away the good from me--I, the real I, the self which is,
and which may not appear to the world, want to express all that is in
that real self. That means that I must control, slay, kill, drive out
all the evil that comes to me and demands that I express it as part of
myself. It is not a part of my spiritual self, and if I express evil
then I am not myself in that sense. But I want to have such perfect,
such absolute control over all outward expressions that I shall ever
and at all times express nothing but that which is good; and that which
will be felt to be good by all people.
And yet we must determine what we should express. The thinking man and
woman make their own standards. These standards, in certain great
principles of honor, truth, nobleness, purity, are practically alike,
yet most men and women are controlled by fashion, custom, society,
rather than by their own cool, deliberate judgment. I want to radiate my
protest against this state of affairs. I will be my own judge and not
place the responsibility for my own moral life upon the judgment of any
person, society, clique, class, or church. I must be saved by my own
belief and life, not by the belief and life of others.
For years I endeavored to "avoid the appearance of evil." When at last,
however, I discovered that the "appearance of evil"--the determination
of what it was, rested upon the average quality of the minds of the
community by which I was surrounded, and not always upon right, or
truth, or justice, I made up my mind that for me, at least, God had a
higher mission. I resolved, therefore, in His strength fearlessly to
radiate a higher conception of things. An evil mind sees evil where none
is; a filthy mind sees filth where is only innocence and sweetness. Was
I to shape my life and conduct to meet the ideas of those who deem
innocence and trustfulness, natural simplicity, and true-heartedness as
"appearances of evil"? God forbid. Rather, by far, would I suffer in the
judgments of men and women, cruel and untrue though they would be, than
forego the life of natural trust, simple uprightness, that alone mean
_life_ to me.
And this is what I desire to radiate,--a positive, powerful, healthful,
aseptic moral quality that will refuse to allow people to see evil where
none exists; that will lead them to prefer to see, to hope for, to
believe in, the good rather than the evil in men. Better trust and be
deceived, than live a life of horrible mistrust. I know men and women
are imperfect, and, like myself, composed of good and evil, therefore I
am determined to radiate my belief in the good in them rather than
radiate my belief in the bad of them.
It is worth while to re-read George Eliot's _Mill on the Floss_, to see
how poor Maggie Tulliver was misjudged and cruelly treated purely on
what people _supposed_ was her wrong-doing. And I shall never forget the
influence the following words had on me when I first read them. I would
that the lesson they contain might be burned into the inmost
consciousness of every reader of this book.
Even on the supposition that required the utmost stretch of
belief--namely, that none of the things said about Miss Tulliver
were true--still, since they _had_ been said about her, they had
cast an odor around her which must cause her to be shrunk from by
every woman who had to take care of her own reputation--and of
society. To have taken Maggie by the hand and said, 'I will not
believe unproved evil of you; my lips shall not utter it; my ears
shall be closed against it; I, too, am an erring mortal, liable to
stumble, apt to come short of my most earnest efforts, your lot has
been harder than mine, your temptation greater; let us help each
other to stand and walk without more falling;'--to have done this
would have demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge, generous
trust--would have demanded a mind that tasted no piquancy in evil
speaking, that felt no self-exaltation in condemning, that cheated
itself with no large words into the belief that life can have any
moral end, any high religion, which excludes the striving after
perfect truth, justice, and love towards the individual men and
women who come across our own path.
It is my earnest desire that I may radiate this spirit of courage, deep
pity, self-knowledge, generous trust, and all that follows. And this,
not in an abstract or theoretical way, but in the real concrete cases
that one meets with in life. I am not too good to associate with the
found-out wrong-doer if he is striving against his wrong-doing, and
aiming to be better. I would not look down on any human being because of
any sin. Though I want to grow to hate sin more and more as the
manifestations of that which separates us from the Infinite, I want the
sinner to feel that I am one with him in all desire to be free from
evil, to be possessed only by the spirit of truth, purity, and love.
All great victories whether of peace or war have been won by the
fearless, the unafraid. We honor the heroes of the past, of Thermopylæ,
and the fearless and brave of all nations and all time. Tennyson's
_Charge of the Light Brigade_ appeals to our love and respect for the
virile, the manly, the courageous, the fearless, and it is the same
spirit that thrills us when we read or hear _Curfew Shall not Ring
To-night_. To save her lover the shrinking maiden was filled with high
born courage and dared to hang on to the bell. Whether we agree with his
beliefs or not we admire the bravery of Luther that led him to exclaim:
"Were there as many devils in my way as tiles on the house tops yet
would I go to Worms." Whether we approve of his ascetic life or not we
thrill at the bravery, the simple-hearted daring of Francis of Assisi,
who resolutely cast aside his patrimony and dared his father's anger
that he might serve God in his own way.
Every advanced thinker, whose life and action spell progress for the
race, has to be a daring pioneer. He must be an iconoclast; he must be
self-contained, self-assured, self-confident. He must stand aloof from
his fellows in the very spirit of the message he brings, for he
dares--imperfect, weak, even sinful though he be--to be a teacher, a
leader of others. And how natural, human, it is for those who live with
or near him, seeing and knowing as they do, all his foibles,
weaknesses, littlenesses, failures, sins, to magnify these things and by
them hide the beauty and grandeur of the lesson God has given him to
teach the world.
Our poets have given us some wonderfully vivid pictures of the fearless.
Perhaps the greatest in all literature is Shelley's _Prometheus_. It is
worth reading a score of times in order that its spirit of fearlessness
might be absorbed. Joaquin Miller's _Columbus_, which I have already
quoted, gives a marvelously vivid picture of the great admiral when even
hope had gone from his own heart, when he could not pierce by faith the
darkness of his own soul.
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights!
Yet though it was all darkness _to_ his own soul, and _in_ his own soul,
he kept on. His orders were "Sail on!" And his courage and bravery
brought him to the light of the new world.
Browning in his _Prospice_ opens with the bold and daring interrogative:
"Fear death?" and, after showing what there is to fear, exclaims as in
an ecstasy of fearlessness:
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore
And bade me creep past.
No! let me fare like my peers, the heroes of old.
In a minute pay, glad, life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
I want to radiate the active consciousness even when I am storm-tossed,
beaten down by fierce winds, compelled to stay my journey by the
sand-laden, hot sirocco of the desert, dashed upon the cruel rocks by
tempestuous waves, frozen by the blizzards of the North, that I have
nothing to fear, that nothing can harm me save myself, that God is over
all and in all. As David called upon mountains, and all hills, fire, and
hail, snow and vapors, stormy wind, to praise Him, fulfilling His word,
so would I call. And in calling I would rest and be at peace.
And I want to radiate to others my fearlessness for them. They need not
fear though the heavens fall. Many a man fails in the fierce conflict
raging in his own soul because he has been taught to fear the fierce
judgment of an angry God. I want with all the vehemence of my nature to
radiate a spirit that will kill and bury forever such fear in human
souls. Let no one daunt you by such teaching. Under all circumstances,
brother, keep your face up!
Look ever to the stars!
If, in the conflict, you lose heart, do not let your face down so as to
be covered by the mud into which you are sinking. Battle on, though you
are finally swallowed up--or fear you will be. Go down face up, and let
the last thing your expiring gaze rests upon, be the stars above. Though
the mud and mire cover your mouth so that you cannot cry out,
Look up to the stars!
Though it rise higher, and cover your nostrils so that you cease to
breath,
_Look up to the stars!_
Though it flows into your very eyes,
_Look up to the stars!_
My word for it, my soul for yours, the God of men will take that last
expiring glance of yours and make it the lever that shall pull you out
of the mire and set your feet upon the rock and establish your goings,
and
PUT A NEW SONG INTO YOUR MOUTH.