and will not be injured by it.  The doctrine commends itself to you, because you are young, and because you are strong.  If it fills you with misgivings, at times, and threatens to destroy your peace of mind, let the emotion operate.  Never stifle it, as you value your salvation.  You had better be unhappy for a season, than yield to temptation and grievous snares which will drown you in perdition.  Even if it hangs dark and low over the horizon of your life, and for a time invests this world with sadness, be resolute with yourself, and do not attempt to remove the feeling, except in the legitimate way of the gospel.  Remember that every human soul out of Christ ought to fear, “for he that believeth not on the Son, the wrath of God abideth on him.”  And remember, also, that every one who believes in Christ ought not to fear; for “there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, and he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.”

And with this thought would we close.  This fear of God may and should end in the perfect love that casteth out fear.  This powerful and terrible emotion, which we have been considering, may and ought to prepare the soul to welcome the sweet and thrilling accents of Christ saying, “Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden,” with your fears of death, judgment, and eternity, “and I will give you rest.”  Faith in Christ lifts the soul above all fears, and eventually raises it to that serene world, that blessed state of being, where there is no more curse and no more foreboding.

  “Serene will be our days, and bright,
    And happy will our nature be,
  When love is an unerring light,
    And joy its own security.”

[Footnote 1:  The moral and healthful influence of fear is implied in the celebrated passage in Aristotle’s Poetics, whatever be the interpretation.  He speaks of a cleansing [Greek:  (katharsin)] of the mind, by means of the emotions of pity and terror [Greek:  (phobos)] awakened by tragic poetry.  Most certainly, there is no portion of Classical literature so purifying as the Greek Drama.  And yet, the pleasurable emotions are rarely awakened by it.  Righteousness and justice determine the movement of the plot, and conduct to the catastrophe; and the persons and forms that move across the stage are, not Venus and the Graces but,

                       “ghostly Shapes
  To meet at noontide; Death the Skeleton
  And Time the Shadow.”

All literature that tends upward contains the tragic element; and all literature that tends downward rejects it.  AEschylus and Dante assume a world of retribution, and employ for the purposes of poetry the fear it awakens.  Lucretius and Voltaire would disprove the existence of such a solemn world, and they make no use of such an emotion.]

[Footnote 2:  WORDSWORTH:  Intimations of Immortality.]

[Footnote 3:  LUCRETIUS:  De Rerum Natura, III. 989 sq.; V. 1160 sq.]