Obedience and Liberty [pp. 65-86]

OBEDIENCE AND LIBERTY.
which it patronizes. Many persons, no doubt, sincerely think
that human beings thus cramped and dwarfed are as their
Maker designed them to be; just as many have thought that
trees are a much finer thing when clipped into pollards, or cut
out into figures of animals, than as nature made them. But if
it be any part of religion to believe that man was made bya good
Being, it is more consistent with that faithl to believe that this
Being gave all human faculties that they might be cultivated
and unfolded, not rooted out and consumed, and that he takes
delight in every nearer approach made by his creatures to the
ideal conception embodied in them, every increase in any of
their capabilities of comprehension, of action, or of enjoyment.
There is a different type of human excellence from the Calvinistic; a conception of humanity as having its nature bestowed on
it for other purposes than merely to be abrogated. Pagan selfassertion is one of the elements of human worth, as well as
'Christian self-denial.' There is a, Greek ideal of self-development which the Platonic anid Christian ideal of self-government
blends with, blit does not supersede. It may be better to be a
John IKnox than an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles
than either; nor would a Pericles, if we had one in these days,
be without anything good which belonged to John Knox."
These are the words, given at length that there might be no
charge of unfairness in dealing with them, of a man remarkable
for his intellectual abilities, and for the diligence and purity of
his life, widely known and deeply revered for the hearty interest he has taken in the struggling masses the world over, especially esteemed and cherished by all loyal Americans, for the
prompt and intelligent and potent advocacy he gave to the cause
of the North, when traitorous hands were trying to throttle the
life andI overturn the foundations of the nation; and whose
sayings and doings have been made still more tenderly sacred
in the common regard by his recent death-but one name can
be meant, of course-the name of that profound thinker and
progressive statesman, John Stuart Mill. A great man, a sincere man, an earnest man, he has been justly conspicuous
amlongst his fellow men; and his voice hars been one of the far
reachling voices of our time. Hlaving that exceptional cast of
mind which seems to act with almost equal spontaneity and
vigor in a great diversity of spheres, he tried his powers as a
[Januar,y,
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