nwhile a beginning is something.
It is a step in the right direction. It is the learning of the
alphabet. It is the earnest and promise of much that is to come.

Now if the Church refuses to employ this potent weapon, she is very
stupid. A beginning is only a beginning, but it is a beginning. If we
ignore the element of terror, we are deliberately renouncing a force
which, in the wilds and in the world, is of really first-class value
and importance. I am not now saying that the ministry would be untrue
to its high calling if it failed to warn men with gravity and with
tears. That is a matter of such sacredness and solemnity that I
hesitate to touch it here; although it is obvious that, under any
conceivable method of interpretation, there is a terrible note of
urgency in the New Testament that no pulpit can decline, without grave
responsibility, to echo. But I am content to point out here that, from
a purely tactical point of view, the Church would be very foolish to
scout this valuable weapon. The element of fear is one of the great
primal passions, and to all those deep basic human elements the gospel
makes its peculiar appeal. And the fears of men must be excited. The
music cannot be all bass; but the bass note must not be absent, or the
music will be ruined.

There are still those who, far from being cowards, may, like Noah, be
'moved with fear' to the saving of their houses. Cardinal Manning
tells in his Journal how, as a boy at Tetteridge, he read again and
again of the lake that burneth with fire. 'These words,' he says,
'became fixed in my mind, and kept me as boy and youth and man in the
midst of all evil. I owe to them more than will ever be known to the
last day.' And Archbishop Benson used to tell of a working man who was
seen looking at a placard announcing a series of addresses on 'The Four
Last Things.' After he had read the advertisement he turned to a
companion and asked, 'Where would you and I have been without hell?'
And the Archbishop used to inquire whether, if we abandoned the
legitimate appeal to human fear, we should not need some other motive
in our preaching to fill the vacant place.

I know, of course, that all this may be misconstrued. But the wise
will understand. The naturalist will not blame me, for fear is the
life of the forest. The humanitarian can say no word of censure, for
fear is intensely human. But the preacher who strikes this deep bass
note must strike it v