Next time you put on your favorite pair of jeans, try thinking out from that familiar blue-denim enclosure. In those cotton jeans there's a lesson in the practical meaning of love.

For nearly two decades following its 1898 launch, the Sentinel published a page of national (United States) and world news. The May 21, 1904, issue contained this blink-and-you'll-miss-it news item about—you guessed it—cotton: "Three-fourths of the cotton in the world is produced by the United States."

It was the last item on the page, and not exactly what one would call a prayer agenda bulletin. But even without the benefit of perfect hindsight, that factoid just might have caused some readers to think a little more deeply—for instance, about mechanized farming, fair and unfair competition, or the upsides and downsides of monopolies in any economic sector.

That near-monopoly market share in cotton during the first decade of the 20th century has changed radically. Today, China outproduces US cotton farmers, and US production is about one-fifth of the world's total. Yet America's global leverage in this basic commodity remains disproportionately substantial. One reason for that dominance is this week's news item: Selectively subsidized US agriculture makes cotton farming a punishing enterprise in parts of Africa and in other developing regions because they can't price their product competitively.

Yes, other products are unfairly subsidized by other nations. The ending of subsidies can cause distressing financial side effects. And free trade is certainly a worldwide work in process. (And yes, those jeans, socks, and duck canvas bags could cost more.) Yet we see a fundamental need for global trade policies that are based on higher rules, rather than on me-first selfish interest. Among Christians, one of those higher rules is the Golden Rule: Do to others only what you would want done to yourself. The Golden Rule exists in some form in virtually every religion's sacred writings.

There is within everyone a spiritually instinctive urge to fairness and generosity. Every good-Samaritan act, regardless of the doer's faith, is impelled by this universal Golden Rule of behavior. God authors both the rule itself and the countless acts of love and assistance that are moved by it.

One of humanity's great needs is to free these moral and spiritual desires and to tame the animality that can restrict the expression of God-given goodness and spirituality. Such change doesn't come through legislation or executive fiat. It happens as people are transformed one at a time through spiritual love. Love holds the corrective power.

Five years prior to the publication of that brief item on cotton production, Mary Baker Eddy wrote bluntly about social dangers. "I reluctantly foresee great danger threatening our nation," she wrote in 1899, "—imperialism, monopoly, and a lax system of religion. But the spirit of humanity, ethics, and Christianity sown broadcast——all concomitants of Christian Science——is taking strong hold of the public thought throughout our beloved country and in foreign lands, and is tending to counteract the trend of mad ambition" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 129).

The good news is that people in many nations are challenging conventional wisdom and entrenched interests on the question of trade. They're asking how we can get to a freer system of trade that benefits nations and people more evenly.

We can get there by going beyond the science of economics to practicing a science of love—actually a Science of divine Love epitomized in the Golden Rule——that, when better understood and practiced, will make a world of difference for good in the struggle toward economic equity for all.