In order to approach the subject of Christian Science and legislation intelligently, it is necessary to remember that the American people is a religious people and that the prevailing religion in the United States is Christian. It is also necessary to know that these historical facts are judicially known and acted on by the Courts, and they are presumed to be and should be recognized and given effect by the legislatures, and thus enter into and give character to our laws. In short, the Christian religion is, in a sense, a part of our common law, and it should pervade our statute laws. (Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (7th ed.), 669, 670; Bishop, New Criminal Law, Vol. I, sec. 495-497; Tiedeman, State and Federal Control of Persons and Property, sec. 63, 65.) "While the state is no longer empowered to compel people by prohibition and punishment to be religious, it should recognize that in the performance of its function of preserving the peace and security of society, it owes to religion, and to the institutions of religion, an obligation of which it should ever be mindful and considerate." (James H. Webb in Two Centuries Growth of American Law, p. 367.) For, as Mr. Bishop observes, "upon religion, morals, and education, society and the state itself rest.'' (New Criminal Law, Vol. 1, sec. 495.)
Just how much these considerations are known or heeded in the legislatures cannot be determined for a legislature is not required, like an appellate court, to record the reasons for its acts. Many cases could be cited in which the Courts have recognized these facts and given practical effect to them. One or two cases must suffice. In Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457, the Court, construing a statute prohibiting the importation of aliens under contract to perform labor, said, "But beyond all these matters no purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour there is a single voice making this affirmation. . . The Declaration of Independence recognizes the presence of the divine in human affairs in these words: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.' 'We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare,' etc. 'And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.'
"If we examine the constitutions of the various States, we find in them a constant recognition of religious obligations. The constitution of every one of the forty-four States contains language which either directly or by clear implication recognizes a profound reverence for religion and an assumption that its influence. in all human affairs is essential to the well-being of the community. Even the Constitution of the United States, which is supposed to have little touch upon the private life of the individual, contains in the First Amendment a declaration common to the constitutions of all the States, as follows 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning they affirm and re-affirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons they are organic utterances they speak the voice of the entire people. . . .In People v. Ruggles, 8 Johnson 290, Chancellor Kent, the great commentator on American law, speaking as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, said, 'The people of this State, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity as the rule of their faith and practice.' And in the famous case of Vidal v. Girard, 43 U. S. (2 Howard) 127, this court, while sustaining the will of Mr. Girard, with its provision for the creation of a college into which no minister should be permitted to enter, observed 'It is also said, and truly, that the Christian religion is a part of the common law of Pennsylvania.' If we pass beyond these matters to a view of American life as expressed by its laws, its business, its customs, and its society, we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth. . . .These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. In the face of these shall it be believed that a Congress of the United States intended to make it a misdemeanor for a church of this country to contract for the services of a Christian minister residing in another nation? . . . It is the duty of the courts, under those circumstances, to say that however broad the language of the statute may be, the act, although within the letter, is not within the intention of the legislature, and therefore cannot be within the statute." The rule of construction announced in this case was applied by the Supreme Court of Kansas to a statute regulating the practice of medicine, in State v. Wilcox, 64 Kan. 789, 68 Pac. 634.
