6. To count all men equal to yourself does not mean that you are as strong, as skillful, as alert, as wise, as well educated, as good as others, but it means that there dwells in you something which is more important than anything else, and that this same thing dwells also in all other people, and it is the spirit of God.
7. To say that men are unequal is like saying that the fire in a stove, in a conflagration or in a candle is not the same fire. la every man dwells the spirit of God.
How can we make a distinction between those who carry in them the same spirit of God?
One fire is blazing, another is just beginning to glow, but it is the same fire, and we must handle all fires alike.
VI.
The Recognition of the Equality of All Men is Practicable» and Humanity Gradually Approaches
this Goal
1. People labor to establish equality of all men before their laws, but ignore the equality which is established by the eternal law and which is violated by human laws.
2. Should we not strive towards such an order of life where elevation by the way of a social ladder would not fascinate people, but terrify them, because each elevation deprives man of one of life's greatest blessings—equal attitude towards all people. Ruskin,
3. Some say that equality is impossible. We must, however, assert that on the contrary it is inequality which is impossible among Christians.
We cannot make a tall man equal to a short one, a strong man to a weakling, a quick witted man to a dullard, an ardent man to one who is cold, but we can and must equally esteem and love the small and the great, the strong and the weak, the wise and the foolish.
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4. It is said that some men will always be stronger, others weaker, some wiser, others more foolish. For this very reason that some are stronger and wiser than others, says Lichtenberg, do we particularly need equal rights for all people. If in addition to inequalities of mind and strength there existed also inequalities of rights, the oppres-
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THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 207
sion of the weak by the powerful would be still more rampant.
5. Do not believe it if you are told that equality is impossible, unless in some remote future period.
Learn of the children. Equality is now possible with all men. In your own life you can introduce equality among all men with whom you come in contact.
Only withhold undue reverence from those who count themselves great and mighty, and show in particular the same measure of respect to those who are considered unimportant and inferior as you do to other people.
VII.
He Who Lives the Life of the Spirit Counts
All Men Equal
1. Only those who live the life that is merely of the body can consider some men superior, others inferior and all unequal one to another. If a man lives the life of the spirit, inequality cannot exist for him.
2. Christ revealed to men, what they always had known, that men are equal among themselves, equal because the same spirit dwells in them. But since the earliest times men have divided themselves into classes—on the one hand men of position and wealth and on the other the toilers and the poor. And although they know that they are all equal, they live as though they did not know it, and assert that all men can not be equal. Do not believe it. Go learn of the little ones.
The infant esteems the most important man in the land the same as an ordinary person. Do thou likewise. Meet all people with love and kindliness, but all equally. If men exalt themselves, do not esteem them more highly
than others. If others are humbled by men try to respect these humbled ones particularly as equal to all other men. Remember that in them all equally dwells the spirit of God, than which we know nothing higher.
3. Love to a Christian is a sentiment which craves blessings for all men. But with many people the word "love" signifies a feeling entirely contrary to this.
In the minds of many people who acknowledge life in the animal personality only, love is that feeling by virtue of which a mother for the good of her own child, hires a wet nurse and deprives another child of its mother's milk; the same feeling, by virtue of which a father robs starving people of the last piece of bread, in order to satisfy his own children; that feeling by virtue of which he who loves a woman suffers from that love and compels her likewise to suffer, and then entices her into sin or ruins both her and himself out of jealousy; the same feeling, by virtue of which men associated in one group do injury to people foreign or hostile to that group; that feeling by virtue of which a man toils painfully at some business he pretends to "love" and by it causes woe and suffering to the people around; that feeling by virtue of which men resent an insult to the land wherein they live and cover blood-reeking battlefields with the bodies of slain and maimed men, both of their own and of hostile allegiance.
These feelings are not love, because the men harboring them do not acknowledge all men as equals. And without acknowledging all men as equals there can be no true love towards people.
4. It is impossible to harmonize inequality with love. Love is only then love when like the rays of the sun it falls equally upon all within the reach of its radiance.
THE PATHWAY OF LIFE
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But when it falls upon some and excludes others, it is no longer love but merely something that resembles it.
5. It is difficult to love all people alike, but just because it is different it need not deter us from striving after it. All that is good is difficult.
6. The less equal are men according to their qualities, the more we must strive to treat them equally.
7. In you, in me and in everyone dwells the God of life. You are wrong to be angry with me, to resent my advances; know that we are all equal. Mahmud Hasha,
FORCE
One of the main causes of human misery is the erroneous idea that some men may by force order or improve the life of others.
Coercing Others
1. The delusion that scene men may by force order the hfe of other men who are like them is not due to some one having specially invented it, but to men, who yielding themselves up to their passions, first began to coerce people and then endeavored to invent some excuse for their violence.
2. Men see that there is something wrong with their life and endeavor in some way to improve it. But there is only one thing that is in their power which they may improve, namely, their own self. But to improve oneself, one must first admit that one lacks goodness, and this is annoying. And they turn all their attention away from that which is always in their power—self, to those external conditions that are not in their power, and a change in which has as little chance to improve the state of man, as shaking the wine and pouring it into another vessel can improve the quality of the wine. Thus originates that activity which is futile, to start with, and moreover, harmful, conceited (think of correcting others), malicious (people hindering the common good may be murdered) and finally vicious.
3. Some mean by the use of force to compel others to live a good life. And they are the first to set an evil example in the use of violence. Living in filth themselves, instead of endeavoring to emerge from it, they instruct others how not to he soiled.
4. The delusion of bringing about order among people by use of force is injurious because it passes from genera-
tion to generation. People who have been raised under the order of violence, do not ask themselves whether it is necessary or proper to coerce others, hut are firmly convinced that people cannot live without the use of force.
5. To order the life of other people is easy for the reason that if you fail to order it aright, others, and not yourself, will be the sufferers.