There is much talk of freedom in these days, especially among the younger generation. Such phrases as "the necessity for self-expression," "freedom of life and experience," are heard on every side, though to maturer thinkers these terms sometimes seem more nearly to connote self-indulgence and the loss of wholesome restraints, than true freedom. Indeed, indifference to authority in every walk of life seems to be one of the most striking characteristics of the age.
No doubt some of the old restraints were worn out, and the new conditions which arose in every grade of society as an aftermath of the World War made their continuance impossible. But the swing of the pendulum to the opposite extreme seems to be carrying away many fundamental ideals without which society must become chaotic.
While it cannot be said positively that these ideals originally had a religious basis, it is certain that amongst English-speaking people they were given a religious character by the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, which made every class familiar with the teaching of reward and punishment meted out to obedience and disobedience as shown in the Old Testament, and with the higher ethics shown in the New Testament. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Puritan element impressed this religious aspect of life on the middle classes with tremendous effect; and it was their desire for religious freedom which took the Pilgrim Fathers to America, and undoubtedly inspired them in the accomplishment of their great work.
