_Liberty_.
The new Century will call for freedom in every walk of human life.
That bright dream of the ages--Liberty--how far ahead of us she still
lies!
What a bondage life is to multitudes! What a vast host of the human race,
even of this generation, will die in slavery--actual physical bondage!
Slaves in Africa, in China, in Eastern Europe, in the far isles of the sea
and dark places of the earth, cry to us, and perish while they cry.
What a host, still larger, are in the bondage of unequal laws! Little
children, stricken, cursed, and damned, and there is none to deliver.
Young men and maidens bound by hateful customs, ruined by wicked
associations, torn by force of law from all that is best in life, and
taught all that is worst. Nine men out of ten in one of the great European
armies are said to be debauched morally and physically by their military
service; and all the men in the nation are bound by law to serve.
What a host--larger, again, than both the others--of every generation of
men are bound by custom in the service of cruelty. It is supposed that
every year a million little children die from neglect, wilful exposure, or
other form of cruelty. Think of the bondage of those who kill them! Look
at the cruelty to women, the cruelty of war, the cruelty to criminals, the
cruelty to the animal creation. What a mighty force the slavery of cruel
custom still remains!
All that is best in man is crying out for emancipation from this bondage,
and I know of no deliverance so sure, so complete, so abiding as that
which comes by the teaching and spirit of Jesus. But, even if freedom from
all these hateful bonds could come, and could be complete, without Him,
there still remains a serfdom more degrading, a bondage more inexorable
than any of these, for men are everywhere the bond-slaves of sin. Look out
upon the world--upon your own part of it, even upon your own family or
household--and see how evil holds men by one chain or another, and grips
them body and soul. This one by doubt, this by passion, this by envy, this
by lust, this by pride, this by strife, this by fear, this one by love of
gold, this one by love of the world, and this one by hatred of God! _Is
it not so_?
What men want, then, is PERSONAL, INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY FROM SIN. Given that,
and a slave may be free. Given that, and the child in the nursery of
iniquity may be free. Given that, and the young man or maiden held in the
charnel-house of lust may be free. Given that, and the victim of all that
is most cruel and most brutal in life may still be free. Oh! blessed be
God, he whom the Son makes free is free indeed!
This, and this alone, is the liberty for the new Century--the Gospel
liberty from sin for the individual soul and spirit, without respect of
time or circumstance; and here alone is He who can bestow it--Jesus, the
Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
This, I say, is _The Man for the new Century_.