VARIOUS CONCEPTIONS OF LIBERTY.
By Editor
LIBERTY! who does not long for it? It may be that one's highest ideal is liberty's perversion, yet his mere longing as such is good. This love of liberty, this longing for freedom, perverted tho it be by human selfishness, is implanted of God in the hearts of men for their good. IN the minds of some persons liberty is so perverted that it means license to do anything human lust demands. This is Satan's grossest perversion of liberty. It makes man the bond-slave of sin and lust, and by sin deludes him to believe that the highest pleasure, the greatest liberty, is devoted service to the cruelest of masters. For the cruelest tyrant on earth is not so cruel as Sin and his unholy mother and paramour, Lust. LIBERTY means to the oftentimes Anarchist the destruction of existing conditions, even tho it involves seas of blood, innocent and guilty alike. In many Anarchists there is a longing for better conditions, a hope that if the present were destroyed better would issue, thoughts of construction as well as destruction; but with many it means the destruction of law and lawful order, Lucifer's aim in heaven, whence came all our misery and woe. The worst tyranny is better than anarchy. LIBERTY with some persons means a division of the spoils, the scattering of the wealth of the rich, the division of the lands or their reversal to the State, with a maximum of ease and pleasure and idleness and a minimum of toil, the State a great, indulgent, coddling parent, and the people children, directed in all the affairs of life. The idea is socialistic. There are many socialists who have high ideals. They note present conditions; they see the practical working of industrial slavery, and they ardently long for better conditions for themselves and their fellows. They hope by education and evolution and union of effort to accomplish the desired end; but such do not see the true cause, and, in consequence, fail to grasp the remedy. LIBERTY means other things to others. Oftentimes to the "union man" it means the strongest rule imaginable over everything not connected with the union, the exercise of the strongest tyranny over those without for the benefit of those within. It is the turning in a new form of the old Mussulman's cry, "Acknowledge Mahomet, or die." We sympathize with laboring men. We know what labor is. We see the cruel tyranny of unrestrained capital, the overreaching lordship of the trust, the domineering arrogance of the great landowner, the classifying and regarding of men as mere parts of great machines, worthy of notice only as they serve their purpose. All this and much more may be seen by all unprejudiced eyes. There is tyranny and slavery in it; but we do not believe that much will be gained by substituting one form of tyranny or slavery for another. We could not conceive that the slavery of the jackplane by the saw would be better than the slavery of both by the adz. In other words, Is the tyranny of the corporation magnate worse than that of the walking delegate? Is slavery under the union to be preferred to slavery under the trust? There are honest souls outside, plenty of them, who prefer neither, who, rather, believe that a strong, sturdy, independent individualism is better. And yet many of these are in a worse bondage than either. THERE is, also, political liberty, involving religious freedom and the equal rights of all men. This is a product of the Gospel wherever it is found. Its highest type in human government has been seen in America. Its strongest and most classic formulation apart from Bible utterances, is found in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and in other documents of note and of State, originating at the same time. EQUALITY of mankind does not mean equal physical proportions, nor equal mental caliber, nor equal ability to grasp or power to command opportunity. But it does demand equal liberty for each one to be and say and do just as far as ability and circumstances permit. Politically he is his fellow-citizen's equal in life, in liberty, in the pursuit of happiness. It was a glorious hour for the world when America's star rose above the horizon. As long as it was in the ascendent, for its first one hundred years of shining, its influence over all lands was beneficent, speaking freedom to the oppressed of all nations, and hope to the despairing toiler. Seeing its shining from afar, millions in the oppressed and downtrodden monarchies, despotisms, and overcrowded countries of the East, found here what Emerson designated "opportunity." And when the Old World saw some of the best of her peoples flocking to America rather than to her own colonies, her own feudal laws were softened, amended, or swept away before the enlightenment and liberty of America. BUT "how has the most fine gold become dim!" While race slavery as such has been abolished, and that part of the land of which it was the curse is better to-day, industrial slavery flourishes in the sweat-shops of our large cities. The spirit of Imperialism stalks boldly abroad. We have the "masses" and the "classes;" and if we do not have the "lords," we have the "servants." "Coal barons" and "kings" and "queens" of various sorts bear sway continuously and temporarily, and the Republic of America is following in the footsteps of the Republic of Rome. No longer where floats to the breeze "the red white and blue" is there freedom and equality. The man a peer of his fellows in part of America's dominions to-day, is a mere subject in another part to-morrow. And the spirit of imperialism now boldly dominant in the "colonies" will soon be as dominant elsewhere, unless checked by divine interposition. AND the influence over the Old World, what is it now? When the American ship of state was launched, one of her ensigns emblazoned to the world was, "Novum ordo seculorum," "A new order of things." It stood for complete turning away from the imperialism of the political Old-World systems, from Church-and-State governments, from political and class distinctions. Then her influence was uplifting and potent. But now she is turning back from the new order of things, which gave the world a new lease of life, to the Old-World methods, to imperialism, to class distinctions, to "court" honors, to religion-and-State union, to autocratic rule. And the Old World, which had been groping toward the clear shining of the light, is now saying, "Republics are a failure; American freedom and equality of man are myths, or, at the best, but impracticable ideals in government." And the whole world, in consequence of America's lapse, is reverting, in a "highly civilized" manner, of course, but not the less truly, to the despotism of the Dark Ages. THIS is a matter of divine prophecy, and its setting forth will be noticed elsewhere in this paper. But the divine portrayal may be read in Daniel 8 and Revelation 13, verses 11 to 16 especially. A great part has been fulfilled. A greater part is in process of fulfilment. A little further and we will reach the climax, the ruin of the republic, the failure of the best government the world ever saw. But there will succeed to this the everlasting kingdom of Jesus Christ, for the glorious inheritance of which He is now gathering out His subjects, ruled by their own consent, serving eternally of their own glad volition. Reader, are your hopes on this government or on that? If the former, what will you do in the life to come? If the latter, you are blessed here and hereafter.