The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1904-12-14

| further embrOilS social problems.
This principle may be verified in
other domains than that of materirl
well being We shall sneak only Of
education and liberty. We remember
when prophets in good repute an
nounced that to transform this wicked
world into an abode fit for the gods
all that was needed was the overthrow
of tyranny, ignorance and want-thOsc
three dread powers so long in league.
Today other preachers proclaim the
same gospel. We have seen that the
unquestionabe dlminution of want
has made man neither better nor hap
pier. Has this desirable result been
more nearly attained through the great
care bestowed upon instruction? 1t does
not yet appear so, and this failure is
the despair of our national educators.
Then shall we stop the peoples ears,
suppress public instruction. close the
schools? BY no means. But educa-
tion like the mass of our ages inven-
tons, is after all only tool; every
thing depends upon the workman who
uses it. SO il is with liberty. 1t is
fatal or life giving according to the
use made of it. Is it liberty still when
it is the prerogative of criminals or
needless blunderers? Liberty is an
atmosphere of the higher life, and it is
only by a slow and patient inward
transformation that one becomes capa-
bic of breathing 1t.
All life must have its law. the life of
man so much the more than that of in
ferior beings, in that 1t is more pre-
cious and of nicer adjustment. This
law for man is in the first place an
external law, but it may become an
internal law. When man has once rec
ogniZed the inner law and bowed be-
fore il, through this reverence and vol
untary submission he is ripe for liber-
ty. So long as there is no vigorous
and sovereign inner law he is incapa-
bic of breathing its air. for he will be
drunken with 1t, maddened, morally
slain. The man who guides his life
by inner law can no more live servile
to outward authority than can the full
grown bird live imprisoned In the egg
shell. But the man who has not yet at
tanned to governing himself can no
more live under the law of liberty than
can the unfledged bird live without its
protective covering. These things are
terribly simple, and the series Of dem
onstrations old and new that proves
them increases daily under our eyes.
And yet we are as far as ever from
understanding even the elements of
this most important law. In our de-
mOcracy how many are there, great
and small. who know from having per-
sonally verified it, lived IT and obeyed
it, this truth without which people is
incapable of governing itself? Liberty?
1t is respect. Liberty? 1t is obedience
to the inner law, and this law is nei-
ther the good pleasure of the mighty
nor the caprice of the crowd, but the
high and impersonal rule before which
those who govern are the first to bow
the head Shall liberty, then. be pro-
scribed? No; but men must be made
capable and worthy of it; otherwise
public life becomes impossible. and the
nation, undlsciplned and unrestrained.
goes on through license into the mex
tricable tangles Of demagogy.
When one passes in review the in
dividual causes that disturb and COM
plicate our social life, by whatever
names they are designated, and their
list would be long, they all lead back
to one general cause, which is this
the confusion of the secondary with
the essential. Material comfort, edu-
cation, liberty. the whole Of civilian
tion-these things constitute the frame
of the picture. but the frame no more
makes the picture than the frock the
monk or the uniform the soldier. Here !
the picture is man, and man with |
his most intimate possessions-namely !
his conscience, his character and his
will. And while we have been elab-
Grating and garnishing the frame, we
have forgotten, neglected, disfigured.
the picture. Thus are we lOaCed with
external good, and miserable in spirit
ual life. We have in abundance that
which, if must be. we can 20 without,
and are infinitely poor in the one thing
needful. And when the depth of our
being is stirred, with its need of low
ing, aspiring, fulfilling its destiny, it
feels the anguish of one buried alive
is smothered under the mass of sec
ondary things that weigh it down and
deprive it Of light and air.
We must search out, set free, re-
store to honor the true life, assign
things to their proper places and re-
member that the center of human prog
ress is moral growth. What is a good
lamp? 1t is not the most elaborate,
the finest wrought, that of the most
precious metal. A good lamp is a
lamp that gives good light. And so
also we are men and citizens, not by
reason of the number of our goods and
the pleasures we procure for ourselves,
not through our intellectual and artis-
tic culture, nor because of the honors
and independence we enjoy, but by
virtue Of the strength Of our moral
fiber. And this is not truth Of today,
but a truth of all times.
At no epoch have the exterior condi-
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