and such aims beset with dangers and terrors, that the instinct of self-preservation has become a stumbling block instead of being a help to us in achieving our aims and interests. And so we now need to treat our fears in a new way.
In my view there are four methods of treating our fears, the bodily and the psychological alike. They are these:
First — Treat your fear with reason. When fear comes over you so that you feel as though you were in the grip of a hidden, terrifying, mindless power, know that this is nothing but a superstition to be got rid of once and for all. Fear is only a manifestation of man's primal instincts, rooted in the human race by ancient experiences. And when fear sets to work, draw back the curtain from it and look at what prompts it.
Second — Obey only so far as caution may rightly command you. Fear, for instance, warns you against the consequences of letting your blood go on flowing. Yet you find a strong inner impulse in you commanding that you donate some of your blood to a patient in direst need of it. Wisdom therefore requires that you answer the call of conscience and give some of your blood to one whose life depends upon it — but only after you have made sure of the skill of the doctor who is to perform the transfusion, so that he does not expose your life to the danger of death.
Third — Direct your mind toward that highest aim. Often have I seen persons who are ordinarily timid, and heard them attack openly things for which they harbored hatred and loathing in their souls, to the point where they became unconscious of their own state, and fear in them was done away with once and for all. Hence we may say that among the effective means of habitually overcoming fear is to turn the direction of one's thinking away from it toward some other quarter. And when you wish to scatter illusions and fears, go out for a stroll with a cheerful friend; for everything that serves to refresh the spirit is useful in cases such as these.
Fourth — Try to widen the horizon of your experiences in life, for the unexpected is always a source of panic. The wider the horizon of a man's experience, the fewer the causes of fear in him. And the man who widens the range of his experiences by sharing with others their sorrows, their cares, and their joys is inevitably freed from many fears and lives happy. Nothing is truer than the well-known saying, 'Love casts fear aside.' And finally I say that if man tried to drive out fear as an enemy of his, success would be his ally — on condition that he take it back to himself once more as a friend.
On the eleventh of last month, the athletic team of the American Girls' School in Tripoli arrived to meet the team of the American Girls' School in Beirut. The photographer of "The Woman's Voice" took two pictures, each showing the two competing teams.
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