* J. Iverach, The Other Side of Greatness, 139. REV. — 4
50 FEAR NOT
T[ Stevenson in his essays insists upon "being vital," as he calls it. Whatever else you are, he says, "be vital." He is encouraging and seeking to foster a brave and cheerful optimism. Do not trouble about death, says Stevenson, make the best of life. Now there is truth in that, and wisdom in it ; and in all literature there is nothing more touching than the zest with which Stevenson determined to live, though in his sickly body he carried all his days the sentence of death in himself.^
II.
Feak not to Die.
"I was dead."
1. Man naturally fears death. Through fear of death men are all their lifetime subject to bondage. Though, under high motives and devotion to great causes, men have often subdued the fear of death, yet this fear is really a feeling common to all men. For men do not know what it is to die. It is an experience that is strange to men, and no one returns to tell others what it is to die. No traveller returns from the other land, and the experience of death lies before each man as new and as strange as if no one had ever had that experience. No one had ever before said, " I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore."
^ It is said that George Morland, the painter, who killed himself by drinking, was possessed of such an unreasonable fear of darkness that, if the light happened to go out, he would creep towards the fire or the person next him, and he could never sleep without two lights in his room, lest one by some accident should be put out. That is something like the intolerable fear that most men have of death. They may reason themselves out of it, but the instinctive dread remains. Darwin used to go to the London Zoological Gardens, and, standing by the glass case that contained the cobra, put his forehead against the glass, while the cobra struck out at him. He was trying to conquer an instinctive fear; but though he knew that the glass was between, every time the creature struck out the scientist dodged. The same instinct makes most men fear the termination of earthly life. They may be firmly convinced in their minds that death is no enemy, but like Samuel Johnson they look forward with something very like
1 J. D. Jones, The Gosjpel of Grace,lB2,
REVELATION i. 17, 18 51
terror to the "awful hour of their decease." And j'et, wheD the time came for Johnson, he was able to face death with calmness and Christian fortitude.^
2. Christ does not teach us to make light of death; He says nothing to weaken a right sense of its awfulness and solemnity. Had we no shrinking from it, we should be lacking in the ordinary instincts of self-preservation and in due reverence for the sancti- ties of that human life which man may destroy but can never replace. Had we no native horror at the shedding of human blood, we might rush on suicide or murder, with the ferocious delight of savages or brute beasts. Yes ! there is a rightful fear of death which is associated with a sense of the blessing and value of God-given life and in fullest accord with all the primary instincts of our being and well-being. We cannot suppose that this laudable fear is meant to be impaired by the gospel. No! the Lord's words here do not mean that we are to have nothing of that natural fear of death which is one of the strong safeguards of our own life and that of others. It is only the tyrannous, em- barrassing, distracting, oppressive, mischievous terror that becomes simply a curse and a snare for all who come under its sway, to which this command "Fear not" applies, and from which it is part of the gracious Saviour's design to deliver us.
^ That man must be a coward or a liar who could boast of never having felt a fear of death.^
3. Christ bids us master the fear of death by remembering that He passed through its dark portals. " I was dead." This announcement would remove all doubts from the mind of the Apostle as to the person addressing him. Whatever disparity between His present appearance and what He was when the Apostle saw and conversed with Him in the world, this declara- tion would remove all doubt. In the glorious One now in the midst of the golden candlesticks, and holding the seven stars in His right hand, and clothed with indescribable glory and majesty, he beholds the One whom he knew on earth as the "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" — the One whom he saw arrayed in mock royal robes and the crown of thorns, the One whom he saw arraigned before an earthly tribunal and there
» J. WaddeU. 2 xhe Duke of WeUington.
52 FEAR NOT
unjustly condemned, the One whom he saw in indescribable agony in the gloomy precincts of Gethsemane, the One whom he saw nailed to the accursed tree, and whose cry of bitter agony he heard while under the hiding of His Father's countenance, and whom at last he helped to commit to the dark and lonely grave. But what a contrast now ! No longer the " man of sorrows and acquainted with grief " ; no longer the object of the hateful scorn and derision of the wicked ; no longer the suffering Jesus, crushed with the burden of sins not His own — bearing the cross on which to lay down His life a ransom for many ; no longer the seemingly conquered of death and the tenant of the grave, but the mighty conqueror risen to the possession of an endless life.