THE craving for freedom lies deep in the human heart; it is the goal of our struggle. History is strewed with broken promises of its fulfilment. The earliest of these was through external force, with which many heroic names are associated, but not the "name which is above every name." The Master renounced such force. He said, "Resist not evil;" "My kingdom is not of this world." Mankind have also sought freedom through legislative enactment; but no emancipation proclamation has ever fitted men for the use of freedom.
The progress of civilization marks advancing steps of victory over some of the lower instincts, while it contains within itself the elements of a fresh servitude. Mankind seem to conquer nature, and in turn become its slaves. Emerson says, "Modern civilization is the lengthening of a gun-barrel." Another aspect is the creation of wants and the manufacture of their supply. A highly civilized community presents a spectacle of bondage,—the workman to his machine, the devotee of pleasure to amusement, the rich to luxury, the fashionable to dress, and all to custom and convention. Emerson again says, "The virtue most in vogue is conformity;" "No one dares to say I 'think,' but quotes some sage." The young man's excuse for foolish conduct is, "They all do it." How few have the insight and moral courage to step aside and let the throng, led by custom and policy, sweep by; or boldly stand within this enclosure of selfhood and ask, "What has it of permanent reality for me?" Yet this must be the spirit of him who follows the Master, through "the truth," to the goal of freedom. Christ Jesus said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself;" "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne." Self-renunciation is the gate to Life. Through obedience to Truth we rise to the consciousness of man's original and rightful dominion over all material conditions, and thus attain to perfect freedom.
"Ye shall know the truth," said the Master, "and the truth shall make you free." What, then, is the truth that makes men free? In the Master's teaching its center and circumference is in God,—the Father, infinite Spirit, ever-present Love,—in whom "we live, and move, and have our being,"—the only Cause, the sole force. One of the greatest of living philosophers, Professor Bowne, declares, "Strictly speaking, there is but one Mind." This unity was taught by Jesus; the sovereign control of God, good, was the firm support of his life. In the dark hour of trial he said to Pilate, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above." In his ascension, like Enoch and Elijah, neither leaving nor carrying with him a material body, he demonstrated for us that "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" (Science and Health, p. 468). The stubborn belief in so-called laws of nature, relentless forces, nauseous sins, and dread diseases, is neither of God nor supported by Him, for these are but products of the mortal dream and cannot block the freedom of him who is conscious of divine sonship; in which relation, as Paul says, "all things are your's;... and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." To attain complete knowledge of this truth as ever-present reality is freedom and full salvation. The truth about man is involved in the truth about God. The man who appears to human sense is a strange enigma; in the places where civilization displays its splendor of wealth and invention, we stand in wonder over the victories of thought, knowing that all which is just and true is the interpenetration of "the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." But watch the passing crowds who have attained that civilization—there are low aims, base thoughts, selfish lives, a conformation only a little above the brute. A painful sense of degradation steals over us; mankind seem so great, yet so mean. But the Master's truth solves the problem.
