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Counsel for defence

After much debate and opposition, permission is ob- tained for a trial in the Court of Spirit, where Christian Science is allowed to appear as counsel for the unfortunate prisoner. Witnesses, judges and jurors, who were at the previous Court of Error, are now summoned to appear before the bar of Justice and eternal Truth.

When the case for Mortal Man versus Personal Sense is opened, Mortal Man's counsel regards the prisoner with the utmost tenderness. The counsel's earnest, solemn eyes, kindling with hope and triumph, look up- ward. Then Christian Science turns suddenly to the supreme tribunal, and opens the argument for the defence: - The prisoner at the bar has been unjustly sentenced. His trial was a tragedy, and is morally illegal. Mortal Man has had no proper counsel in the case. All the test- mony has been on the side of Personal Sense, and we shall unearth this foul conspiracy against the liberty and life of Man. The only valid testimony in the case shows the alleged crime never to have been committed. The pris- oner is not proved "worthy of death, or of bonds."

Your Honor, the lower court has sentenced Mortal Man to die, but God made Man immortal and amenable to Spirit only. Denying justice to the body, that court com-

mended man's immortal Spirit to heavenly mercy, - Spirit which is God Himself and Man's only lawgiver! Who or what has sinned? Has the body or has Mortal Mind committed a criminal deed? Counsellor False Belief has argued that the body should die, while Reverend Theology would console conscious Mortal Mind, which alone is capa- ble of sin and suffering. The body committed no offence. Mortal Man, in obedience to higher law, helped his fellow- man, an act which should result in good to himself as well as to others.

The law of our Supreme Court decrees that whosoever sinneth shall die; but good deeds are immortal, bringing joy instead of grief, pleasure instead of pain, and life instead of death. If liver-complaint was committed by trampling on Laws of Health, this was a good deed, for the agent of those laws is an outlaw, a destroyer of Mortal Man's liberty and rights. Laws of Health should be sen- tenced to die.

Watching beside the couch of pain in the exercise of a love that "is the fulfilling of the law," - doing "unto others as ye would that they should do unto you," - this is no infringement of law, for no demand, human or divine, renders it just to punish a man for acting justly. If mor- tals sin, our Supreme Judge in equity decides what penalty is due for the sin, and Mortal Man can suffer only for his sin. For naught else can he be punished, according to the law of Spirit, God.

Then what jurisdiction had his Honor, Judge Medicine, in this case? To him I might say, in Bible language, "Sit- test thou to judge . . . after the law, and commandest . . . to be smitten contrary to the law?" The only jurisdiction to which the prisoner can submit is that of Truth, Life, and Love. If they condemn him not, neither shall Judge Medi- cine condemn him; and I ask that the prisoner be restored to the liberty of which he has been unjustly deprived.

The principal witness (the officer of the Health-laws) deposed that he was an eye-witness to the good deeds for which Mortal Man is under sentence of death. After be- traying him into the hands of your law, the Health-agent disappeared, to reappear however at the trial as a witness against Mortal Man and in the interest of Personal Sense, a murderer. Your Supreme Court must find the pris- oner on the night of the alleged offence to have been acting within the limits of the divine law, and in obedience thereto. Upon this statute hangs all the law and testimony. Giving a cup of cold water in Christ's name, is a Christian service. Laying down his life for a good deed, Mortal Man should find it again. Such acts bear their own justifica- tion, and are under the protection of the Most High.

Prior to the night of his arrest, the prisoner summoned two professed friends, Materia Medica and Physiology, to prevent his committing liver-complaint, and thus save him from arrest. But they brought with them Fear, the sheriff, to precipitate the result which they were called to prevent. It was Fear who handcuffed Mortal Man and would now punish him. You have left Mortal Man no alternative. He must obey your law, fear its consequences, and be pun- ished for his fear. His friends struggled hard to rescue the prisoner from the penalty they considered justly due, but they were compelled to let him be taken into custody, tried, and condemned. Thereupon Judge Medicine sat in judg- ment on the case, and substantially charged the jury, twelve Mortal Minds, to find the prisoner guilty. His Honor sen- tenced Mortal Man to die for the very deeds which the di- vine law compels man to commit. Thus the Court of Error construed obedience to the law of divine Love as disobedi- ence to the law of Life. Claiming to protect Mortal Man in right-doing, that court pronounced a sentence of death for doing right.

One of the principal witnesses, Nerve, testified that he

was a ruler of Body, in which province Mortal Man resides. He also testified that he was on intimate terms with the plaintiff, and knew Personal Sense to be truthful; that he knew Man, and that Man was made in the image of God, but was a criminal. This is a foul aspersion on man's Maker. It blots the fair escutcheon of omnipotence. It in- dicates malice aforethought, a determination to condemn Man in the interest of Personal Sense. At the bar of Truth, in the presence of divine Justice, before the Judge of our higher tribunal, the Supreme Court of Spirit, and before its jurors, the Spiritual Senses, I proclaim this witness, Nerve, to be destitute of intelligence and truth and to be a false witness.

Man self-destroyed; the testimony of matter respected; Spirit not allowed a hearing; Soul a criminal though recommended to mercy; the helpless innocent body tor- tured, - these are the terrible records of your Court of Error, and I ask that the Supreme Court of Spirit reverse this decision.

Here the opposing counsel, False Belief, called Chris- tian Science to order for contempt of court. Various notables - Materia Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Scho- lastic Theology, and Jurisprudence - rose to the ques- tion of expelling Christian Science from the bar, for such high-handed illegality. They declared that Christian Sci- ence was overthrowing the judicial proceedings of a regu- larly constituted court.

But Judge Justice of the Supreme Court of Spirit over- ruled their motions on the ground that unjust usages were not allowed at the bar of Truth, which ranks above the lower Court of Error.

The attorney, Christian Science, then read from the supreme statute-book, the Bible, certain extracts on the

Rights of Man, remarking, that the Bible was better au- thority than Blackstone: -

Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion.

Behold, I give unto you power . . . over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.

Then Christian Science proved the witness, Nerve, to be a perjurer. Instead of being a ruler in the Province of Body, in which Mortal Man was reported to reside, Nerve was an insubordinate citizen, putting in false claims to office and bearing false witness against Man. Turning suddenly to Personal Sense, by this time silent, Christian Science continued: -

I ask your arrest in the name of Almighty God on three distinct charges of crime, to wit: perjury, treason, and con- spiracy against the rights and life of man.

Then Christian Science continued:

Another witness, equally inadequate, said that on the night of the crime a garment of foul fur was spread over him by Morbid Secretion, while the facts in the case show that this fur is a foreign substance, imported by False Be- lief, the attorney for Personal Sense, who is in partnership with Error and smuggles Error's goods into market with- out the inspection of Soul's government officers. When the Court of Truth summoned Furred Tongue for examina- tion, he disappeared and was never heard of more.

Morbid Secretion is not an importer or dealer in fur, but we have heard Materia Medica explain how this fur is manufactured, and we know Morbid Secretion to be on friendly terms with the firm of Personal Sense, Error, &

Co., receiving pay from them and introducing their goods into the market. Also, be it known that False Belief, the counsel for the plaintiff, Personal Sense, is a buyer for this firm. He manufactures for it, keeps a furnishing store, and advertises largely for his employers.

Death testified that he was absent from the Province of Body, when a message came from False Belief, command- ing him to take part in the homicide. At this request Death repaired to the spot where the liver-complaint was in process, frightening away Materia Medica, who was then manacling the prisoner in the attempt to save him. True, Materia Medica was a misguided participant in the misdeed for which the Health-officer had Mortal Man in custody, though Mortal Man was innocent.

Christian Science turned from the abashed witnesses, his words flashing as lightning in the perturbed faces of these worthies, Scholastic Theology, Materia Medica, Physiology, the blind Hypnotism, and the masked Per- sonal Sense, and said: -

God will smite you, O whited walls, for injuring in your ignorance the unfortunate Mortal Man who sought your aid in his struggles against liver-complaint and Death. You came to his rescue, only to fasten upon him an offence of which he was innocent. You aided and abetted Fear and Health-laws. You betrayed Mortal Man, meanwhile declaring Disease to be God's servant and the righteous executor of His laws. Our higher statutes declare you all, witnesses, jurors, and judges, to be offenders, awaiting the sentence which General Progress and Divine Love will pronounce.

We send our best detectives to whatever locality is re- ported to be haunted by Disease, but on visiting the spot, they learn that Disease was never there, for he could not

possibly elude their search. Your Material Court of Errors, when it condemned Mortal Man on the ground of hygienic disobedience, was manipulated by the oleaginous machina- tions of the counsel, False Belief, whom Truth arraigns before the supreme bar of Spirit to answer for his crime. Morbid Secretion is taught how to make sleep befool reason before sacrificing mortals to their false gods.

Mortal Minds were deceived by your attorney, False Be- lief, and were influenced to give a verdict delivering Mortal Man to Death. Good deeds are transformed into crimes, to which you attach penalties; but no warping of justice can render disobedience to the so-called laws of Matter disobedience to God, or an act of homicide. Even penal law holds homicide, under stress of circumstances, to be justifiable. Now what greater justification can any deed have, than that it is for the good of one's neighbor? Where- fore, then, in the name of outraged justice, do you sentence Mortal Man for ministering to the wants of his fellow-man in obedience to divine law? You cannot trample upon the decree of the Supreme Bench. Mortal Man has his appeal to Spirit, God, who sentences only for sin.

The false and unjust beliefs of your human mental legis- lators compel them to enact wicked laws of sickness and so forth, and then render obedience to these laws punishable as crime. In the presence of the Supreme Lawgiver, stand- ing at the bar of Truth, and in accordance with the divine statutes, I repudiate the false testimony of Personal. Sense. I ask that he be forbidden to enter against Mortal Man any more suits to be tried at the Court of Material Error. I appeal to the just and equitable decisions of divine Spirit to restore to Mortal Man the rights of which he has been deprived.