Orleans Independent Standard

Another Kind of Slavery.

[Extract from Beecher's sermon from the text "Ye are called unto Liberty."]

But remember that there is something more. "Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh." Do not think that this liberty is for your own profit and benefit. Do not be stingy because you have the riches of liberty; "but by love serve one another"—become slaves to each other. By compulsion, no man should be a slave; but without compulsion, and under the drawings of love, every man should be. Do you want to see a slave? Do not go down to those paradisaical lying places in the south, to see the happy slave. I will point you to one. The day is drawing to a close. Thro' all the hours of it a slave has been moving about the house; and now, as twilight comes on, hear the slave singing a hymn. And what is it that this angelic choir is singing to? It is a little nothing, called a baby. And who is this slave, fit to be angel, in royalty of gifts, and in richness of cultivation? Why, it is Mrs. Browning the poetess, noble in understanding; versed in the lore of ages; deep in nature; full of treasure such as no king, no court, and no palace ever had. She sings. And when the little child is uneasy she serves it. When the child tires of the pillow and the cradle, it makes a pillow of her. And when she is weary, if the child does not wish to go, she still holds it. And when at last it will lie down, she still wakes for fear that the child will awake. And in every single hour of the night she hears its call. Not a whimper or sound from the child escapes her notice. And she is up before the morning star. And, though weary, all day again this slave serves this little baby—this little uncrowned despot of the heart!

Ah! there is no slave out of heaven like a loving woman; and of all loving women there is no such slave as a mother. And how royal, next to God himself, are slaves! But remember what kind they must be. "By love serve one another." That is the coin that buys them. It is love, and it is giving one's self for another's benefit and to another's life in the fullness of love, that makes true slavery. How beautiful are those slaves that are slaves through love! Not the Greek slave could be compared with them. No ideal that we can form can approach to the glory of their nature. No measure can be found by which to estimate the value of one that is a slave through love to another's uses.