^ One of our poets gives a grim picture of a traveller on a lonely road, who has caught a glimpse of a frightful shape close behind him.
And having once turned round walks on. And turns no more his head.
The dreadful thing is there on his very heels, its breath hot on his cheek ; he feels it though he does not see, but he dare not face round to it, he puts a strong compulsion on himself, and with rigidly fixed face, strides on his way, a sickening horror busy with his heart. An awful image that, but a true one with regard to what many men do with their thoughts of God ! They know that that thought is there, close behind them. They feel sometimes as
^ Lift and Letters of Dean Church, xxii.
362 LOVE CASTING OUT FEAR
if its hand were just coming out to be laid on their shoulders, and t'~ ""op them. And they will not turn their heads to see the Face tjicit should be the love, the blessedness, the life of their spirits, but is — because they love it not — the terror and freezing dread of their souls.^
[^ 2. It is " perfect " love that casts out fear. The more devotedly the heart clings to God the more complete will be its victory over fear. The more we love God the more we grow like God. He that loveth not knoweth not God. He that is born of God loveth. He that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. " If there were not something sunny in the eye," says Goethe, " it could not see the sun " ; so if there be no love within our hearts, we can never know God, for He is love, and we can know Him only as we love Him. If our love is not a reflection of His love, if it is so weak and feeble that, when the cloud passes over it and darkens the sunlight, it cannot keep our heart from failing because of fear ; then let us look up to Him who is our life, and seek that gift of love which He alone can bestow, and the dominion of fear will end.
^ The most efiectual and permanent remedy for any passion is to give power enough to its opposite to control it. We see empirical cases of this. For instance, mirthfulness stands over against combativeness. A man who has humour and sees things in a mirthful light escapes destructiveness and combativeness more easily than anybody else. A child is angry and hateful, and strikes back ; but the nurse sets a little monkey jumping, and he laughs ; and that minute the child's temper is all gone. The two elements cannot reign together. The nurse, empirically, has fallen upon the right philosophy. In the whole range of life, over against the causes of fear are the opposites ; and by keeping them alive and in full play a man can control fear more easily than by direct and specific acts of the will.
We find that medicine acts in the same way. If a person is under the influence of overwhelming grief the physician orders a change of place, or association, or occupation. A new class of influences is brought into play, and they cure or medicate the trouble. So all the things that tend to courage, to hope, to trust, to mirthfulness, to gaiety, whatever elements are radiant in the human mind, are the natural born doctors of the things in the human mind that are dusky, low-browed, and care-pierced.^ 1 A. Maclareu. 2 Henry Waid Bcecher.
I JOHN IV. i8 363
3. The way to perfect love and freedom from fear is the old way of obedience. Before we can love God truly we must first have learned to obey His will even in the smallest duties of our life. We so often begin the other way. We look right away from the little duties, from the common everyday work, which we ought to love, from the friendships which we ought to be making here, and think we can know at once what is meant by loving God. And how often, as the years go on, we fail ; and know that the reason for our failure was that we had not yet learned the meaning of Christ's words, " Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven " — those words which should teach us that we cannot know what perfect love is until we know something of love in its simplest form, as love for our work and love for those around us. Only that love which has its roots in perfect obedience and simple trust is strong enough to cast out fear.
^ I remember the instance of a pale woman who taught a village school in summer. One rude boy tried her very soul, and there was a strife of some weeks before she gained the ascendancy ; and some months passed by before her spirit conquered his, and he became, not an abject servant, but the servant of love ; so that, although he was stronger than a dozen of her physically, though he had the power rudely to discompose her spirit, and stamp out the order of the school, not her shadow moved more obediently to her movements than he did to her wishes ; for he loved her. That which in the beginning she compelled him to do, and which he did very poorly, he afterwards did with eagerness and a great deal better. For the inspiration of love, when men are prepared for it, is a nobler inspiration than that of fear. It is more compre- hensive, more fruitful, more beneficent. And while it has its efficiency in this life, it has the promise, the signet, the earnest of the life which is to come.'^