Tennessee Trial

Lawrence County, in the high hills of southern Tennessee, is short on doctors but long on religion. At Lawrenceburg, the county seat, Farmer Joe Brady went on trial last week for religion's sake. Reason: he had fetched no medical aid for his wife Unice when she lay ill of pneumonia last fall. "I told her I'd sell the mule, get a doctor and some medicine if she wanted it," said deep-voiced Joe Brady. "But Unice wouldn't hear to it and she died with the Lord's praises on her lips."

The Bradys belong to the Church of God, a hill sect that relies on faith healing rather than medicine. On trial for involuntary manslaughter with Joe Brady went three neighboring hill couples--the Ashley Lunas, Charlie Grays and Lowell McGehees. Prayer had not saved their children; a doctor might have. None of the seven would hire a lawyer. Said Ashley Luna: "Some of us will be jailed, some of us will be penitentiarized, some of us will be beheaded, but the will of God will prevail."

Plump, self-conscious District Attorney Claud L. Boyd did not like the case a bit. Though the seven indictments were returned last autumn, he announced that the State's case was not yet prepared, last week got a postponement till next September. It was freely predicted that the trial would never be held.

Next day rain turned rutted clay roads into warm red gumbo. But the Cedar Springs Church of God, to which all the defendants belong, had its biggest turnout in months. Family after family came in by mule and foot, over foot bridge and mountain trail, the man first, his arms full of quilt and baby, next a passel of children, then the woman, carrying the next to youngest. As a kerosene lamp flung shifting shadows on the plain pine walls, the congregation rejoiced, with prayers, a rousing sermon, hymn singing to Defendant McGehee's guitar.

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