My one text would be:  “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”  I do not know how big truth is, but it must be quite extensive if science, mathematics, history, and literature are but small parts of it.  I have never explored these parts very far inland, but they seem to my limited gaze to extend a long distance before me; and when I get to thinking that each of these is but a part of something that is called truth I begin to feel that truth is a pretty large affair.  I suspect the text means that the more of this truth we know the greater freedom we have.  My friend Brown has an automobile, and sometimes he takes me out riding.  On one of these occasions we had a puncture, with the usual attendant circumstances.  While Brown made the needful repairs, I sat upon the grassy bank.  The passers-by probably regarded me as a lazy chap who disdained work of all sorts, and perhaps thought of me as enjoying myself while Brown did the work.  In this they were grossly mistaken, for Brown was having the good time, while I was bored and uncomfortable.  Why, Brown actually whistled as he repaired that puncture.  He had freedom because he knew which tool to use, where to find it, and how to use it.  But there I sat in ignorance and thraldom—­not knowing the truth about the tools or the processes.

In the presence of that episode I felt like one in a foreign country who is ignorant of the language, while Brown was the concierge who understands many languages.  He knew the truth and so had freedom.  I have often wondered whether men do not sometimes get drunk to win a respite from the thraldom and boredom of their ignorance of the truth.  It must be a very trying experience not to understand the language that is spoken all about one.  I have something of that feeling when I go into a drug-store and find myself in complete ignorance of the contents of the bottles because I cannot read the labels.  I have no freedom because I do not know the truth.  The dapper clerk who takes down one bottle after another with refreshing freedom relegates me to the kindergarten, and I certainly feel and act the part.

I had this same feeling, too, when I was making ready to sow my little field with alfalfa.  I wanted to have alfalfa growing in the field next to the road for my own pleasure and for the pleasure of the passers-by.  A field of alfalfa is an ornament to any landscape, and I like to have my landscapes ornamental, even if I must pay for it in terms of manual toil.  I had never even seen alfalfa seed and did not in the least know how to proceed in preparing the soil.  If I ever expected to have any freedom I must first learn the truth, and a certain modicum of freedom necessarily precedes the joy of alfalfa.