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A British publishing house issued, some years ago, a volume of sermons, under the title, If I could Preach Only Once. One of these sermons was by Gilbert Chesterton "If I had only one sermon to preach." Chesterton declared, "it would be sermon against fear." Why should this eminent man of letters single out so ordinary an adversary? First of all, because fear is one of man's most common enemies. It touches every one of us in some way. Many people, for example, have financial fears. We have fears of ill health, anticipating the direful consequences of being overtaken by some bodily affliction. We allow ourselves to be made miserable by fear of what the future holds of fears of the consequences of past acts and decisions. Fears of one kind and another haunt us and cast a shadow over our happiness. No person is at his best or in full control of his powers if he is the victim of fear. In many ways fear lays its paralyzing hand upon an individual and becomes a chief obstacle to the full development of personality and to the achievement of success in life. The person who wishes to become adept in the art of living must learn to conquer and subdue his fears. This is a problem common to us all, and I want to state at the outset the encouraging fact that any every individual can your fears. Others may help you but ultimately you must do it yourself. The first step and, for that matter, a large part of the campaign against one's fears is to get a complete and thorough-going knowledge of them. Bring them out into the light of day and watch them shrivel up. A fear is not unlike a ghost. It frightens you in the gloom, but there isn't much to it when you get it into the light. Most of the things one fears never happen; at least the do no amount when anything. As one frog in a pond may sound like a hundred when one is trying to sleep, so one little fact may be enlarged by mental fear and distorted imaging out of all proportion to its real size. Once in a lonely cabin on a dark night, deep in the North Woods, I heard on the porch noises that sent a shiver up my spine. It sounded like the cautions approach of several intruders. I sat transfixed, rooted to my chair, with every hair seemingly standing on end. Newspaper accounts of a recent murder in that section flashed across my mind. This is the end, I thought, but I was far from being prepared to die. I didn't want to die; I wanted to get out of there. Finally, unable to stand the suspense longer and desperation lending bravado, I leaped to the door and flung it open, expecting to see a whole array of gangsters with machine guns and pistols. Instead, a little chipmunk scurried off into the darkness, leaving me limp and mortified but yet the learner of a great lesson, leaving me limp and mortified but yet the learner of a great lesson, namely, that it is very salutary to get a good look at your fears, and that when you do, they are much less impressive than you had imagined them to be.