CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

June 23, 1967

Page 17132

REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE INTRODUCING A BACCALAUREATE SERMON BY THE REVEREND WILLIAM H. HUDNUT III, OF INDIANAPOLIS, IND., JUNE 22, 1967

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, early this month I was privileged to attend the baccalaureate service of the commencement program at Hanover College, in Indiana. The baccalaureate sermon was given by the Reverend William H. Hudnut III, of the Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, and I was impressed by his message.

Reverend Hudnut said that freedom requires discipline. He told the graduating class:

From beginning to end, the Bible establishes a connection between liberty and self-restraint, teaching that the one cannot be enjoyed without the other.

Our society grows increasingly complex, and our opportunities and alternatives become increasingly varied. Many traditions and standards which guided earlier generations no longer seem to have validity for many.

Against this background, which confuses many young adults and perplexes and alarms their parents, the Reverend Hudnut's remarks have increased significance.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that his baccalaureate sermon be printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the sermon was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

(Baccalaureate sermon, Hanover College. June 4, 1967, Rev. William H. Hudnut III, Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, Ind.)

(Text: Galatians 5:13: "For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another.")

One of the clearest conclusions in Scripture is that freedom must be accompanied by discipline, or it will become license. Or, to put it another way, privilege must evoke a sense of accountability, or it will deteriorate into irresponsible behavior. From beginning to end, the Bible establishes a connection between liberty and self-restraint, teaching that the one cannot be enjoyed without the other.

Adam and Eve had freedom, freedom not to sin, freedom to eat anything they wanted except the fruit of one tree. But they could not voluntarily impose any limits on themselves. They disobeyed. They ate of the forbidden fruit. They were expelled from the Garden. And they lost their freedom not to sin.

The Israelites during the days of the ancient prophets and kings enjoyed a unique relationship with God, believing, that He had guided them into successful territorial conquest and cornucopian material accomplishment. But when their conduct degenerated, when drunkenness and prostitution and idolatry became the order of the day, when the poor were oppressed and the needy were sold for a pair of shoes, when the dark shadows of injustice stalked the streets of Israel's cities casting darkness across the land, there thundered forth from the wilderness the prophetic voice of the shepherd Amos:

“Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt: ‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.’”

What Amos meant was this: God has taken special care of you, blessed you in a very wonderful way. But you have flaunted Him. You have forsaken Him. You have failed Him. Therefore you will be punished, because you do not realize that your privileged position imposes upon you special obligations. And sure enough, a few years later, the capital city of Israel lay in ruins.

Or take another example, this one from the New Testament. Perhaps the most startling and immediate manifestation of the Good News that Christ preached, was that many many people who heard Him realized that it was not necessary for them to observe the thousands of jots and tittles in the Jewish law in order to please God or be saved. Christ actually broke a Jewish law – the one about working on the Sabbath -- in order to demonstrate the validity of a higher law, the law of love. Some of the first-generation Christians, however, forgot about that higher law. Exhilarated by their new freedom from Jewish legalism, they went around abusing their Christian liberty, breaking laws willfully, doing whatever they pleased. Paul was very concerned about the direction they were heading, because he realized that it would utterly undo Christ's work if His followers became hedonists and libertines. "Take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak," he wrote the Corinthians (I Cor. 8:9). "You were called to freedom, brethren," he wrote the Galatians (5:13) "only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another." Here again, then, we encounter the same warning: If you do not use your freedom responsibly, you will lose it and become the slave of your passion and your peers and of evil itself.

The young people who toured our country last year under the banner of the "Sing Out '66" program, had a song that stated the point rather well:

"Freedom isn't free. You got to pay a price, you got to sacrifice, for your liberty. In ancient Rome they felt so free doing what comes naturally, but they were so busy being merry ones, that they didn't notice the barbarians. From Vietnam to Alamein our fighting men will have died in vain, if we go on with our comfort and ease, doing exactly as we dang well please. Freedom isn't free. Each generation must win it anew. You got to pay a price, you got to sacrifice, for your liberty." '

I think this is an important lesson for us to remember -- not just at commencement time, although now seems an appropriate time to emphasize it, because you graduating seniors are gaining a new freedom today (maybe some of you would call it an emancipation!); you are beginning a new chapter in your lives, moving into new fields where you will have greater latitude -- but throughout the year. Liberty cannot be preserved without self-discipline, self-restraint, and a strong sense of responsibility. Freedom without discipline leads to anarchy: discipline without freedom leads to despotism.

Our founding fathers knew this. That's why they built a series of checks and balances into our system of government, so vaulting ambition could be checked before it o'erleaped itself, and one wing of government could not usurp prerogatives that belong to the other.

John Adams wrote in 1765:

"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth." (Cousins, In God We Trust, p. 84)

But Adams and his contemporaries also appreciated the truth that this magnificent emancipation, this new freedom, has to be guaranteed by virtue, or it would be lost. Said Washington in his Farewell Address: "Of all dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable support ... virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government." Which is to suggest, the founding of our country was based on the presupposition that a free way of life can be successfully established only if the throwing off of an external yoke of political or ecclesiastical despotism is accompanied by a voluntary assumption on the part of the people of a solemn moral obligation to impose restraints upon one's self from within.

In an article entitled "A Fourth of July Reminder: Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword," which appeared in The Reader's Digest in July, 1966, Arthur Gordon recounted an incident that he witnessed one Fourth of July. A group of people had been listening to a patriotic address on the meaning of Independence Day, in which the speaker made the customary remarks about our heritage of Freedom and the courage of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. As the applause was dying away after his speech, a voice spoke from the crowd suddenly and unexpectedly: "Why don't you tell them the whole truth?"

Startled, everyone looked around. The words came from a young man in a tweed jacket with untidy hair and intense angry eyes. "Why don't you tell them that freedom is the most dangerous gift anyone can receive?" he asked. "Why don't you tell them it's a two-edged sword that will destroy us unless we learn how to use it, and soon? Why don't you make them see that we face a greater challenge than our ancestors ever did? They only had to fight for freedom. We have to live with it!" The young man stared for a moment at the blank uncomprehensive faces. Then he shrugged his way through the crowd and disappeared.

Well, he made a telling point. Arthur Cordon calls it "a swift and stunning insight." Freedom is a two-edged sword. It can be a dangerous thing, because it implies the possibility of choosing the wrong path. A young person who finally wins a driver's license after much practice and testing, gains a new and long-dreamed of freedom, freedom to drive a car, freedom to pick up one's girl at her house oneself instead of having Dad do the driving, freedom to get to school on one's own instead of riding the school bus, freedom to travel, freedom to get around, freedom to move, freedom to feel the breeze in one's face and watch the landscape go whizzing by, but this freedom is dangerous, ominous. It can be misused. A wrong choice can be made, turning a license to drive into a license to kill. A car can blight rather than bless when it is used without restraint. It can become a 3200-pound vehicle of death dealing destruction in twisted steel, crumpled chrome and shattered glass. Freedom to drive a car presupposes awareness of the limits within which driving is safe; without commitment to observe those limits, freedom becomes license and life is threatened by death.

This is but one example of the more general point, that we must always try, as students, as American citizens, and as Christians, to connect liberty with responsibility, opportunity with obligation, and freedom with discipline.

We have freedom of speech, but we should not use it as an occasion for talebearing, gossiping, falsehood and half-truthing.

We have freedom to buy on credit, but we should honor our debts and fulfill our financial commitments.

We have freedom to work in whatever job we want. but should not allow job security to serve as an excuse for feather bedding, free loading or laziness.

We have freedom to disassociate ourselves from the prevailing view, believing as we do that ultimately God alone is Lord of the conscience, but we should not let our disagreement deteriorate into irrational emotional excesses that incite people to anarchy or brand the responsible leaders of our country as "buffoons," and worse; nor should we seek to tyrannize the majority with our minority point of view, remembering that the majority has its rights too.

We have freedom to exercise the franchise, to vote under the secret ballot, to participate in public dialogue, but we should not take it for granted, this freedom, and fall into apathy and indifference; because, as Edmund Burke once reminded the English, the best way to assure the triumph of an evil cause is for good men to do nothing.

We have freedom to petition peacefully for redress of grievances, but we should not allow this to lead to riot and destruction of property.

We have freedom to affirm our support of national policy, as in Vietnam, for example; but we should not attempt to stifle discussion about this vexing issue; nor should we, if we belong to the majority, trample the rights of the minority, remembering that "there are truths and forms with respect to which men of good character may differ;" nor should we join the witch hunters and fear mongers and neighborhood vigilantes who are always eager and ready to brand dissent as treason, unorthodoxy as heresy, and discontent as disloyalty.

We have considerable freedom to express ourselves sexually, what with the new openness that informs public discussion of this subject and the increasing availability of the "pill," etc.; but we should understand that sex has a spiritual dimension to it; that without things like love and honor and respect and sensitivity, it is debased into animal gratification; and that the ultimate form of sexual freedom lies not in promiscuity, but in loyalty to one's beloved within the discipline and delight of the marriage vow.

We have freedom to choose where and how we will worship but should not understand this as freedom from religion, or use it as an excuse to boycott the church.

I think some people in our country today, both young and old, misunderstand freedom, because they suppose it means being able to do anything anywhere any time. They suppose it implies emancipation from things like self-discipline, a sense of duty, hard work, suffering and self-sacrifice. An old saying has it that "a man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do what he likes." The danger is that this corrupted understanding of freedom will produce softness in the moral backbone of the nation. If the only law that counts is the law of self, self-gratification, self-expression, self-aggrandizement, then the floodgates have been opened for the nation to be inundated by moral laxity, dishonesty, greed, materialism, promiscuity, apathy, and anarchy, which is indeed, a rather terrible form of slavery.

Arthur Gordon is right:

"The time has come in our national life when we need to look straight at some of the ugly areas in our society -- the divorce statistics, the crime statistics, the weakening of family ties, the swirling clouds of racial hatred, the sex explosion on our campuses, the grim persistence of alcoholism, the death toll on our highways -- and ask ourselves to what extent these things stem from a distorted concept of freedom which leaves men free to be selfish, free to be lazy, free to be ignoble, free to be weak."

The message that I would like to hear from the pulpits of our churches this graduation weekend when students all over the country are gaining a new measure of freedom, is that your new-found independence does not mean license to do whatever you want. That's the meaning of our text:

"You were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another." Independence involves a mature understanding of liberty, a responsible attitude toward one's obligation to one's neighbors and one's God, and a strong self-discipline. True freedom comes only when we confess our bondage to the higher laws of mutual responsibility and love. That's why in the Christian church we sometimes sing, "Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free."

An eloquent plea for this case has come from the pen of a private in the Army, named John J. Hogan, an American G.I., who was killed in the Pacific theater during World War II. We will conclude by reading the words of the last letter he sent home before he fell in battle. Listen to what he wrote:

"DEAR FAMILY: I don't know when mail from home has meant so much to me. As I write, the sun is setting on one of those beautiful Pacific days that more than makes up for the rainy ones. It's got me thinking about our country.

"The American people have emerged today with more power and prestige than any country in the family of nations. Mankind is knocking at our gates, seeking wisdom from our leaders, the hope of peace from our people. Before we can fulfill our destiny to lead the world to sanity and harmony, we shall have to rebuild the fiber of our national life.

"Suppose we as a nation find again the faith our fathers knew? Suppose our statesmen learn again to listen to the voice of God. Then we shall know once again the greatness of a nation whose strength is in her obedience to the moral law of God, whose strength is in the spirit of her people.

"There is only one other road. Those who divide and conquer, those who would make money and materialism the philosophy of our national life, pride and power the goals of our living, they too have a road to offer and at its end is racial and class warfare and national suicide.

"America, choose the right road. Unless there is born again in our people the spirit of sacrifice and service, of moral responsibility, my comrades and I who fight on the beaches and those of us who will die here will have been exploited and betrayed and fought and died in vain.

"It is the eleventh hour. By your choice you will bless or blight mankind for a thousand years to come.

"Which road will it be America?"