Editorial October 21, 1916 Issue

Significance of the "Cole case"

Archibald McLellan

As long ago as 1899, in Number 22 of Volume I of the Christian Science Sentinel, in answer to the question, "Is a righteous prayer, voluntarily sought by the sick, and used as a means for healing, capable of becoming a crime?" Mrs. Eddy said: "Under the Constitution of the United States, we answer, No! If the Scriptures are valid and their requirements just, importunate prayer, to preserve human life, has the sanction of Christianity, and in no case is criminal. The higher courts of our land will never construe prayer a crime. This I said over thirty years ago; and every case of persecution and prosecution of Christian Scientists for this pathological practice, has, by appealing from the lower to the higher court, proved this saying true. Our superior courts have always sustained these cases as belonging to the individual rights guaranteed to every citizen by the constitutions of the nation and states."

In deciding the so-called "Cole case" in the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court of that state, the opinion of the court, which was drafted by Judge Emory A. Chase, was entirely favorable to Christian Science; but more significant even than the opinion itself were the words of Chief Judge Bartlett, appended to it. He said: "I concur with Judge Chase in the construction of the statute, but I go further. I deny the power of the legislature to make it a crime to treat disease by prayer." That the chief judge should have used words almost identical with those of Mrs. Eddy, and that he reiterated what she first expressed some forty-seven years ago, was not a mere coincidence. It was proof that Truth "is imperious throughout all ages" (Science and Health, p. 98).

Commenting editorially on this decision, the Brooklyn (N. Y.) Eagle said: "It has taken a man four years in our courts to learn that he may pray to God to heal his sick body while healing his sick soul. The headquarters detectives and the local magistrate were not disposed to allow that. Our Court of Appeals is unanimous in its opinion in the Cole case that man cannot limit God."

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