When we realize with what momentum the twentieth century has vaulted into history, we can but expect that it will bring us many and great surprises, and yet it is quite natural that we should be somewhat startled on reading that a Christian minister, a representative of him who said," "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also," has publicly advocated before a late meeting of the New York State Medical Association, that in the case of suffering incurables the civilized and Christian thing to do, in this enlightened age, is to grant them the privilege of a painless death!

According to the news report the reverned speaker said, in part, that "where the prolongation of life is simply the prolongation of hopeless agony, it seems to me that it would be proper that such a patient should quietly, decently, modestly, be allowed to end his sufferings. It seems to me that such a course would be a step forward in civilization, and a step farther away from barbarism."

It is stated that this was the expression of a serious conviction, and that it elicited a "burst of applause" from many of those who heard it, thought it was severely criticised by other speakers.

Such a declaration coming from such a source is certainly no less suggestive than striking, and as one comes to think of the logical relation of the proposition to the religious faith of a great body of the people, including, as we presume, the speaker referred to, his interest in the subject is increased.

Very many, if not the great majority of the diseases generally regarded as incurable, such as cancer, consumption, leprosy, etc., are transmitted, according to human sense, from parent to child, and they therefore result not from the sin of the sufferer but from the all-embracing law of heredity, which we have been taught, and many still believe to be of divine provision, so that the death of the unhappy victims of these diseases must be regarded as not only lawful but Providential. It is therefore unavoidable, and for man to delay its course and consummation would seem to be altogether presumptuous. If we assume that God has so ordered things that it is lawful for a man to be sick and die, without regard to the question of his personal responsibility, it must then be right, and we may well inquire on what ground it could be deemed an un-Christian or improper thing to contribute to the speedy fulfilment of this divine ordering, by permitting suffering incurables quickly to end their misery.

It may be urged by the hesitant that we are denied this privilege by the unequivocal dictum of the sixth commandment, but this simply raises the question of the authority of a law which has come to us through history and revelation, as compared with that of an asserted law which has come from the same source and which seems to be yet more clearly expressed and enforced in the facts of human experience. If a law of the decalogue be found in conflict with the law of heredity, we think that in so far as both are considered to be imposed by the same tribunal, general consent would give precedence to the last-named, in consideration of the fact that it is the more undeniably operative.

But some may say that we have no right to rob our fellow-men of the experience of suffering, since it is designed to be corrective and has an essential educational relation to life. This might have weight with those who believe that pain is necessary to the acquirement of character, provided the afflication has come as the sequence of personal transgression, but it certainly could not apply to the many who suffer wholly as the result of the hereditary transmission of appetite, impulse, and disease.

Furthermore, those who look upon death as meaning an immediate release for the good from all earthly ills, who think, as a prominent minister has recently said, that it ushers every Christian believer at once into a state of "pure delight, where there is no sorrow nor sickness,"—they, surely, could not deny a fellow-creature who is now tormented the liberty of hastening the longed-for and assured relief which attends the completion of a divine plan?

In view of these considerations is it not apparent that apart from the gospel of healing, our friend has a pretty strong case? Just here, however, the question arises, What would Jesus do with these so-called incurables? Would he counsel their death as a means of escape from present wretchedness, or commend the patient endurance of pain as an expression of the Father's will? Let us again read the gospel narrative for our answer. What did he do? It is written that such hopeless sufferers continually thronged his pathway in the later years of his ministry, and that "he healed them all." Moreover it is written that he specifically instructed his followers to continue these healing works which he ever recognized as consequent to the preaching of the Word, and which the suffering world still needs and earnestly longs for. Can any one question what he would do to-day with "incurables," or what he would say to those ministers of his who not only concede but insist that there are incurables, and who meet the suggestion of the promise and possibility of spiritual healing through the ever-present Christ, with a shrug,—those who neither heal the sick themselves, nor approve the effort of others to do so, as the Master commanded?

Christian Scientists have been severely criticised for declaring that there are no "incurable" diseases, and for trying to fulfil their Lord's command that his believers give proof of their faith by their works. They count not that they have as yet fully apprehended all available spiritual truth, but they do rejoice in being permitted to know that the Christ can and does heal "hopeless incurables" to-day as of yore, and they can but lovingly commend to all ministers of the gospel the recognition of this larger and abiding significance to afflicted humanity of Christ's saving word. They would also commend the practical, patient, and sincere endeavor, upon the part of each, to prove for himself that our God is He who healeth our diseases; who redeemeth our life from destruction,—a truth which is but reiterated in the declarations of Christian Science that "when man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that to God all things are possible. The only way to this living Truth, which heals the sick, is found in the Science of divine Mind as taught and demonstrated by Christ Jesus." ... "God will heal the sick through man, whenever man is governed by God" (Science and Health, pp. 180, 495).

W.