Editorial July 1, 1972 Issue

Life and Liberty

Carl J. Welz

For the patriotic American, a trip to Williamsburg offers among other attractions a spectator's view of the spot where Patrick Henry stood in 1775 and said, "Give me liberty or give me death!" But the historian Thomas A. Bailey records "that only a select minority of the American colonials attached themselves to the cause of independence with a spirit of selfless devotion."^{The American Pageant, pp. 102, 103;}

Many to whom freedom should have meant something were more interested in profits than in liberty. And the history of the United States after Revolutionary times shows that slavery did not become actually illegal until 1865. The right of women to vote was not fully established until 1920. And the prohibition against labor for children under sixteen did not come until 1938. Only in very recent years has the plea of the consumer who wants to know what he is buying been thought worthy of a hearing. And all through history efforts to obtain freedom for mankind have been resisted by people who think that someone else's freedom might come at their own expense.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and cries: 'Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sickness, sin, and death!'"^{Science and Health, p. 227;} And she says, "You may know when first Truth leads by the fewness and faithfulness of its followers."^{p. 225;} Patrick Henry and those who have felt the spirit of his words have caught a glimpse of the true nature of man. The real man is the living idea of the divine Mind. He has no existence except that which is governed by the infinite Mind. Human liberty expresses the very essence of the living man. Without liberty one does not really live.