Throughout the ages mortal man has vainly tried to escape all responsibility for his brother man. It is interesting to note that the first murderer of whom we have any record sought to evade the penalty attached to his wicked deed by asking the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" It is fair to conclude from this that the thought which would repudiate the responsibility of brotherhood is a murderous thought, however much smug complacency would deny the startling deduction. No man truly lives who lives to himself. This is not to say that one who temporarily retires from the world in order better to work out something for the benefit of mankind is not living in the truest sense. It should be plain, however, that only moral cowardice could prompt one to cut himself off from his fellows merely to escape communal responsibility or to gratify a selfish desire for solitude.
While the world has been forced to a partial recognition of man's responsibility to man, as is evidenced by the large measure of social order which has been established, it is nevertheless true that many existing social institutions are largely and sometimes altogether merely palliative in their nature. Fundamental things are too frequently ignored while great stress is placed upon superficial correctives. To the human sense of things it is so much easier to clean the outside of the platter than to cleanse it within. It is so much more pleasant and convenient to deal with mere effects than to dig beneath the surface and find the cause. While it is essentially true that God works through man, a perception of this means but little without a corresponding recognition of the fact that man is not an originator. Except as it is seen that God's laws are the only laws, and that God's plan is the only plan, the formulation of laws and plans for the government of human institutions must be as the blind leading the blind.
An understanding of the forever fact of God's supreme supervision and dominion over His universe does not lessen but heightens man's responsibility. Viewed in the only light in which it can logically be viewed, man is responsible for executing God's plans. No consistent believer in God would deny that His works are perfect, for work comes as the result of planning and always reflects the Mind that inspires it. God, the perfect and only Mind, cannot plan imperfectly, and man, reflecting God, cannot perform faulty work. Whatever appears to be wrong with the world must, therefore, be the result of a perverted conception and a corresponding erroneous application of God's symmetrical and undeviating rules.
