Article July 4, 1908 Issue

Divine law should not be ruled out of consideration because...

Judge Septimus J. Hanna

Government

Divine law should not be ruled out of consideration because it is not understood. Healing sickness through prayer should not be scorned because the divine law whereby it is effected passes ordinary comprehension. If we refuse things because we do not understand the laws creating and governing them, how many things would we accept? Do men refrain from enjoying the beauty of the rose because they do not know how the rose was created, nor the chemistry of its color and perfume? Do men refuse to take the physician's medicine because they do not know what it is, or how it is supposed to do its work? They take all these things on faith. Are they to have faith in everything but God and trust in every supposed power but His?

There is an inherent, and therefore constitutional, right to practise one's religion. All who believe in the Christian religion agree that prayer is an essential part of Christian practice. If a Christian, in the course of practising his religion, can by his understanding of the efficacy of prayer help those in need, it would be unchristian in him to refuse such help, and he certainly has the right to give it. It will not be denied that there is an equal right to receive needed help from others. The obstruction of these rights would deny to a minister of the gospel the opportunity of praying to God for the recovery of a sick parishioner, and deprive the sufferer of the aid he might expect from his pastor's ministrations.

It is customary for pastors to pray for the recovery of the sick in their congregations. In published books of prayer such supplications usually appear. Should there be certain pastors who were able to offer "the prayer of faith" which the apostle James says "shall heal the sick," with the result that sick and ailing members of their churches recovered health and strength, and with the further result that other sick and suffering persons called for their services and were also healed, would any enactment be fair which would forbid these sufferers from receiving help? Would it be lawful to say to the clergyman, "You have a right to engage in prayer so long as the sick are not healed, but if your prayer results in such a mental, moral, and physical change in those you pray for that they become well, you must refrain"? Can any Legislature with justice enact laws to prevent citizens from availing themselves of the benefit of efficacious prayer? The right of the Christian Scientist to heal others through his understanding of the efficacy of prayer is surely as well established as the right of any other Christian to do so, and the right of the people of this country who desire to have the benefit of healing from those who have been instructed in spiritual things, is undoubted under the provisions and guarantees of our constitutional law.

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