er of restraint for a moment, is really a
part of the process of his enfranchisement, is the bringing forth of him
to a fuller liberty. You see a man coming forward and offering himself
as one of the defenders of his country in his country's need. You see
him standing at the door where men are being received as recruits into
the army of the country. He wants liberty. He wants to be able to do
that which he cannot do in his poor, personal isolation here at home. He
wants the badge which will give him the right to go forth and meet the
enemies of his country, and he enrolls himself among these men. He makes
himself subject to obligations, duties, and drill. They are a part of
his enfranchisement. They are really the breaking of the fetters upon
his slavery, the sending him forth into freedom. He is like a bit of
iron or steel that lies upon the ground. It lies neglected and perfectly
free. You see it is made by the adjustment of the end of it so that it
can be set into a great machine and become part of a great working
system. But there it lies. Will you call it free? It is bound to be
nothing there. It is absolutely separate, and with its own personality
distinct and individual and all alone. What is to make that bit of iron
a free bit of iron, to let it go forth and do the thing which it was
meant to do, but the taking of it and the binding of it at both ends
into the structure of which it was made to be a part? It seems to me the
binding of a man,--it seems to me that the binding of the iron is not
the yielding of its freedom. It is not merely after finding its place
within the system that it first achieves its freedom and so joins in the
music and partakes of the courses with which the whole enginery is
filled. Is not it, then, for the first time a free bit of iron, having
accomplished all that it was made to do when it came forth from the
forge of the master, who had this purpose in his mind? This, then, is
freedom; everything is part of the enfranchisement of a man which helps
to put him in the place where he can live his best. Therefore every
duty, every will of God, every commandment of Christ, every
self-surrender that a man is called upon to obey or to make--do not
think of it as if it were simply a restraint to liberty, but think of it
as the very means of freedom, by which we realize the very purpose of
God and the fulfilment of our life. It is interesting to see how all
that is true in regard to the matter of b