Editorial March 9, 1912 Issue

THE TRUE SOLUTION

Archibald McLellan

In these days of social and industrial unrest, when men are arrayed against each other and the problem of an equitable adjustment seems difficult of solution, here and there a great cry goes up for the multiplication of laws which will regulate the relations of all classes. It is right that there should be such wise changes in human laws as will keep in check the selfishness, greed, and brutality of mortal mind, so far as legal restriction can do this, but the true remedial agency must go deeper, must reach the inner man. It should not be forgotten that there is great truth in the saying, "The stream cannot rise above the spring;" and as human action is but the expression of human thought, so the reform of human conditions must necessarily be brought about by reform in human thinking.

The vital point, then, is what can be done toward the accomplishment of this desired and desirable reformation. Were it possible to obtain a consensus of opinion, it would be found that there are very few who doubt that the sermon on the mount, if universally practised, would bring in the millennium, but the root of the trouble seems to be that mortal mind in its inmost depths does not want the millennium, because this condition of love and good will to all men would make impossible of realization its own selfish purposes. Innately, mortal mind still clings to the old belief that might makes right, that there is more satisfaction, indeed the only satisfaction of which one is assured, in the acquisition of material than of spiritual things; that, provided one's earthly ambitions are realized, the question of future punishment or reward is altogether too problematical to call for much concern; and so long as this is the basis upon which men and women found their hopes for happiness, there is likely to be great delay in that realization of the brotherhood of man which is the ideal of all true reformers.

There was one, however, who by a few words struck the keynote of universal harmony, and in his own loving ministry to humanity's needs, his quick recognition of their right to health and happiness, initiated the brotherhood of man. What is more, he who declared himself "the way, the truth, and the life," laid down an infallible rule for the continuance of the work he had inaugurated, when he said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." It is beyond question that if the generation of men to whom these words were spoken had obeyed this divine command, injustice, greed, war, evil and crime of all sorts, would have been blotted out from human experience.

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