Healing without a license.

Rev. William John Murray(1865-1925) had an unusual background. A man of short, square build, with black hair, a frank, open face and a very forceful, positive delivery; there was yet an air of gentleness and spirituality about him. In 1896 he was married to Ms. Sara Van Alen Pollard and entered business with his brother in Santa Barbara. Within a short time Mrs. Murray became seriously ill and her case was pronounced hopeless by the best physicians available, different climates and methods of cure having failed, as well as orthodox prayers. She was then restored to health by Christian Science. This healing so impressed the Murrays that they decided to make a study of this new means of cure and to devote their lives to activities along that line.

In order to enlarge their scope of ministering to the needy the Murrays removed to New York in 1902. He also had studied with Emma Curtis Hopkins and was ordained by Nona Brooks [Divine Science] before undertaking independent metaphysical work in New York. As they had lost children of their own, they meanwhile adopted several. They also assumed charge of, and healed scores of children, absolutely sacrificing their time and substance for this purpose. They learned of an abandoned baby on Randall's Island who was declared hopeless by the city authorities. According to medical diagnosis, it was blind, scrofulous, and had curvature of the spine. Nurses refused to touch it. The Murrays brought this child to their home. It was healed and made every whit whole and perfect.

He attracted a large number of people who came to him for healing, and it is said that he was so intent on study that he read books as he walked on the sidewalks of New York.

In August 1907, with seven friends, Mr. and Mrs. Murray organized the "Society for the Study of Divine Metaphysics." The object of the group was to understand and to apply the Truth as taught and practiced by Jesus in the overcoming of sin and the healing of disease. In other words, it was an effort to re-establish what might be called Apostolic Christianity.

The Society almost at once outgrew its initial meeting place, a dining room adjacent to the elevated railroad where, every few minutes, the talk had to be suspended while the train passed. Successive assembly places - nine in number until they achieved a significant attendance which justified their entry into the Hotel Astor. They incurred a continual expansion and the necessity of meeting an ever increasing rental and these heavy responsibility fell upon Mrs. Murray when other means of assessment failed.

About this time our Society was incorporated as a church under the New York laws, of the denomination of Divine Science. The name of the organization itself was adopted, at the suggestion of Mrs. Murray, as the Church of the Healing Christ.

In the early days of his work, the metaphysical movement was subject to hostility from the medical profession, and on one occasion, in December 1915, Dr. Murray was arrested, by two undercover NYPD detectives who observed him praying over an individual for healing (N.Y. Times, Dec. 17, 1915), and put into jail for practicing without a medical license. Having drawn many prominent persons into the movement, including attorneys, he was soon released, and there was no recurrence of this kind.

This action by the District Attorney evoked much discussion and wide editorial comment and also public protests from prominent persons. The outcome of the case was the vindication of the individual's right to seek healing through prayer by those qualified to give such aid. Judge Breen eventually acquitted Mr. Murray of the charge and established the right of a member of a church, with spiritual healing as one of its tenets, to practice healing according to that method.

Those who had the privilege of hearing our pastor's first talk after he was bailed out of the Tombs, where he had been confined for several hours for this alleged crime, know he never in after years surpassed the spiritual heights which he reached on that occasion of our Wednesday evening meeting in the Hotel Majestic. His face was glorified by courage and faith and love as he exhorted us at all times to "fear not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord."

Soon after this excellent advertisement the seating capacity of the Astor was inadequate and the church moved to the grand ball room of the Waldorf Astoria, where it remained.

His Waldorf lectures were taken down in shorthand and became the substance of many books, and it was reported that ministers of evangelical churches frequently attended in the effort to learn his method of reinterpreting the Scriptures.

Rev. Nona Brooks took charge of Rev. Murray's work in New York for several months in the summer of 1917 while Rev. John Murray was in London taking the work of Judge Thomas Troward. Nona Brooks loved New York, and at Dr. Murray's request the center there has been given permission by The Denver College to be called The First Divine Science Church of New York City as well as its secondary name, The Church of the Healing Christ.

At his passing he was succeeded for a time by Dr. A.C. Grier and Emmet Fox eventually succeeded him.