Article October 24, 1925 Issue

Christian Scientists are in hearty accord with the clergyman,...

Ralph G. Lindstrom, Committee on Publication for the State of Colorado,—Greeley

Tribune-Republican

Christian Scientists are in hearty accord with the clergyman, quoted in your recent issue, as to the view that "truth, and not legislation, should determine the teachings of the Bible and science." They are, furthermore, whether as a majority or a minority, of the definite view that neither the state nor the public schools should be used to exploit any religious doctrine or theory of medicine. The necessity of divorcing medical exploitation from school and state is just as imperative to-day, and seems to involve as earnest a struggle, as the former separation of church and state. And here it may be observed that genuine Christian Scientists, as a majority, will be just as earnestly opposed to forcing, either by legislation or through the public schools, Christian Science on a minority, as they are opposed, as a minority, to medical exploitation through the same channels. Christian Scientists, whether as majority or minority, are definitely in favor of the constitutional safeguards, which they are as ready to have invoked in behalf of those who hold differing views, as they are to contend for these same constitutional guaranties in their own behalf. To this end, they will always oppose legislation which makes either religion or medicine matter for state or public school exploitation. Is it not preeminently fair, then, that this same legislation be safeguarded to Christian Scientists now, no less in matters of medicine than in matters of religion, bothe in the state and the public schools?

The kindly tolerance enjoined upon Christian Scientists is expressed in the following statement by Mary Baker Eddy, which appears in her work, "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," on page 128: "No crown nor sceptre nor rulers rampant can quench the vital heritage of freedom—man's right to adopt a religion, to employ a physician, to live or to die according to the dictates of his own rational conscience and enlightened understanding." Further, Mrs. Eddy has said in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 80), "Unconstitutional and unjust coercive legislation and laws, infringing individual rights, must be 'of few days, and full of trouble.'"

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