Some days ago Representative Abbott of Manchester introduced a bill in the New Hampshire Legislature, the purpose of which was to prohibit the healing of physical ailments by Christian Scientists. The bill imposed a penalty of $50 for the first offence; $100 for the second offence, and if the party further persevered in violating the law, he was to be sent to jail.
By the action of the House the bill was referred to the judiciary committee, and yesterday [January 29], by a vote of eleven to one, the committee refused to report the measure.
It is needless to say that the believers in Christian Science are very much pleased with the result. They are proud to know that the members of the legislature declined to offer this insult and do this great injustice to the people of this state who have an abiding faith in the tenets and doctrines of Christian Science.
The Patriot feels free to say that in its views it represents the intelligence and integrity of Concord, when it commends the legislature for refusing even to recognize so unjust and discriminating a bill.
The Founder of Christian Science, Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, makes her home in Concord; she has done and is doing much for Concord in everything looking to the upbuilding of the city and its interests; she has been willing to contribute in every way that good citizenship can demand or expect.
The people of Concord who believe with her are not proselytizing; they are not urging others to accept the things that they believe and practise; their mission clearly is to do what good they can for their fellow-men; they are all good citizens, peace-loving and law-abiding.
If there is a healer among them, he is not advertising nor proclaiming his powers of combating sickness; he is not urging others to accept him as their physician; he goes when he is called, and only when he is called, and surely American men and American women are endowed with sufficient appreciation and intelligence to be permitted to select such physical healers as their judgment or desires may advise or suggest.
Like bills, with similar intent, have been introduced in other legislative bodies, in other states at other times, but with the great majority of them the purpose was more or less concealed. This cannot be said of the measure proposed by Mr. Abbott; in this, there was neither concealment nor deception. The bill was directed against Christian Science and the practice of Christian Science healing, and the judiciary committee, in the minds of an overwhelming majority of the good people of New Hampshire, did what was fair and right, when it refused to permit even the consideration of a bill so manifestly unjust.
This paper is not advocating the cause nor proclaiming the virtues of Christian Science, any more than of any other religion. It bespeaks for all, at the hands of our lawmakers, liberal and just treatment; the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of every state of the Union, recognizes the right of the individual to worship God after the dictates of his heart and conscience, and any effort on the part of religious bigots to interfere with this clearly defined right is palpably wrong,—wrong in theory, wrong in law, and wrong in fact.
If the believers in the Roman Catholic Church were being discriminated against, or a proposition looking to discrimination were proposed in the legislature, we would say, "Don't do it." If such a bill were directed against Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians, Adventists, Wesleyans, or Episcopalians we would say, "Don't do it," and when the members of the legislature should refuse to recognize such arbitrary measures, we, with thousands, would say, as we now say, "Thank you."
Editorial in Concord (N. H.) Patriot.
