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Problems of Humanity - Chapter V - The Problem of the Churches
4. The Brotherhood of Man Much has been written, preached and talked about brotherhood. So much has been said and so little brotherhood practiced that the word has fallen somewhat into disrepute. Yet the word is a statement of the underlying origin and goal of humanity and is the keynote of the fourth kingdom in nature, the human. Brotherhood is a great natural fact; all men are brothers; under the divergences of color, creed, cultures and civilizations, there is only one humanity without distinction or differences in its essential nature, in its origin, its spiritual and mental objectives, its capacities, its qualities and its mode of development and of evolutionary unfoldment. In these divine attributes (for that is [148] what they are) all men are equal; it is only in relation to time and in the extent to which progress has been made in the revelation of innate divinity in all its fullness that temporary differences become apparent. It is the temporary differences and the sins which ignorance and inexperience betray which have engrossed the attention of the churches to the exclusion of the penetrating, piercing vision of the divine in every man. It is the fact of brotherhood which the churches must begin to teach - not from the angle of a transcendent God, an external unknowable Father - but from the angle of the divine life, eternally present in every human heart, and eternally struggling to express itself through individuals, nations and races. The true expression of this realized brotherhood must inevitably come through the establishing of right human relations and the cultivation of goodwill. Churchmen have forgotten the sequence in the angel's song: "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill towards men". They have failed to realize and, therefore, to teach that only as goodwill is manifested in the daily lives of men are right human relations thereby established and peace on earth can come; they have failed also to realize that there is no glory to God until there is peace on earth through goodwill among men. The churches have forgotten that all men are sons of the Father and, therefore, brothers; that all men are divine, that some men are already God-conscious and expressing divinity and that some are not; they have overlooked the fact that because of their point in evolution some men know Christ, because the Christ in them is active while others are only struggling to bring the Christ life into activity; still others are entirely unaware of the divine Being hidden deep within their hearts. There is only difference in degree of consciousness; there is no difference in nature. [149]
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