Article April 29, 1911 Issue

"LIBERTY OR SERVITUDE."

HENRIETTA MARCUS.

St. Paul's noted words, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death," may serve to remind us that of all the words which mortal mind has coined for our betrayal and confusion, "liberty" is perhaps the most alluring and most guileful. It looks innocent, it sounds honest, but as ordinarily interpreted it may be the merest sham, a figment pleasant to contemplate but unreal and unsatisfying. It is easy to see, in the history of all nations, how ambition, greed, and self-righteousness have masked themselves at times in the guise of freedom and have rallied round their standard the pure and noble with the enticing cry of liberty; it is not equally simple to perceive how often we deceive ourselves with the same device and turn away from the "still small voice" of Truth to seek the fallacy of our independence. On a material basis, freedom can only be conceived in a relative sense, for no such thing exists as an absolute fact in mortal consciousness; paradoxical as it may appear, the nearest approach to liberty, in the best form we can conceive of it, is found in subjection.

The sooner we realize this fact, the readier we shall be to demonstrate the perfect order and harmony of the universe. Humanly we appear to be governed by laws of all sorts, and often in our vain struggles to free ourselves from unjust conditions we call on the name of liberty, not recognizing that we are but exchanging one sort of bondage for another, toiling round in an endless circle of false beliefs, fear, and suffering. In the ordinary tasks of our daily life, in our words as in our deeds, we do well if we always pause to ask, "Am I in subjection to the one Mind, or am I being urged along by some deceptive conceit of mortal thought?" Mrs. Eddy says, "Error of thought is reflected in error of action" (Science and Health, p. 550), and with all humility we are compelled to own that many of our woes arise from the false sense of liberty (when judged from the spiritual standpoint) which education and custom have in the years nursed into a semblance of life and truth.

All history shows us the suffering entailed from mistaking a side issue for the ultimate truth. Most of the fighting has been done for the cause, not for the basic law involved; and this has arisen from the subtle working of mortal mind, deceiving and being deceived. Men strive for riches that they may be free from poverty, and immediately become the slaves of pride or greed; they pray for the sweet liberty of health, and when well are held in bondage by the fear of disease and methods for avoiding it; the righteousness they long for is rendered null and void because they are governed by hatred or envy, and life itself slips by in the stagnation of death when their days are wasted in selfishness and inactivity; and all through the misapprehension of their real existence, their ignorance as to the fact that they are the reflection of one eternal power.

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