Liberty -- no man-concocted restraints against the release of creative energy -- can be likened to a bright star in a dark firmament. Only now and then in all history has that star brightened the lives of the trillions who have inhabited this earth.

You are as young as your faith,

as old as your doubt;

as young as your self-confidence,

as old as your fear;

as young as your hope,

as old as your despair.

It is far easier to find countless persons who know some truth than to find one among them knowledgeable enough, in the face of opposition, to stand for it.

Many people in today's world have no better awareness of truth than to confuse it with a mere nose count: ""The majority is always right." What an affront to knowledge!

As one sage remarked,"It is twice as hard to crush a half-truth as a whole lie."

Evolution is attuned to Natural Law. Individuals who are responsive to this Heavenly radiation, instead of growing weary of inquiry, look upon successive moments of their mortal lives as opening up new and exciting opportunities.

Reflect on the opposite principle:

I have the right to my life, my livelihood, my liberty.

Can I concede this right to all earthly beings?

I can!

Therefore, it is good!

Does anyone have the right to take the life, the livelihood, the liberty of an other? No, because this is not a "right" that can be conceded to all others. It is evil!

It is, in short, the assumption of a right to banish the principle of human rights, the principle of justice itself, from off the earth, and set up their own personal will, pleasure, and interest in its place. All this, and nothing less, is involved in the very idea that there can be any such thing as human legislation that is obligatory upon those upon whom it is imposed.

It is the assumption by one man, or body of men, of a right to abolish outright all the natural rights, all the natural liberty of all other men; to make all other men their slaves; to arbitrarily dictate to all other men what they may, and may not, do; what they may, and may not, have; what they may, and may not, be.

The real motives and spirit which lie at the foundation of all legislation -- not with standing all the pretenses and disguises by which they attempt to hide themselves -- are the same today as they always have been. The whole purpose of this legislation is simply to keep one class of men in subordination and servitude to another.

The whole business of legislation, which has now grown to such gigantic proportions, had its origin in the conspiracies, which have always existed among the few, for the purpose of holding the many in subjection, and extorting from them their labor, and all the profits of their labor.

The result of all this is, that the little wealth there is in the world is all in the hands of a few -- that is, in the hands of the law-making, slave-holding class; who are now as much slave-holders in spirit as they ever were, but who accomplish their purposes by means of the laws they make for keeping the laborers in subjection and dependence, instead of each one's owning his individual slaves as so many chattels.

The purpose and effect of human laws have been to maintain, in the hands of the robber, or slave-holding class, a monopoly of all lands, and, as far as possible, of all other means of Creating wealth; and thus to keep the great body of laborers in such a state of poverty and dependence.

He would hold so many cattle, but to give them so much liberty as would throw upon themselves (the slaves) the responsibility of their own subsistence, and yet compel them to sell their labor to the land-holding class -- their former owners -- for just what the latter might choose to give them.

In process of time, the robber or slave-holding class -- who had seized all the lands, and held all the means of creating wealth -- began to discover that the easiest mode of managing their slaves, and making them profitable, was not for each slaveholder to hold his specified number of slaves, as he had done before.

Thus substantially all the legislation of the world has had its origin in the desires of one class of persons to plunder and enslave others, and hold them as properly.

All these laws have had no more real obligation than have the agreements which brigands, bandits, and pirates find it necessary no enter into with each other, for the more successful accomplishment of their crimes, and the more peaceable division of their spoils.

And their laws, as they have called them, have been only such agreements as they have found it necessary to enter into, in order to maintain their organizations, and act together in plundering and enslaving others, and in securing to each his agreed share of the spoils.

Multiplying their weapons of war, they extend their conquests until, in order to hold what they have already got, it becomes necessary for them to act systematically, and cooperate with each other in holding their slaves in subjection.

These tyrants, living solely on plunder, and on the labor of their slaves, and applying all their energies to the seizure of still more plunder, and the enslavement of still other defenseless persons; increasing, too, their numbers, perfecting their organizations.