The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-04

sducation and liberty. We remember when prophets in good repute an nounced that to transform this wicked world into an abode it for the gods all that was needed was the overthrow of tyranny, ignorance and want-those three dread powers so long in league. Today other preachers proclaim the same gospel. We have seen that the unouestfonable diminution of want has made man neither better nor hap pier. Has this desirable result been more nearly attained through the great care bestowed upon instructionf It 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- ton, like the mass of our ages inyen- tons. is after all only tool; every thing depends upon the workman who uses it. So 1t is with liberty. It is fatal or life giving according to the use made of it. Is 1t liberty still when 1t is the prerogatiye of criminals or needless blunderers2 Liberty is an atmosphere of the higher life, and 1t is only by a slow and patient inward transformation that one becomes capa- ble of breathing it.
 All life must have its law, the life of man so much the more than that of in ferior beings, in that it is more pre- cious and of nicer adjustment. This | low F1w 4e 4,n 1,n Arcf rlo n external law, but 1t may become an 1 internal law. When man has once rec 1 ognized the inner law and bowed be- fore 1t, 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- ble 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 serVie to outward authority than can the full 1 grown bird live imprisoned in the egg shell. But the man who has not yet at tained to governing himself can no more live under the law of liberty than can the unfedged bird live without it's l 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 clements 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? It is respect. Liberty? It 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 1t; otherwise public life becomes impossible, and the nation, undisciplined 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 plcate 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 civiliza- 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 ssessions-namely, his conscience, his character and his will. And while we have been elab- oratng and garnishing the frame, we have forgotten, neglected, dishgured, the picture. Thus are we loaded with external good, and miserable in spirit ual life. We have in abundance that which, if must be, we can go without, and are infinitely poor in the one thing needful. And when the depth of onr being Is stirred, with its need of lov- ing, aspiring, fulfilling its destiny, 1t feels the anguish of one buried alive is smothered under the mass of sec ondary things that weigh 1t down and deprive 1t 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 good lamp? It is not the most elaborate, the finest wrought, that of the most precious metal A good lamp is 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 truth of all times.
 At no epoch have the exterior condi- tions which man has made for himself by his industry or his knowledge been able to exempt him from care for the state of his inner life. The face of the world alters around us, its intellectual and material factors vary, and no one can arrest these changes, whose sud denness is sometimes not short of per ilous. But the important thing is that at the center of shifting circumstance man should remain man. live his life, make toward his goal; and, whatever be his road. to make toward his goal the traveller must not lose himself in