Editorial October 21, 1922 Issue

Liberty

Ella W. Hoag

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 227), Mrs. Eddy writes: "God made man free. Paul said, 'I was free born.' All men should be free. 'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' Love and Truth make free, but evil and error lead into captivity." Because "God made man free," the natural desire of all men is to experience freedom. All desire that liberty shall be theirs along every line; and, in consequence, there are few things more sought after than liberty. Here, as in whatever seeking mankind undertakes, a failure to comprehend the true nature of the thing sought hinders attainment. For ages, a sense of bondage has been resisted only to find the fetters apparently more firmly welded, since ignorance has governed the struggle. To-day, we see an entire world still crying out for liberty.

Occasionally men have glimpsed that what they call liberty is not always freedom, and that what they have denominated bondage does not necessarily mean bondage. Charles Kingsley once said, "There are two freedoms, the false where one is free to do what he likes, and the true where he is free to do what he ought." The difficulty has been that men have not seen how to differentiate between the false and the true. Beginning with the belief that liberty means the right to do what one wishes, the true understanding of liberty has been completely hidden.

Now, the freedom which God gives man is never anything more or less than the liberty to be absolutely governed by His perfect will. To live in obedience to divine Principle is the only liberty there is. Christian Science, in line with the Bible, accentuates this in all its teaching, showing conclusively that only as men learn to bring their wills into subjection to the divine will can they ever win the freedom which is man's true heritage. Christian Science shows men how to demonstrate this freedom, for it presents both the law and the gospel, whereby freedom alone can be won. Obedience to God's law is the only thing that can bring the complete understanding of what liberty is, and of what blessings it bestows upon man.

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