More than any other Oriental peoples the Egyptians of the Ancient Empire entertained the idea of the equality of the sexes; but the equality of man was not conceived by them.  Still less did any notion of it exist in the Jewish state.  It was the fashion with the socialists of 1793, as it has been with the international assemblages at Geneva in our own day, to trace the genesis of their notions back to the first Christian age.  The far-reaching influence of the new gospel in the liberation of the human mind and in promoting just and divinely-ordered relations among men is admitted; its origination of the social and political dogma we are considering is denied.  We do not find that Christ himself anywhere expressed it or acted on it.  He associated with the lowly, the vile, the outcast; he taught that all men, irrespective of rank or possessions, are sinners, and in equal need of help.  But he attempted no change in the conditions of society.  The “communism” of the early Christians was the temporary relation of a persecuted and isolated sect, drawn together by common necessities and dangers, and by the new enthusiasm of self-surrender. ["The community of goods of the first Christians at Jerusalem, so frequently cited and extolled, was only a community of use, not of ownership (Acts iv. 32), and throughout a voluntary act of love, not a duty (v. 4); least of all, a right which the poorer might assert.  Spite of all this, that community of goods produced a chronic state of poverty in the church of Jerusalem.” (Principles of Political Economy.  By William Roscher.  Note to Section LXXXI.  English translation.  New York:  Henry Holt & Co. 1878.)]—­Paul announced the universal brotherhood of man, but he as clearly recognized the subordination of society, in the duties of ruler and subject, master and slave, and in all the domestic relations; and although his gospel may be interpreted to contain the elements of revolution, it is not probable that he undertook to inculcate, by the proclamation of “universal brotherhood,” anything more than the duty of universal sympathy between all peoples and classes as society then existed.

If Christianity has been and is the force in promoting and shaping civilization that we regard it, we may be sure that it is not as a political agent, or an annuller of the inequalities of life, that we are to expect aid from it.  Its office, or rather one of its chief offices on earth, is to diffuse through the world, regardless of condition or possessions or talent or opportunity, sympathy and a recognition of the value of manhood underlying every lot and every diversity—­a value not measured by earthly accidents, but by heavenly standards.  This we understand to be “Christian equality.”  Of course it consists with inequalities of condition, with subordination, discipline, obedience; to obey and serve is as honorable as to command and to be served.