Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-09-18
WHAT 1T is TO BE FREE.
The Perfect Law of Christianity Free
Ii We May Serve God.

VITA ~ 10 ~ Dc fhGEs
The Perfect Law of Christianity Free
That We May Serve God.
1t is a good thing to be free; liberty
is a condition of real obedience and
fidelity. The right one does because he
must is not has right-doing-he has no
part in it, no more than a stone has in
the force which hurls it or holds it still;
but freedom has a meaning and a pur-
pose. "Let My people GO, that they
may serve Me-" Liberty exists for
men, that through liberty they may
serve God. This is the highest law of
liberty-that its end (inal cause) is
Righteousness of heart and life. Freedom
exists that we may do well with ii, not
that we may do ILL; not that we may do
as we please. but that we may please to
do well. Exactly in the measures in
which a man is rational he will feel
that liberty is a trust for a high pur-
pose, that he is made free for noble
ends. The man is irrational, and there
fore unfit for liberty, who thinks that
he must prove his freedom by wrong
doing, or that since he is free he may
do what he likes. Liberty is not law
lessness. God gives us freedom that
we may keep the law in freedom. If
we are not irwardly constrained by our
reason and u conscience to righteous
living, we have been ''let go'' in vain.
W. are free that we may freely ~'sserve."
All the higher possibilities of our
character and conduct depend on lib
erty. In bondage we Il not serve God,
neither in Egypt nor in the United
States. But it is plain to all observa-
ton that men desire liberty much more
than they desire to be tit for liberty;
they seek freedom, not that they may
serve God, but that they may do us they
please. That freedom is a stewardship
how few realize and live under a sense
Of it! 1t is IL great human evil that
we do not cultivate in ourselves the
sense of obligation under liberty. We
a neglect duties, and we neglect
them. We can do wrong, and we break
the commandments. We can do as we
please, and we please ourselves. 1t is
the evil of the world. We are getting
all around the globe civil and religious
liberty, but freedom is only imperfectIy
fruitful in men who in freedom forget
God and neglect their duties. We must
seek to know the duties of liberty as
jealousy as we have sought relief from
bondage; we must serve God and our
ccuntry, or freedom will carry us back
into bondage; for the condition OF lib
erty is that we shall %righteously use it
for its divine ends. Abused freedom
will not stay always to be abused. We
shall wear out the patience of the law,
if under it we fail to seek and get it's
proper good. Free that 10 mav serye!!
1t is q riddle to the careless and law
less; it is the law Of life to be obedient.
There is TO high service which is not
free service. Christ girded Himself
with a towel and washed His disciples
feet. 1t was free service, and the
model of all genuine service. This
slave OF duty is the only free man on
earth. He serve in freedom, sincerity
and faithfulness of his own free choice
and will. Being free he does right, re-
joicing in his freedom to follow that
glorious path. He knows that he can
go the other way; he does not wish OF
choose to do so. Liberty has found in
him a servant of the highest and hottest
law-for him there is a perfect law of
liberty The emancipation procla-
nation has lifted him to the high plane
OF its privileges-freedom to do RIGHT.
tie could not serve God if he were not
Tree. All the good in his life is an
effiorescence of liberty. What men and
angels admire in him is liberty sancti-
he'd by service of the truth.
We are missing something in our
talk about the foundation of our free in
stitutions. That foundation is not edu-
cation; education helps to build the
real foundation, which is an enlipht-
ened sense of u political duties. If
we feel that our liberty is uncondition-
ally ours; that we may do what VIC like
with 1t, we shall be poor citizens how
ever well we are educated. If we take
u liberty as a trust of God, a steward
snip 1or the country, we may '~.serven
God and u country tolerably well
with imperfect lights of knowledcn.
We can not keep pure so sweet a GOOD
as freedom in the cutters of seaA-wi]l
and sensuality. We can not be a free
nation long unless the people who are
'let go'' 60 forth to serve God, W.
SihoAA pcIll from DaDDllQpS
about the liberty to do wrong-to do as
we please. We are not free for such
miserable purposes Of bad men and
devils. 'nu
.That they may serve Me-" All libcr.
y leads up to this. Every emancipa-
ton proclamation seeks that sublime
end We need not liberty for the low.
er ends OF existence. No one need d.
spalr OF devising a means of maxine
men physically perfect in a system e
bondage. Perhaps slavery would hest
attain that end. Liberty looks hiober
1t seeks a man made 'more precions
IMAM silver or gold" for divine nsas
n services. Let men go-from al
TASK masters, oppressors, Kind mastors
spiritual potentates-that thew ma1,
serve the Almighty. In such serr; as
exists then true happiness, their glori.
0ns' destiny. their immortal blessedness
by liberty alone can the divine imaoe
IN them be revealed for the admiratien
Of the universe. What a beast then "a