Article September 20, 1913 Issue

I note in a recent issue the report of the trial of a Christian Science...

Herbert M. Beck—Little Rock, Ark.

Arkansas Democrat

I note in a recent issue the report of the trial of a Christian Science practitioner of Canyon City, Texas, for healing a man by prayer without a license to practise medicine. The further fact that the lady was acquitted, according to later press despatches, seems to have been overlooked; at least, I have not seen it mentioned in the Democrat. One is forced to wonder what manner of laws some one supposed Texas to have, and what kind of purpose there is in trying to prove a woman guilty of having practised medicine without a license just because she healed a man of paralysis by prayer to God. Christian Scientists maintain that it is in no way fair for certain doctors, who make no pretense of depending on prayer for healing, to claim the sole and only right to use prayer in healing, and to say that Christian Scientists, who make no pretense of using medicine, shall not be allowed to heal the sick by prayer unless they have a license to practise medicine. This, however, was the recent contention of a high medical authority in Arkansas, and such has been the contention in every Legislature and in Congress, and before the courts, in all too many cases.

It should be appreciated that in Arkansas a broader policy has prevailed among the doctors, and they have not undertaken to prosecute Christian Scientists, but have said that sick people should be allowed to call whom they pleased to treat them. A representative of the medical fraternity said last spring, and repeated it openly in the public hearings on the Hughes bill, that Christian Scientists could not and ought not to be interfered with by law, and that so far as he was concerned they would not be. But why all this undercurrent, Mr. Editor? Why must Christian Scientists always be on the defense? They do good and not evil; they are a self-sustaining people, live moderately, pay their debts, build their own churches, and dispense charity rather than receive it; they mind their own business; they are law-abiding; and last, but not least, they heal the sick and the sinner through prayer alone, to God, as taught in the Bible and in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

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