However great the differences that separate Jew and Christian, they have this in common: the Jew professes allegiance to his Torah, and the Christian, in professing allegiance to the Bible necessarily accepts that part of the Bible which constitutes the Torah.

Does either Jew or Christian pay more than lip service to some of the most vital edicts laid down by the Great Law-Giver?

If not, and if the basic principles from which spring those guiding edicts are sound, is it necessary to look further for the cause of the sufferings to which both Jew and Christian are subject in many of the nations of the earth today? The answer to this question is found in the one great truth so often proclaimed by Moses, and since his day endorsed by all students of history and philosophy, that the violation of any law of God (or, law of Nature, if one prefer to so regard it) must eventually be atoned for in suffering; and that, conversely, compliance with the law must bring corresponding benefits.

In Lev. 25:18 we read: "Wherefore you shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety." Is either Jew or Christian today dwelling in the land in safety? Is the promise, or sequence, between cause and effect, (if one prefer so to regard the subject) false, or have the statutes and judgments been violated?

Not to commit the common error of dealing with general ties so vague as to be valueless, let us be specific: What is the specific statute the violation of which has brought destruction to the nations since the days of Moses, and the results of which violation today bring the persecution of Jews in one country, and the persecution of Christians in another? It is the command stated and re-stated so plainly by Moses, that while private property rights in labor products should be sacredly observed (the antithesis of socialistic, communistic, fascistic, and all other collectivist proposals), the land, the source of all labor products "shall not be sold forever ("in perpetuity"). Lev. 25:23.

This was not the capricious command of a leader desirous of merely exercising authority. It was the reflection of knowledge of a basic natural law the economic law, that to extend property rights to the inclusion of land, is to deny true property rights, and therefore to deny human rights.

The violation of this basic principle has brought about present world conditions. It has caused restriction of economic opportunity, and is thus responsible, chiefly, for a condition that leads both to the persecution of the Jews and the dire distress of those peoples and sects themselves, who practice the persecution.

Like capital and labor, both ignorant of the economic cause of their plight, and consequently engaged in fighting each other, instead of combining against their common oppression, so Jew and Christian, equally unfamiliar with the great economic truth back of the Mosaic command, instead of intelligently combining against the common cause of their ills, leave unassailed that which pits Christian against Jew, Christian against Christian, Jew against Jew, and brother against brother, in the intensifying struggle for existence.

While the method of application obviously would not be the same in our modern civilization, as in the crude days of Moses, the principle back of the Mosaic command is unchangeable, eternal and impregnable. Modern writers have evolved modern methods of application. The method proposed by Henry George is the most practical.