The Mind of Today and the World : Part 4

The Conquest of Fear
by Basil King

(Page 9 of 17)

IX

It will be observed that I take as historic records the statements of the Bible. This I do in face of the efforts of many of the clergy in a number of the churches to make me see in the Old Testament chiefly a collection of myths, and in the New a series of compilations by irresponsible hands, of doubtful date and authority, leaving, in the case of our Lord, only a substratum which can be relied on as biographical.

As an instance of what I mean I quote the following: A few weeks ago I happened to mention to the distinguished head of one of the most important theological schools of one of the largest denominations in the country, our Lord's turning the water into wine. "I've no idea that He ever did anything of the kind," were the words with which he dismissed the subject, which I did not take up again. I am not arguing here against his point of view. I merely state that I do not share it, and for these two main reasons:

First, because the so-called Higher Criticism on which it is based is a purely evanescent phase of man's learning, likely to be rejected to-morrow by those who accept it to-day, as has been the case with other such phases;

Secondly, because I feel sure that, with the mastery of matter to which we have already attained, the future development of our race will justify these seeming "miracles," and make them as natural and commonplace as telegraphy and telephony.

I speak only for myself when I say that the more I can feel round me the atmosphere of omnipotence the less I am aware of fear. It is a matter of course that the one should exclude the other. The sense of being myself, in a measure, the inheritor of omnipotence, as an heir of God and a co-heir with Christ, becomes, therefore, one to cultivate. This I can do only in proportion as I see that my Standard and Example cultivated it before me. In my capacity as a son of God I take as applying to myself the words reported by St. John: "In most solemn truth I tell you that the Son can do nothing of Himself - He can only do what He sees the Father doing; for whatever He does, that the Son does in like manner."

While sayings like these, of which there are many in the New Testament, apply doubtless, in the first place, to Him who best exemplifies the Sonship of God, they must apply, in the second place, I suppose, to all who exemplify that Sonship to any degree whatever. Man is the Son of God; and it is worth noting that He who is specially termed the Son of God is also specially termed the Son of Man. "Dear friends," St. John writes, elsewhere, "we are now God's children, but what we are to be in the future has not been fully revealed to us." I take it, therefore, as no presumption on my part to emphasise in my daily thought my place as a co-heir with Christ, feeling that not only is God's almightiness exercised on my behalf, but that as much of it as I know how to use is placed in my hands.

X

This last, of course, is very little. Even that little I use doubtfully, timidly, tremblingly. That is the utmost reach to which present race-development and personal development have brought me. With regard to the opportunities all round me I am as if I stood beside an airship in which I could fly if I knew how to work its engines, which I do not. Other conveniences besides airships would be of no good at all to me if someone more skilful than I didn't come to my aid. There is probably no person living of whom the same is not true. Large portions of omnipotence are placed within hands which are too busy grasping other things to seize all that they could hold.

I remember the encouragement it was to me when I understood that to hold anything at all was so much to the good as a starting-point. I had been in the habit of dwelling on the much I had missed rather than on the little I had apprehended. But the little I had apprehended was, after all, my real possession, and one I could increase. It is like the few dollars a man has in a savings bank. That at least is his, notwithstanding the millions he might have possessed if he had only known how to acquire them. There are many instances of a few dollars in the savings bank becoming the seedling of millions before the span of a man's life is passed.

To be glad of what we can do while knowing it is only a portion of what will one day be done is to me a helpful point of view. "There may be truth in all this," is the observation of a young lady who has scanned what I have written, "and yet I don't believe that we shall ever conquer fear." That, it seems to me, is to tie chains and iron weights about one's feet when starting on a race. If we are to keep in the race at all, to say nothing of winning it, the spirit must be free. One must add the courage which springs from a partial knowledge of the truth to the patience one gets from the understanding that as yet our knowledge of the truth is but partial.

XI

I often think that if the churches could come to this last admission it would be a help to themselves and to all of us. As already hinted I am anxious to keep away from the subject of churches through a natural dread of bitterness; but this much I feel at liberty to say, saying it as I do in deep respect for the bodies which have kept alive the glimmer of Divine Light in a world which would have blown it out. In a partially developed race the churches can have no more than a partially developed grasp of truth. A partially developed grasp of truth is much - it is pricelessly much - but it is not a knowledge of the whole truth. Not being a knowledge of the whole truth it should be humble, tolerant, and eager to expand.

About the Author

William Benjamin Basil King (1859-1928) was a Canadian-born clergyman who became a writer after retiring from the clergy due to loss of eyesight and thyroid disease. His novels and non-fiction were spiritually oriented. King retired from the clergy in 1900 due to illness, and began writing. His anonymously published novel The Inner Shrine, about a French Irish girl whose husband is killed in a duel, became very popular when published in 1909. King wrote a number of best-selling works.