Article February 27, 1904 Issue

An Able Brief

We have had the privilege of reading the very able brief filed in the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, by Messrs. Streeter & Hollis, counsel for the defendant in Spead v. Tomlinson. The following extract will prove interesting to our readers:—

"Neither judges nor jurors can pronounce the tenets and claims of Christian Science false, because they do not and cannot know, any more than the authors of this brief know, whether Christian Science is truth or error. That is a question of opinion, and is no more susceptible of proof as a fact than the soundness or unsoundness of the divergent theories of medical men are susceptible of proof as facts. Christian Science is sincerely believed in by many thousands of men and women throughout this and other lands. The magnificent churches going up in so many of our cities show that it is gaining ground, not waning. It is common knowledge that its followers come mainly, not from the ranks of ignorance and credulity, but from the ranks of intelligence, character, and wealth. They assert that it has cured and does cure disease, organic as well as other, with as much earnestness and sincerity as its critics and opponents assert the contrary. If their claims were altogether false, Christian Science could hardly have gained the foothold that it has. It is no answer to say that such cures are 'miraculous.' The vast majority of people over whom the courts of Christendom wield jurisdiction believe that greater miracles were wrought by the Man of Galilee and his earlier disciples. It is more reasonable to believe that God is ready and willing to heal His suffering children to-day than it is to believe that He healed them once but abandoned them nineteen hundred years ago. If Christian Science is to be rejected in the courts because it is contrary to the teachings of ordinary experience, then by the same token the Christian religion must be rejected too."

It is alleged in this case that Mr. Tomlinson practically guaranteed to the plaintiff that she would be cured by the treatment administered by him, but that is controverted. As to such alleged representations and their effect, the brief says in part:—

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