p. 10 | G. W. MORSE by G. W. Morse

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 9, 1903

G. W. MORSE

By G. W. Morse

Liberty

G. W. MORSE

“LIBERTY is a solemn thing; a welcome, a joyous, a GLORIOUS thing, if you please, but it is a solemn thing.” So wrote Horace Mann.

The exercise of free moral agency is fraught with momentous consequences beyond the power of human language adequately to describe. Eminent scientists tell us that the utterance of one word will set the pulsations of the atmosphere in motion, until within twenty-four hours every part of the planet has become affected. This illustration gives us a slight intimation of the weighty responsibilities that are dependent upon the exercise of liberty. Hereby can we grasp something of the meaning of those words of the Saviour, “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.”

That which we say and do goes even farther than this mundane sphere; it takes hold upon the celestial world. The beginning is small — simply an exercise of will-power. We decide, instantly it may be, to utter a word, or perform an act; behold the result!

Away up among the Alleghany Mountains there is a spring so small that a single horse on a summer’s day could drain it dry at one slaking of his thirst. It steals its unobtrusive way among the hills, down the valleys, along the meadows, till it finally spreads out into the broad and beautiful Ohio River. Thence it stretches away a thousand miles, leaving on its banks more than a hundred prosperous cities and thousands of cultivated and highly productive farms. Thence it unites with the mighty Mississippi, and stretches away for twelve hundred miles farther, until it flows out into the emblem of eternity. This mighty highway of commerce bears upon its heaving bosom myriads of powerful vessels going to and fro with their thousands of human beings and almost unnumbered tons of freight. It is one of the greatest tributaries to the ocean that exists on the globe. Obedient only to God, it will continue its majestic flow till the end of time. So with a word, an act, of our free moral agency. It is a tiny rill, a rivulet, a babbling brook, a noisy stream, a mighty river, an ocean, and as boundless and fathomless as eternity.

The eternal destiny of millions may be affected for weal or for woe by our voluntary act. We send our words and acts forth to traverse the paths of earth and heaven, and they are heavily laden. They are freighted with the joy, light, and glory of salvation, or with the elements of destruction.

We play upon an instrument of limitless capacity, and the vibrations of the chords that we strike encircle the earth and resound in heaven. These vibrations ring with the glad paeans of redemption’s song, or with the dirge-like notes of the knell of despair and death.

And now comes to us a reflection of a most startling character. It is this: Some day there will be handed to us this million-page volume of our writing, and we shall be told to read it. There we shall find faithfully and accurately recorded the immortal results of the exercise of our free moral agency. Upon those burning pages we shall find all of thought, word, deed, and condition that we have written with the pen of liberty; yea, MORE, the growth, the development, the great ocean of consequences, will be there also, carried out by the recording angel.

O, how much we shall find there that we shall vainly endeavor to disown! How much that we shall wish to mark, “Take out,” and send the volume back to the compositor for correction. But it can not be. Our life-records are “lead in the rock forever,” so far as any power that we possess for their effacement is concerned. There is only one means in God’s universe whereby those pages, black with the records of infamy, can be made white. The crimson stream of Calvary alone can cleanse them. And O — stupendous thought — if we neglect to have the precious blood applied until the day that we are called upon to read that volume, it will then be forever too late, and the book of our own writing will crush us in eternal oblivion.

These are a few glimpses, dear friends, of what is meant by the exercise of liberty. Say you not that it is a solemn thing? — Indeed it is. As we reflect upon the indescribable possibilities of the exercise of this heaven-born gift, and realize something of the terrible responsibilities that come with it, there comes to us a desire to hand it back to the loving Father, and we cry in horror and anguish, “O Father, the gift is too great; it is more than I can carry; take it back with its unmeasured weight.”

But the Father will not take it back, nor will he arbitrarily interfere with us in the exercise of the free moral agency that he has bestowed upon us.

Yes, liberty is a solemn thing. And yet, what do we see? Many a youth foolishly longs for the time when he will be free from parental control — when he will have his liberty. And countless numbers exercise their liberty with a carelessness and never-mind sort of air that is alarming. Instead of this, it would seem as if all would be most anxious to enjoy parental protection as long as possible. Could they catch a few glimpses of what liberty means, they would be extremely loath to set sail in a craft of their own steering. Ah, no, they would want father and mother to share with them, all through life, the responsibilities of their free moral agency. And the unconverted? What a fearful position they occupy, going on, from year to year, alone in the world, carrying the responsibility of liberty. Little do they realize how much they need to connect with God’s family on earth, where they can enjoy the fellowship of love and burden-bearing. Little

do they realize that their only safety is to stand in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free.

What can we do with our liberty? — We can hedge it about with divine truth. We can build about it strong bulwarks gathered from the Rock of Ages. We can catch the keynote of the angelic choir, and strike the chords in harmony with that. We can take up the strains of that sweetest of songs, “On earth peace, good will toward men,” and weave them into the pattern of our lives. Then, indeed, will liberty be a welcome, a JOYOUS, a GLORIOUS thing.