The beginnings of morality and virtue are in fear; for, although men may finally be organized so highly that they shall work for the love of working, as men do that are in health of both body and mind, yet, in the beginnings, among low and rude people, men do not work because they like it. They bask lazily in the sun, and gorge themselves with food when they have it, and suffer the pangs of famine when they have it not. They learn to build houses, that they may not be exposed to the severity of the weather. They learn to cultivate the fields, that they may have food in winter. They are brought to habits of foresight and industry and regularity by the stimulus of fear. They are stimulated by the fear of suffering in themselves, and then by the fear of suffering in their households, when they begin to love them. It is fear that develops the human race in its earlier stages. It is fear that in the beginning promotes civiliza- tion. .Fear is the strongest impulse towards improvement on the / lower range in the scale of human life. Love is the highest element ; but this is at the other extreme.
The filial relation is seen in its perfect shape only where a discipline is maintained and obeyed. Fear is the parent o| love in the work of education. Such fear does not cast out love; it cherishes it and makes it a reasonable and a worthy love, based like all love worthy of the name upon reverence and honour. But this love in turn casts out that other fear of which St. John speaks — a fear which is born not of faith but of distrust ; the fruit of ignorance, not of knowledge. " I know," says the Apostle n/ Paul to Timothy, "whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him . against that day." This is the calm and humble conviction of one in whom fear had been cast out by a perfect love. In Jesus Christ he had seen death abolished ; for he had seen a sinful
356 LOVE CASTING OUT FEAR
world reconciled to the Father; he had seen in Him life and immortality brought to light through the Gospel; and it had banished fear for ever.
% It is said that the son of that profligate French prince Louis who is branded with the name of the " godless Regent " was, in his boyhood, deeply impressed by what his tutor told him about the punishments reserved for obstinate sinners. He grew up into manhood, serious, conscientious, pure in life, devout towards God, compassionate towards men. The fear of hell, as such, had done its work at the right time ; it fairly burned out the germs of sinful passion ; it prepared him, we cannot doubt, for a better spiritual condition at last attained. It may be so with many a youth who is not yet accessible to higher motives, but who believes that wicked ways lead to hell, and who there- fore, in his own phrase, " keeps himself straight." Is not this "fear" worth something? Bishop Andrewes, alluding to it, observes that it is " as the base-court to the temple " ; and adds that a man must do his duty "for fear of punishment, if he cannot get himself to do it for love of righteousness." ^
^ The genial Principal of Glasgow University, in the course of a public speech a year or two ago, told this story. An old couple in his country parish had taken with them to church their stirring little grandson, who behaved all through the service with preternatural gravity. So much was the preacher struck with the good conduct of so young a listener that, meeting the grand- father at the close of the service, he congratulated him upon the remarkably quiet composure of the boy. " Ay," said the old man with a twinkle in his eye, " Duncan's weel threetened afore he gangs in." ^
Wouldst thou abolish quite strongholds of self and sin ? Fear can but make the breach for Love to enter in.*
II
* The Antagonism of Fear and Love.
'*' 1. Love and fear are antagonistic passions, and the tendency of the one is to overshadow and extinguish the other. The love of God is declared in this text to be the victorious antagonist of
^ William Bright, Morality in Doctrine, 215.
2 Sir Archibald Geikie, Scottish Reminiscences, 88.
» R. C, Trench, Poems, 124.
I JOHN IV. i8 357
that fear of sin which has torment in it. In general we can see without difficulty how the two, love and fear, do exclude one another. Fear is entirely based on a consideration of some possible personal evil consequence coming down upon us from that clear sky above us. Love is based upon the forgetfulness of self altogether. The very essence of love is, that it looks away from itself. It is thus free from that torturing and anxious thought, What will become of me ? which makes the torment of fear as the sister of selfishness. It is because love is the goin? out of my heart, out of itself altogether, that it frees me at one sweep from all the torturing anxieties and trembling anticipations of personal consequences. Fill the heart with love, and there is an end to the dominion of fear.