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ought to do. I call that man free who is able to rule himself. I call him free who has his flesh in subjection to his spirit; who fears doing wrong, but who fears nothing else. I call that man free who has learned that liberty consists in obedience to the power and to the will and to the law that his higher soul approves. He is not free because he does what he likes, but he is free because he does what he ought. Some people think there is no liberty in obedience. I tell you there is no liberty except in loyal obedience. Did you ever see a mother kept at home, a kind of prisoner, by her sick child, obeying its every wish and caprice? Will you call that mother a slave? Or is this obedience the obedience of slavery? I call it the obedience of the highest liberty--the liberty of love. We hear in these days a great deal respecting rights: the rights of private judgment, the rights of labor, the rights, of property, and the rights of man. I cannot see anything manly in the struggle between rich and poor; the one striving to take as much, and the other to keep as much, as he can. The cry of "My rights, your duties," we should change to something nobler. If we can say "My duties, your rights," we shall learn what real liberty is. LESSON XXXIX THE VOICE A good voice has a charm in speech as in song. The voice, like the face, betrays the nature and disposition, and soon indicates what is the range of the speaker's mind. Many people have no ear for music; but everyone has an ear for skillful reading. Every one of us has at some time been the victim of a cunning voice, and perhaps been repelled once for all by a harsh, mechanical speaker. The voice, indeed, is a delicate index of the state of mind. What character, what infinite variety, belongs to the voice! Sometimes it is a flute, sometimes a trip-hammer; what a range of force! In moments of clearer thought or deeper sympathy, the voice will attain a music and penetration which surprise the speaker as much as the hearer. LESSON XL THE INTREPID YOUTH It was a calm, sunny day in the year 1750; the scene a piece of forest land in the north of Virginia, near a noble stream of water. Implements for surveying were lying about, and several men composed a party engaged in laying out the wild lands of the country. These persons had apparently just finished their dinner. Apart from the group walked a young man of a tall and compa
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