Equality

Ella W. Hoag

There are perhaps few subjects of more importance to the salvation of mankind than equality; and a correct understanding of it is absolutely essential in order that men may win the blessings that accrue therefrom. While much is written and spoken concerning equality, it is generally presented from a more or less mistaken standpoint, for few if any mortals are really desiring or seeking it. For the most part, mankind is engaged in an effort to reach what it calls "the top," and those who talk most of equality are apt to be those who believe themselves farthest from the pinnacle of their desire. Under such circumstances to talk of this subject is selfishly to prate of something not understood.

So long as equal rights are considered from a material standpoint,—from the desire to possess material wealth, position, intellectuality,—equality will never be truly attained, since whatever is based in matter is without security or solidity, without stability or substance. Such desire is ever urging on to what it calls greater heights, only finally to crumble into the nothingness, the illusion, of its own false claims.

Now equality is really a divine concept, and only through spirituality can it be perceived and demonstrated. Because it implies perfection there seems little if any of it in evidence to the human sense of things. Instead, its opposites—superiority and inferiority—are continually calling out for attention and carrying in their wake all sorts of mistaken efforts and disappointing results, of cruel jealousies and their attendant discomforts. The fact is that no one can ever be truly satisfied until he awakes in God's likeness—until he finds that perfect state of being where all good is indeed free and equal. It is largely because of this that the inequalities of human experience already appear to the earnest thinker as wrong and the necessity of overcoming them as one of the world's greatest problems.

When Christian Science was revealed, it brought the clear assurance that in God, divine Love, there is only perfection—and divine perfection certainly includes equal good for all. On page 21 of "Pulpit and Press" Mrs. Eddy, in writing of "that love wherewith Christ loveth us," goes on to define it as "a love unselfish, unambitious, impartial, universal,—that loves only because it is Love." This impartial, universal nature of divine Love must hold all its ideas in the equality of unchangeable perfection, of all loveliness and lovableness, yes, in the equality of all its own glorious charecteristics; not one divine quality can ever be lacking anywhere at any time; all God's ideas must express good, since God Himself is all good. The Scriptures state positively that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

To the Christian Scientist there is therefore but one way in which to approach the subject of equality, and that is from the standpoint that all good belongs equally to all. This good must, however, be of the nature of God, Spirit, hence spiritual. So long as one bases in matter his concepts either of good or of equality, he will find himself continually slipping and floundering. With such mistaken concepts there is underneath him nothing of true substances or reality.

If one therefore allows his thought to dwell on winning anything for himself either materially or personally, he will find that equality will continue to be to him an unknown quantity. Only as he seeks his own in his neighbor's good can he find that freedom from material desires which opens the door to the good which is of God and blesses equally one and all. Then he will cease to consider his own personal position, either financially, intellectually, socially, or otherwise. Instead, he will reach out for that blissful mental attitude wherein he can answer the question "What am I?" with the "scientific response" our Leader gives in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 165): "I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing."

Before such a mental state as this how surely would all thought of superiority or of inferiority vanish, for in their place would be that understanding of God, good, which could not fail to be completely satisfied to be the image and likeness of Love! Indeed, one thus governed by divine Science will never seek the uppermost place at the feast, but instead will gladly wash the mire from his own and his brother's feet, that all may enter the Father's presence pure and undefiled. When this spirituality is made our own, the "equal rights and privileges" of which Mrs. Eddy tells us (Miscellany, p. 255) will be demonstrated here on earth, for the human sense of them will so yield to God's control that only harmony and true equality can possibly appear.

Ella W. Hoag

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