Article February 6, 1902 Issue

Freedom, an Ideal Realized

BY LEWIS C. STRANG.

From the day that "there went up a mist from the earth," and Adam, falling into a deep sleep, dreamed himself into bondage, peaceless humankind, urged to it by irresistible impulse rarely in the least understood, has longed for, prayed for, fought for freedom. More than any other, freedom has been the ideal of the ages, miscomprehended, misinterpreted, misused, but always the ideal, steadfast because in its essence derived from unchanging Spirit. Every advance of the race recorded in human history has had its beginning in the restless search for freedom. Every war, waged since war began, has heard, where the fray was fiercest, the resounding battle-cry of freedom. Every reform,—political, sociological, religious,—has marshalled its forces under the inspiring banner of freedom.

The Hebrews of old left the land of Egypt and wandered forty years in the wilderness because they had faith in their ideal of freedom. Strengthened by freedom's righteous might, Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans barred the pass at Thermopylae before Xerxes and his myriads, saving Greece and possibly all Europe from the enervating sway of the Persian. The American Revolution of a century and a quarter ago was pre-eminently freedom-born and freedom-won. Those stalwart pioneers conquered, not because they were physically the more powerful, but because they had arrayed on their side the full force of deep conviction and resolute sincerity. Martin Luther dared to defy haughty Rome because he contended for freedom. The Pilgrim Fathers sailed unknown seas without fear because their compass pointed unwaveringly toward freedom. John Wesley preached, and his sermon was heard because it was charged with the living, earnest thought of freedom.

Admirable and thrice admirable every one of these glorious instances of lofty purpose and faithful endeavor soaring momentarily above material circumstance and condition! But what was the ultimate product of the labor? Results afford the only standard by which actions may be scientifically measured. Did not the Hebrews, who fled from Egyptian bigotry and oppression, become themselves bigots and oppressors? When the word of truth was spoken, they would not listen, and they sought to destroy the man who lovingly brought it to them. The Pilgrim Fathers also, just escaped from persecution, themselves turned persecutors of the helpless minority. That Greece, which Leonidas strove so heroically to preserve from Persian effeteness, degenerated into a state of corruption unspeakably vile. The commoners of France cried aloud for "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality," and their cry culminated in the French Revolution, horror and ignominy worse confounded. Is theological thought because Martin Luther boldly nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door at Wittenberg, or because John Wesley cared not a whit for the biting shafts of public ridicule, the readier to recognize its own errors or the quicker to welcome the new light that so splendidly brightens the dark places?

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