Article July 25, 1914 Issue

The term "commercialized use of prayer," which occurs...

L. H. Jones

The Louisville (Ky.) Post

The term "commercialized use of prayer," which occurs in your recent news item from New York, means simply that Christian Science practitioners are accustomed to charge a small fee for services rendered by them to persons who choose to engage their services in the treatment of diseases. No right-minded person would desire to receive the services of another without compensation. For many years the doctors, under the pretext always of protecting the public health, have been besieging the legislatures of the various states in an effort to get legislation prohibiting the practice of Christian Science healing, or, failing in this, making it unlawful for Christian Scientists to receive compensation for their services, the obvious purpose of all such legislation being to cripple and impede the progress and practice of Christian Science as a means of healing the people.

Why should Christian Scientists be singled out and made a special object of persecution merely because the people prefer to employ and pay them rather than a doctor or a minister? If it is proper to pay a minister for services he is supposed to render his congregation, a principal item of which is the prayers he offers for their well-being,—prayers which do not undertake to heal anybody,—why should it be considered a "commercialized use of prayer" for the Christian Scientists to pay their practitioners for prayers which they very well know do heal them of any and every bodily infirmity?

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July 25, 1914
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