Editorial November 5, 1904 Issue

Again, according to press reports, a physician of prominence,...

Again, according to press reports, a physician of prominence, speaking before the National Prison Congress, has strongly urged the wisdom and necessity of relieving the communal burdens by painlessly ending the life of the "mentally irresponsible," the "hopelessly defective," that these unfortunates may find their only means of escape from unspeakable conditions. Surely the reign of material sense has reached a most startling ultimate, when, through the belief of hereditary degeneracy, it has so overwhelmed the utmost provisions of charity with the so-called "incurable" wrecks of mortal procreation, as to awaken the serious suggestion that their earthly existence be quietly terminated as a means of relief. The tragedy of innocent and involuntary suffering is to be closed by the infliction of death at the hands of mercy! And yet this is still called "God's world," and the laws which have begotten these conditions are named "natural,"—are said to be the instruments of Divine Providence! Could anything present a more impressive picture of humanity's removal from the right understanding and application of the truth which Jesus voiced when he said, "I am come that they [even these poor sufferers] might have life"? The pitiful inadequacy of material remedies for mortal ills,—the hopelessness of human conditions apart from God,—are they not sufficiently apparent? And yet there are those who are impatient with the loving assurance of Christian Science that Life is indeed come,—that Life, not death, is the Saviour, even in this world. They refuse to believe the testimony of those who have found the truth and are rejoicing in its freedom. Passing strange though it be, the possibility of the spiritual healing of those afflicted with all manner of diseases is piously and persistently denied, and the carnival of human woe drags on, while adown the ages is borne those pleading words of the Master: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,... how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!" W.

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