WE are pleased to publish the following extracts from the very able speech of William Lloyd Garrison, who appeared before a committee of the Massachusetts Legislature in opposition to two bills which had been announced by their author as intended to prohibit the practice of Christian Science. The committee reported unfavorably on these bills, and their report was concurred in by the House without dissent. Mr. Garrison said in part, —
"As a citizen of the Commonwealth who believes in individual freedom and abhors paternalism, I come to protest against the bills proposed for your consideration. They ask that a fallible body of interested persons shall be given a monopoly of the professional treatment of disease in Massachusetts. A special privilege is demanded. Whatever the pretense that justified the concession, a large monied interest certainly attaches to it. It is well to be cautious when personal and professional rewards are involved in the exclusive license sought. While many unregistered practitioners would be injuriously affected by the bills' enactment, it is plain that the animus of their framer is one of hostility to a special organization which bears the name of Christian Science. I am not a member of the Christian Science organization, and bear no authority to speak in its behalf, but I stand unflinchingly for the right of its healers to alleviate suffering and to receive just compensation for their services.
"The tree is to be judged by its fruits, and from my own enforced observation I am compelled to bear witness to the practical beneficence of the form of treatment identified with the name of Mrs. Eddy. On all sides I find minds once dominated with fear of illness and death transfused with cheerfulness and courage. I see longtime invalids take on the hue and energy of health. What pills and powders failed to reach, I have seen a changed attitude of mind accomplish. Where anger and other disturbing passions had swing, I have seen them replaced by calmness and self-restraint. Above these I hear the law of love exalted. Whatever the cause of this phenomenal and widespread change, it seems to me a blessing to the world. I say this while unable to accept many of the Biblical dogmas incorporated in Christian Science or to trace its logic in one unbroken chain. And the most striking tribute to its efficacy is the appropriation of its vital virtue — the use of mind to conquer bodily ills — by physicians of the regular school, who are trying to graft it upon their own treatment.
