The Washington herald., 1918-01-06
The Herald's Sunday Sermon
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH
LIBERTY?

The sermon below was written
especially for The Washington Her
aid by the Rev. DR.. Cornelius
Stevenson Abbott, pastor Of the
Church of the Good Shepherd. Sixth
and l streets northeast.
your liberty for n clock of ma
IIciOusness but as the servants of
GOd."-I Peter 2i16.
The Apostle Peter was giving first
lessons in the use of a new ideal. that
of liberty. He was writing to a large
number of people who were composed
of persons taken from almost every
part of the known world, who were
exploited by a few persons, who had
formed a successful military empire.
These people were men of culture,
some of them, and were skilled work.
men; they, also did the work of the
enormous estates of their captors.
The world was enslaved to one race.
The Apostle tells them that Christ
came to make them free and then
warns them against the very natural
danger of regarding freedom as the
overturning Of all law and order or
anarchy.
He gives them a fact: Christ came
to make you free.
He follows it by a warning: If you
use your new found liberty selishly,
it will fee from you.
He crowns it with an ideal: Use
liberty to bring in the Kingdom Of
God on earth.
We are among those races of the
world who have arrived at liberty.
You, Mr.. Average Man and Mrs. Aver
age Woman, have liberty of thought,
liberty of speech and liberty of ac-
tions such as has never before been
known in the history of the world.
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO
WITH IT? p.
Every thought that you think
lives forever, and you are respon-
sibIe for your knowledge of the
facts upon which you base your
thoughts. If for any reason you can
not or will not take the trouble to
get at facts rather than believe
fancies, you surely belong some
where else than in a free country.
You can not always get reliable in
formation about all the things you
would like to know, but at least
you will have begun a system Cf
mental training which will balance
your emotions and make what you
think worth something. BEGIN
NOW TO HAVE RESPONSIBILITY
FOR YOUR THOUGHTS. II your
thoughts can be kept to yourself in
some measure, your words once
spoken can not be called back.
Christ says, by your words you
shall be justified and by your words
you shall be condemned" and also
that you will be required to give
an account OF every idle word you
have spoken. Somebody has slack
ed down because of some idle re-
port you have helped spread, not
because you particularly believed
it, but because you just had to tell
everything you thought of. AS a
result, somebody at the front has
suffered.
No one will know about it here,
because you are only one of mil
lions of average citizens and you
are not likely to be called to ac-
count here because you hide your
self in the crowd. But. you will
have to give an account at the day
of general reckoning.
Freedom of speech involves re-
sponsibility for what is said. Some
college professors have recently
found themselves deprived of their
chairs and there has been dis
cussion as to whether their liberty
Of speech was not being interfered
with. The principle involved, how
ever, was the principle of the text
You have the right to say what you
please. but unless you show that
you feel responsible for the conse-
quence of what you say, you have
no right to a position of trust and
you are a nuisance among a, free
people.
BEGIN NOW TO FEEL REsPoN-