Liberty is a mental rather than a physical state. The slave set physically free is still a slave until he mentally apprehends his freedom. Mortal man, without the truth, cannot think himself into heaven, into perfect freedom from the fetters of sin and limitation, from false belief, from all injustice, cruelty, and oppression. The story of Kaspar Hauser recounted by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 194), is an illustration of the fact that true liberty is a mental state.
The only free Ego is God. Man's freedom is the reflection of God's being, and from the human standpoint it is man's highest concept of God that shapes his conception of liberty. Exception may be taken to this, because some of our foremost strivers for liberty have been and are agnostics. This does not, however, refute the position stated, it substantiates it. The modern agnostic is one who has refused to be fettered mentally by mere traditional theology; he refuses to accept the orthodox conception of God because of its material standard, his concept of freedom is based on reasonable deductions as to the attributes of a Deity if such a being exists, and often these deductions transcend orthodox concepts. Liberty like all that is good is the gift of God, but if considered from the human standpoint it is not a gift at all. Liberty must be demonstrated every inch of the way; it has to be striven for and won. The revelation of Truth to the human consciousness and the immediate and permanent manifestation of paradise are not coincident; Gethsemane and Golgotha came after the mount of transfiguration. The ideal is the pillar of fire to lead us to the land of promise, the ideal, though always real, does not become real to us until we have proved ourselves devout lovers of Truth, persistent pilgrims toward Truth's shrine. The ideal of liberty must be refined from all the dross of license that would braze itself to the pure gold of liberty.
Paul's admonition to servants in his epistle to the Ephesians (vi. 5-8) seems to have been written to check the license of mortal mind dislodged by the revelation of "the glorious liberty of the children of God." License is the Herod that would slay the infant Jesus of liberty. Increase of liberty means increase of responsibility to mortals in illustration of the truth of Mrs. Eddy's statement, "Heaven's favors are formidable: they are calls to higher duties, not discharge from care" (Christian Healing, p. i). Equality is mutual liberty demonstrated; no conceited sense of equality can make men equal. To expect any employer to demonstrate perfect equality in every relation with his employees is to demand that which we have no right to expect from any one until we can demonstrate the same ourselves. So Paul's advice is to be obedient "with fear and trembling;" that is, with sober respect. All human relationships have to be taken up in Christian Science and the problems worked out scientifically, and we fracture the law of liberty at the outset if we insist upon another person's working out the same problem at the same time and in the same way we are solving it. He who blatantly asserts his equality with much ostentation, in this way demonstrates his inequality. The man who truly demonstrates equality never asserts it; self-assertion has no place in liberty. Liberty endows all its sons with true dignity; self-assertion is a pose. Equality clothes true worth with modesty; license flaunts its unshamed nakedness of arrogance. Fraternity is reverence for and joy in our brother's liberty; pride and conceit demands idolatrous adoration for itself.
