The Inequalities in the Lives of Men are many and far reaching. They
divide men from each other and tend, if brooded over, to make them
live lives apart, with a lessening sympathy and a growing hostility.
They pertain to race, education, business and society. They may be
natural, or artificially induced.
The great inequality to-day, however, upon which men place an acute
emphasis is that of wealth or the lack of it. A man once came to Jesus
and said, "Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance
with me" (Luke 12:13); there is the same demand to-day. Men are not
seeking to share the responsibility of a self-denying service to their
fellow-men, such as Jesus gave; neither are they greatly desirous of
advancing the cause of righteousness in the world, but they are too
largely looking to the betterment of their material condition. It is
this state of affairs which often spurs men on to accumulate wealth by
the oppression of their fellow men. Many men work and plan for certain
great results in financial matters (as though these were the supreme
things), only to be disappointed and in consequence lose their
interest in life. It is the making of the struggle for material
betterment the chief thing in life which causes strikes, lockouts and
most of our modern industrial troubles. Here we find also the cause of
heart-burnings and jealousies and deep-seated hatreds.
It is said that out of these struggles between competitors, and
employer and employee, there is coming a better understanding between
the contending parties and also new adjustments which will do away
with these destructive strifes. This may all be true, but so long as
men seek simply and only for material betterment, ignoring the
spiritual and moral in their lives, any readjustment of hours of
labour or scale of wages or agreements will only be of a temporary
character, for the real cause of the whole trouble is left untouched.
One of the ablest writers upon "The Social Unrest" says, "At the heart
of the larger labour movement is the race longing for a society in
which at least the spirit of equality shall be realized. Most radical
remedies are only means to this end. Beyond, and deeper than all the
machinery of social reconstruction, is this master passion of
democracy." But this same writer also, after a survey of the whole
question, declares that before this equality can be realized there
must come a character founded on love.
Cause and Remedy.--Selfishness is often the real cause of the sting of
inequality and of the keeping of men apart; until this is eradicated
and replaced by the master passion of love--employer for employee and
employee for employer--no agreements and no legislation, between the
contending forces will serve the purpose. It was the master passion of
a supreme love which produced the first social equality society (Acts
4:32-37); it was selfishness which broke it up (Acts 5:1-13). This
selfishness is also at the root of the arrogance which causes men to
despise men of an inferior race, culture or social position and seeks
to use them for purposes of gain.
Perfect equality amongst men, however, outside of equality before the
law and God, hardly seems a realizable thing; certainly all men cannot
be of the same age and of the same stature at the same time; there are
gifts of talent; there are different races, but where supreme love is
it takes out the sting of a sense of an inferiority and the jealousy
and hatred of superior gifts; under its benign influence the rich and
the poor, the talented and the untalented, work together as brethren.
The brotherhood of love is the only true brotherhood and the only
solution of this vexed question.