^ There is no exorcist of fear like love. Longing for the good of another will carry one through fire and water.^
Our love wakes in the morning, unafraid To meet the little worries of the day; And if a haggard dawn, dull-eyed and grey. Peers in upon us through the window shade, Full soon love's finger, rosy tipped, is laid Upon its brow, and gloom departs straightway. All outer darkness melts before that ray Of inner light, whereof all love is made; Each petty trouble and each pigmy care. And those gaunt-visaged duties which so fill Life's path by day, do borrow of love's grace.^
V 2. " Fear hath torment," says the Apostle. Some artists have taken pleasure in painting monstrous forms — beings that never existed save in their own deranged imagination — things hideous to behold. Similar to this is the genius of fear; it opens its sombre canvas, spreads it out before the mind, covers it with phantoms of evils to come, filling the soul with anguish and misery. Thus it was with Job. When he could believe in the Divine goodness, hope dawned upon him, and he spoke cheerful words : " I know that my redeemer liveth." " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." " When he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold." But when he could not see God or realize His
1 R. W. Barbour, Thmughts, 20.
• E. W. Wilcox, Poems qf Love and L\fe, 7.
358 LOVE CASTING OUT FEAR
goodness, when his light was turned into darkness, fear returned, producing " torment," by which it is always accompanied. Some- times he is like a forsaken child, wandering hopelessly and alone at midnight in a desolate place, far from the habitations of men. He sighs for the light, but it comes not ; feels after God, but He evades his touch. *' 0 that I knew where I might find him ! . . . I go forward, but he is not there ; and backward, but I cannot perceive him." Again and again does the image of his great affliction pass before his mind, like the spectre in the vision of Eliphaz, creating a depth of misery which he endeavours in vain to express.
^ We have met with some who ought to have been bathing in the depths of the Divine love and sufficiency, suffering such torments as are described in Dante's Purgatorio or Inferno. To what is this torment due ? To an untrusting fear of God. They do not find any comfort in their thought of God ; always speculat- ing as to what God will think of this or that, they know not the blessed joy of an uncareful, God-delivered soul. One would say to such, do not think that God saves you only upon condition that you carry about with you in your very breast the torment of hell. As you believe the Divine love, cast this torment from you and come at once into the more perfect enjoyment of that Divine grace, which does not extend its favour to you because you are so good, but that it may make you betjier.^
V 3. Xove, unlike fear, inspires confidence. Love enlightens, purifies, and elevates the soul. We are influenced by the objects of our love. We cannot love a noble human character without in some degree becoming like that character ; and if we love Christ, and God in Christ, we shall be changed into the same image from glory to glory. Love is fruitful in good works; it inspires the mind to keep the commandments of Christ, and imparts power to surmount the greatest difficulties, while fear takes away our strength, enervates the soul, and deprives us of our moral and spiritual energy. The marvellous labours and self-denial of the apostles are accounted for by the love that constrained them. It is, moreover, essential to acceptable service, for there is no virtue in that which is done from mere fear. A man doing his duty simply because he is afraid to leave it undone, resembles the
* G, J. Proctor.
I JOHN IV. i8 359
crouching slave who works because the lash of the taskmaster hovers over his head, and is ready to descend the moment he desists ; but he who obeys from love is like an affectionate child who hastens to do his father's will because obedience is to him a real delight.
^ On a lonely moorside, far from any other habitation, dwells a weakly woman, the wife of a powerfully built crofter. They live alone in their humble cot, the weakly wife entirely in the power of her strong husband. If he so willed he could do her grievous harm, but does she ever think of that ? No, for perfect love casts out all fear. She rejoices in his strength because she has perfect confidence in his love, she cannot fear because she knows and believes fully the love that he has for her. All this you say is perfectly natural. Certainly, and is it not just as natural that we should, when we are joined in covenant relation- ship with God, trust Him as fully and realize that any feeling of fear is simply impossible, because we know and believe the love which He hath toward us ? ^