Freedom--So Rare, So Precious, So Perishable

May we turn a moment or two to freedom — that freedom which relatively so few in all this world have had, yet which is so essential to the full and effective living of life; that freedom for which so many have paid a price, yet which so many have forgotten the price paid and the principles by which it would be preserved. To those who have it, to those who have always had it, it seems so simple; and yet it is rare, and precious, and perishable; forever challenged, forever encroached upon, forever abused. One of the most precious of life’s privileges is the recognized right for a man to become what he can become. At too many times, in too many places, people have been prevented from rising to that plane, to that place, where their work, their willingness, their talents and intelligence would take them. But where the light of freedom has burned brightly, thank God, men could become what they could become, equal in the right to try, even if not all possessed of the same talents or attainments. But even with this glorious right to try, the Lord God did not give or guarantee any unearned assurances; but only opportunity: opportunity to think, to speak, to work, to worship, to enjoy the fruits of work, (and with that personal privacy which some may feel is too long lost, to pursue happiness, to distinguish between right and wrong. Sometimes men enslave themselves — with thoughts and attitudes and habits. Sometimes they enslave themselves with sin — with an unquiet conscience. Sometimes they lose freedom by letting others — either individuals or agencies — exceed themselves or their assignments. The spirit of freedom is contagious, but so is slavery. And no one’s freedom is safe under conditions of indifference, or with unwillingness to carry responsibility or to preserve principles. No one’s freedom is safe so long as comfort is valued more, or so long as we are too content to let others do too much for us — especially too much thinking and doing of what we should be doing for ourselves. “Lean liberty,” said an old observer, “is better than fat slavery.”¹ It is still true, always and ever, that “where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”² — liberty within the keeping of the commandments, liberty within the living of the law.