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“FEAR HATH TORMENT”

So saith the Apostle. Some Christians are paralyzed for life by the monomania of fear. They fear to pray in public. They fear to be singular for right. They are afraid to give to the Lord’s cause lest they come to want. They fear to rebuke a brother for his fault. They fear to confess Christ before men. They are afraid to leave an old church or party that has left the truth. They are afraid to espouse a good cause where it is not popular. They fear shadows and fail to secure the substance. They are like the invalid afflicted with the delusion that he was made of brittle clay and if struck would snap into fragments. He was cured by a friend deliberately upsetting him from his carriage, when he arose from the ground sound in mind as well as body. The cure for a foolish fear is faith and a forced obedience of duty. Just as there is one cure for selfishness—self-sacrifice; as there is one cure for spiritual laziness—work, there is one cure for timidity and that is to plunge into a disagreeable duty before the ague shiver has time to come on. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.—Selected.

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— June, 1884 —