for him.  I know of no definition of liberty, that oldest and dearest phrase of men, and sometimes the vaguest also, except that.  It has been perverted, it has been distorted and mystified, but that is what it really means:  the fullest opportunity for a man to do and be the very best that is in his personal nature to do and to be.  It immediately follows that everything which is necessary for the full realization of a man’s life, even though it seems to have the character of restraint for a moment, is really a part of the process of his enfranchisement, is the bringing forth of him to a fuller liberty.  You see a man coming forward and offering himself as one of the defenders of his country in his country’s need.  You see him standing at the door where men are being received as recruits into the army of the country.  He wants liberty.  He wants to be able to do that which he cannot do in his poor, personal isolation here at home.  He wants the badge which will give him the right to go forth and meet the enemies of his country, and he enrolls himself among these men.  He makes himself subject to obligations, duties, and drill.  They are a part of his enfranchisement.  They are really the breaking of the fetters upon his slavery, the sending him forth into freedom.  He is like a bit of iron or steel that lies upon the ground.  It lies neglected and perfectly free.  You see it is made by the adjustment of the end of it so that it can be set into a great machine and become part of a great working system.  But there it lies.  Will you call it free?  It is bound to be nothing there.  It is absolutely separate, and with its own personality distinct and individual and all alone.  What is to make that bit of iron a free bit of iron, to let it go forth and do the thing which it was meant to do, but the taking of it and the binding of it at both ends into the structure of which it was made to be a part?  It seems to me the binding of a man,—­it seems to me that the binding of the iron is not the yielding of its freedom.  It is not merely after finding its place within the system that it first achieves its freedom and so joins in the music and partakes of the courses with which the whole enginery is filled.  Is not it, then, for the first time a free bit of iron, having accomplished all that it was made to do when it came forth from the forge of the master, who had this purpose in his mind?  This, then, is freedom; everything is part of the enfranchisement of a man which helps to put him in the place where he can live his best.  Therefore every duty, every will of God, every commandment of Christ, every self-surrender that a man is called upon to obey or to make—­do not think of it as if it were simply a restraint to liberty, but think of it as the very means of freedom, by which we realize the very purpose of God and the fulfilment of our life.  It is interesting to see how all that is true in regard to the matter of belief, doctrine, and opinions which we are apt to accept.  How