Article April 10, 1915 Issue

In reply to an article entitled "Healing with No License,"...

Robert S. Ross

New York (N. Y.) Tribune

In reply to an article entitled "Healing with No License," in a recent issue, permit me to assure you and your readers that Christian Scientists have no desire to amend the medical practice act in so far as that act applies to the practice of medicine, but they certainly have a desire to amend it in so far as it goes outside its domain to place spiritual communion with the Almighty in the same category with drugs and surgery and to drag the law of God down to the level of human codes. God, not man, spiritual understanding, not human knowledge, is the healer in Christian Science.

The attitude of the medical profession toward Christian Science is not unlike that of the Ephesians, when the silversmiths cried for the blood of Paul because his preaching was interfering with their trade of making shrines for the worship of Diana. "Ye know," said Demetrius to his fellow craftsmen, "that by this craft we have our wealth," but "this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands."

Your readers will doubtless readily admit that it would be most unjust to require a member of one religious belief to subscribe to the doctrines of another before he would be permitted to worship in his own way, and I assume they will as readily admit that it would be equally unjust to require the Christian Scientist, who of course does not employ medicine, to take an examination in materia medica before he would be permitted to practise Christian Science. The Declaration of Independence of the United States affirms that all men are born with certain "unalienable rights," among which are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This sacred privilege is as priceless to the Christian Scientist as it is to other liberty loving Americans, and because of this the Christian Scientist has dedicated himself to defend it against every foe.

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