Article August 3, 1899 Issue

Christian Science in Colorado

Chicago Post

IN connection with the agitation in New York and Pennsylvania against the freedom to apply the principles and methods of Christian Science, and the efforts to secure legislation against that school, a letter from the attorney-general of Colorado to the New York Tribune is of considerable interest. It contains some facts and a salutary warning.

The late general assembly of Colorado passed an act to prevent the practice of Christian Science. We understand that the inhibition was not direct, but insidious and adroit. The regular and the homoeopathic schools, otherwise at war, joined hands over the chasm and forgot all their differences in the endeavor to stamp out the new school. The bill, however, was votoed by the governor. He thought the new science ought to have an equal opportunity with the others to demonstrate its efficacy and soundness.

Mr. Campbell, the attorney-general, approves of the governor's veto and agrees with the reason assigned for it. He is not himself a convert and owns to ignorance of the teachings of Christian Science, but he takes the ground that medicine has not established itself as exact and absolute, and that its votaries ought to be hospitable to new theories and tolerant of new beliefs. Experience alone can show how much good there is in the new school and to what extent the old practice is better—if it is better. For the state to intermeddle and suppress a new school by law simply because it is new and denounced as heretical would be both folly and outrage.

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