and date of his death, and these words: "He feared man so little because he feared God so much." Here is one great secret of victory. The prayer of the Rugby boy, John Laing Bickersteth, found locked up in his desk after his death, was: "Oh God, give me courage that I may fear none but thee." (Text.)
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FEAR OF MAN
Ex-President Roosevelt is usually pictured
as proof against fear, but the New York
Times tells of an occasion when he admits that he was badly frightened. It was on the evening of his first diplomatic reception as President, and the long and brilliant line headed by ambassadors, foreign ministers and attaches, and distinguished army and naval officers in gorgeous uniforms, was passing slowly before him. In this procession was a lady who knew the President quite well, and who confidently expected a hearty greeting. To her surprize, Mr. Roosevelt merely inclined his head over her hand, and bowed her on with the throng. An hour later she met the President in the reception-room, and he spoke to her in the friendliest way. "Why didn't you come in time for the reception?" he asked. "I did," she replied, "and you did not even recognize me!" "Impossible!" exclaimed the President, "but," and he set his teeth together hard and whispered, "to tell you the truth, Mrs. , I was so fearful I wouldn't do the right thing I could not think of anybody except myself!"
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Kindness, justice and a little heavenly wisdom would guard a ruler far more effectually than the precautions mentioned below: The Sultan is chiefly afraid of the darkness, and it costs him $900 per night to have his bedroom guarded. This sum is split up between the eight generals entrusted with the work and their supernumeraries. Two generals take the long watch every night outside his door, and receive $200 apiece for it; beneath them is a colonel who is paid $150 a night, and guards receiving smaller amounts. All they have to do to earn their princely salaries is to tramp up and down the corridor with their eyes on the beautiful satin-wood door inlaid with mother-of-pearl which took an expert two years to inlay. (Text.)—Tid-Bits.
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Fear, Paralyzing—See Hopeless Fear.
FEAR, RELIGIOUS
The missing qualities in Wesley's religious
state at this time [at Oxford] are obvious,
It utterly lacked the element of joy. Religion
is meant to have for the spiritual landscape
the office of sunshine, but in Wesley's spiritual
sky burned no divine light, whether of certainty
or of hope. He imagined he could
distil the rich wine of spiritual gladness out
of mechanical religious exercises; but he
found himself, to his own distress, and in
his own words, "dull, flat, and unaffected in
the use of the most solemn ordinances."
Fear, too, like a shadow, haunted his
mind: fear that he was not accepted before
God; fear that he might lose what
grace he had; fear both of life and of
death. He dare not grant himself, he declared,
the liberty that others enjoyed.
His brother Samuel, whose letters are always
rich in the salt of common sense,
had remonstrated with his younger brother
for the austerities he practised and the
rigors of alarmed self-interrogation under
which he lived. John Wesley defends
himself by the plea—in which there is an unconscious
pathos—that he lacks his brother's
strength and dare take no risks.
"Mirth, I grant," he says, "is very fit for you. But does it follow that it is fit for me? If you are to rejoice evermore because you have put your enemies to flight, am I to do the same while they continually assault me? You are very glad because you have passed from death to life. Well! but let him be afraid who knows not whether he is to live or die. Whether this be my condition or no, who can tell better than myself?" W. H. Fitchett, "Wesley and His Century."
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Fearlessness of Death—See Martyr Spirit.
Feast of the Soul—See Chains.
Fecundity—See Destruction Necessary.
FECUNDITY OF LIFE
An English naturalist has figured out that
a single-stem mother of the common aphis, or
"green-fly" of the rose, would give origin, at
its regular rate of multiplication and provided
each individual born lived out its
natural life, which is only a few days at best,
to over thirty-three quintrillions of rose
aphids in a single season, equal in weight to
