THE following vigorous words of the Hon. Clarence A. Buskirk, ex-attorney-general of Indiana, will be read with much interest:—

To the Editor of the Indianapolis Journal.

Christian Scientists are not seeking to proselyte through the newspapers. Their opponents, however, have been engaged in the work of attacking them and their doctrine by means of very frequent articles in the newspapers. These attacks have not been argumentative, but have been filled with false and malignant statements and abusive names and epithets. A part of them have been fake news items of alleged deaths occurring in Christian Science households. Three of the latter class I have investigated and exposed during the last six weeks—one of them as to the "Eberty" case in Kosciusko County, one of them as to "Captain Hubbell's wife," and to-day one of them the "Hamilton, O., case." Various newspapers printed these fake specials in good faith of course, but would their columns be open to "specials" concerning deaths of infants and others under drug treatment, with abusive and misleading headlines and comments?

Christian Scientists seek the right of defending themselves and their doctrine when they are thus attacked. They appeal to the newspapers of Indiana, as elsewhere, to give them fair space for such defences. Does not this appeal touch the sense of justice of every Indiana editor? We seek to worship God and to do good to suffering humanity. We have never questioned the right of others to do the same. We have never sought to prevent people from employing drug doctors if they wish to. We have never sought to prevent people from worshiping God as Methodists, Presbyterians, etc., or to interfere with them in the exercise of their religious privileges.

Why are Christian Scientists thus traduced, their doctrine misrepresented and ridiculed, and popular prejudice sought to be inflamed against them? Why are our Indiana newspapers plied with fake specials against them? Thoughtful persons may well ask whether some business interest or frightened profession is behind this nefarious work. And when the Christian Scientists are threatened with the courts of Indiana, and the legislature is asked to enact laws which overturn the most sacred principles of religious and personal liberty which are guaranteed to the humblest citizen of Indiana by our Constitution, no matter what his religion may be, the inquiry as to the motive behind it all becomes strenuous.

Christian Science is a religion. As a religion it seeks to obey the commands and follow the example of Jesus in "healing the sick." Jesus performed those "works" to furnish evidence of the truth of his teachings. He promised to all generations and countries: "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." Christian Scientists merely claim the right to believe this and to prove their belief by their "works." They merely ask that the Scriptural rule of evidence be applied to them and the tree be judged by its fruits. They assert—and they prove it by the very best of documentary evidence—that already several hundred thousand of "the sick" abandoned by drug doctors as incurable have been restored to health through Christian Science. Their opponents are admitting it to be true by the most forceful implication in their persistent hostility. If these "works" were not being performed as claimed by Christian Scientists their doctrine would perish of inanition, and no one would be found taking the trouble to ply newspapers with fake specials and abusive assaults upon it. Does this not stand to reason?

AN ABSURD PRETENCE.

The pretence, then, that the medical boards of Indiana are resorting to the courts and the newspapers in order to protect the citizens of Indiana against their alleged idiocy in employing Christian Science, and not employing the drug doctors, becomes flagrantly silly and absurd, as well as dishonest. I have not had a drug doctor professionally in my house for about seven years, and before that scarcely a month passed without one or more. Five in my family has been the average. Seven years ago one of us was cured through Christian Science after two reputable physicians had failed. Serious ailments have been repeatedly overcome since that time without drugs or drug doctoring of any sort.

As the head of my family I have tried to learn what Christian Science is. I have read and thought and observed much. I care for my own life and health, and for my family. I think I know whereof I speak. I think I know what Christian Science is, and is not, better than those who are turned aside from it by hasty misconceptions or flippant ridicule. And I solemnly say that I understand it to be the Christianity taught by Jesus. . . . Where we had almost constant invalidism in my household we have health. Where we had agnosticism we have Christian faith and hope. Also, we have a literature from which we are taught the highest ethics, because they are the ethics of primitive Christianity. Who, then, has the right to say to me, "You shall employ a drug doctor whether you wish to or not"? Who has the right to say to me, "You and your family have no right to worship God according to the dictates of your own consciences, and to understand and practically apply the teachings of Jesus as commended by your own reason and the experiences of the last seven years"?

Let those employ drug doctors who wish to. I do not wish to. And I sternly deny the right of any man or set of men to compel me to do so. I plant my feet upon those inalienable rights to religious and personal liberty guaranteed to me as a citizen by the Constitution of Indiana. I make no war upon the drug doctors except in self-defence. I know that among them are many bright intellects and conscientious students. But they belong to a system of healing which ignores God and deals with man as a material mechanism and not as a spiritual being "in the image and likeness of God."

In its dissecting rooms and its classes, in its diagnoses and therapeutical agencies, it deals with man, from the cradle to the grave, as a being "without God in the world." There is nothing in the medical profession, in all its literature and practice, which in the least manner recognizes God's existence or God's power over human health and existence. It is true to its pagan origin in this; and it is plain that Jesus wholly ignored drugs and drug doctoring and "healed the sick" by dealing with man as a spiritual being. And he declared that what he did was done of the Father and not of himself. Besides, no candid drug physician claims that drug medication is a science. It is as experimental now as it was in those ancient days when Asa departed and went to the Egyptian physicians, 'and Asa slept with his fathers."

If medicine were a science it would not still be experimenting with the lives of rabbits and men, but would have some exact knowledge as to the action of drugs, instead of mere theorizing and experimentation. In ignoring God and dealing with man as a mere machine, or animal, drugs and drug doctoring started with a wrong initiative. Let the medical boards of Indiana first recognize God as an immanent influence over the lives and health of men; let them teach and practise in such a way that the infidels and atheists among them do not come up to the full measure of medical attainments and learning. Let them make a science out of the administration of drugs rather than a dangerous system of experimenting with poisons upon human lives. Then there would be a more legitimate basis, at least, for them to make themselves the self-constituted guardians of the consciences and of the bodies of all the citizens of Indiana.

A DEMAND FOR JUSTICE.

I write this defence of Christian Science because of an article in your paper of August 18, entitled "Practice is Condemned." I regret to observe in that article that the attorney-general's office in Indiana is made to father the statement, in substance, that Dowieism, Mormonism, and Christian Science belong in the same category. There is really no excuse for so ignorant a statement. Dowieism recognizes Dowie and his particular elders as endowed with some special and peculiar power in healing sickness. Christian Science is the antipode of this teaching, for it recognizes that no man has such a special or peculiar power, but that the "works are of the Father," just as Jesus declared. Mormonism has nothing in common with Christian Science whatever. Christian Science teaches the highest morality in all things. Why this confusion? Is it for a sinister purpose? It is absolutely untruthful, at least.

I regret to see also that upon the cover of a brief for the prosecution in a case appealed to the Supreme Court from Clinton County, in a case where a Dowieite was the defendant, and not a Christian Scientist, appears the phrase, "Christian Science and Dowieism," as if they were both in issue in the case. This is "going outside of the record" to make a gratuitous attack upon a class of people whose doctrines are not in the case at all. Is it the intention to try to get a decision from our Supreme Court against Christian Scientists without their having "their day in court"? If not, what does it mean? I speak more plainly on this subject, because it is a notorious fact that the medical board of this state has employed attorneys to assist in the preparation of the brief referred to, and because the papers report a member of that board to have boasted that a decision would soon be had which would settle the matter as to Christian Scientists in Indiana. We are to be tried and condemned, then, without the privilege of making our defence? Why are they so afraid of treating us as all others are treated who are charged with crime? All others have their "day in court," and "the right to be heard by counsel."

These are constitutional rights, and I fear not that our learned and impartial Supreme Court will fail to recognize these rights before condemning Christian Scientists as criminals unheard, especially so when our alleged crime would be that of Jesus, of the early disciples and Christians, if one earth to-day.

CLARENCE A. BUSKIRK.
In the Indianapolis Journal.