WORDSWORTH: "ODE TO DUTY” FREEDOM AND RESTRAINT "And I will walk at liberty, for I have sought thy precepts." PSALM CXIX. 45. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." OU JOHN VIII. 32. UR AGE is stung by a passion for freedom. Wherever we turn, we find men battering at closed doors, and sapping away the foundations of ancient despotisms. Freedom is the watchword of our day; it is strong enough to stamp an indelible anathema upon any institution which clashes with its purposes. There was a time when men would have stated the Christian spirit in terms of benevolence. Now we see that it includes freedom as well as sympathy. Brotherhood is not real unless it has liberty as one of its elements. It is not sufficient for one class to govern another, however benevolent be its intentions. The conquest of the world for the benefit of the world is better than the conquest of the world for self-aggrandisement; but even that is not the best. Each nation, each class, each individual should be free to live and serve, and each should be held in honour by all. Never was the demand more imperative, never were men so determined to shake off the shackles of bondage. Witnessing the break-down of ancient autocracies, in the West and in the East, hope burns afresh: 66 Out of the shadows of night It is daybreak everywhere." It is not surprising that under this surging passion men have blundered; they have torn down shrines thinking them to be prisons; they have denounced laws, without which freedom itself would pass away. "O Liberty!" exclaimed Madame Roland, on her way to the scaffold. "What crimes have been perpetrated in thy name." has been claimed as the accomplice of the assassin and robber; it has thrown its august sanction upon deeds of infamy and shame. Very sorely has liberty been wounded in the house of her friends. Some there are, it would appear, who are not It |