Obedience and Liberty [pp. 65-86]

OBEDIENCE AND LIBERTY.
not fields to rest in fallowness, but fertile soils, rich in all possibilities of harvest, and to be cultivated to the outermost reaches
of fruitfulness." And that again is the kind of "dwarfing," of
'"eramping," of "narrowing," which the divine law of obedience
inposes on us. Bondage indeed! It may be confidently submitted whether, in all this, there be one single element of thraldom. Rather is not the infraction of li;.berty all on the other
ilde? And are not the facts in perfect correspondence with the
figures of speech we employ when we say of certain men, they
area slaves to their appetites,.saves to their passions, slaves to
their ambitions, slaves to their intellectual conceits, slaves to
their worldly idolatries?
Right here before us are two men. One is afraid of wine
,when it giveth its color in the cup, and will not touch it. The
other finds what he declares to be an appetite for stimulating
d' rinks implanted in his constitution. He affects to believe the
good God put it there, and, believing this, he fancies it more
consistent with the intentions of the good God to indulge than to
restrain this app;etite. He is averse to "starving," to "rooting
out," to " consuming" the original "faculties," and "capacities,
and "susceptibilities " of his nature. He takes that liberal
Tiew which finds its justification in Greek self-development
rather than in Christian self-denial, a system, by the way, which
has in it that most needful of petitions: "Lead us not into
IEmptation." What is the consequence as respects the freedom
of the two? The one surely retains his, and is able, at all times
to walk ainongst men, self-controlled, self-respecting, the perfeet mnaster-so far as liquor is concerned-of his own thoughts
,and energies. Tlhe other, just in proportion as lie indulges,
loses freedom andc becomes habit bound. For the first glass is
a first link and the second glass is a second link, and every subsequentt glass is an added link in the galling chain of a terrible
possible enthrallment. Is it not so? Is it, not he who lhas de)ied himself who has pres-erved real liberty? And is it not he
-ho has gratified Liz<self who has sacrificed real liberty?
As here so all around the circle of mna's possible activities.
Obedience is not a servitude, ignoble and degrading; but a
veritable charter of emianc pation, an inviolable palladiumn of
liberty, to evely soul failing under its sway. Through it we get
domi,nancy over evil, and comie into the completest self-mastery
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[January,