Article May 15, 1920 Issue

Christian Science the Equalizer

MARION CAROLYN JONES

From the earliest history of mankind, according to Genesis, men have doubted their equality with their fellow men. When Cain saw that his brother's sacrifice found greater favor with God than his own offering, through jealousy, the fruit of a false belief in inequality, he slew Abel. Then when questioned by Deity concerning his brother's whereabouts, he replied with the momentous question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" When Jesus, the great Metaphysician, came to teach men the truth about relationship, he emphasized this commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" that is, thou shalt see thy neighbor as well as thyself reflecting God, Principle. Judas, the treasurer of the little company of disciples, betrayed his Master through failure to understand this truth.

Throughout the ages, the evil concept of inequality has flourished like a foul weed in the thoughts of men, producing a harvest of conflicting human opinions, believed to emanate from millions of minds, filling the world with discordant conditions to the undoing of humanity. The false concept that men are not equal, begets fear, envy, jealousy, greed, idleness, personal ambition, and that worst of evils, dire discouragement; and the fruitage of these errors is crime of every sort, including self-destruction. Human testimony would try to convince us that there never has been equal opportunity for all—never an equity of good. This is the evil propaganda that error employs to mislead men on their way to the promised land prepared for them from the beginning. Superficial thinking has led men to believe that intellectuality is superior to spirituality, but this is because spirituality is not generally understood. Material philosophies and hypotheses have no real foundation on which to construct an abiding place. Building castles in the air will never bring to view heavenly mansions, nor can magic be invoked whereby men may achieve heaven simply by assertion. The assertion that the kingdom of heaven is at hand must be understood and demonstrated. Idle dreaming begets apathy, and the dreamer one day wakes to find that, like Esau, he has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.

What, then, is the remedy for mankind's belief in inequality with its long train of human ills? Christian Science, the truth about God and man, is the one deliverer from the would-be destroyer, mortal mind. The only vindication of the rights of men is the understanding of what those rights are, and the only rights are those that fall in line with God, Principle, since God and His idea is all there is. Hence man's right is the state of being right with Principle. The world is looking forward to a halcyon time when the brotherhood of man will be established in the earth, but the Christian Scientist knows that the true brotherhood of man is already established. He knows that it is a state of consciousness, the consciousness of good, and that right thinking is divinely natural. The understanding that the real man is one with Principle, spontaneously frees from bondage to false beliefs, and one instantly perceives that liberty is the power of doing what Principle unfolds. Lust of power and place vanishes like a mist before the searchlight of Christian Science and the true man is seen to be in his right place now, interfered with by nothing.

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