The efforts to secure legislation in protection of the practice of medicine and surgery in nearly all the states wherein the legislatures held sessions during the winter just closed, resulted in a wider discussion of the question of religious liberty than this country, or possibly any country, has ever witnessed.
So far as we have been advised these efforts have failed to procure any legislation which can be said to be an interference with or abridgment of religious liberty in so far as the question affects Christian Scientists, excepting in the State of Indiana. In that state a Bill was passed and became a law upon the statute books which, if enforced and upheld by the courts, would be a most serious interference with and abridgment of the religious liberty of Christian Scientists. We have briefly discussed this enactment in recent numbers of the Christian Science Sentinel, and published in connection therewith able and interesting remarks of some of the senators of Indiana in opposition to such an enactment. The gist of these remarks was that the Bill was flagrantly subversive of religious freedom, or the freedom guaranteed by the constitution of the United States and of the State of Indiana to worship God in accordance with the desires and dictates of the individual conscience. The tenor and effect of the Bill, as being in violent contravention of the rights and liberties vouchsafed by the constitution, were forcefully and eloquently urged by the several gentlemen who opposed it. Their arguments were so strong and convincing that they could leave no doubt of the utter unconstitutionality of the measure in the minds of thinking and unprejudiced laymen; and as to lawyers, the premises of the speakers were so soundly taken and so strongly in accord with the well-established principles of constitutional law, that lawyers could not consistently differ with their lay brethren, even if, through bias or prejudice, they were so disposed. The unwisdom of placing such an Act upon the statute book of a state will, no doubt, be demonstrated if any attempt at enforcing the same is made.
In the Sentinel we also published an able paper by Hon. Clarence A. Buskirk, ex-attorney-general of Indiana, wherein he vigorously and logically set forth his views as to the unconstitutionality of the Bill. We shall refer more at length to his article later on. He called especial attention to the chapter on Religious Liberty contained in that able and standard work on Constitutional Law—"Constitutional Limitations of Actions"—by Judge Thomas M. Cooley, LL.D., than whom there is no higher authority in this country upon all the intricate questions involved in this vitally important branch of human law and human rights. As well for future reference as for present uses we deem it worthy our time and space to quote some of Judge Cooley's more salient propositions on the subject of religious liberty. They are educative from any point of view, and especially that of the Christian Scientist, for they are but a latter-day reiteration of the principles and precepts taught by Jesus in his day. The spirit of justice and Christliness is strongly emphasized throughout this entire chapter.
