Article January 30, 1909 Issue

If there were nothing to be considered in the treatment...

Charles K. Skinner

Allegan (Mich.) News

If there were nothing to be considered in the treatment of children by Christian Science but the argument of those whose knowledge of the system had been learned only by hearsay or by superficial reading or theory, the talk of our critic might be taken seriously. Happily for mankind generally, and for believers in the omnipotence of God to heal not only the diseases of adults, but also of little children, there is much to be said on the other side. Because one or more children may have died under, Christian Science treatment within a year, in a state where nearly one hundred thousand people are interested in this method of treatment, and where during the same time nearly nine thousand children under four years of age died under medical care, according to the mortality statement of the state board of health, the suggestion of legislation to enforce medical attendance upon the children of Christian Scientists would not only be an unreasonable exercise of the power of the majority over the minority, but an unwarranted abridgment of their constitutional rights as citizens. ... It would be quite as unjust for any state or municipality to force Christian Science parents to administer medicine to their children, as it would be to force parents who believe in the use of medicine to depend upon Christian Science....

It is not so long ago that members of the old school of medicine were heard to say of their new competitors, the homeopaths, "They are either fools or knaves." Legislation to control the so-called "quacks" was as freely talked of then as it is now against Christian Scientists, but we have lived to see the day when the homeopath is as much respected as the allopath, and both are brothers. Is it yet possible that we shall live to see the day when the omnipotence of God to heal "all our diseases" without the intervention of drugs will be generally acknowledged?

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