Liberty is generally conceded to be the gift of God, and in its true sense rightly so; but in its frequent application, meaning the freedom to do precisely as one likes, it would seem to include few of the godlike qualities,—and it is certainly not in this sense calculated to bring one nearer to Principle. The utterance of the words of Jesus in Gethsemane, "Not my will, but thine, be done," would from this standpoint mean the forfeiture of an inalienable right, of man, and the gift of God; but for Jesus, who had learned that "the flesh profiteth nothing," the prayer meant entering more fully into the God-given inheritance of dominion, or true liberty, which can be found only in obedience to Principle.
An experience of the writer's which changed in a measure the course of his life, seemed for a time to have deprived him of what he believed to be liberty; and at times a sense of resentment and resistance would come up, when he would mentally chafe under his imaginary bonds, but to no purpose. He came to see, however, the metaphysical truth of the words of the poet,—
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.
