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that of the people, that is, superior to national sovereignty, must be allowed. This independence or national self-government further implies that, the civil government of free choice or free acquiescence being established, no influence from without besides that of freely acknowledged justice, fairness and morality must be admitted. There must then be the requisite strength to resist when necessary.

The history of the nineteenth century, but especially that of our own age, is full of instances of interference with the autonomy of nations or states. Italy, Germany, especially Hessia, Spain, Hungary, furnish numerous instances. Cases may occur, indeed, in which foreign interference becomes imperative.

All we can then say is, that the people's liberty, so far, is gone, and must be recovered. No one will maintain that interference with Turkish affairs at the present time is wrong, in those powers who resist Russian influence in that quarter, but no one will say either that Turkey enjoys full autonomy. The very existence of Turkey depends upon foreign sufferance.

On the other hand, it must be remembered that this unstinted autonomy is greatly endangered at home, by interfering with the domestic affairs of foreigners.

"The opinion, therefore, urged by Washington, that we should keep ourselves aloof from foreign politics, is of far greater weight than those believe who take it merely with reference to foreign alliances and ensuing wars."-Lieber's Civil Liberty.

Lieber finds that the guaranties of liberty are in institutions; hence that liberty secured to man is "institutional liberty."

Institutions, natural, social and political, the family, the Sabbath, public-school education, Magna Charta, the judiciary and many others, are doubtless all in their several spheres promotive of liberty. But the very substratum, substance, essence of liberty is alone in the inward man; in the law of his soul; in a disposition to a ready obedience to the moral law, as summed up in the two great commandments. Liberty, its substance, its essence, is in the character of the man, in his habitual subjection to the limitations imposed by the Creator.

Magna Charta, "The Great Charter" of liberties, originally granted by King John (A. D. 1215) to the clergy, barons and freemen of England, and confirmed by the subsequent rulers, is justly regarded as the most important part of the British constitution. In the articles relating to taxation is to be found the constitutional principle that no tax shall be levied except by consent of the people taxed, which consent may be expressed by their repre

sentatives.

The violation of this principle was one of the items of complaint in our Declaration of Independence, 1776. "The Magna Charta was a writing declaring the people of England exempted from certain oppressions, and entitled to certain privileges, and it contained sixty-three different clauses-only the most vexatious tyranny which kings could exercise over the people could make such clauses

necessary. These for instance: that the goods of every free man shall be disposed of, after his death, according to his will; that if he die without making a will, his children shall succeed to his property; that no officer of the crown shall take horses, carts or wood, without the consent of the owner.

Articles 39 and 40, in Lord Chatham's judgment, and by general consent, are the most important ones, as securing all civil rights belonging to freemen, thus: "Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur. . "No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed, nor will we pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man justice or right."

47. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.-Religious liberty is freedom to worship according to one's conscience, provided this conscience does not offend against moral principle and right.

In the United States, the government has nothing to do with the maintenance of religion by pecuniary or material aid. This nonrelation between government and religion is commonly called the "Separation of Church and State." This separation is entirely on material or concrete grounds. On moral and on vital grounds there must always be a close relation between the church and the state.

The church as an organization could not securely

exist without the protection of the state, for it would be exposed to the violence of men who know not the fear nor the love of God; and the state, should it neglect its duty to protect its citizens in freedom of worship, would drive pure religion as well as liberty from its borders, and the government would soon degenerate into a misrule of ignorance, bigotry and anarchy, without the semblance of liberty. History proves this; but without the facts of history, the proposition is logical and is necessarily true; because the perfection of religion, its highest idea, is in the freedom of the soul from the rule of wrong desires, and in its ready obedience to the law of right. Thus, the true religious citizen is the ideal freeman, and a true religion tends to liberty. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." (2 Corinthians 3: 17.) "But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." (James 1: 25.) "So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." (James 2: 12.)

These scripture citations show that there is a law of liberty, not a law that restrains liberty, but a law that gives rise to liberty and warrants us in the use and enjoyment of it.

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The law of liberty is in an inward state or law of the soul, wherein is the Spirit of the Lord that manifests itself in a doing of the word, and in good deeds.

The law of liberty as here cited is indeed the law

prescribed for the religious man. It is nevertheless a law entirely in accord with nature as well as with logic and philosophy; and the essential element of liberty is precisely the same in its application to the moral man in all his relations in life, social, civil and institutional. Liberty is not an absolute state of independence that a man has an absolute right to. It is conditioned, and conditioned on a certain law of liberty, that must first exist in the man's soul, and manifest itself by his deeds; and if there be not this evidence of liberty, and of an existing law of liberty, within the man, and of its development into a fitness for the enjoyment of liberty; then that man has no claim to take part or to act in determining the institutions and the limitations of liberty.

48. PERSONAL LIBERTY.-Personal liberty means that a man has a right to the use of his powers and faculties, physical, intellectual, moral and religious, as he pleases, provided that in the use of them he does not stand in the way of the rights of his fellow

men.

To illustrate what is personal liberty by examples of what is not; this proviso forbids:

(1) Throwing stones, firing off pistols, exploding India-crackers on the street or frequented highway, or in public or private grounds, and all acts of this kind, even though at the moment you may see no one in range.

(2) It forbids corrupting the young and the ignorant by immoral speech and the circulation of a literature advocating doctrines and practices contrary

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