Article April 6, 1907 Issue

No legislation is needed in Missouri for the persecuting of...

The Daily Tribune

No legislation is needed in Missouri for the persecuting of any person or class, so long as that individual or assemblage of individuals is not threatening the peace and safety nor interfering with the rights of any other citizen or legitimate interest of the State. There is a movement on foot in some quarters to persuade the Missouri Legislature to pass a law aimed, whether innocently or not may never be known, at believers in the Christian Science method of dealing with disease.

So far as this legislative action is concerned it does not matter particularly as to what one's individual opinion may be touching the religious teachings of the sect known as Christian Scientists. These people may or may not be wholly wrong in their course, just as the adherents of any other teaching may be at fault in their interpretation of things in which they are interested. The matter of real importance is that the Scientists should not be persecuted under the guise of statue-enforcement by those who differ with them, and who may chance to possess the power to pass laws intended to serve such ends, so long as no person is made to accept any Christian Science teaching unwillingly. The members of this sect, we notice, do not force their belief upon any person. And surely in this land we cannot deny a citizen the right to accept the teachings of Christian Science if he chooses to do so.

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