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Liberty. 
“The greatest gift that, in his largeness, God 
Creating made, and unto his own goodness 
Nearest conformed, and that which he doth prize 
Most highly, is the freedom of the will, 
Wherewith the creatures of intelligence 
Both all and only were and are endowed.” 
— Dante, Paradise, v., 19-24. 
np HE name of “liberty,” however, seems condemned to be often ill un- 
derstood in nearly all its applications. 
In the religious, moral, social, and political order, it is enveloped in 
such obscurity, that we can perceive the many efforts which have been made 
to darken and misrepresent it. 
Cicero gives an admirable definition of liberty when he says, that it 
consists in being the servant of the law. 
In the same way, it may be said, that the liberty of the intellect con¬ 
sists in being the servant of truth, and the liberty of the will in being the 
servant of virtue; if you change this, you destroy liberty! 
If you take away the law, you admit force; if you take away the 
truth, you admit error; if you take away virtue, you admit vice. 
“If you venture,” says a modern writer, “to exempt the world from 
the external law, from that law ivhich embraces man and society, which 
extends to all orders, which is the divine wisdom applied to reasonable 
creatures; if you venture to seek for an imaginary liberty out of that im¬ 
mense circle, you destroy all; there remains in society nothing but the 
empire of brute force, and in man that of the passions; with tyranny, and 
consequently slavery.” 
We should often ponder the words of St. Paul: “For you, brethren, 
have been called unto liberty; only make not liberty an occasion to the 
flesh, but by charity of the Spirit serve one another;”* and the paramount 
Gal. v, 3. 
