passions, discipline of the intellect, subjection
of the will; if you mean the fear of inflicting, the shame of
committing, a wrong; if you mean respect for all who are in authority,
and consideration for all who are in dependence; veneration for the
good, mercy to the evil, sympathy with the weak; if you mean
watchfulness over all thoughts, temperance in all pleasures, and
perseverance in all toils; if you mean, in a word, that Service which
is defined in the liturgy of the English church to be perfect Freedom,
why do you name this by the same word by which the luxurious mean
license, and the reckless mean change; by which the rogue means rapine,
and the fool, equality; by which the proud mean anarchy, and the
malignant mean violence? Call it by any name rather than this, but its
best and truest, is Obedience. Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind
of freedom, else it would become mere subjugation, but that freedom is
only granted that obedience may be more perfect; and thus, while a
measure of license is necessary to exhibit the individual energies of
things, the fairness and pleasantness and perfection of them all
consist in their Restraint. Compare a river that has burst its banks
with one that is bound by them, and the clouds that are scattered over
the face of the whole heaven with those that are marshalled into ranks
and orders by its winds. So that though restraint, utter and
unrelaxing, can never be comely, this is not because it is in itself an
evil, but only because, when too great, it overpowers the nature of the
thing restrained, and so counteracts the other laws of which that
nature is itself composed. And the balance wherein consists the
fairness of creation is between the laws of life and being in the
things governed, and the laws of general sway to which they are
subjected; and the suspension or infringement of either, kind of law,
or, literally, disorder, is equivalent to, and synonymous with,
disease; while the increase of both honour and beauty is habitually on
the side of restraint (or the action of superior law) rather than of
character (or the action of inherent law). The noblest word in the
catalogue of social virtue is "Loyalty," and the sweetest which men
have learned in the pastures of the wilderness is "Fold."

Nor is this all; but we may observe, that exactly in proportion to the
majesty of things in the scale of being, is the completeness of their
obedience to the laws that are set over th