THE FEAR OF DEATH AND ABUNDANCE OF LIFE
I
After all, the conquest of fear is largely a question of vitality. Those
who have most life are most fearless. The main question is as to the
source from which an increase of life is to be obtained.
An important psychological truth was involved when our Lord made the
declaration, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might
have it more abundantly." This, I think, was the first plain statement
ever made that life was a quantitative energy; that it is less or more
dynamic according to the measure in which the individual seizes it. But
once more the Caucasian has stultified the meaning of Jesus of Nazareth
by evaporating it to the tenuous wisp which he understands as
spiritual. Between the pale ghost of such spiritual life as he has
evoked from the Saviour's words and manly and womanly vigour in
full-blooded exercise he has seen no connection.
II
Few of us do see a connection between strength of spirit and strength of
limb; but it is there. I am not saying that a strong spirit cannot
coexist with a feeble frame; but the feeble frame is a mistake. It is
the result of apprehension and misapprehension, and bred of race-fear.
The strong spirit would have put forth a strong frame if we had given it
a chance. Abundant life must be _life_, healthy, active, and radiant. It
should show the life-principle no longer driven from sea to land, and
from land to air, or battling with a million foes, but vigorous and
triumphant.
This vigour and triumph we ought to work into our point of view, so
kneading it into our subconsciousness. Strong in proportion as our
subconsciousness is strong, fearless in proportion as our
subconsciousness is fearless, the going from strength to strength
becomes a matter of course to us. Urging us on in sheer joy of power,
abundance of life becomes still more abundant through the indwelling of
the life-principle. That mystic resistless force, which has fashioned
already so many forms, is forever at work fashioning a higher type
of man.
Each one of us is that higher type of man potentially. Though we can
forge but little ahead of our time and generation, it is much to know
that the Holy Ghost of Life is our animating breath, pushing us on to
the overcoming of all obstacles. For me as an individual it is a support
to feel that the principle which was never yet defeated is my principle,
and that whatever the task of to-day or to-morrow I have the ability to
perform it well. The hesitation that may seize me, or the questioning
which for an instant may shake my faith, is but a reminder that the
life-principle is not only with me, but more abundantly with me in
proportion to my need. My need is its call. The spasm of fear which
crosses my heart summons it to my aid. It not only never deserts me, but
it never delays, and is never at a loss for some new ingenuity to meet
new requirements. "From strength to strength" is its law, carrying me on
with the impetus of its own mounting toward God.
III
And the impetus of its own mounting toward God is not confined to what
we view as the great things of life. Between great and small it makes no
distinction. It is as eager on behalf of the man behind a counter as on
that of him who is governing a country. The woman who has on her
shoulders the social duties of an embassy, or the financial cares of a
great business, has it no more at her command than she who is nursing
her baby or reckoning her pennies to make both ends meet. It rushes to
the help of all. Wherever there is duty or responsibility it is begging
at the doors of our hearts to be let in, to share the work and ease
the burden.
As I get up each morning, it is there. As I plan my day while I dress
myself, it is there. As I think with misgiving of some letter I tremble
at receiving, or with distaste at some job I must tackle before night,
it is there.
It is there, not only with its help, but with its absolute knowledge of
the right way for me to act. The care that worries me may be so big as
to involve millions of other people's money, or it may be as small as
the typing of a letter; but the right way of fulfilling either task is
pleading to be allowed to enter my intelligence. My task is its task. My
success will be its success. My failure will react on it, since failure
sets back by that degree the whole procession of the ages. Whether I am
painting a great masterpiece or sewing on a button my success is
essential to the Holy Ghost of Life.
IV
So I, the individual, try to confront each day with the knowledge that I
am infused with a guiding, animating principle which will not let me
drop behind, or lose my modest reward, so long as I trust to the force
which carries me along. By trusting to it I mean resting on it quietly,
without worrying, without being afraid that it will fail me. "Fret not
thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil."[34] By doing evil, I
presume is meant making a mistake, taking the wrong course. If, however
great the cause, I fret myself I disturb the right conditions. By
disturbing the right conditions I choke off the flow of the
life-principle through my energies.
[34] The Book of Psalms.
V
At a moment when the little buffer state between Egypt and Assyria was
afraid of being overrun by the one or the other it was frantically
casting about to decide with which it would throw in its lot. "With
neither," a great prophet thundered in the ears of the people. "In
calmly resting your safety lieth; in quiet trust shall be your
strength."[35]
[35] The Book of Isaiah.
My small experience in the conquest of fear can be condensed into these
four words: Calmly resting! quiet trust! That amid the turmoil of the
time and the feverishness of our days it is always easy I do not
pretend. Still less do I pretend that I accomplish it. I have said, a
few lines above, that _I tried_. Trying is as far as I have gone; but
even trying is productive of wonderful results.
VI
Least of all do I claim to have covered the whole ground, or to have
discussed to its fulness any one of the points which I have raised.
Whole regions of thought which bear on my subject--such as psychology,
philosophy, and religion as I understand the word--I have carefully
endeavoured to avoid. My object has been to keep as closely as possible
to the line of personal experience, which has a value only because it is
personal. Telling no more than what one man has endeavoured to work out,
what I have written seeks no converts. Though, for the sake of brevity,
it may at times seem to take a hortatory tone, it is a record and no
more. In it the reader will doubtless find much to correct, and
possibly to reject; and this must be as it happens. What I hope he will
neither correct nor reject is the sincerity of the longing to find God's
relations to the phenomena of life, and the extent to which the
phenomena of life reflect God.
VII
In the end we come back to that, the eternal struggle whereby that which
is unlike God becomes more and more like Him. In watching the process,
and taking part in it, there is, when all is said and done, a sense of
glorious striving and success. With each generation some veil which hid
the Creator from the creature is torn forever aside. God, who is always
here, is seen a little more clearly by each generation as being; here.
God, who ever since His sun first rose and His rain first fell has been
making Himself known to us, is by each generation a little better
understood. God, whom we have tried to lock up in churches or banish to
Sundays and special holy days, is breaking through all our
prohibitions, growing more and more a force in our homes and our
schools, in our shops and our factories, in our offices and our banks,
in our embassies, congresses, parliaments, and seats of government. Into
His light we advance slowly, unwillingly, driven by our pain; but
we advance.
The further we advance the more we perceive of power. The more we
perceive of power the more we are freed from fear. The more we are freed
from fear the more exultantly we feel our abundance of life. The more
exultantly we feel our abundance of life the more we reject death in any
of its forms. And the more we reject death in any of its forms the more
we reflect that Holy Ghost of Life which urges us on from conquest to
conquest, from strength to strength, to the fulfilling of ourselves.