CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

by Mark Twain

PREFACE

Book I of this volume occupies a quarter or a third of the volume, and consists of matter written about four years ago, but not hithertopublished in book form. It contained errors of judgment and of fact. Ihave now corrected these to the best of my ability and later knowledge. 

Book II was written at the beginning of 1903, and has not untilnow appeared in any form. In it my purpose has been to present acharacter-portrait of Mrs. Eddy, drawn from her own acts and wordssolely, not from hearsay and rumor; and to explain the nature and scopeof her Monarchy, as revealed in the Laws by which she governs it, andwhich she wrote herself. 

MARK TWAIN

NEW YORK. January, 1907. 

BOOK I CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

 "It is the first time since the dawn-days of Creation that a Voice has gone crashing through space with such placid and complacent confidence and command. "

CHAPTER I

VIENNA 1899. 

This last summer, when I was on my way back to Vienna from theAppetite-Cure in the mountains, I fell over a cliff in the twilight, andbroke some arms and legs and one thing or another, and by good luck wasfound by some peasants who had lost an ass, and they carried me to thenearest habitation, which was one of those large, low, thatch-roofedfarm-houses, with apartments in the garret for the family, and a cunninglittle porch under the deep gable decorated with boxes of bright coloredflowers and cats; on the ground floor a large and light sitting-room, separated from the milch-cattle apartment by a partition; and in thefront yard rose stately and fine the wealth and pride of the house, themanure-pile. That sentence is Germanic, and shows that I am acquiringthat sort of mastery of the art and spirit of the language which enablesa man to travel all day in one sentence without changing cars. 

There was a village a mile away, and a horse doctor lived there, butthere was no surgeon. It seemed a bad outlook; mine was distinctlya surgery case. Then it was remembered that a lady from Boston wassummering in that village, and she was a Christian Science doctor andcould cure anything. So she was sent for. It was night by this time, andshe could not conveniently come, but sent word that it was no matter, there was no hurry, she would give me "absent treatment" now, and comein the morning; meantime she begged me to make myself tranquil andcomfortable and remember that there was nothing the matter with me. Ithought there must be some mistake. 

"Did you tell her I walked off a cliff seventy-five feet high?"

"Yes. "

"And struck a boulder at the bottom and bounced?"

"Yes. "

"And struck another one and bounced again?"

"Yes. "

"And struck another one and bounced yet again?"

"Yes. "

"And broke the boulders?"

"Yes. "

"That accounts for it; she is thinking of the boulders. Why didn't youtell her I got hurt, too?"

"I did. I told her what you told me to tell her: that you were nowbut an incoherent series of compound fractures extending from yourscalp-lock to your heels, and that the comminuted projections caused youto look like a hat-rack. "

"And it was after this that she wished me to remember that there wasnothing the matter with me?"

"Those were her words. "

"I do not understand it. I believe she has not diagnosed the case withsufficient care. Did she look like a person who was theorizing, or didshe look like one who has fallen off precipices herself and brings tothe aid of abstract science the confirmations of personal experience?"

"Bitte?"

It was too large a contract for the Stubenmadchen's vocabulary; shecouldn't call the hand. I allowed the subject to rest there, and askedfor something to eat and smoke, and something hot to drink, and a basketto pile my legs in; but I could not have any of these things. 

"Why?"

"She said you would need nothing at all. "

"But I am hungry and thirsty, and in desperate pain. "

"She said you would have these delusions, but must pay no attentionto them. She wants you to particularly remember that there are no suchthings as hunger and thirst and pain. ''

"She does does she?"

"It is what she said. "

"Does she seem to be in full and functionable possession of herintellectual plant, such as it is?"

"Bitte?"

"Do they let her run at large, or do they tie her up?"

"Tie her up?"

"There, good-night, run along, you are a good girl, but your mentalGeschirr is not arranged for light and airy conversation. Leave me to mydelusions. "

CHAPTER II

It was a night of anguish, of course--at least, I supposed it was, forit had all the symptoms of it--but it passed at last, and the ChristianScientist came, and I was glad She was middle-aged, and large and bony, and erect, and had an austere face and a resolute jaw and a Roman beakand was a widow in the third degree, and her name was Fuller. I waseager to get to business and find relief, but she was distressinglydeliberate. She unpinned and unhooked and uncoupled her upholsteries oneby one, abolished the wrinkles with a flirt of her hand, and hung thearticles up; peeled off her gloves and disposed of them, got a book outof her hand-bag, then drew a chair to the bedside, descended into itwithout hurry, and I hung out my tongue. She said, with pity but withoutpassion:

"Return it to its receptacle. We deal with the mind only, not with itsdumb servants. "

I could not offer my pulse, because the connection was broken; but shedetected the apology before I could word it, and indicated by a negativetilt of her head that the pulse was another dumb servant that she had nouse for. Then I thought I would tell her my symptoms and how I felt, sothat she would understand the case; but that was another inconsequence, she did not need to know those things; moreover, my remark about how Ifelt was an abuse of language, a misapplication of terms. 

"One does not feel, " she explained; "there is no such thing asfeeling: therefore, to speak of a non-existent thing as existent is acontradiction. Matter has no existence; nothing exists but mind; themind cannot feel pain, it can only imagine it. "

"But if it hurts, just the same--"

"It doesn't. A thing which is unreal cannot exercise the functions ofreality. Pain is unreal; hence, pain cannot hurt. "

In making a sweeping gesture to indicate the act of shooing the illusionof pain out of the mind, she raked her hand on a pin in her dress, said"Ouch!" and went tranquilly on with her talk. "You should never allowyourself to speak of how you feel, nor permit others to ask you howyou are feeling; you should never concede that you are ill, nor permitothers to talk about disease or pain or death or similar nonexistencesin your presence. Such talk only encourages the mind to continue itsempty imaginings. " Just at that point the Stuben-madchen trod on thecat's tail, and the cat let fly a frenzy of cat-profanity. I asked, withcaution:

"Is a cat's opinion about pain valuable?"

"A cat has no opinion; opinions proceed from mind only; the loweranimals, being eternally perishable, have not been granted mind; withoutmind, opinion is impossible. "

"She merely imagined she felt a pain--the cat?"

"She cannot imagine a pain, for imagining is an effect of mind; withoutmind, there is no imagination. A cat has no imagination. "

"Then she had a real pain?"

"I have already told you there is no such thing as real pain. "

"It is strange and interesting. I do wonder what was the matter withthe cat. Because, there being no such thing as a real pain, and she notbeing able to imagine an imaginary one, it would seem that God in Hispity has compensated the cat with some kind of a mysterious emotionusable when her tail is trodden on which, for the moment, joins cat andChristian in one common brotherhood of--"

She broke in with an irritated--

"Peace! The cat feels nothing, the Christian feels nothing. Your emptyand foolish imaginings are profanation and blasphemy, and can do you aninjury. It is wiser and better and holier to recognize and confess thatthere is no such thing as disease or pain or death. "

"I am full of imaginary tortures, " I said, "but I do not think I couldbe any more uncomfortable if they were real ones. What must I do to getrid of them?"

"There is no occasion to get rid of them since they do not exist. Theyare illusions propagated by matter, and matter has no existence; thereis no such thing as matter. "

"It sounds right and clear, but yet it seems in a degree elusive; itseems to slip through, just when you think you are getting a grip onit. "

"Explain. "

"Well, for instance: if there is no such thing as matter, how can matterpropagate things?"

In her compassion she almost smiled. She would have smiled if there wereany such thing as a smile. 

"It is quite simple, " she said; "the fundamental propositions ofChristian Science explain it, and they are summarized in the fourfollowing self-evident propositions: 1. God is All in all. 2. God isgood. Good is Mind 3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter 4. Life, God, omnipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin, disease. 

"There--now you see. "

It seemed nebulous; it did not seem to say anything about the difficultyin hand--how non-existent matter can propagate illusions I said, withsome hesitancy:

"Does--does it explain?"

"Doesn't it? Even if read backward it will do it. "

With a budding hope, I asked her to do it backwards. 

"Very well. Disease sin evil death deny Good omnipotent God life matteris nothing all being Spirit God Mind is Good good is God all in All isGod. There do you understand now?

"It--it--well, it is plainer than it was before; still--"

"Well?"

"Could you try it some more ways?"

"As many as you like; it always means the same. Interchanged in any wayyou please it cannot be made to mean anything different from what itmeans when put in any other way. Because it is perfect. You can jumbleit all up, and it makes no difference: it always comes out the way itwas before. It was a marvelous mind that produced it. As a mental tourde force it is without a mate, it defies alike the simple, the concrete, and the occult. "

"It seems to be a corker. "

I blushed for the word, but it was out before I could stop it. 

"A what?"

"A--wonderful structure--combination, so to speak, of profoundthoughts--unthinkable ones--um--"

"It is true. Read backward, or forward, or perpendicularly, or at anygiven angle, these four propositions will always be found to agree instatement and proof. "

"Ah--proof. Now we are coming at it. The statements agree; they agreewith--with--anyway, they agree; I noticed that; but what is it theyprove I mean, in particular?"

"Why, nothing could be clearer. They prove:

"1. GOD--Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind. Do you getthat?"

"I--well, I seem to. Go on, please. "

"2. MAN--God's universal idea, individual, perfect, eternal. Is itclear?"

"It--I think so. Continue. "

"3. IDEA--An image in Mind; the immediate object of understanding. Thereit is--the whole sublime Arcana of Christian Science in a nutshell. Doyou find a weak place in it anywhere?"

"Well--no; it seems strong. "

"Very well There is more. Those three constitute the ScientificDefinition of Immortal Mind. Next, we have the Scientific Definitionof Mortal Mind. Thus. FIRST DEGREE: Depravity I. Physical-Passions andappetites, fear, depraved will, pride, envy, deceit, hatred, revenge, sin, disease, death. "

"Phantasms, madam--unrealities, as I understand it. "

"Every one. SECOND DEGREE: Evil Disappearing. I. Moral-Honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance. Is it clear?"

"Crystal. "

"THIRD DEGREE: Spiritual Salvation. I. Spiritual-Faith, wisdom, power, purity, understanding, health, love. You see how searchingly andco-ordinately interdependent and anthropomorphous it all is. In thisThird Degree, as we know by the revelations of Christian Science, mortalmind disappears. "

"Not earlier?"

"No, not until the teaching and preparation for the Third Degree arecompleted. "

"It is not until then that one is enabled to take hold of ChristianScience effectively, and with the right sense of sympathy and kinship, as I understand you. That is to say, it could not succeed during theprocesses of the Second Degree, because there would still be remainsof mind left; and therefore--but I interrupted you. You were aboutto further explain the good results proceeding from the erosions anddisintegrations effected by the Third Degree. It is very interesting; goon, please. "

"Yes, as I was saying, in this Third Degree mortal mind disappears. Science so reverses the evidence before the corporeal human senses asto make this scriptural testimony true in our hearts, 'the last shallbe first and the first shall be last, ' that God and His idea may be tous--what divinity really is, and must of necessity be all-inclusive. "

"It is beautiful. And with what exhaustive exactness your choice andarrangement of words confirm and establish what you have claimed forthe powers and functions of the Third Degree. The Second could probablyproduce only temporary absence of mind; it is reserved to the Third tomake it permanent. A sentence framed under the auspices of theSecond could have a kind of meaning--a sort of deceptive semblance ofit--whereas it is only under the magic of the Third that that defectwould disappear. Also, without doubt, it is the Third Degree thatcontributes another remarkable specialty to Christian Science--viz. , ease and flow and lavishness of words, and rhythm and swing andsmoothness. There must be a special reason for this?"

"Yes--God--all, all--God, good God, non-Matter, Matteration, Spirit, Bones, Truth. "

"That explains it. "

"There is nothing in Christian Science that is not explicable; for Godis one, Time is one, Individuality is one, and may be one of a series, one of many, as an individual man, individual horse; whereas God is one, not one of a series, but one alone and without an equal. "

"These are noble thoughts. They make one burn to know more. How doesChristian Science explain the spiritual relation of systematic dualityto incidental deflection?"

"Christian Science reverses the seeming relation of Soul and body--asastronomy reverses the human perception of the movement of the solarsystem--and makes body tributary to the Mind. As it is the earth whichis in motion, While the sun is at rest, though in viewing the sun riseone finds it impossible to believe the sun not to be really rising, sothe body is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though it seemsotherwise to finite sense; but we shall never understand this while weadmit that soul is in body, or mind in matter, and that man is includedin non-intelligence. Soul is God, unchangeable and eternal; and mancoexists with and reflects Soul, for the All-in-all is the Altogether, and the Altogether embraces the All-one, Soul-Mind, Mind-Soul, Love, Spirit, Bones, Liver, one of a series, alone and without an equal. "

"What is the origin of Christian Science? Is it a gift of God, or did itjust happen?"

"In a sense, it is a gift of God. That is to say, its powers are fromHim, but the credit of the discovery of the powers and what they are foris due to an American lady. "

"Indeed? When did this occur?"

"In 1866. That is the immortal date when pain and disease and deathdisappeared from the earth to return no more forever. That is, thefancies for which those terms stand disappeared. The things themselveshad never existed; therefore, as soon as it was perceived that therewere no such things, they were easily banished. The history and natureof the great discovery are set down in the book here, and--"

"Did the lady write the book?"

"Yes, she wrote it all, herself. The title is Science and Health, withKey to the Scriptures--for she explains the Scriptures; they were notunderstood before. Not even by the twelve Disciples. She begins thus--Iwill read it to you. "

But she had forgotten to bring her glasses. 

"Well, it is no matter, " she said. "I remember the words--indeed, allChristian Scientists know the book by heart; it is necessary in ourpractice. We should otherwise make mistakes and do harm. She beginsthus: 'In the year 1866 I discovered the Science of MetaphysicalHealing, and named it Christian Science. ' And She says quitebeautifully, I think--'Through Christian Science, religion and medicineare inspired with a diviner nature and essence, fresh pinions aregiven to faith and understanding, and thoughts acquaint themselvesintelligently with God. ' Her very words. "

"It is elegant. And it is a fine thought, too--marrying religion tomedicine, instead of medicine to the undertaker in the old way; forreligion and medicine properly belong together, they being the basis ofall spiritual and physical health. What kind of medicine do you give forthe ordinary diseases, such as--"

"We never give medicine in any circumstances whatever! We--"

"But, madam, it says--"

"I don't care what it says, and I don't wish to talk about it. "

"I am sorry if I have offended, but you see the mention seemed in someway inconsistent, and--"

"There are no inconsistencies in Christian Science. The thing isimpossible, for the Science is absolute. It cannot be otherwise, sinceit proceeds directly from the All-in-all and the Everything-in-Which, also Soul, Bones, Truth, one of a series, alone and without equal. It isMathematics purified from material dross and made spiritual. "

"I can see that, but--"

"It rests upon the immovable basis of an Apodictical Principle. "

The word flattened itself against my mind in trying to get in, anddisordered me a little, and before I could inquire into its pertinency, she was already throwing the needed light:

"This Apodictical Principle is the absolute Principle of ScientificMind-healing, the sovereign Omnipotence which delivers the children ofmen from pain, disease, decay, and every ill that flesh is heir to. "

"Surely not every ill, every decay?"

"Every one; there are no exceptions; there is no such thing as decay--itis an unreality, it has no existence. "

"But without your glasses your failing eyesight does not permit youto--"

"My eyesight cannot fail; nothing can fail; the Mind is master, and theMind permits no retrogression. "

She was under the inspiration of the Third Degree, therefore there couldbe no profit in continuing this part of the subject. I shifted to otherground and inquired further concerning the Discoverer of the Science. 

"Did the discovery come suddenly, like Klondike, or after long study andcalculation, like America?"

"The comparisons are not respectful, since they refer totrivialities--but let it pass. I will answer in the Discoverer's ownwords: 'God had been graciously fitting me, during many years, for thereception of a final revelation of the absolute Principle of ScientificMind-healing. '"

"Many years. How many?"

"Eighteen centuries!"

"All--God, God--good, good--God, Truth, Bones, Liver, one of a series, alone and without equal--it is amazing!"

"You may well say it, sir. Yet it is but the truth This American lady, our revered and sacred Founder, is distinctly referred to, and hercoming prophesied, in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse; she couldnot have been more plainly indicated by St. John without actuallymentioning her name. "

"How strange, how wonderful!"

"I will quote her own words, from her Key to the Scriptures: 'Thetwelfth chapter of the Apocalypse has a special suggestiveness inconnection with this nineteenth century. ' There--do you note that?Think--note it well. "

"But--what does it mean?"

"Listen, and you will know. I quote her inspired words again: 'In theopening of the Sixth Seal, typical of six thousand years since Adam, there is one distinctive feature which has special reference to thepresent age. Thus:

"'Revelation xii. I. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven--awoman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon herhead a crown of twelve stars. '

"That is our Head, our Chief, our Discoverer of ChristianScience--nothing can be plainer, nothing surer. And note this:

"'Revelation xii. 6. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where shehad a place prepared of God. '

"That is Boston. I recognize it, madam. These are sublime things, andimpressive; I never understood these passages before; please go on withthe--with the--proofs. "

"Very well. Listen:

"'And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with acloud; and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were thesun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he held in his hand a littlebook. '

"A little book, merely a little book--could words be modester? Yet howstupendous its importance! Do you know what book that was?"

"Was it--"

"I hold it in my hand--Christian Science!"

"Love, Livers, Lights, Bones, Truth, Kidneys, one of a series, alone andwithout equal--it is beyond imagination for wonder!"

"Hear our Founder's eloquent words: 'Then will a voice from harmony cry, "Go and take the little book: take it and eat it up, and it shall makethy belly bitter; but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. "Mortal, obey the heavenly evangel. Take up Divine Science. Read it frombeginning to end. Study it, ponder it. It will be, indeed, sweet at itsfirst taste, when it heals you; but murmur not over Truth, if you findits digestion bitter. ' You now know the history of our dear and holyScience, sir, and that its origin is not of this earth, but only itsdiscovery. I will leave the book with you and will go, now; but giveyourself no uneasiness--I will give you absent treatment from now till Igo to bed. "

CHAPTER III

Under the powerful influence of the near treatment and the absenttreatment together, my bones were gradually retreating inward anddisappearing from view. The good work took a brisk start, now, and wenton swiftly. My body was diligently straining and stretching, this wayand that, to accommodate the processes of restoration, and every minuteor two I heard a dull click inside and knew that the two ends ofa fracture had been successfully joined. This muffled clicking andgritting and grinding and rasping continued during the next threehours, and then stopped--the connections had all been made. All exceptdislocations; there were only seven of these: hips, shoulders, knees, neck; so that was soon over; one after another they slipped into theirsockets with a sound like pulling a distant cork, and I jumped up asgood as new, as to framework, and sent for the horse-doctor. 

I was obliged to do this because I had a stomach-ache and a cold inthe head, and I was not willing to trust these things any longer in thehands of a woman whom I did not know, and whose ability to successfullytreat mere disease I had lost all confidence. My position was justifiedby the fact that the cold and the ache had been in her charge from thefirst, along with the fractures, but had experienced not a shade ofrelief; and, indeed, the ache was even growing worse and worse, and moreand more bitter, now, probably on account of the protracted abstentionfrom food and drink. 

The horse-doctor came, a pleasant man and full of hope and professionalinterest in the case. In the matter of smell he was pretty aromatic--infact, quite horsy--and I tried to arrange with him for absent treatment, but it was not in his line, so, out of delicacy, I did not press it. He looked at my teeth and examined my hock, and said my age and generalcondition were favorable to energetic measures; therefore he would giveme something to turn the stomach-ache into the botts and the cold inthe head into the blind staggers; then he should be on his own beatand would know what to do. He made up a bucket of bran-mash, and saida dipperful of it every two hours, alternated with a drench withturpentine and axle-grease in it, would either knock my ailments out ofme in twenty-four hours, or so interest me in other ways as to make meforget they were on the premises. He administered my first dose himself, then took his leave, saying I was free to eat and drink anything Ipleased and in any quantity I liked. But I was not hungry any more, anddid not care for food. 

I took up the Christian Science book and read half of it, then took adipperful of drench and read the other half. The resulting experienceswere full of interest and adventure. All through the rumblings andgrindings and quakings and effervescings accompanying the evolution ofthe ache into the botts and the cold into the blind staggers I couldnote the generous struggle for mastery going on between the mash and thedrench and the literature; and often I could tell which was ahead, andcould easily distinguish the literature from the others when the otherswere separate, though not when they were mixed; for when a bran-mashand an eclectic drench are mixed together they look just like theApodictical Principle out on a lark, and no one can tell it from that. The finish was reached at last, the evolutions were complete, and afine success, but I think that this result could have been achieved withfewer materials. I believe the mash was necessary to the conversion ofthe stomach-ache into the botts, but I think one could develop the blindstaggers out of the literature by itself; also, that blind staggersproduced in this way would be of a better quality and more lasting thanany produced by the artificial processes of the horse-doctor. 

For of all the strange and frantic and incomprehensible anduninterpretable books which the imagination of man has created, surelythis one is the prize sample. It is written with a limitless confidenceand complacency, and with a dash and stir and earnestness which oftencompel the effects of eloquence, even when the words do not seem tohave any traceable meaning. There are plenty of people who imagine theyunderstand the book; I know this, for I have talked with them; but inall cases they were people who also imagined that there were no suchthings as pain, sickness, and death, and no realities in the world;nothing actually existent but Mind. It seems to me to modify the valueof their testimony. When these people talk about Christian Sciencethey do as Mrs. Fuller did: they do not use their own language, but thebook's; they pour out the book's showy incoherences, and leave you tofind out later that they were not originating, but merely quoting;they seem to know the volume by heart, and to revere it as they woulda Bible--another Bible, perhaps I ought to say. Plainly the book waswritten under the mental desolations of the Third Degree, and I feelsure that none but the membership of that Degree can discover meaningsin it. When you read it you seem to be listening to a lively andaggressive and oracular speech delivered in an unknown tongue, a speechwhose spirit you get but not the particulars; or, to change the figure, you seem to be listening to a vigorous instrument which is making anoise which it thinks is a tune, but which, to persons not members ofthe band, is only the martial tooting of a trombone, and merrily stirsthe soul through the noise, but does not convey a meaning. 

The book's serenities of self-satisfaction do almost seem to smack ofa heavenly origin--they have no blood-kin in the earth. It is more thanhuman to be so placidly certain about things, and so finely superior, and so airily content with one's performance. Without ever presentinganything which may rightfully be called by the strong name of Evidence, and sometimes without even mentioning a reason for a deduction at all, it thunders out the startling words, "I have Proved" so and so. It takesthe Pope and all the great guns of his Church in battery assembled toauthoritatively settle and establish the meaning of a sole and singleunclarified passage of Scripture, and this at vast cost of time andstudy and reflection, but the author of this work is superior to allthat: she finds the whole Bible in an unclarified audition, and at smallexpense of time and no expense of mental effort she clarifies it fromlid to lid, reorganizes and improves the meanings, then authoritativelysettles and establishes them with formulas which you cannot tell from"Let there be light!" and "Here you have it!" It is the first time sincethe dawn-days of Creation that a Voice has gone crashing through spacewith such placid and complacent confidence and command. 

[January, 1903. The first reading of any book whose terminology isnew and strange is nearly sure to leave the reader in a bewildered andsarcastic state of mind. But now that, during the past two months, I have, by diligence gained a fair acquaintanceship with Science andHealth technicalities, I no longer find the bulk of that work hard tounderstand. --M. T. ]

P. S. The wisdom harvested from the foregoing thoughts has already doneme a service and saved me a sorrow. Nearly a month ago there came to mefrom one of the universities a tract by Dr. Edward Anthony Spitzka onthe "Encephalic Anatomy of the Races. " I judged that my opinion wasdesired by the university, and I was greatly pleased with this attentionand wrote and said I would furnish it as soon as I could. That nightI put my plodding and disheartening Christian Science mining aside andtook hold of the matter. I wrote an eager chapter, and was expecting tofinish my opinion the next day, but was called away for a week, and mymind was soon charged with other interests. It was not until to-day, after the lapse of nearly a month, that I happened upon my Encephalicchapter again. Meantime, the new wisdom had come to me, and I read itwith shame. I recognized that I had entered upon that work in far fromthe right temper--far from the respectful and judicial spirit which wasits due of reverence. I had begun upon it with the following paragraphfor fuel:

"FISSURES OF THE PARIETAL AND OCCIPITAL LOBES (LATERAL SURFACE). --ThePostcentral Fissural Complex--In this hemicerebrum, the postcentral andsubcentral are combined to form a continuous fissure, attaining a lengthof 8. 5 cm. Dorsally, the fissure bifurcates, embracing the gyreindented by the caudal limb of the paracentral. The caudal limb of thepostcentral is joined by a transparietal piece. In all, five additionalrami spring from the combined fissure. A vadum separates it from theparietal; another from the central. "

It humiliates me, now, to see how angry I got over that; and howscornful. I said that the style was disgraceful; that it was labored andtumultuous, and in places violent, that the treatment was involved anderratic, and almost, as a rule, bewildering; that to lack of simplicitywas added a lack of vocabulary; that there was quite too much feelingshown; that if I had a dog that would get so excited and incoherent overa tranquil subject like Encephalic Anatomy I would not pay his tax; andat that point I got excited myself and spoke bitterly of these mongrelinsanities, and said a person might as well try to understand Scienceand Health. 

[I know, now, where the trouble was, and am glad of the interruptionthat saved me from sending my verdict to the university. It makes mecold to think what those people might have thought of me. --M. T. ]

CHAPTER IV

No one doubts--certainly not I--that the mind exercises a powerfulinfluence over the body. From the beginning of time, the sorcerer, theinterpreter of dreams, the fortune-teller, the charlatan, the quack, the wild medicine-man, the educated physician, the mesmerist, and thehypnotist have made use of the client's imagination to help them intheir work. They have all recognized the potency and availability ofthat force. Physicians cure many patients with a bread pill; they knowthat where the disease is only a fancy, the patient's confidence in thedoctor will make the bread pill effective. 

Faith in the doctor. Perhaps that is the entire thing. It seems to looklike it. In old times the King cured the king's evil by the touch of theroyal hand. He frequently made extraordinary cures. Could his footmanhave done it? No--not in his own clothes. Disguised as the King, couldhe have done it? I think we may not doubt it. I think we may feel surethat it was not the King's touch that made the cure in any instance, but the patient's faith in the efficacy of a King's touch. Genuine andremarkable cures have been achieved through contact with the relics of asaint. Is it not likely that any other bones would have done as well ifthe substitution had been concealed from the patient? When I was a boy afarmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame asa faith-doctor--that was what she called herself. Sufferers came toher from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Havefaith--it is all that is necessary, " and they went away well of theirailments. She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occultpowers. She said that the patient's faith in her did the work. Severaltimes I saw her make immediate cures of severe toothaches. My mother wasthe patient. In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade inthis sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients. He gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his workis unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high. In Bavariathere is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retirefrom his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demandof his constantly increasing body of customers. He goes on from yearto year doing his miracles, and has become very rich. He pretends to noreligious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something inhis make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that itis this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious powerissuing from himself. 

Within the last quarter of a century, in America, several sects ofcurers have appeared under various names and have done notable things inthe way of healing ailments without the use of medicines. There are theMind Cure the Faith Cure, the Prayer Cure, the Mental Science Cure, andthe Christian-Science Cure; and apparently they all do their miracleswith the same old, powerful instrument--the patient's imagination. Differing names, but no difference in the process. But they do not givethat instrument the credit; each sect claims that its way differs fromthe ways of the others. 

They all achieve some cures, there is no question about it; and theFaith Cure and the Prayer Cure probably do no harm when they do no good, since they do not forbid the patient to help out the cure with medicinesif he wants to; but the others bar medicines, and claim ability to cureevery conceivable human ailment through the application of their mentalforces alone. There would seem to be an element of danger here. It hasthe look of claiming too much, I think. Public confidence would probablybe increased if less were claimed. 

The Christian Scientist was not able to cure my stomach-ache and mycold; but the horse-doctor did it. This convinces me that ChristianScience claims too much. In my opinion it ought to let diseases aloneand confine itself to surgery. There it would have everything its ownway. 

The horse-doctor charged me thirty kreutzers, and I paid him; in fact, I doubled it and gave him a shilling. Mrs. Fuller brought in an itemizedbill for a crate of broken bones mended in two hundred and thirty-fourplaces--one dollar per fracture. 

"Nothing exists but Mind?"

"Nothing, " she answered. "All else is substanceless, all else isimaginary. "

I gave her an imaginary check, and now she is suing me for substantialdollars. It looks inconsistent. 

CHAPTER V

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us toeach other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simplemany things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficultiesand obscurities now. 

Those of us who are not in the asylum, and not demonstrably due there, are nevertheless, no doubt, insane in one or two particulars. I thinkwe must admit this; but I think that we are otherwise healthy-minded. I think that when we all see one thing alike, it is evidence that, asregards that one thing, our minds are perfectly sound. Now there arereally several things which we do all see alike; things which we allaccept, and about which we do not dispute. For instance, we who areoutside of the asylum all agree that water seeks its level; that thesun gives light and heat; that fire consumes; that fog is damp; that sixtimes six are thirty-six, that two from ten leaves eight; that eightand seven are fifteen. These are, perhaps, the only things we are agreedabout; but, although they are so few, they are of inestimable value, because they make an infallible standard of sanity. Whosoever acceptsthem him we know to be substantially sane; sufficiently sane; in theworking essentials, sane. Whoever disputes a single one of them him weknow to be wholly insane, and qualified for the asylum. 

Very well, the man who disputes none of them we concede to be entitledto go at large. But that is concession enough. We cannot go any furtherthan that; for we know that in all matters of mere opinion that same manis insane--just as insane as we are; just as insane as Shakespeare was. We know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is wherehis opinion differs from ours. 

That is a simple rule, and easy to remember. When I, a thoughtfuland unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond anyquestion every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religiousmatters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines theWestminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I amspiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, becauseyou never can prove anything to a lunatic--for that is a part of hisinsanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his. All Democrats areinsane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans andMugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democratsand Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters ofopinion our adversaries are insane. When I look around me, I am oftentroubled to see how many people are mad. To mention only a few:

The Atheist, The Theosophists, The Infidel, The Swedenborgians, TheAgnostic, The Shakers, The Baptist, The Millerites, The Methodist, TheMormons, The Christian Scientist, The Laurence Oliphant Harrisites, TheCatholic, and the 115 Christian sects, the Presbyterian excepted, The Grand Lama's people, The Monarchists, The Imperialists, The 72Mohammedan sects, The Democrats, The Republicans (but not theMugwumps), The Buddhist, The Blavatsky-Buddhist, The Mind-Curists, TheFaith-Curists, The Nationalist, The Mental Scientists, The Confucian, The Spiritualist, The Allopaths, The 2000 East Indian sects, TheHomeopaths, The Electropaths, The Peculiar People, The--

But there's no end to the list; there are millions of them! And allinsane; each in his own way; insane as to his pet fad or opinion, but otherwise sane and rational. This should move us to be charitabletowards one another's lunacies. I recognize that in his special beliefthe Christian Scientist is insane, because he does not believe as Ido; but I hail him as my mate and fellow, because I am as insane as heinsane from his point of view, and his point of view is as authoritativeas mine and worth as much. That is to say, worth a brass farthing. Upona great religious or political question, the opinion of the dullest headin the world is worth the same as the opinion of the brightest head inthe world--a brass farthing. How do we arrive at this? It is simple. The affirmative opinion of a stupid man is neutralized by the negativeopinion of his stupid neighbor no decision is reached; the affirmativeopinion of the intellectual giant Gladstone is neutralized by thenegative opinion of the intellectual giant Newman--no decision isreached. Opinions that prove nothing are, of course, without value anybut a dead person knows that much. This obliges us to admit the truthof the unpalatable proposition just mentioned above--that, in disputedmatters political and religious, one man's opinion is worth no more thanhis peer's, and hence it followers that no man's opinion possesses anyreal value. It is a humbling thought, but there is no way to get aroundit: all opinions upon these great subjects are brass-farthing opinions. 

It is a mere plain, simple fact--as clear and as certain as that eightand seven make fifteen. And by it we recognize that we are all insane, as concerns those matters. If we were sane, we should all see apolitical or religious doctrine alike; there would be no dispute: itwould be a case of eight and seven--just as it is in heaven, where allare sane and none insane. There there is but one religion, one belief;the harmony is perfect; there is never a discordant note. 

Under protection of these preliminaries, I suppose I may now repeatwithout offence that the Christian Scientist is insane. I mean himno discourtesy, and I am not charging--nor even imagining--that heis insaner than the rest of the human race. I think he is morepicturesquely insane than some of us. At the same time, I am quite surethat in one important and splendid particular he is much saner than isthe vast bulk of the race. 

Why is he insane? I told you before: it is because his opinions are notours. I know of no other reason, and I do not need any other; it is theonly way we have of discovering insanity when it is not violent. Itis merely the picturesqueness of his insanity that makes it moreinteresting than my kind or yours. For instance, consider his "littlebook"; the "little book" exposed in the sky eighteen centuries ago bythe flaming angel of the Apocalypse, and handed down in our day to Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, of New Hampshire, and translated by her, word forword, into English (with help of a polisher), and now published anddistributed in hundreds of editions by her at a clear profit per volume, above cost, of seven hundred per cent. !--a profit which distinctlybelongs to the angel of the Apocalypse, and let him collect it if hecan; a "little book" which the C. S. Very frequently calls by just thatname, and always enclosed in quotation-marks to keep its high originexultantly in mind; a "little book" which "explains" and reconstructsand new-paints and decorates the Bible, and puts a mansard roof on itand a lightning-rod and all the other modern improvements; a "littlebook" which for the present affects to travel in yoke with the Bible andbe friendly to it, and within half a century will hitch the Bible in therear and thenceforth travel tandem, itself in the lead, in the cominggreat march of Christian Scientism through the Protestant dominions ofthe planet. 

CHAPTER VI

"Hungry ones throng to hear the Bible read in connection with thetext-book of Christian Science, Science and Health, with Key to theScriptures, by Mary Baker G. Eddy. These are our only preachers. Theyare the word of God. " "Christian Science Journal", October, 1898. 

Is that picturesque? A lady has told me that in a chapel of the Mosquein Boston there is a picture or image of Mrs. Eddy, and that before itburns a never-extinguished light. Is that picturesque? How long do youthink it will be before the Christian Scientist will be worshipping thatpicture or image and praying to it? How long do you think it willbe before it is claimed that Mrs. Eddy is a Redeemer, a Christ, andChrist's equal? Already her army of disciples speak of her reverently as"Our Mother. "

How long will it be before they place her on the steps of the Thronebeside the Virgin--and, later, a step higher? First, Mary the Virgin andMary the Matron; later, with a change of precedence, Mary the Matronand Mary the Virgin. Let the artist get ready with his canvas and hisbrushes; the new Renaissance is on its way, and there will be money inaltar-canvases--a thousand times as much as the Popes and their Churchever spent on the Old Masters; for their riches were poverty ascompared with what is going to pour into the treasure-chest of theChristian-Scientist Papacy by-and-by, let us not doubt it. We willexamine the financial outlook presently and see what it promises. Afavorite subject of the new Old Master will be the first verse of thetwelfth chapter of Revelation--a verse which Mrs. Eddy says (in herAnnex to the Scriptures) has "one distinctive feature which has specialreference to the present age"--and to her, as is rather pointedlyindicated:

"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with thesun, and the moon under her feet, " etc. 

The woman clothed with the sun will be a portrait of Mrs. Eddy. 

Is it insanity to believe that Christian-Scientism is destined to makethe most formidable show that any new religion has made in the worldsince the birth and spread of Mohammedanism, and that within a centuryfrom now it may stand second to Rome only, in numbers and power inChristendom?

If this is a wild dream it will not be easy to prove it so just yet, Ithink. There seems argument that it may come true. The Christian-Science"boom, " proper, is not yet five years old; yet already it has twohundred and fifty churches. 

It has its start, you see, and it is a phenomenally good one. Moreover, it is latterly spreading with a constantly accelerating swiftness. Ithas a better chance to grow and prosper and achieve permanency than anyother existing "ism"; for it has more to offer than any other. The pastteaches us that in order to succeed, a movement like this must not bea mere philosophy, it must be a religion; also, that it must not claimentire originality, but content itself with passing for an improvementon an existing religion, and show its hand later, when strong andprosperous--like Mohammedanism. 

Next, there must be money--and plenty of it. 

Next, the power and authority and capital must be concentrated in thegrip of a small and irresponsible clique, with nobody outside privilegedto ask questions or find fault. 

Next, as before remarked, it must bait its hook with some new andattractive advantages over the baits offered by its competitors. A newmovement equipped with some of these endowments--like spiritualism, forinstance may count upon a considerable success; a new movement equippedwith the bulk of them--like Mohammedanism, for instance--may count upona widely extended conquest. Mormonism had all the requisites but one ithad nothing new and nothing valuable to bait with. Spiritualism lackedthe important detail of concentration of money and authority in thehands of an irresponsible clique. 

The above equipment is excellent, admirable, powerful, but not perfect. There is yet another detail which is worth the whole of it put togetherand more; a detail which has never been joined (in the beginning ofa religious movement) to a supremely good working equipment since theworld began, until now: a new personage to worship. Christianity hadthe Saviour, but at first and for generations it lacked money andconcentrated power. In Mrs. Eddy, Christian Science possesses the newpersonage for worship, and in addition--here in the very beginning--aworking equipment that has not a flaw in it. In the beginning, Mohammedanism had no money; and it has never had anything to offer itsclient but heaven--nothing here below that was valuable. In addition toheaven hereafter, Christian Science has present health and a cheerfulspirit to offer; and in comparison with this bribe all other this-worldbribes are poor and cheap. You recognize that this estimate isadmissible, do you not?

To whom does Bellamy's "Nationalism" appeal? Necessarily to the few:people who read and dream, and are compassionate, and troubled for thepoor and the hard-driven. To whom does Spiritualism appeal? Necessarilyto the few; its "boom" has lasted for half a century, and I believe itclaims short of four millions of adherents in America. Who are attractedby Swedenborgianism and some of the other fine and delicate "isms"? Thefew again: educated people, sensitively organized, with superior mentalendowments, who seek lofty planes of thought and find their contentmentthere. And who are attracted by Christian Science? There is no limit;its field is horizonless; its appeal is as universal as is the appealof Christianity itself. It appeals to the rich, the poor, the high, thelow, the cultured, the ignorant, the gifted, the stupid, the modest, the vain, the wise, the silly, the soldier, the civilian, the hero, thecoward, the idler, the worker, the godly, the godless, the freeman, theslave, the adult, the child; they who are ailing in body or mind, they who have friends that are ailing in body or mind. To mass it in aphrase, its clientage is the Human Race. Will it march? I think so. 

Remember its principal great offer: to rid the Race of pain and disease. Can it do so? In large measure, yes. How much of the pain and disease inthe world is created by the imaginations of the sufferers, and then keptalive by those same imaginations? Four-fifths? Not anything short ofthat, I should think. Can Christian Science banish that four-fifths? Ithink so. Can any other (organized) force do it? None that I know of. Would this be a new world when that was accomplished? And a pleasanterone--for us well people, as well as for those fussy and fretting sickones? Would it seem as if there was not as much gloomy weather as thereused to be? I think so. 

In the mean time, would the Scientist kill off a good many patients? Ithink so. More than get killed off now by the legalized methods? I willtake up that question presently. 

At present, I wish to ask you to examine some of the Scientist'sperformances, as registered in his magazine, The Christian ScienceJournal--October number, 1898. First, a Baptist clergyman gives us thistrue picture of "the average orthodox Christian"--and he could haveadded that it is a true picture of the average (civilized) human being:

"He is a worried and fretted and fearful man; afraid of himself and hispropensities, afraid of colds and fevers, afraid of treading on serpentsor drinking deadly things. "

Then he gives us this contrast:

"The average Christian Scientist has put all anxiety and fretting underhis feet. He does have a victory over fear and care that is not achievedby the average orthodox Christian. "

He has put all anxiety and fretting under his feet. What proportion ofyour earnings or income would you be willing to pay for that frame ofmind, year in, year out? It really outvalues any price that can be putupon it. Where can you purchase it, at any outlay of any sort, in anyChurch or out of it, except the Scientist's?

Well, it is the anxiety and fretting about colds, and fevers, anddraughts, and getting our feet wet, and about forbidden food eaten interror of indigestion, that brings on the cold and the fever and theindigestion and the most of our other ailments; and so, if the Sciencecan banish that anxiety from the world I think it can reduce the world'sdisease and pain about four-fifths. 

In this October number many of the redeemed testify and give thanks;and not coldly, but with passionate gratitude. As a rule they seemdrunk with health, and with the surprise of it, the wonder of it, theunspeakable glory and splendor of it, after a long, sober spell spent ininventing imaginary diseases and concreting them with doctor-stuff. The first witness testifies that when "this most beautiful Truth firstdawned on him" he had "nearly all the ills that flesh is heir to"; thatthose he did not have he thought he had--and this made the tale aboutcomplete. What was the natural result? Why, he was a dump-pit "for allthe doctors, druggists, and patent medicines of the country. " ChristianScience came to his help, and "the old sick conditions passed away, " andalong with them the "dismal forebodings" which he had been accustomedto employ in conjuring up ailments. And so he was a healthy and cheerfulman, now, and astonished. 

But I am not astonished, for from other sources I know what must havebeen his method of applying Christian Science. If I am in the right, hewatchfully and diligently diverted his mind from unhealthy channels andcompelled it to travel in healthy ones. Nothing contrivable by humaninvention could be more formidably effective than that, in banishingimaginary ailments and in closing the entrances against sub-sequentapplicants of their breed. I think his method was to keep saying, "Iam well! I am sound!--sound and well! well and sound! Perfectly sound, perfectly well! I have no pain; there's no such thing as pain! I have nodisease; there's no such thing as disease! Nothing is real but Mind; allis Mind, All-Good Good-Good, Life, Soul, Liver, Bones, one of a series, ante and pass the buck!"

I do not mean that that was exactly the formula used, but that itdoubtless contains the spirit of it. The Scientist would attach value tothe exact formula, no doubt, and to the religious spirit in which it wasused. I should think that any formula that would divert the mind fromunwholesome channels and force it into healthy ones would answer everypurpose with some people, though not with all. I think it most likelythat a very religious man would find the addition of the religiousspirit a powerful reinforcement in his case. 

The second witness testifies that the Science banished "an old organictrouble, " which the doctor and the surgeon had been nursing with drugsand the knife for seven years. 

He calls it his "claim. " A surface-miner would think it was nothis claim at all, but the property of the doctor and his pal thesurgeon--for he would be misled by that word, which is Christian-Scienceslang for "ailment. " The Christian Scientist has no ailment; to himthere is no such thing, and he will not use the hateful word. All thathappens to him is that upon his attention an imaginary disturbancesometimes obtrudes itself which claims to be an ailment but isn't. 

This witness offers testimony for a clergyman seventy years old who hadpreached forty years in a Christian church, and has now gone over to thenew sect. He was "almost blind and deaf. " He was treated by the C. S. Method, and "when he heard the voice of Truth he saw spiritually. " Sawspiritually? It is a little indefinite; they had better treat him again. Indefinite testimonies might properly be waste-basketed, since there isevidently no lack of definite ones procurable; but this C. S. Magazineis poorly edited, and so mistakes of this kind must be expected. 

The next witness is a soldier of the Civil War. When Christian Sciencefound him, he had in stock the following claims:

Indigestion, Rheumatism, Catarrh, Chalky deposits in Shoulder-joints, Arm-joints, Hand-joints, Insomnia, Atrophy of the muscles of Arms. Shoulders, Stiffness of all those joints, Excruciating pains most of thetime. 

These claims have a very substantial sound. They came of exposure in thecampaigns. The doctors did all they could, but it was little. Prayerswere tried, but "I never realized any physical relief from that source. "After thirty years of torture, he went to a Christian Scientist and tookan hour's treatment and went home painless. Two days later, he "beganto eat like a well man. " Then "the claims vanished--some at once, othersmore gradually"; finally, "they have almost entirely disappeared. "And--a thing which is of still greater value--he is now "contented andhappy. " That is a detail which, as earlier remarked, is a ScientistChurch specialty. And, indeed, one may go further and assert withlittle or no exaggeration that it is a Christian-Science monopoly. Withthirty-one years' effort, the Methodist Church had not succeeded infurnishing it to this harassed soldier. 

And so the tale goes on. Witness after witness bulletins his claims, declares their prompt abolishment, and gives Mrs. Eddy's Discovery thepraise. Milk-leg is cured; nervous prostration is cured; consumption iscured; and St. Vitus's dance is made a pastime. Even without a fiddle. And now and then an interesting new addition to the Science slangappears on the page. We have "demonstrations over chilblains" and suchthings. It seems to be a curtailed way of saying "demonstrations ofthe power of Christian-Science Truth over the fiction which masqueradesunder the name of Chilblains. " The children, as well as the adults, share in the blessings of the Science. "Through the study of the 'littlebook' they are learning how to be healthful, peaceful, and wise. "Sometimes they are cured of their little claims by the professionalhealer, and sometimes more advanced children say over the formula andcure themselves. 

A little Far-Western girl of nine, equipped with an adult vocabulary, states her age and says, "I thought I would write a demonstration toyou. " She had a claim, derived from getting flung over a pony's head andlanded on a rockpile. She saved herself from disaster by remembering tosay "God is All" while she was in the air. I couldn't have done it. I shouldn't even have thought of it. I should have been too excited. Nothing but Christian Science could have enabled that child to do thatcalm and thoughtful and judicious thing in those circumstances. She camedown on her head, and by all the rules she should have broken it;but the intervention of the formula prevented that, so the only claimresulting was a blackened eye. Monday morning it was still swollen andshut. At school "it hurt pretty badly--that is, it seemed to. " So "I wasexcused, and went down to the basement and said, 'Now I am depending onmamma instead of God, and I will depend on God instead of mamma. '" Nodoubt this would have answered; but, to make sure, she added Mrs. Eddyto the team and recited "the Scientific Statement of Being, " whichis one of the principal incantations, I judge. Then "I felt my eyeopening. " Why, dear, it would have opened an oyster. I think it is oneof the touchingest things in child-history, that pious little rat downcellar pumping away at the Scientific Statement of Being. 

There is a page about another good child--little Gordon. Little Gordon"came into the world without the assistance of surgery or anaesthetics. "He was a "demonstration. " A painless one; therefore, his coming evoked"joy and thankfulness to God and the Discoverer of Christian Science. "It is a noticeable feature of this literature--the so frequent linkingtogether of the Two Beings in an equal bond; also of Their Two Bibles. When little Gordon was two years old, "he was playing horse on the bed, where I had left my 'little book. ' I noticed him stop in his play, takethe book carefully in his little hands, kiss it softly, then look aboutfor the highest place of safety his arms could reach, and put it there. "This pious act filled the mother "with such a train of thought as I hadnever experienced before. I thought of the sweet mother of long agowho kept things in her heart, " etc. It is a bold comparison; however, unconscious profanations are about as common in the mouths of the laymember ship of the new Church as are frank and open ones in the mouthsof its consecrated chiefs. 

Some days later, the family library--Christian-Science books--was lyingin a deep-seated window. This was another chance for the holy child toshow off. He left his play and went there and pushed all the books toone side, except the Annex "It he took in both hands, slowly raisedit to his lips, then removed it carefully, and seated himself in thewindow. " It had seemed to the mother too wonderful to be true, thatfirst time; but now she was convinced that "neither imagination noraccident had anything to do with it. " Later, little Gordon let theauthor of his being see him do it. After that he did it frequently;probably every time anybody was looking. I would rather have that childthan a chromo. If this tale has any object, it is to intimate that theinspired book was supernaturally able to convey a sense of its sacredand awful character to this innocent little creature, withoutthe intervention of outside aids. The magazine is not edited withhigh-priced discretion. The editor has a "claim, " and he ought to get ittreated. 

Among other witnesses there is one who had a "jumping toothache, "which several times tempted her to "believe that there was sensation inmatter, but each time it was overcome by the power of Truth. " She wouldnot allow the dentist to use cocaine, but sat there and let himpunch and drill and split and crush the tooth, and tear and slash itsulcerations, and pull out the nerve, and dig out fragments of bone; andshe wouldn't once confess that it hurt. And to this day she thinks itdidn't, and I have not a doubt that she is nine-tenths right, and thather Christian Science faith did her better service than she could havegotten out of cocaine. 

There is an account of a boy who got broken all up into small bits byan accident, but said over the Scientific Statement of Being, or some ofthe other incantations, and got well and sound without having sufferedany real pain and without the intrusion of a surgeon. 

Also, there is an account of the restoration to perfect health, ina single night, of a fatally injured horse, by the application ofChristian Science. I can stand a good deal, but I recognize that the iceis getting thin, here. That horse had as many as fifty claims; howcould he demonstrate over them? Could he do the All-Good, Good-Good, Good-Gracious, Liver, Bones, Truth, All down but Nine, Set them up onthe Other Alley? Could he intone the Scientific Statement of Being?Now, could he? Wouldn't it give him a relapse? Let us draw the line athorses. Horses and furniture. 

There is plenty of other testimonies in the magazine, but these quotedsamples will answer. They show the kind of trade the Science is driving. Now we come back to the question, Does the Science kill a patient hereand there and now and then? We must concede it. Does it compensatefor this? I am persuaded that it can make a plausible showing in thatdirection. For instance: when it lays its hand upon a soldier who hassuffered thirty years of helpless torture and makes him whole in bodyand mind, what is the actual sum of that achievement? This, I think:that it has restored to life a subject who had essentially died tendeaths a year for thirty years, and each of them a long and painful one. But for its interference that man in the three years which have sinceelapsed, would have essentially died thirty times more. There arethousands of young people in the land who are now ready to enter upon alife-long death similar to that man's. Every time the Sciencecaptures one of these and secures to him life-long immunity fromimagination-manufactured disease, it may plausibly claim that in hisperson it has saved three hundred lives. Meantime, it will kill a manevery now and then. But no matter, it will still be ahead on the creditside. 

[NOTE. --I have received several letters (two from educated andostensibly intelligent persons), which contained, in substance, thisprotest: "I don't object to men and women chancing their lives withthese people, but it is a burning shame that the law should allow themto trust their helpless little children in their deadly hands. " Isn't ittouching? Isn't it deep? Isn't it modest? It is as if the person said:"I know that to a parent his child is the core of his heart, the appleof his eye, a possession so dear, so precious that he will trust itslife in no hands but those which he believes, with all his soul, to bethe very best and the very safest, but it is a burning shame that thelaw does not require him to come to me to ask what kind of healer I willallow him to call. " The public is merely a multiplied "me. "--M. T. ]

CHAPTER VII

"We consciously declare that Science and Health, with Key to theScriptures, was foretold, as well as its author, Mary Baker Eddy, inRevelation x. She is the 'mighty angel, ' or God's highest thought tothis age (verse 1), giving us the spiritual interpretation of theBible in the 'little book open' (verse 2). Thus we prove that ChristianScience is the second coming of Christ-Truth-Spirit. "--Lecture by Dr. George Tomkins, D. D. C. S. 

There you have it in plain speech. She is the mighty angel; she is thedivinely and officially sent bearer of God's highest thought. For thepresent, she brings the Second Advent. We must expect that before shehas been in her grave fifty years she will be regarded by her followingas having been herself the Second Advent. She is already worshiped, andwe must expect this feeling to spread, territorially, and also to deepenin intensity. 

Particularly after her death; for then, as any one can foresee, Eddy-Worship will be taught in the Sunday-schools and pulpits of thecult. Already whatever she puts her trade-mark on, though it be onlya memorial-spoon, is holy and is eagerly and gratefully bought by thedisciple, and becomes a fetish in his house. I say bought, for theBoston Christian-Science Trust gives nothing away; everything it hasis for sale. And the terms are cash; and not only cash, but cash inadvance. Its god is Mrs. Eddy first, then the Dollar. Not a spiritualDollar, but a real one. From end to end of the Christian Scienceliterature not a single (material) thing in the world is conceded to bereal, except the Dollar. But all through and through its advertisementsthat reality is eagerly and persistently recognized. 

The Dollar is hunted down in all sorts of ways; the Christian-ScienceMother-Church and Bargain-Counter in Boston peddles all kinds ofspiritual wares to the faithful, and always on the one condition--cash, cash in advance. The Angel of the Apocalypse could not go there and geta copy of his own pirated book on credit. Many, many precious ChristianScience things are to be had there for cash: Bible Lessons; ChurchManual; C. S. Hymnal; History of the building of the Mother-Church; lotof Sermons; Communion Hymn, "Saw Ye My Saviour, " by Mrs. Eddy, half adollar a copy, "words used by special permission of Mrs. Eddy. " Also wehave Mrs. Eddy's and the Angel's little Blue-Annex in eight stylesof binding at eight kinds of war-prices; among these a sweet thing in"levant, divinity circuit, leather lined to edge, round corners, goldedge, silk sewed, each, prepaid, $6, " and if you take a million you getthem a shilling cheaper--that is to say, "prepaid, $5. 75. " Also wehave Mrs. Eddy's Miscellaneous Writings, at 'andsome big prices, thedivinity-circuit style heading the exertions, shilling discount whereyou take an edition Next comes Christ and Christmas, by the fertile Mrs. Eddy--a poem--would God I could see it!--price $3, cash in advance. Thenfollow five more books by Mrs. Eddy, at highwayman's rates, some ofthem in "leatherette covers, " some of them in "pebble cloth, " withdivinity-circuit, compensation-balance, twin-screw, and the other modernimprovements; and at the same bargain-counter can be had The ChristianScience Journal. 

Christian-Science literary discharges are a monopoly of theMother-Church Headquarters Factory in Boston; none genuine without thetrade-mark of the Trust. You must apply there and not elsewhere. 

One hundred dollars for it. And I have a case among my statistics wherethe student had a three weeks' course and paid three hundred for it. 

The Trust does love the Dollar, when it isn't a spiritual one. 

In order to force the sale of Mrs Eddy's Bible-Annex, no healer, Metaphysical-College-bred or other, is allowed to practice the gameunless he possesses a copy of that book. That means a large andconstantly augmenting income for the Trust. No C. S. Family wouldconsider itself loyal or pious or pain-proof without an Annex or two inthe house. That means an income for the Trust, in the near future, ofmillions; not thousands-millions a year. 

No member, young or old, of a branch Christian-Scientist church canacquire and retain membership in the Mother-Church unless he pay"capitation tax" (of "not less than a dollar, " say the By-Laws) to theBoston Trust every year. That means an income for the Trust, in the nearfuture, of--let us venture to say--millions more per year. 

It is a reasonably safe guess that in America in 1920 there will be tenmillion Christian Scientists, and three millions in Great Britain;that these figures will be trebled in 1930; that in America in 1920the Christian Scientists will be a political force, in 1930 politicallyformidable, and in 1940 the governing power in the Republic--to remainthat, permanently. And I think it a reasonable guess that the Trust(which is already in our day pretty brusque in its ways) will then bethe most insolent and unscrupulous and tyrannical politico-religiousmaster that has dominated a people since the palmy days of theInquisition. And a stronger master than the strongest of bygone times, because this one will have a financial strength not dreamed of by anypredecessor; as effective a concentration of irresponsible power as anypredecessor has had; in the railway, the telegraph, and the subsidizednewspaper, better facilities for watching and managing his empirethan any predecessor has had; and, after a generation or two, he willprobably divide Christendom with the Catholic Church. 

The Roman Church has a perfect organization, and it has an effectivecentralization of power--but not of its cash. Its multitude of Bishopsare rich, but their riches remain in large measure in their own hands. They collect from two hundred millions of people, but they keep thebulk of the result at home. The Boston Pope of by-and-by will draw hisdollar-a-head capitation-tax from three hundred millions of the humanrace, and the Annex and the rest of his book-shop stock will fetch in asmuch more; and his Metaphysical Colleges, the annual Pilgrimage to Mrs. Eddy's tomb, from all over the world-admission, the Christian-ScienceDollar (payable in advance)--purchases of consecrated glass beads, candles, memorial spoons, aureoled chrome-portraits and bogus autographsof Mrs. Eddy; cash offerings at her shrine no crutches of cured cripplesreceived, and no imitations of miraculously restored broken legs andnecks allowed to be hung up except when made out of the Holy Metaland proved by fire-assay; cash for miracles worked at the tomb: thesemoney-sources, with a thousand to be yet invented and ambushed upon thedevotee, will bring the annual increment well up above a billion. Andnobody but the Trust will have the handling of it. In that day, theTrust will monopolize the manufacture and sale of the Old and NewTestaments as well as the Annex, and raise their price to Annex rates, and compel the devotee to buy (for even to-day a healer has to have theAnnex and the Scriptures or he is not allowed to work the game), andthat will bring several hundred million dollars more. In those days, theTrust will have an income approaching five million dollars a day, andno expenses to be taken out of it; no taxes to pay, and no charitiesto support. That last detail should not be lightly passed over by thereader; it is well entitled to attention. 

No charities to support. No, nor even to contribute to. One searches invain the Trust's advertisements and the utterances of its organs forany suggestion that it spends a penny on orphans, widows, dischargedprisoners, hospitals, ragged schools, night missions, city missions, libraries, old people's homes, or any other object that appeals to ahuman being's purse through his heart. 

I have hunted, hunted, and hunted, by correspondence and otherwise, andhave not yet got upon the track of a farthing that the Trust has spentupon any worthy object. Nothing makes a Scientist so uncomfortable as toask him if he knows of a case where Christian Science has spent moneyon a benevolence, either among its own adherents or elsewhere. He isobliged to say "No" And then one discovers that the person questionedhas been asked the question many times before, and that it is getting tobe a sore subject with him. Why a sore subject? Because he has writtenhis chiefs and asked with high confidence for an answer that willconfound these questioners--and the chiefs did not reply. He has writtenagain, and then again--not with confidence, but humbly, now--and hasbegged for defensive ammunition in the voice of supplication. A replydoes at last come to this effect: "We must have faith in Our Mother, andrest content in the conviction that whatever She does with the moneyit is in accordance with orders from Heaven, for She does no act of anykind without first 'demonstrating over' it. "

That settles it--as far as the disciple is concerned. His mindis satisfied with that answer; he gets down his Annex and does anincantation or two, and that mesmerizes his spirit and puts that tosleep--brings it peace. Peace and comfort and joy, until some inquirerpunctures the old sore again. 

Through friends in America I asked some questions, and in some casesgot definite and informing answers; in other cases the answers were notdefinite and not valuable. To the question, "Does any of the money go tocharities?" the answer from an authoritative source was: "No, not inthe sense usually conveyed by this word. " (The italics are mine. ) Thatanswer is cautious. But definite, I think--utterly and unassailablydefinite--although quite Christian-Scientifically foggy in its phrasing. Christian-Science testimony is generally foggy, generally diffuse, generally garrulous. The writer was aware that the first word in hisphrase answered the question which I was asking, but he could not helpadding nine dark words. Meaningless ones, unless explained by him. It isquite likely, as intimated by him, that Christian Science has inventeda new class of objects to apply the word "charity" to, but without anexplanation we cannot know what they are. We quite easily and naturallyand confidently guess that they are in all cases objects which willreturn five hundred per cent. On the Trust's investment in them, but guessing is not knowledge; it is merely, in this case, a sortof nine-tenths certainty deducible from what we think we know of theTrust's trade principles and its sly and furtive and shifty ways. 

Sly? Deep? Judicious? The Trust understands its business. The Trust doesnot give itself away. It defeats all the attempts of us impertinents toget at its trade secrets. To this day, after all our diligence, we havenot been able to get it to confess what it does with the money. It doesnot even let its own disciples find out. All it says is, that the matterhas been "demonstrated over. " Now and then a lay Scientist says, witha grateful exultation, that Mrs. Eddy is enormously rich, but he stopsthere; as to whether any of the money goes to other charities or not, he is obliged to admit that he does not know. However, the Trust iscomposed of human beings; and this justifies the conjecture that if ithad a charity on its list which it was proud of, we should soon hear ofit. 

"Without money and without price. " Those used to be the terms. Mrs. Eddy's Annex cancels them. The motto of Christian Science is, "Thelaborer is worthy of his hire. " And now that it has been "demonstratedover, " we find its spiritual meaning to be, "Do anything and everythingyour hand may find to do; and charge cash for it, and collect the moneyin advance. " The Scientist has on his tongue's end a cut-and-dried, Boston-supplied set of rather lean arguments, whose function is to showthat it is a Heaven-commanded duty to do this, and that the croupiers ofthe game have no choice but to obey. 

The Trust seems to be a reincarnation. Exodus xxxii. 4. 

I have no reverence for the Trust, but I am not lacking in reverence forthe sincerities of the lay membership of the new Church. There is everyevidence that the lay members are entirely sincere in their faith, andI think sincerity is always entitled to honor and respect, let theinspiration of the sincerity be what it may. Zeal and sincerity cancarry a new religion further than any other missionary except fire andsword, and I believe that the new religion will conquer the half ofChristendom in a hundred years. I am not intending this as a complimentto the human race; I am merely stating an opinion. And yet I think thatperhaps it is a compliment to the race. I keep in mind that saying ofan orthodox preacher--quoted further back. He conceded that this newChristianity frees its possessor's life from frets, fears, vexations, bitterness, and all sorts of imagination-propagated maladies and pains, and fills his world with sunshine and his heart with gladness. IfChristian Science, with this stupendous equipment--and final salvationadded--cannot win half the Christian globe, I must be badly mistaken inthe make-up of the human race. 

I think the Trust will be handed down like the other Papacy, and willalways know how to handle its limitless cash. It will press the button;the zeal, the energy, the sincerity, the enthusiasm of its countlessvassals will do the rest. 

CHAPTER VIII

The power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or makeit sick is a force which none of us is born without. The first man hadit, the last one will possess it. If left to himself, a man is mostlikely to use only the mischievous half of the force--the half whichinvents imaginary ailments for him and cultivates them; and if he isone of these--very wise people, he is quite likely to scoff at thebeneficent half of the force and deny its existence. And so, to healor help that man, two imaginations are required: his own and someoutsider's. The outsider, B, must imagine that his incantations are thehealing-power that is curing A, and A must imagine that this is so. Ithink it is not so, at all; but no matter, the cure is effected, andthat is the main thing. The outsider's work is unquestionably valuable;so valuable that it may fairly be likened to the essential workperformed by the engineer when he handles the throttle and turns on thesteam; the actual power is lodged exclusively in the engine, but ifthe engine were left alone it would never start of itself. Whether theengineer be named Jim, or Bob, or Tom, it is all one--his services arenecessary, and he is entitled to such wage as he can get you to pay. Whether he be named Christian Scientist, or Mental Scientist, or MindCurist, or King's-Evil Expert, or Hypnotist, it is all one; he is merelythe Engineer; he simply turns on the same old steam and the engine doesthe whole work. 

The Christian-Scientist engineer drives exactly the same trade as theother engineers, yet he out-prospers the whole of them put together. 

Is it because he has captured the takingest name? I think that that isonly a small part of it. I think that the secret of his high prosperitylies elsewhere. 

The Christian Scientist has organized the business. Now that wascertainly a gigantic idea. Electricity, in limitless volume, hasexisted in the air and the rocks and the earth and everywhere sincetime began--and was going to waste all the while. In our time we haveorganized that scattered and wandering force and set it to work, and backed the business with capital, and concentrated it in few andcompetent hands, and the results are as we see. 

The Christian Scientist has taken a force which has been lying idle inevery member of the human race since time began, and has organized it, and backed the business with capital, and concentrated it at Bostonheadquarters in the hands of a small and very competent Trust, and thereare results. 

Therein lies the promise that this monopoly is going to extend itscommerce wide in the earth. I think that if the business were conductedin the loose and disconnected fashion customary with such things, itwould achieve but little more than the modest prosperity usually securedby unorganized great moral and commercial ventures; but I believe thatso long as this one remains compactly organized and closely concentratedin a Trust, the spread of its dominion will continue. 

CHAPTER IX

Four years ago I wrote the preceding chapters. I was assured by the wisethat Christian Science was a fleeting craze and would soon perish. Thisprompt and all-competent stripe of prophet is always to be had in themarket at ground-floor rates. He does not stop to load, or consider, ortake aim, but lets fly just as he stands. Facts are nothing to him, hehas no use for such things; he works wholly by inspiration. And so, whenhe is asked why he considers a new movement a passing fad and quicklyperishable, he finds himself unprepared with a reason and is more orless embarrassed. For a moment. Only for a moment. Then he waylays thefirst spectre of a reason that goes flitting through the desert placesof his mind, and is at once serene again and ready for conflict. Sereneand confident. Yet he should not be so, since he has had no chanceto examine his catch, and cannot know whether it is going to help hiscontention or damage it. 

The impromptu reason furnished by the early prophets of whom I havespoken was this:

"There is nothing to Christian Science; there is nothing about itthat appeals to the intellect; its market will be restricted to theunintelligent, the mentally inferior, the people who do not think. "

They called that a reason why the cult would not flourish and endure. Itseems the equivalent of saying:

"There is no money in tinware; there is nothing about it that appeals tothe rich; its market will be restricted to the poor. "

It is like bringing forward the best reason in the world why ChristianScience should flourish and live, and then blandly offering it as areason why it should sicken and die. 

That reason was furnished me by the complacent and unfrightenedprophets four years ago, and it has been furnished me again to-day. Ifconversions to new religions or to old ones were in any considerabledegree achieved through the intellect, the aforesaid reason would besound and sufficient, no doubt; the inquirer into Christian Sciencemight go away unconvinced and unconverted. But we all know thatconversions are seldom made in that way; that such a thing as a seriousand painstaking and fairly competent inquiry into the claims of areligion or of a political dogma is a rare occurrence; and that thevast mass of men and women are far from being capable of making suchan examination. They are not capable, for the reason that their minds, howsoever good they may be, are not trained for such examinations. Themind not trained for that work is no more competent to do it thanare lawyers and farmers competent to make successful clothes withoutlearning the tailor's trade. There are seventy-five million men andwomen among us who do not know how to cut out and make a dress-suit, andthey would not think of trying; yet they all think they can competentlythink out a political or religious scheme without any apprenticeship tothe business, and many of them believe they have actually worked thatmiracle. But, indeed, the truth is, almost all the men and women of ournation or of any other get their religion and their politics where theyget their astronomy--entirely at second hand. Being untrained, they areno more able to intelligently examine a dogma or a policy than they areto calculate an eclipse. 

Men are usually competent thinkers along the lines of their specializedtraining only. Within these limits alone are their opinions andjudgments valuable; outside of these limits they grope and arelost--usually without knowing it. In a church assemblage of five hundredpersons, there will be a man or two whose trained minds can seize uponeach detail of a great manufacturing scheme and recognize its valueor its lack of value promptly; and can pass the details in intelligentreview, section by section, and finally as a whole, and then deliver averdict upon the scheme which cannot be flippantly set aside nor easilyanswered. And there will be one or two other men there who can do thesame thing with a great and complicated educational project; and oneor two others who can do the like with a large scheme for applyingelectricity in a new and unheard-of way; and one or two others who cando it with a showy scheme for revolutionizing the scientific world'saccepted notions regarding geology. And so on, and so on. But themanufacturing experts will not be competent to examine the educationalscheme intelligently, and their opinion about it would not be valuable;neither of these two groups will be able to understand and pass upon theelectrical scheme; none of these three batches of experts will be ableto understand and pass upon the geological revolution; and probably notone man in the entire lot will be competent to examine, capably, theintricacies of a political or religious scheme, new or old, and delivera judgment upon it which any one need regard as precious. 

There you have the top crust. There will be four hundred andseventy-five men and women present who can draw upon their training anddeliver incontrovertible judgments concerning cheese, and leather, and cattle, and hardware, and soap, and tar, and candles, and patentmedicines, and dreams, and apparitions, and garden trucks, and cats, andbaby food, and warts, and hymns, and time-tables, and freight-rates, andsummer resorts, and whiskey, and law, and surgery, and dentistry, andblacksmithing, and shoemaking, and dancing, and Huyler's candy, andmathematics, and dog fights, and obstetrics, and music, and sausages, and dry goods, and molasses, and railroad stocks, and horses, andliterature, and labor unions, and vegetables, and morals, and lamb'sfries, and etiquette, and agriculture. And not ten among the fivehundred--let their minds be ever so good and bright--will be competent, by grace of the requisite specialized mental training, to take hold of acomplex abstraction of any kind and make head or tail of it. 

The whole five hundred are thinkers, and they are all capablethinkers--but only within the narrow limits of their specializedtrainings. Four hundred and ninety of them cannot competently examineeither a religious plan or a political one. A scattering few of them doexamine both--that is, they think they do. With results as precious aswhen I examine the nebular theory and explain it to myself. 

If the four hundred and ninety got their religion through their minds, and by weighed and measured detail, Christian Science would not be ascary apparition. But they don't; they get a little of it through theirminds, more of it through their feelings, and the overwhelming bulk ofit through their environment. 

Environment is the chief thing to be considered when one is proposing topredict the future of Christian Science. It is not the ability to reasonthat makes the Presbyterian, or the Baptist, or the Methodist, or theCatholic, or the Mohammedan, or the Buddhist, or the Mormon; it isenvironment. If religions were got by reasoning, we should have theextraordinary spectacle of an American family with a Presbyterian in it, and a Baptist, a Methodist, a Catholic, a Mohammedan, a Buddhist, anda Mormon. A Presbyterian family does not produce Catholic familiesor other religious brands, it produces its own kind; and notby intellectual processes, but by association. And so also withMohammedanism, the cult which in our day is spreading with the sweep ofa world-conflagration through the Orient, that native home of profoundthought and of subtle intellectual fence, that fertile womb whence hassprung every great religion that exists. Including our own; for with allour brains we cannot invent a religion and market it. 

The language of my quoted prophets recurs to us now, and we wonder tothink how small a space in the world the mighty Mohammedan Church wouldbe occupying now, if a successful trade in its line of goods had beenconditioned upon an exhibit that would "appeal to the intellect" insteadof to "the unintelligent, the mentally inferior, the people who do notthink. "

The Christian Science Church, like the Mohammedan Church, makes noembarrassing appeal to the intellect, has no occasion to do it, and canget along quite well without it. 

Provided. Provided what? That it can secure that thing which isworth two or three hundred thousand times more than an "appeal to theintellect"--an environment. Can it get that? Will it be a menaceto regular Christianity if it gets that? Is it time for regularChristianity to get alarmed? Or shall regular Christianity smile a smileand turn over and take another nap? Won't it be wise and proper forregular Christianity to do the old way, Me customary way, the historicalway--lock the stable-door after the horse is gone? Just as Protestantismhas smiled and nodded this long time (while the alert and diligentCatholic was slipping in and capturing the public schools), and is nowbeginning to hunt around for the key when it is too late?

Will Christian Science get a chance to show its wares? It has alreadysecured that chance. Will it flourish and spread and prosper if itshall create for itself the one thing essential to those conditions--anenvironment? It has already created an environment. There are familiesof Christian Scientists in every community in America, and each familyis a factory; each family turns out a Christian Science product at thecustomary intervals, and contributes it to the Cause in the only wayin which contributions of recruits to Churches are ever made on a largescale--by the puissant forces of personal contact and association. Each family is an agency for the Cause, and makes converts among theneighbors, and starts some more factories. 

Four years ago there were six Christian Scientists in a certain townthat I am acquainted with; a year ago there were two hundred and fiftythere; they have built a church, and its membership now numbers fourhundred. This has all been quietly done; done without frenzied revivals, without uniforms, brass bands, street parades, corner oratory, or any ofthe other customary persuasions to a godly life. Christian Science, likeMohammedanism, is "restricted" to the "unintelligent, the people whodo not think. " There lies the danger. It makes Christian Scienceformidable. It is "restricted" to ninety-nine one-hundredths of thehuman race, and must be reckoned with by regular Christianity. And willbe, as soon as it is too late. 

BOOK II

"There were remarkable things about the stranger called theMan--Mystery-things so very extraordinary that they monopolizedattention and made all of him seem extraordinary; but this was not so, the most of his qualities being of the common, every-day size and likeanybody else's. It was curious. He was of the ordinary stature, and hadthe ordinary aspects; yet in him were hidden such strange contradictionsand disproportions! He was majestically fearless and heroic; he hadthe strength of thirty men and the daring of thirty thousand; handlingarmies, organizing states, administering governments--these werepastimes to him; he publicly and ostentatiously accepted the human raceat its own valuation--as demigods--and privately and successfully dealtwith it at quite another and juster valuation--as children and slaves;his ambitions were stupendous, and his dreams had no commerce with thehumble plain, but moved with the cloud-rack among the snow-summits. These features of him were, indeed, extraordinary, but the rest ofhim was ordinary and usual. He was so mean-minded, in the matter ofjealousy, that it was thought he was descended from a god; he was vainin little ways, and had a pride in trivialities; he doted on balladsabout moonshine and bruised hearts; in education he was deficient, hewas indifferent to literature, and knew nothing of art; he was dumb uponall subjects but one, indifferent to all except that one--the NebularTheory. Upon that one his flow of words was full and free, he was ageyser. The official astronomers disputed his facts and deeded hisviews, and said that he had invented both, they not being findable inany of the books. But many of the laity, who wanted their nebulositiesfresh, admired his doctrine and adopted it, and it attained to greatprosperity in spite of the hostility of the experts. "--The Legend of theMan-Mystery, ch. I. 

CHAPTER I

JANUARY, 1903. When we do not know a public man personally, we guess himout by the facts of his career. When it is Washington, we all arriveat about one and the same result. We agree that his words and his actsclearly interpret his character to us, and that they never leave us indoubt as to the motives whence the words and acts proceeded. It is thesame with Joan of Arc, it is the same with two or three or five or sixothers among the immortals. But in the matter of motives and of a fewdetails of character we agree to disagree upon Napoleon, Cromwell, andall the rest; and to this list we must add Mrs. Eddy. I think we canpeacefully agree as to two or three extraordinary features of hermake-up, but not upon the other features of it. We cannot peacefullyagree as to her motives, therefore her character must remain crooked tosome of us and straight to the others. 

No matter, she is interesting enough without an amicable agreement. Inseveral ways she is the most interesting woman that ever lived, and themost extraordinary. The same may be said of her career, and the samemay be said of its chief result. She started from nothing. Her enemiescharge that she surreptitiously took from Quimby a peculiar system ofhealing which was mind-cure with a Biblical basis. She and her friendsdeny that she took anything from him. This is a matter which wecan discuss by-and-by. Whether she took it or invented it, itwas--materially--a sawdust mine when she got it, and she has turned itinto a Klondike; its spiritual dock had next to no custom, if any atall: from it she has launched a world-religion which has now six hundredand sixty-three churches, and she charters a new one every four days. When we do not know a person--and also when we do--we have to judge hissize by the size and nature of his achievements, as compared with theachievements of others in his special line of business--there is noother way. Measured by this standard, it is thirteen hundred yearssince the world has produced any one who could reach up to Mrs. Eddy'swaistbelt. 

Figuratively speaking, Mrs. Eddy is already as tall as the Eiffel tower. She is adding surprisingly to her stature every day. It is quite withinthe probabilities that a century hence she will be the most imposingfigure that has cast its shadow across the globe since the inaugurationof our era. I grant that after saying these strong things, it isnecessary that I offer some details calculated to satisfactorilydemonstrate the proportions which I have claimed for her. I will do thatpresently; but before exhibiting the matured sequoia gigantea, I believeit will be best to exhibit the sprout from which it sprang. It may savethe reader from making miscalculations. The person who imagines that aBig Tree sprout is bigger than other kinds of sprouts is quite mistaken. It is the ordinary thing; it makes no show, it compels no notice, ithasn't a detectible quality in it that entitles it to attention, orsuggests the future giant its sap is suckling. That is the kind ofsprout Mrs. Eddy was. 

From her childhood days up to where she was running a half-century aclose race and gaining on it, she was most humanly commonplace. 

She is the witness I am drawing this from. She has revealed it in herautobiography not intentionally, of course--I am not claiming that. Anautobiography is the most treacherous thing there is. It lets outevery secret its author is trying to keep; it lets the truth shineunobstructed through every harmless little deception he tries to play;it pitilessly exposes him as a tin hero worshipping himself as Big Metalevery time he tries to do the modest-unconsciousness act before thereader. This is not guessing; I am speaking from autobiographicalpersonal experience; I was never able to refrain from mentioning, witha studied casualness that could deceive none but the most incautiousreader, that an ancestor of mine was sent ambassador to Spain by CharlesI. , nor that in a remote branch of my family there exists a claimantto an earldom, nor that an uncle of mine used to own a dog that wasdescended from the dog that was in the Ark; and at the same time I wasnever able to persuade myself to call a gibbet by its right name whenaccounting for other ancestors of mine, but always spoke of it as the"platform"--puerilely intimating that they were out lecturing when ithappened. 

It is Mrs. Eddy over again. As regards her minor half, she is ascommonplace as the rest of us. Vain of trivial things all the first halfof her life, and still vain of them at seventy and recording them withnaive satisfaction--even rescuing some early rhymes of hers of the sortthat we all scribble in the innocent days of our youth--rescuing themand printing them without pity or apology, just as the weakest andcommonest of us do in our gray age. More--she still frankly admiresthem; and in her introduction of them profanely confers upon them theholy name of "poetry. " Sample:

 "And laud the land whose talents rock The cradle of her power, And wreaths are twined round Plymouth Rock From erudition's bower. "

 "Minerva's silver sandals still Are loosed and not effete. "

You note it is not a shade above the thing which all human beings churnout in their youth. 

You would not think that in a little wee primer--for that is what theAutobiography is--a person with a tumultuous career of seventy yearsbehind her could find room for two or three pages of padding of thiskind, but such is the case. She evidently puts narrative together withdifficulty and is not at home in it, and is glad to have somethingready-made to fill in with. Another sample:

 "Here fame-honored Hickory rears his bold form, And bears a brave breast to the lightning and storm, While Palm, Bay, and Laurel in classical glee, Chase Tulip, Magnolia, and fragrant Fringe-tree. "

Vivid? You can fairly see those trees galloping around. That shecould still treasure up, and print, and manifestly admire those Poems, indicates that the most daring and masculine and masterful woman thathas appeared in the earth in centuries has the same soft, girly-girlyplaces in her that the rest of us have. 

When it comes to selecting her ancestors she is still human, natural, vain, commonplace--as commonplace as I am myself when I am sortingancestors for my autobiography. She combs out some creditable Scots, andlabels them and sets them aside for use, not overlooking the one to whomSir William Wallace gave "a heavy sword encased in a brass scabbard, "and naively explaining which Sir William Wallace it was, lest we getthe wrong one by the hassock; this is the one "from whose patriotismand bravery comes that heart-stirring air, 'Scots wha hae wi' Wallacebled. '" Hannah More was related to her ancestors. She explains whoHannah More was. 

Whenever a person informs us who Sir William Wallace was, or who wrote"Hamlet, " or where the Declaration of Independence was fought, it fillsus with a suspicion wellnigh amounting to conviction, that that personwould not suspect us of being so empty of knowledge if he wasn'tsuffering from the same "claim" himself. Then we turn to page 20 of theAutobiography and happen upon this passage, and that hasty suspicionstands rebuked:

"I gained book-knowledge with far less labor than is usually requisite. At ten years of age I was as familiar with Lindley Murray's Grammar aswith the Westminster Catechism; and the latter I had to repeat everySunday. My favorite studies were Natural Philosophy, Logic, and MoralScience. From my brother Albert I received lessons in the ancienttongues, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. "

You catch your breath in astonishment, and feel again and still againthe pang of that rebuke. But then your eye falls upon the next sentencebut one, and the pain passes away and you set up the suspicion againwith evil satisfaction:

"After my discovery of Christian Science, most of the knowledge I hadgleaned from school-books vanished like a dream. "

That disappearance accounts for much in her miscellaneous writings. As Iwas saying, she handles her "ancestral shadows, " as she calls them, justas I do mine. It is remarkable. When she runs across "a relative of myGrandfather Baker, General Henry Knox, of Revolutionary fame, " she setshim down; when she finds another good one, "the late Sir John Macneill, in the line of my Grandfather Baker's family, " she sets him down, andremembers that he "was prominent in British politics, and at one timeheld the position of ambassador to Persia"; when she discovers that hergrandparents "were likewise connected with Captain John Lovewell, whosegallant leadership and death in the Indian troubles of 1722-25 causedthat prolonged contest to be known historically as Lovewell's War, "she sets the Captain down; when it turns out that a cousin of hergrandmother "was John Macneill, the New Hampshire general, who fought atLundy's Lane and won distinction in 1814 at the battle of Chippewa, "she catalogues the General. (And tells where Chippewa was. ) And then sheskips all her platform people; never mentions one of them. It shows thatshe is just as human as any of us. 

Yet, after all, there is something very touching in her pride in theseworthy small-fry, and something large and fine in her modesty in notcaring to remember that their kinship to her can confer no distinctionupon her, whereas her mere mention of their names has conferred uponthem a faceless earthly immortality. 

CHAPTER II

When she wrote this little biography her great life-work had alreadybeen achieved, she was become renowned; to multitudes of reverentdisciples she was a sacred personage, a familiar of God, and Hisinspired channel of communication with the human race. Also, to themthese following things were facts, and not doubted:

She had written a Bible in middle age, and had published it; she hadrecast it, enlarged it, and published it again; she had not stoppedthere, but had enlarged it further, polished its phrasing, improvedits form, and published it yet again. It was at last become a compact, grammatical, dignified, and workman-like body of literature. This wasgood training, persistent training; and in all arts it is training thatbrings the art to perfection. We are now confronted with one of the mostteasing and baffling riddles of Mrs. Eddy's history--a riddle which maybe formulated thus:

How is it that a primitive literary gun which began as a hundred-yardflint-lock smooth-bore muzzle-loader, and in the course of forty yearshas acquired one notable improvement after another--percussion cap;fixed cartridge; rifled barrel; efficiency at half a mile how is it thatsuch a gun, sufficiently good on an elephant hunt (Christian Science)from the beginning, and growing better and better all the time duringforty years, has always collapsed back to its original flint-lockestate the moment the huntress trained it on any other creature than anelephant?

Something more than a generation ago Mrs. Eddy went out with herflint-lock on the rabbit range; and this was a part of the result:

"After his decease, and a severe casualty deemed fatal by skilfulphysicians, we discovered that the Principle of all healing and the lawthat governs it is God, a divine Principle, and a spiritual not materiallaw, and regained health. "--Preface to Science and Health, firstrevision, 1883. 

N. B. Not from the book itself; from the Preface. 

You will notice the awkwardness of that English. If you should carrythat paragraph up to the Supreme Court of the United States in orderto find out for good and all whether the fatal casualty happened to thedead man--as the paragraph almost asserts--or to some person or personsnot even hinted at in the paragraph, the Supreme Court would be obligedto say that the evidence established nothing with certainty except thatthere had been a casualty--victim not known. 

The context thinks it explains who the victim was, but it does nothingof the kind. It furnishes some guessing-material of a sort which enablesyou to infer that it was "we" that suffered the mentioned injury, but ifyou should carry the language to a court you would not be able to provethat it necessarily meant that. "We" are Mrs. Eddy; a funny littleaffectation. She replaced it later with the more dignified third person. 

The quoted paragraph is from Mrs. Eddy's preface to the first revisionof Science and Health (1883). Sixty-four pages further along--in thebody of the book (the elephant-range), she went out with that sameflint-lock and got this following result. Its English is very nearlyas straight and clean and competent as is the English of the latestrevision of Science and Health after the gun has been improved fromsmooth-bore musket up to globe-sighted, long distance rifle:

"Man controlled by his Maker has no physical suffering. His body isharmonious, his days are multiplying instead of diminishing, he isjourneying towards Life instead of death, and bringing out the new manand crucifying the old affections, cutting them off in every materialdirection until he learns the utter supremacy of Spirit and yieldsobedience thereto. "

In the latest revision of Science and Health (1902), the perfectedgun furnishes the following. The English is clean, compact, dignified, almost perfect. But it is observable that it is not prominently betterthan it is in the above paragraph, which was a product of the primitiveflint-lock:

"How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing out life andhastening to death, and at the same time we are communing withimmortality? If the departed are in rapport with mortality, or matter, they are not spiritual, but must still be mortal, sinful, suffering, and dying. Then wherefore look to them--even were communicationpossible--for proofs of immortality and accept them as oracles?"--Edition of 1902, page 78. 

With the above paragraphs compare these that follow. It is Mrs. Eddywriting--after a good long twenty years of pen-practice. Compare alsowith the alleged Poems already quoted. The prominent characteristic ofthe Poems is affectation, artificiality; their makeup is a complacentand pretentious outpour of false figures and fine writing, in thesophomoric style. The same qualities and the same style will be found, unchanged, unbettered, in these following paragraphs--after a lapse ofmore than fifty years, and after--as aforesaid--long literary training. The italics are mine:

1. "What plague spot or bacilli were [sic] gnawing [sic] at the heart ofthis metropolis... And bringing it [the heart] on bended knee? Why, itwas an institute that had entered its vitals--that, among other things, taught games, " et cetera. --C. S. Journal, p. 670, article entitled "ANarrative--by Mary Baker G. Eddy. "

2. "Parks sprang up [sic]... Electric-cars run [sic] merrily throughseveral streets, concrete sidewalks and macadamized roads dotted [sic]the place, " et cetera. --Ibid. 

3. "Shorn [sic] of its suburbs it had indeed little left to admire, saveto [sic] such as fancy a skeleton above ground breathing [sic] slowlythrough a barren [sic] breast. "--Ibid. 

This is not English--I mean, grown-up English. But it isfifteen-year-old English, and has not grown a month since the samemind produced the Poems. The standard of the Poems and of theplague-spot-and-bacilli effort is exactly the same. It is most strangethat the same intellect that worded the simple and self-contained andclean-cut paragraph beginning with "How unreasonable is the belief, "should in the very same lustrum discharge upon the world such a verbalchaos as the utterance concerning that plague-spot or bacilli whichwere gnawing at the insides of the metropolis and bringing its heart onbended knee, thus exposing to the eye the rest of the skeleton breathingslowly through a barren breast. 

The immense contrast between the legitimate English of Science andHealth and the bastard English of Mrs. Eddy's miscellaneous work, andbetween the maturity of the one diction and the juvenility of the other, suggests--compels--the question, Are there two guns? It would seem so. Is there a poor, foolish, old, scattering flint-lock for rabbit, and along-range, centre-driving, up-to-date Mauser-magazine for elephant?It looks like it. For it is observable that in Science and Health (theelephant-ground) the practice was good at the start and has remained so, and that the practice in the miscellaneous, outside, small-game fieldwas very bad at the start and was never less bad at any later time. 

I wish to say that of Mrs. Eddy I am not requiring perfect English, but only good English. No one can write perfect English and keep itup through a stretch of ten chapters. It has never been done. It wasapproached in the "well of English undefiled"; it has been approachedin Mrs. Eddy's Annex to that Book; it has been approached in severalEnglish grammars; I have even approached it myself; but none of us hasmade port. 

Now, the English of Science and Health is good. In passages to be foundin Mrs. Eddy's Autobiography (on pages 53, 57, 101, and 113), and onpage 6 of her squalid preface to Science and Health, first revision, sheseems to me to claim the whole and sole authorship of the book. Thatshe wrote the Autobiography, and that preface, and the Poems, and thePlague-spot-Bacilli, we are not permitted to doubt. Indeed, we know shewrote them. But the very certainty that she wrote these things compelsa doubt that she wrote Science and Health. She is guilty of littleawkwardnesses of expression in the Autobiography which a practiced penwould hardly allow to go uncorrected in even a hasty private letter, and could not dream of passing by uncorrected in passages intended forprint. But she passes them placidly by; as placidly as if she did notsuspect that they were offenses against third-class English. I thinkthat that placidity was born of that very unawareness, so to speak. Iwill cite a few instances from the Autobiography. The italics are mine:

"I remember reading in my childhood certain manuscripts containingScriptural Sonnets, besides other verses and enigmas, " etc. Page 7. 

[On page 27. ] "Many pale cripples went into the Church leaning oncrutches who came out carrying them on their shoulders. "

It is awkward, because at the first glance it seems to say that thecripples went in leaning on crutches which went out carrying thecripples on their shoulders. It would have cost her no trouble toput her "who" after her "cripples. " I blame her a little; I think herproof-reader should have been shot. We may let her capital C pass, butit is another awkwardness, for she is talking about a building, notabout a religious society. 

"Marriage and Parentage" [Chapter-heading. Page 30]. You imagine thatshe is going to begin a talk about her marriage and finish withsome account of her father and mother. And so you will be deceived. "Marriage" was right, but "Parentage" was not the best word for the restof the record. It refers to the birth of her own child. After a certainperiod of time "my babe was born. " Marriage and Motherhood--Marriage andMaternity--Marriage and Product--Marriage and Dividend--either of thesewould have fitted the facts and made the matter clear. 

"Without my knowledge he was appointed a guardian. " Page 32. 

She is speaking of her child. She means that a guardian for her childwas appointed, but that isn't what she says. 

"If spiritual conclusions are separated from their premises, thenexus is lost, and the argument with its rightful conclusions, becomescorrespondingly obscure. " Page 34. 

We shall never know why she put the word "correspondingly" inthere. Any fine, large word would have answered just as well:psychosuperintangibly--electroincandescently--oligarcheologically--sanchrosynchro-stereoptically--any of these would have answered, any of these would have filled the void. 

"His spiritual noumenon and phenomenon silenced portraiture. " Page 34. 

Yet she says she forgot everything she knew, when she discoveredChristian Science. I realize that noumenon is a daisy; and I will notdeny that I shall use it whenever I am in a company which I think I canembarrass with it; but, at the same time, I think it is out of placeamong friends in an autobiography. There, I think a person ought notto have anything up his sleeve. It undermines confidence. But mydissatisfaction with the quoted passage is not on account of noumenon;it is on account of the misuse of the word "silenced. " You cannotsilence portraiture with a noumenon; if portraiture should make a noise, a way could be found to silence it, but even then it could not be donewith a noumenon. Not even with a brick, some authorities think. 

"It may be that the mortal life-battle still wages, " etc. Page 35. 

That is clumsy. Battles do not wage, battles are waged. Mrs. Eddy hasone very curious and interesting peculiarity: whenever she notices thatshe is chortling along without saying anything, she pulls up with asudden "God is over us all, " or some other sounding irrelevancy, and forthe moment it seems to light up the whole district; then, before you canrecover from the shock, she goes flitting pleasantly and meaninglesslyalong again, and you hurry hopefully after her, thinking you are goingto get something this time; but as soon as she has led you far enoughaway from her turkey lot she takes to a tree. Whenever she discoversthat she is getting pretty disconnected, she couples-up with anostentatious "But" which has nothing to do with anything that wentbefore or is to come after, then she hitches some empties to thetrain-unrelated verses from the Bible, usually--and steams out of sightand leaves you wondering how she did that clever thing. For strikinginstances, see bottom paragraph on page 34 and the paragraph on page35 of her Autobiography. She has a purpose--a deep and dark and artfulpurpose--in what she is saying in the first paragraph, and you guesswhat it is, but that is due to your own talent, not hers; she hasmade it as obscure as language could do it. The other paragraph hasno meaning and no discoverable intention. It is merely one of herGod-over-alls. I cannot spare room for it in this place. 

"I beheld with ineffable awe our great Master's marvelous skill indemanding neither obedience to hygienic laws nor, " etc. Page 41. 

The word is loosely chosen-skill. She probably meant judgment, intuition, penetration, or wisdom. 

"Naturally, my first jottings were but efforts to express in feeblediction Truth's ultimate. " Page 42. 

One understands what she means, but she should have been able to saywhat she meant--at any time before she discovered Christian Science andforgot everything she knew--and after it, too. If she had put "feeble"in front of "efforts" and then left out "in" and "diction, " she wouldhave scored. 

"... Its written expression increases in perfection under the guidanceof the great Master. " Page 43. 

It is an error. Not even in those advantageous circumstances canincrease be added to perfection. 

"Evil is not mastered by evil; it can only be overcome with Good. This brings out the nothingness of evil, and the eternal Somethingnessvindicates the Divine Principle and improves the race of Adam. " Page 76. 

This is too extraneous for me. That is the trouble with Mrs. Eddy whenshe sets out to explain an over-large exhibit: the minute you think thelight is bursting upon you the candle goes out and your mind begins towander. 

"No one else can drain the cup which I have drunk to the dregs, as thediscoverer and teacher of Christian Science" Page 47. 

That is saying we cannot empty an empty cup. We knew it before; and weknow she meant to tell us that that particular cup is going to remainempty. That is, we think that that was the idea, but we cannot be sure. She has a perfectly astonishing talent for putting words togetherin such a way as to make successful inquiry into their intentionimpossible. 

She generally makes us uneasy when she begins to tune up on herfine-writing timbrel. It carries me back to her Plague-Spot and Poetrydays, and I just dread those:

"Into mortal mind's material obliquity I gazed and stood abashed. Blanched was the cheek of pride. My heart bent low before theomnipotence of Spirit, and a tint of humility soft as the heart ofa moonbeam mantled the earth. Bethlehem and Bethany, Gethsemane andCalvary, spoke to my chastened sense as by the tearful lips of a babe. "Page 48. 

The heart of a moonbeam is a pretty enough Friendship's-Albumexpression--let it pass, though I do think the figure a little strained;but humility has no tint, humility has no complexion, and if it had itcould not mantle the earth. A moonbeam might--I do not know--but shedid not say it was the moonbeam. But let it go, I cannot decide it, shemixes me up so. A babe hasn't "tearful lips, " it's its eyes. You findnone of Mrs. Eddy's kind of English in Science and Health--not a line ofit. 

CHAPTER III

Setting aside title-page, index, etc. , the little Autobiography beginson page 7 and ends on page 130. My quotations are from the first fortypages. They seem to me to prove the presence of the 'prentice hand. Thestyle of the forty pages is loose and feeble and 'prentice-like. Themovement of the narrative is not orderly and sequential, but ramblesaround, and skips forward and back and here and there and yonder, 'prentice-fashion. Many a journeyman has broken up his narrative andskipped about and rambled around, but he did it for a purpose, foran advantage; there was art in it, and points to be scored by it; theobservant reader perceived the game, and enjoyed it and respected it, ifit was well played. But Mrs. Eddy's performance was without intention, and destitute of art. She could score no points by it on those terms, and almost any reader can see that her work was the uncalculatedputtering of a novice. 

In the above paragraph I have described the first third of the booklet. That third being completed, Mrs. Eddy leaves the rabbit-range, crosses the frontier, and steps out upon her far-spreading big-gameterritory--Christian Science and there is an instant change! The stylesmartly improves; and the clumsy little technical offenses disappear. Inthese two-thirds of the booklet I find only one such offence, and it hasthe look of being a printer's error. 

I leave the riddle with the reader. Perhaps he can explain how it isthat a person-trained or untrained--who on the one day can write nothingbetter than Plague-Spot-Bacilli and feeble and stumbling and wanderingpersonal history littered with false figures and obscurities andtechnical blunders, can on the next day sit down and write fluently, smoothly, compactly, capably, and confidently on a great big thunderingsubject, and do it as easily and comfortably as a whale paddles aroundthe globe. 

As for me, I have scribbled so much in fifty years that I have becomesaturated with convictions of one sort and another concerning ascribbler's limitations; and these are so strong that when I am familiarwith a literary person's work I feel perfectly sure that I know enoughabout his limitations to know what he can not do. If Mr. Howells shouldpretend to me that he wrote the Plague-Spot Bacilli rhapsody, I shouldreceive the statement courteously; but I should know it for a--well, fora perversion. If the late Josh Billings should rise up and tell me thathe wrote Herbert Spencer's philosophies; I should answer and say thatthe spelling casts a doubt upon his claim. If the late Jonathan Edwardsshould rise up and tell me he wrote Mr. Dooley's books, I should answerand say that the marked difference between his style and Dooley's isargument against the soundness of his statement. You see how much Ithink of circumstantial evidence. In literary matters--in my belief--itis often better than any person's word, better than any shadycharacter's oath. It is difficult for me to believe that the same handthat wrote the Plague-Spot-Bacilli and the first third of the littleEddy biography wrote also Science and Health. Indeed, it is more thandifficult, it is impossible. 

Largely speaking, I have read acres of what purported to be Mrs. Eddy'swritings, in the past two months. I cannot know, but I am convinced, that the circumstantial evidence shows that her actual share in thework of composing and phrasing these things was so slight as to beinconsequential. Where she puts her literary foot down, her trailacross her paid polisher's page is as plain as the elephant's in aSunday-school procession. Her verbal output, when left undoctored byher clerks, is quite unmistakable It always exhibits the stronglydistinctive features observable in the virgin passages from her penalready quoted by me:

Desert vacancy, as regards thought. Self-complacency. Puerility. Sentimentality. Affectations of scholarly learning. Lust after eloquentand flowery expression. Repetition of pet poetic picturesquenesses. Confused and wandering statement. Metaphor gone insane. Meaninglesswords, used because they are pretty, or showy, or unusual. Sorrowfulattempts at the epigrammatic. Destitution of originality. 

The fat volume called Miscellaneous Writings of Mrs. Eddy containsseveral hundred pages. Of the five hundred and fifty-four pages of prosein it I find ten lines, on page 319, to be Mrs. Eddy's; also about apage of the preface or "Prospectus"; also about fifteen pages scatteredalong through the book. If she wrote any of the rest of the prose, itwas rewritten after her by another hand. Here I will insert two-thirdsof her page of the prospectus. It is evident that whenever, under theinspiration of the Deity, she turns out a book, she is always allowed todo some of the preface. I wonder why that is? It always mars the work. I think it is done in humorous malice I think the clerks like to seeher give herself away. They know she will, her stock of usable materialsbeing limited and her procedure in employing them always the same, substantially. They know that when the initiated come upon her firsterudite allusion, or upon any one of her other stage-properties, theycan shut their eyes and tell what will follow. She usually throws offan easy remark all sodden with Greek or Hebrew or Latin learning; sheusually has a person watching for a star--she can seldom get awayfrom that poetic idea--sometimes it is a Chaldee, sometimes a WalkingDelegate, sometimes an entire stranger, but be he what he may, he isgenerally there when the train is ready to move, and has his pass in hishat-band; she generally has a Being with a Dome on him, or some othercover that is unusual and out of the fashion; she likes to fire off aScripture-verse where it will make the handsomest noise and come nearestto breaking the connection; she often throws out a Forefelt, or aForesplendor, or a Foreslander where it will have a fine nauticalforeto'gallant sound and make the sentence sing; after which she isnearly sure to throw discretion away and take to her deadly passion, Intoxicated Metaphor. At such a time the Mrs. Eddy that does nothesitate is lost:

"The ancient Greek looked longingly for the Olympiad. The Chaldeewatched the appearing of a star; to him no higher destiny dawned on thedome of being than that foreshadowed by signs in the heavens. The meekNazarene, the scoffed of all scoffers, said, 'Ye can discern the faceof the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?'--for Heforefelt and foresaw the ordeal of a perfect Christianity, hated bysinners. 

"To kindle all minds with a gleam of gratitude, the new idea that comeswelling up from infinite Truth needs to be understood. The seer of thisage should be a sage. 

"Humility is the stepping-stone to a higher recognition of Deity. Themounting sense gathers fresh forms and strange fire from the ashesof dissolving self, and drops the world. Meekness heightens immortalattributes, only by removing the dust that dims them. Goodness revealsanother scene and another self seemingly rolled up in shades, butbrought to light by the evolutions of advancing thought, whereby wediscern the power of Truth and Love to heal the sick. 

"Pride is ignorance; those assume most who have the least wisdom orexperience; and they steal from their neighbor, because they have solittle of their own. "--Miscellaneous Writings, page 1, and six lines attop of page 2. 

It is not believable that the hand that wrote those clumsy and affectedsentences wrote the smooth English of Science and Health. 

CHAPTER IV

It is often said in print that Mrs. Eddy claims that God was the Authorof Science and Health. Mr. Peabody states in his pamphlet that "she saysnot she but God was the Author. " I cannot find that in her autobiographyshe makes this transference of the authorship, but I think that init she definitely claims that she did her work under Hisinspiration--definitely for her; for as a rule she is not a verydefinite person, even when she seems to be trying her best to be clearand positive. Speaking of the early days when her Science was beginningto unfold itself and gather form in her mind, she says (Autobiography, page 43):

"The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a freshuniverse--old to God, but new to His 'little one. '"

She being His little one, as I understand it. 

The divine hand led her. It seems to mean "God inspired me"; but whena person uses metaphors instead of statistics--and that is Mrs. Eddy'scommon fashion--one cannot always feel sure about the intention. 

[Page 56. ] "Even the Scripture gave no direct interpretation of theScientific basis for demonstrating the spiritual Principle of healing, until our Heavenly Father saw fit, through the Key to the Scriptures, inScience and Health, to unlock this 'mystery of godliness. '"

Another baffling metaphor. If she had used plain forecastle English, and said "God wrote the Key and I put it in my book"; or if she had said"God furnished me the solution of the mystery and I put it on paper";or if she had said "God did it all, " then we should understand; but herphrase is open to any and all of those translations, and is a Keywhich unlocks nothing--for us. However, it seems to at least mean "Godinspired me, " if nothing more. 

There was personal and intimate communion, at any rate we get thatmuch out of the riddles. The connection extended to business, after theestablishment of the teaching and healing industry. 

[Page 71. ] "When God impelled me to set a price on my instruction, " etc. Further down: "God has since shown me, in multitudinous ways, the wisdomof this decision. "

She was not able to think of a "financial equivalent"--meaning apecuniary equivalent--for her "instruction in Christian ScienceMind-healing. " In this emergency she was "led" to charge three hundreddollars for a term of "twelve half-days. " She does not say who led her, she only says that the amount greatly troubled her. I think it meansthat the price was suggested from above, "led" being a theological termidentical with our commercial phrase "personally conducted. " She "shrankfrom asking it, but was finally led, by a strange providence, to acceptthis fee. " "Providence" is another theological term. Two leds anda providence, taken together, make a pretty strong argument forinspiration. I think that these statistics make it clear that the pricewas arranged above. This view is constructively supported by the fact, already quoted, that God afterwards approved, "in multitudinousways, " her wisdom in accepting the mentioned fee. "Multitudinousways"--multitudinous encoring--suggests enthusiasm. Business enthusiasm. And it suggests nearness. God's nearness to his "little one. " Nearness, and a watchful personal interest. A warm, palpitating, Standard-Oilinterest, so to speak. All this indicates inspiration. We may assume, then, two inspirations: one for the book, the other for the business. 

The evidence for inspiration is further augmented by the testimony ofRev. George Tomkins, D. D. , already quoted, that Mrs. Eddy and her bookwere foretold in Revelation, and that Mrs. Eddy "is God's brightestthought to this age, giving us the spiritual interpretation of the Biblein the 'little book'" of the Angel. 

I am aware that it is not Mr. Tomkins that is speaking, but Mrs. Eddy. The commissioned lecturers of the Christian Science Church have to bemembers of the Board of Lectureship. (By-laws Sec. 2, p. 70. ) The Boardof Lectureship is selected by the Board of Directors of the Church. (By-laws, Sec. 3, p. 70. ) The Board of Directors of the Church is theproperty of Mrs. Eddy. (By-laws, p. 22. ) Mr. Tomkins did not make thatstatement without authorization from headquarters. He necessarily got itfrom the Board of Directors, the Board of Directors from Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Eddy from the Deity. Mr. Tomkins would have been turned down by thatprocession if his remarks had been unsatisfactory to it. 

It may be that there is evidence somewhere--as has been claimed--thatMrs. Eddy has charged upon the Deity the verbal authorship of Scienceand Health. But if she ever made the charge, she has withdrawn it (as itseems to me), and in the most formal and unqualified; of all ways. SeeAutobiography, page 57:

"When the demand for this book increased... The copyright was infringed. I entered a suit at Law, and my copyright was protected. "

Thus it is plain that she did not plead that the Deity was the (verbal)Author; for if she had done that, she would have lost her case--and withrude promptness. It was in the old days before the Berne Convention andbefore the passage of our amended law of 1891, and the court would havequoted the following stern clause from the existing statute and frownedher out of the place:

"No Foreigner can acquire copyright in the United States. "

To sum up. The evidence before me indicates three things:

1. That Mrs. Eddy claims the verbal author ship for herself. 2. That shedenies it to the Deity. 3. That--in her belief--she wrote the book underthe inspiration of the Deity, but furnished the language herself. 

In one place in the Autobiography she claims both the language andthe ideas; but when this witness is testifying, one must draw the linesomewhere, or she will prove both sides of her case-nine sides, ifdesired. 

It is too true. Much too true. Many, many times too true. She is a mosttrying witness--the most trying witness that ever kissed the Book, I amsure. There is no keeping up with her erratic testimony. As soon as youhave got her share of the authorship nailed where you half hope and halfbelieve it will stay and cannot be joggled loose any more, she jogglesit loose again--or seems to; you cannot be sure, for her habit ofdealing in meaningless metaphors instead of in plain, straightforwardstatistics, makes it nearly always impossible to tell just what itis she is trying to say. She was definite when she claimed both thelanguage and the ideas of the book. That seemed to settle the matter. It seemed to distribute the percentages of credit with precision betweenthe collaborators: ninety-two per cent. To Mrs. Eddy, who did all thework, and eight per cent. To the Deity, who furnished the inspirationnot enough of it to damage the copyright in a country closed againstForeigners, and yet plenty to advertise the book and market it at faminerates. Then Mrs. Eddy does not keep still, but fetches around and comesforward and testifies again. It is most injudicious. For she resorts tometaphor this time, and it makes trouble, for she seems to reverse thepercentages and claim only the eight per cent. For her self. I quotefrom Mr. Peabody's book (Eddyism, or Christian Science. Boston: 15 CourtSquare, price twenty-five cents):

"Speaking of this book, Mrs. Eddy, in January last (1901) said: 'Ishould blush to write of Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, as I have, were it of human origin, and I, apart from God, its author;but as I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of Heaven indivine metaphysics, I cannot be supermodest of the Christian Sciencetext-book. "'

Mr. Peabody's comment:

"Nothing could be plainer than that. Here is a distinct avowal that thebook entitled Science and Health was the work of Almighty God. "

It does seem to amount to that. She was only a "scribe. " Confound theword, it is just a confusion, it has no determinable meaning there, itleaves us in the air. A scribe is merely a person who writes. He may bea copyist, he may be an amanuensis, he may be a writer of originals, andfurnish both the language and the ideas. As usual with Mrs. Eddy, theconnection affords no help--"echoing" throws no light upon "scribe. " Arock can reflect an echo, a wall can do it, a mountain can do it, manythings can do it, but a scribe can't. A scribe that could reflectan echo could get over thirty dollars a week in a side-show. Manyimpresarios would rather have him than a cow with four tails. If weallow that this present scribe was setting down the "harmonies ofHeaven"--and certainly that seems to have been the case then there wasonly one way to do it that I can think of: listen to the music and putdown the notes one after another as they fell. In that case Mrs. Eddy did not invent the tune, she only entered it on paper. Thereforedropping the metaphor--she was merely an amanuensis, and furnishedneither the language of Science and Health nor the ideas. It reduces herto eight per cent. (and the dividends on that and the rest). 

Is that it? We shall never know. For Mrs. Eddy is liable to testifyagain at any time. But until she does it, I think we must concludethat the Deity was Author of the whole book, and Mrs. Eddy merely Histelephone and stenographer. Granting this, her claim as the Voice of Godstands-for the present--justified and established. 

POSTSCRIPT

I overlooked something. It appears that there was more of that utterancethan Mr. Peabody has quoted in the above paragraph. It will be foundin Mrs. Eddy's organ, the Christian Science Journal (January, 1901) andreads as follows:

"It was not myself... Which dictated Science and Health, with Key to theScriptures. "

That is certainly clear enough. The words which I have removed from thatimportant sentence explain Who it was that did the dictating. It wasdone by

"the divine power of Truth and Love, infinitely above me. "

Certainly that is definite. At last, through her personal testimony, we have a sure grip upon the following vital facts, and they settle theauthorship of Science and Health beyond peradventure:

1. Mrs. Eddy furnished "the ideas and the language. " 2. God furnishedthe ideas and the language. 

It is a great comfort to have the matter authoritatively settled. 

CHAPTER V

It is hard to locate her, she shifts about so much. She is a shiningdrop of quicksilver which you put your finger on and it isn't there. There is a paragraph in the Autobiography (page 96) which places inseemingly darkly significant procession three Personages:

1. The Virgin Mary 2. Jesus of Nazareth. 3. Mrs. Eddy. 

This is the paragraph referred to:

"No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No personcan compass or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, thediscoverer and founder of Christian Science. Each individual must fillhis own niche in time and eternity. "

I have read it many times, but I still cannot be sure that I rightlyunderstand it. If the Saviour's name had been placed first and theVirgin Mary's second and Mrs. Eddy's third, I should draw the inferencethat a descending scale from First Importance to Second Importance andthen to Small Importance was indicated; but to place the Virgin first, the Saviour second, and Mrs. Eddy third, seems to turn the scale theother way and make it an ascending scale of Importances, with Mrs. Eddyranking the other two and holding first place. 

I think that that was perhaps the intention, but none but a seasonedChristian Scientist can examine a literary animal of Mrs. Eddy'screation and tell which end of it the tail is on. She is easily the mostbaffling and bewildering writer in the literary trade. 

Eddy is a commonplace name, and would have an unimpressive aspect in thelist of the reformed Holy Family. She has thought of that. In the bookof By-laws written by her--"impelled by a power not one's own"--there isa paragraph which explains how and when her disciples came to confer atitle upon her; and this explanation is followed by a warning as to whatwill happen to any female Scientist who shall desecrate it:

"The title of Mother. Therefore if a student of Christian Science shallapply this title, either to herself or to others, except as the term forkinship according to the flesh, it shall be regarded by the Church as anindication of disrespect for their Pastor Emeritus, and unfitness to bea member of the Mother-Church. "

She is the Pastor Emeritus. 

While the quoted paragraph about the Procession seems to indicate thatMrs. Eddy is expecting to occupy the First Place in it, that expectationis not definitely avowed. In an earlier utterance of hers she isclearer--clearer, and does not claim the first place all to herself, butonly the half of it. I quote from Mr. Peabody's book again:

"In the Christian Science Journal for April, 1889, when it was herproperty, and published by her, it was claimed for her, and with hersanction, that she was equal with Jesus, and elaborate effort was madeto establish the claim. 

"Mrs. Eddy has distinctly authorized the claim in her behalf that sheherself was the chosen successor to and equal of Jesus. "

In her Miscellaneous Writings (using her once favorite "We" for "I") shesays that "While we entertain decided views... And shall express them asduty demands, we shall claim no especial gift from our divine origin, "etc. 

Our divine origin. It suggests Equal again. It is inferable, then, that in the near by-and-by the new Church will officially rank the HolyFamily in the following order:

1. Jesus of Nazareth. --1. Our Mother. 2. The Virgin Mary. 

SUMMARY

I am not playing with Christian Science and its founder, I am examiningthem; and I am doing it because of the interest I feel in the inquiry. My results may seem inadequate to the reader, but they have for meclarified a muddle and brought a sort of order out of a chaos, and so Ivalue them. 

My readings of Mrs. Eddy's uninspired miscellaneous literary effortshave convinced me of several things:

1. That she did not write Science and Health. 2. That the Deity did (ordid not) write it. 3. That She thinks She wrote it. 4. That She believesShe wrote it under the Deity's inspiration. 5. That She believes She isa Member of the Holy Family. 6. That She believes She is the equal ofthe Head of it. 

Finally, I think She is now entitled to the capital S--on her ownevidence. 

CHAPTER VI

Thus far we have a part of Mrs. Eddy's portrait. Not made of fictions, surmises, reports, rumors, innuendoes, dropped by her enemies; no, shehas furnished all of the materials herself, and laid them on the canvas, under my general superintendence and direction. As far as she has gonewith it, it is the presentation of a complacent, commonplace, illiterateNew England woman who "forgot everything she knew" when she discoveredher discovery, then wrote a Bible in good English under the inspirationof God, and climbed up it to the supremest summit of earthly grandeurattainable by man--where she sits serene to-day, beloved and worshipedby a multitude of human beings of as good average intelligence as ispossessed by those that march under the banner of any competing cult. This is not intended to flatter the competing cults, it is merely astatement of cold fact. 

That a commonplace person should go climbing aloft and become a god ora half-god or a quarter-god and be worshiped by men and women of averageintelligence, is nothing. It has happened a million times, it willhappen a hundred million more. It has been millions of years since thefirst of these supernaturals appeared, and by the time the last one inthat inconceivably remote future shall have performed his solemn littlehigh-jinks on the stage and closed the business, there will be enoughof them accumulated in the museum on the Other Side to start a heaven oftheir own-and jam it. 

Each in his turn those little supernaturals of our by-gone ages andaeons joined the monster procession of his predecessors and marchedhorizonward, disappeared, and was forgotten. They changed nothing, they built nothing, they left nothing behind them to remember them by, nothing to hold their disciples together, nothing to solidify their workand enable it to defy the assaults of time and the weather. They passed, and left a vacancy. They made one fatal mistake; they all made it, each in his turn: they failed to organize their forces, they failed tocentralize their strength, they failed to provide a fresh Bible and asure and perpetual cash income for business, and often they failed toprovide a new and accepted Divine Personage to worship. 

Mrs. Eddy is not of that small fry. The materials that go to themaking of the rest of her portrait will prove it. She will furnish themherself:

She published her book. She copyrighted it. She copyrights everything. If she should say, "Good-morning; how do you do?" she would copyrightit; for she is a careful person, and knows the value of small things. 

She began to teach her Science, she began to heal, she began to gatherconverts to her new religion--fervent, sincere, devoted, gratefulpeople. A year or two later she organized her first Christian Science"Association, " with six of her disciples on the roster. 

She continued to teach and heal. She was charging nothing, she says, although she was very poor. She taught and healed gratis four yearsaltogether, she says. 

Then, in 1879-81 she was become strong enough, and well enoughestablished, to venture a couple of impressively important moves. Thefirst of these moves was to aggrandize the "Association" to a "Church. "Brave? It is the right name for it, I think. The former name suggestsnothing, invited no remark, no criticism, no inquiry, no hostility; thenew name invited them all. She must have made this intrepid venture onher own motion. She could have had no important advisers at that earlyday. If we accept it as her own idea and her own act--and I think wemust--we have one key to her character. And it will explain subsequentacts of hers that would merely stun us and stupefy us without it. Shallwe call it courage? Or shall we call it recklessness? Courage observes;reflects; calculates; surveys the whole situation; counts the cost, estimates the odds, makes up its mind; then goes at the enterpriseresolute to win or perish. Recklessness does not reflect, it plungesfearlessly in with a hurrah, and takes the risks, whatever they may be, regardless of expense. Recklessness often fails, Mrs. Eddy has neverfailed--from the point of view of her followers. The point of view ofother people is naturally not a matter of weighty importance to her. 

The new Church was not born loose-jointed and featureless, but had adefined plan, a definite character, definite aims, and a name which wasa challenge, and defied all comers. It was "a Mind-healing Church. " Itwas "without a creed. " Its name, "The Church of Christ, Scientist. "

Mrs. Eddy could not copyright her Church, but she chartered it, whichwas the same thing and relieved the pain. It had twenty-six chartermembers. Mrs. Eddy was at once installed as its pastor. 

The other venture, above referred to, was Mrs. Eddy's MassachusettsMetaphysical College, in which was taught "the pathology of spiritualpower. " She could not copyright it, but she got it chartered. Forfaculty it had herself, her husband of the period (Dr. Eddy), and heradopted son, Dr. Foster-Eddy. The college term was "barely threeweeks, " she says. Again she was bold, brave, rash, reckless--choose foryourself--for she not only began to charge the student, but charged hima hundred dollars a week for the enlightenments. And got it? some mayask. Easily. Pupils flocked from far and near. They came by the hundred. Presently the term was cut down nearly half, but the price remained asbefore. To be exact, the term-cut was to seven lessons--price, three hundred dollars. The college "yielded a large income. " This isbelievable. In seven years Mrs. Eddy taught, as she avers, over fourthousand students in it. (Preface to 1902 edition of Science andHealth. ) Three hundred times four thousand is--but perhaps you cancipher it yourself. I could do it ordinarily, but I fell down yesterdayand hurt my leg. Cipher it; you will see that it is a grand sum for awoman to earn in seven years. Yet that was not all she got out of hercollege in the seven. 

At the time that she was charging the primary student three hundreddollars for twelve lessons she was not content with this tidyassessment, but had other ways of plundering him. By advertisement sheoffered him privileges whereby he could add eighteen lessons to hisstore for five hundred dollars more. That is to say, he could get atotal of thirty lessons in her college for eight hundred dollars. 

Four thousand times eight hundred is--but it is a difficult sum for acripple who has not been "demonstrated over" to cipher; let it go. She taught "over" four thousand students in seven years. "Over" is notdefinite, but it probably represents a non-paying surplus of learnersover and above the paying four thousand. Charity students, doubtless. Ithink that as interesting an advertisement as has been printed since theromantic old days of the other buccaneers is this one from the ChristianScience Journal for September, 1886:

"MASSACHUSETTS METAPHYSICAL COLLEGE

"Rev. MARY BAKER G. EDDY, PRESIDENT

"571 Columbus Avenue, Boston

"The collegiate course in Christian Science metaphysical healingincludes twelve lessons. Tuition, three hundred dollars. 

"Course in metaphysical obstetrics includes six daily lectures, and isopen only to students from this college. Tuition, one hundred dollars. 

"Class in theology, open (like the above) to graduates, receives sixadditional lectures on the Scriptures, and summary of the principle andpractice of Christian Science, two hundred dollars. 

"Normal class is open to those who have taken the first course at thiscollege; six daily lectures complete the Normal course. Tuition, twohundred dollars. 

"No invalids, and only persons of good moral character, are acceptedas students. All students are subject to examination and rejection; andthey are liable to leave the class if found unfit to remain in it. 

"A limited number of clergymen received free of charge. 

"Largest discount to indigent students, one hundred dollars on the firstcourse. 

"No deduction on the others. 

"Husband and wife, entered together, three hundred dollars. 

"Tuition for all strictly in advance. "

There it is--the horse-leech's daughter alive again, after athree-century vacation. Fifty or sixty hours' lecturing for eighthundred dollars. 

I was in error as to one matter: there are no charity students. Gratis-taught clergymen must not be placed under that head; they aremerely an advertisement. Pauper students can get into the infant classon a two-third rate (cash in advance), but not even an archangel can getinto the rest of the game at anything short of par, cash down. For it is"in the spirit of Christ's charity, as one who is joyful to hear healingto the sick" that Mrs. Eddy is working the game. She sends the healingto them outside. She cannot bear it to them inside the college, for thereason that she does not allow a sick candidate to get in. It is truethat this smells of inconsistency, but that is nothing; Mrs. Eddywould not be Mrs. Eddy if she should ever chance to be consistent aboutanything two days running. 

Except in the matter of the Dollar. The Dollar, and appetite for powerand notoriety. English must also be added; she is always consistent, she is always Mrs. Eddy, in her English: it is always and consistentlyconfused and crippled and poor. She wrote the Advertisement; herliterary trade-marks are there. When she says all "students" are subjectto examination, she does not mean students, she means candidates forthat lofty place When she says students are "liable" to leave the classif found unfit to remain in it, she does not mean that if they findthemselves unfit, or be found unfit by others, they will be likely toask permission to leave the class; she means that if she finds themunfit she will be "liable" to fire them out. When she nobly offers"tuition for all strictly in advance, " she does not mean "instructionfor all in advance-payment for it later. " No, that is only what shesays, it is not what she means. If she had written Science and Health, the oldest man in the world would not be able to tell with certaintywhat any passage in it was intended to mean. 

Her Church was on its legs. 

She was its pastor. It was prospering. 

She was appointed one of a committee to draught By-laws for itsgovernment. It may be observed, without overplus of irreverence, thatthis was larks for her. She did all of the draughting herself. From thevery beginning she was always in the front seat when there was businessto be done; in the front seat, with both eyes open, and looking sharplyout for Number One; in the front seat, working Mortal Mind with fineeffectiveness and giving Immortal Mind a rest for Sunday. When herChurch was reorganized, by-and-by, the By-laws were retained. She sawto that. In these Laws for the government of her Church, her empire, herdespotism, Mrs. Eddy's character is embalmed for good and all. I thinka particularized examination of these Church-laws will be foundinteresting. And not the less so if we keep in mind that they were"impelled by a power not one's own, " as she says--Anglice--theinspiration of God. 

It is a Church "without a creed. " Still, it has one. Mrs. Eddy draughtedit--and copyrighted it. In her own name. You cannot become a member ofthe Mother-Church (nor of any Christian Science Church) without signingit. It forms the first chapter of the By-laws, and is called "Tenets. ""Tenets of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist. " Ithas no hell in it--it throws it overboard. 

THE PASTOR EMERITUS

About the time of the reorganization, Mrs. Eddy retired from herposition of pastor of her Church, abolished the office of pastor inall branch Churches, and appointed her book, Science and Health, to bepastor-universal. Mrs. Eddy did not disconnect herself from the officeentirely, when she retired, but appointed herself Pastor Emeritus. It isa misleading title, and belongs to the family of that phrase "withouta creed. " It advertises her as being a merely honorary official, withnothing to do, and no authority. The Czar of Russia is Emperor Emerituson the same terms. Mrs. Eddy was Autocrat of the Church before, withlimitless authority, and she kept her grip on that limitless authoritywhen she took that fictitious title. 

It is curious and interesting to note with what an unerring instinct thePastor Emeritus has thought out and forecast all possible encroachmentsupon her planned autocracy, and barred the way against them, in theBy-laws which she framed and copyrighted--under the guidance of theSupreme Being. 

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

For instance, when Article I. Speaks of a President and Board ofDirectors, you think you have discovered a formidable check upon thepowers and ambitions of the honorary pastor, the ornamental pastor, thefunctionless pastor, the Pastor Emeritus, but it is a mistake. Thesegreat officials are of the phrase--family of the Church-Without-a-Creedand the Pastor-With-Nothing-to-Do; that is to say, of the family ofLarge-Names-Which-Mean-Nothing. The Board is of so little consequencethat the By-laws do not state how it is chosen, nor who does it; butthey do state, most definitely, that the Board cannot fill a vacancy inits number "except the candidate is approved by the Pastor Emeritus. "

The "candidate. " The Board cannot even proceed to an election until thePastor Emeritus has examined the list and squelched such candidates asare not satisfactory to her. 

Whether the original first Board began as the personal property of Mrs. Eddy or not, it is foreseeable that in time, under this By-law, shewould own it. Such a first Board might chafe under such a rule as that, and try to legislate it out of existence some day. But Mrs. Eddy wasawake. She foresaw that danger, and added this ingenious and effectiveclause:

"This By-law can neither be amended nor annulled, except by consent ofMrs. Eddy, the Pastor Emeritus. "

THE PRESIDENT

The Board of Directors, or Serfs, or Ciphers, elects the President. 

On these clearly worded terms: "Subject to the approval of the PastorEmeritus. "

Therefore She elects him. 

A long term can invest a high official with influence and power, andmake him dangerous. Mrs. Eddy reflected upon that; so she limits thePresident's term to a year. She has a capable commercial head, anorganizing head, a head for government. 

TREASURER AND CLERK

There are a Treasurer and a Clerk. They are elected by the Board ofDirectors. That is to say, by Mrs. Eddy. 

Their terms of office expire on the first Tuesday in June of each year, "or upon the election of their successors. " They must be watchfullyobedient and satisfactory to her, or she will elect and install theirsuccessors with a suddenness that can be unpleasant to them. It goeswithout saying that the Treasurer manages the Treasury to suit Mrs. Eddy, and is in fact merely Temporary Deputy Treasurer. 

Apparently the Clerk has but two duties to perform: to read messagesfrom Mrs. Eddy to First Members assembled in solemn Council, and providelists of candidates for Church membership. The select body entitledFirst Members are the aristocracy of the Mother-Church, the CharterMembers, the Aborigines, a sort of stylish but unsalaried littleCollege of Cardinals, good for show, but not indispensable. Nobody isindispensable in Mrs. Eddy's empire; she sees to that. 

When the Pastor Emeritus sends a letter or message to that littleSanhedrin, it is the Clerk's "imperative duty" to read it "at the placeand time specified. " Otherwise, the world might come to an end. Theseare fine, large frills, and remind us of the ways of emperors and such. Such do not use the penny-post, they send a gilded and painted specialmessenger, and he strides into the Parliament, and business comes toa sudden and solemn and awful stop; and in the impressive hush thatfollows, the Chief Clerk reads the document. It is his "imperativeduty. " If he should neglect it, his official life would end. It isthe same with this Mother-Church Clerk; "if he fail to perform thisimportant function of his office, " certain majestic and unshirkablesolemnities must follow: a special meeting "shall" be called; a memberof the Church "shall" make formal complaint; then the Clerk "shall" be"removed from office. " Complaint is sufficient, no trial is necessary. 

There is something very sweet and juvenile and innocent and pretty aboutthese little tinsel vanities, these grave apings of monarchical fuss andfeathers and ceremony, here on our ostentatiously democratic soil. Sheis the same lady that we found in the Autobiography, who was so naivelyvain of all that little ancestral military riffraff that she had dug upand annexed. A person's nature never changes. What it is in childhood, it remains. Under pressure, or a change of interest, it can partially orwholly disappear from sight, and for considerable stretches of time, butnothing can ever permanently modify it, nothing can ever remove it. 

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

There isn't any--now. But with power and money piling up higher andhigher every day and the Church's dominion spreading daily wider andfarther, a time could come when the envious and ambitious could startthe idea that it would be wise and well to put a watch upon theseassets--a watch equipped with properly large authority. By custom, aBoard of Trustees. Mrs. Eddy has foreseen that probability--for she isa woman with a long, long look ahead, the longest look ahead that ever awoman had--and she has provided for that emergency. In Art. I. , Sec. 5, she has decreed that no Board of Trustees shall ever exist in theMother-Church "except it be constituted by the Pastor Emeritus. "

The magnificence of it, the daring of it! Thus far, she is:

The Massachusetts Metaphysical College; Pastor Emeritus; President;Board of Directors; Treasurer; Clerk; and future Board of Trustees;

and is still moving onward, ever onward. When I contemplate her froma commercial point of view, there are no words that can convey myadmiration of her. 

READERS

These are a feature of first importance in the church-machinery ofChristian Science. For they occupy the pulpit. They hold the placethat the preacher holds in the other Christian Churches. They hold thatplace, but they do not preach. Two of them are on duty at a time--a manand a woman. One reads a passage from the Bible, the other readsthe explanation of it from Science and Health--and so they go onalternating. This constitutes the service--this, with choir-music. Theyutter no word of their own. Art. IV. , Sec. 6, closes their mouths withthis uncompromising gag:

"They shall make no remarks explanatory of the Lesson-Sermon at any timeduring the service. "

It seems a simple little thing. One is not startled by it at a firstreading of it; nor at the second, nor the third. One may have to read ita dozen times before the whole magnitude of it rises before the mind. It far and away oversizes and outclasses the best business-idea yetinvented for the safe-guarding and perpetuating of a religion. If it hadbeen thought of and put in force eighteen hundred and seventy years ago, there would be but one Christian sect in the world now, instead of tendozens of them. 

There are many varieties of men in the world, consequently there aremany varieties of minds in its pulpits. This insures many differinginterpretations of important Scripture texts, and this in turn insuresthe splitting up of a religion into many sects. It is what has happened;it was sure to happen. 

Mrs. Eddy has noted this disastrous result of preaching, and has put upthe bars. She will have no preaching in her Church. She has explainedall essential Scriptures, and set the explanations down in her book. Inher belief her underlings cannot improve upon those explanations, andin that stern sentence "they shall make no explanatory remarks" she hasbarred them for all time from trying. She will be obeyed; there is noquestion about that. 

In arranging her government she has borrowed ideas from varioussources--not poor ones, but the best in the governmental market--butthis one is new, this one came out of no ordinary business-head, thisone must have come out of her own, there has been no other commercialskull in a thousand centuries that was equal to it. She has borrowedfreely and wisely, but I am sure that this idea is many timeslarger than all her borrowings bulked together. One must respect thebusiness-brain that produced it--the splendid pluck and impudence thatventured to promulgate it, anyway. 

ELECTION OF READERS

Readers are not taken at hap-hazard, any more than preachers are takenat hap-hazard for the pulpits of other sects. No, Readers are elected bythe Board of Directors. But--

"Section 3. The Board shall inform the Pas. For Emeritus of the namesof candidates for Readers before they are elected, and if she objects tothe nomination, said candidates shall not be chosen. "

Is that an election--by the Board? Thus far I have not been able tofind out what that Board of Spectres is for. It certainly has no realfunction, no duty which the hired girl could not perform, no officebeyond the mere recording of the autocrat's decrees. 

There are no dangerously long office-terms in Mrs. Eddy's government. The Readers are elected for but one year. This insures theirsubserviency to their proprietor. 

Readers are not allowed to copy out passages and read them from themanuscript in the pulpit; they must read from Mrs. Eddy's book itself. She is right. Slight changes could be slyly made, repeated, and in timeget acceptance with congregations. Branch sects could grow out of thesepractices. Mrs. Eddy knows the human race, and how far to trust it. Herlimit is not over a quarter of an inch. It is all that a wise personwill risk. 

Mrs. Eddy's inborn disposition to copyright everything, chartereverything, secure the rightful and proper credit to herself foreverything she does, and everything she thinks she does, and everythingshe thinks, and everything she thinks she thinks or has thought orintends to think, is illustrated in Sec. 5 of Art. IV. , defining theduties of official Readers--in church:

"Naming Book and Author. The Reader of Science and Health, with Keyto the Scriptures, before commencing to read from this book, shalldistinctly announce its full title and give the author's name. "

Otherwise the congregation might get the habit of forgetting who(ostensibly) wrote the book. 

THE ARISTOCRACY

This consists of First Members and their apostolic succession. It is aclose corporation, and its membership limit is one hundred. Forty willanswer, but if the number fall below that, there must be an election, tofill the grand quorum. 

This Sanhedrin can't do anything of the slightest importance, but itcan talk. It can "discuss. " That is, it can discuss "important questionsrelative to Church members", evidently persons who are already Churchmembers. This affords it amusement, and does no harm. 

It can "fix the salaries of the Readers. "

Twice a year it "votes on" admitting candidates. That is, for Churchmembership. But its work is cut out for it beforehand, by Art. IX. :

"Every recommendation for membership In the Church 'shall becountersigned by a loyal student of Mrs. Eddy's, by a Director of thisChurch, or by a First Member. '"

All these three classes of beings are the personal property of Mrs. Eddy. She has absolute control of the elections. 

Also it must "transact any Church business that may properly come beforeit. "

"Properly" is a thoughtful word. No important business can come beforeit. The By laws have attended to that. No important business goes beforeany one for the final word except Mrs. Eddy. She has looked to that. 

The Sanhedrin "votes on" candidates for admission to its own body. Butis its vote worth any more than mine would be? No, it isn't. Sec. 4, ofArt. V. --Election of First Members--makes this quite plain:

"Before being elected, the candidates for First Members shall beapproved by the Pastor Emeritus over her own signature. "

Thus the Sanhedrin is the personal property of Mrs. Eddy. She owns it. It has no functions, no authority, no real existence. It is anotherBoard of Shadows. Mrs. Eddy is the Sanhedrin herself. 

But it is time to foot up again and "see where we are at. " Thus far, Mrs. Eddy is:

The Massachusetts Metaphysical College; Pastor Emeritus, President;Board of Directors; Treasurer; Clerk; Future Board of Trustees;Proprietor of the Priesthood: Dictator of the Services; Proprietor ofthe Sanhedrin. She has come far, and is still on her way. 

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

In this Article there is another exhibition of a couple of the largefeatures of Mrs. Eddy's remarkable make-up: her business-talent and herknowledge of human nature. 

She does not beseech and implore people to join her Church. She knowsthe human race better than that. She gravely goes through the motions ofreluctantly granting admission to the applicant as a favor to him. Theidea is worth untold shekels. She does not stand at the gate of the foldwith welcoming arms spread, and receive the lost sheep with glad emotionand set up the fatted calf and invite the neighbor and have a time. No, she looks upon him coldly, she snubs him, she says:

"Who are you? Who is your sponsor? Who asked you to come here? Go away, and don't come again until you are invited. "

It is calculated to strikingly impress a person accustomed to Moody andSankey and Sam Jones revivals; accustomed to brain-turning appeals tothe unknown and unendorsed sinner to come forward and enter into thejoy, etc. --"just as he is"; accustomed to seeing him do it; accustomedto seeing him pass up the aisle through sobbing seas of welcome, andlove, and congratulation, and arrive at the mourner's bench and bereceived like a long-lost government bond. 

No, there is nothing of that kind in Mrs. Eddy's system. She knows thatif you wish to confer upon a human being something which he is not surehe wants, the best way is to make it apparently difficult for him to getit--then he is no son of Adam if that apple does not assume an interestin his eyes which it lacked before. In time this interest can grow intodesire. Mrs. Eddy knows that when you cannot get a man to try--free ofcost--a new and effective remedy for a disease he is afflicted with, youcan generally sell it to him if you will put a price upon it which hecannot afford. When, in the beginning, she taught Christian Sciencegratis (for good reasons), pupils were few and reluctant, and requiredpersuasion; it was when she raised the limit to three hundred dollarsfor a dollar's worth that she could not find standing room for theinvasion of pupils that followed. 

With fine astuteness she goes through the motions of making it difficultto get membership in her Church. There is a twofold value in thissystem: it gives membership a high value in the eyes of the applicant;and at the same time the requirements exacted enable Mrs. Eddy to keephim out if she has doubts about his value to her. A word further as toapplications for membership:

"Applications of students of the Metaphysical College must be signed bythe Board of Directors. "

That is safe. Mrs. Eddy is proprietor of that Board. 

Children of twelve may be admitted if invited by "one of Mrs. Eddy'sloyal students, or by a First Member, or by a Director. "

These sponsors are the property of Mrs. Eddy, therefore her Church issafeguarded from the intrusion of undesirable children. 

Other Students. Applicants who have not studied with Mrs. Eddy can getin only "by invitation and recommendation from students of Mrs. Eddy.... Or from members of the Mother-Church. "

Other paragraphs explain how two or three other varieties of applicantsare to be challenged and obstructed, and tell us who is authorized toinvite them, recommend them endorse them, and all that. 

The safeguards are definite, and would seem to be sufficientlystrenuous--to Mr. Sam Jones, at any rate. Not for Mrs. Eddy. She addsthis clincher:

"The candidates be elected by a majority vote of the First Memberspresent. "

That is the aristocracy, the aborigines, the Sanhedrin. It is Mrs. Eddy's property. She herself is the Sanhedrin. No one can get into theChurch if she wishes to keep him out. 

This veto power could some time or other have a large value for her, therefore she was wise to reserve it. 

It is likely that it is not frequently used. It is also probable thatthe difficulties attendant upon getting admission to membership havebeen instituted more to invite than to deter, more to enhance thevalue of membership and make people long for it than to make it reallydifficult to get. I think so, because the Mother. Church has manythousands of members more than its building can accommodate. 

AND SOME ENGLISH REQUIRED

Mrs. Eddy is very particular as regards one detail curiously so, forher, all things considered. The Church Readers must be "good Englishscholars"; they must be "thorough English scholars. "

She is thus sensitive about the English of her subordinates for cause, possibly. In her chapter defining the duties of the Clerk there is anindication that she harbors resentful memories of an occasion when thehazy quality of her own English made unforeseen and mortifying trouble:

"Understanding Communications. Sec. 2. If the Clerk of this Church shallreceive a communication from the Pastor Emeritus which he does not fullyunderstand, he shall inform her of this fact before presenting it tothe Church, and obtain a clear understanding of the matter--then act inaccordance therewith. "

She should have waited to calm down, then, but instead she added this, which lacks sugar:

"Failing to adhere to this By-law, the Clerk must resign. "

I wish I could see that communication that broke the camel's back. It was probably the one beginning: "What plague spot or bacilli weregnawing at the heart of this metropolis and bringing it on bended knee?"and I think it likely that the kindly disposed Clerk tried to translateit into English and lost his mind and had to go to the hospital. That Bylaw was not the offspring of a forecast, an intuition, it wascertainly born of a sorrowful experience. Its temper gives the factaway. 

The little book of By-laws has manifestly been tinkered by one of Mrs. Eddy's "thorough English scholars, " for in the majority of cases itsmeanings are clear. The book is not even marred by Mrs. Eddy's peculiarspecialty--lumbering clumsinesses of speech. I believe the salariedpolisher has weeded them all out but one. In one place, after referringto Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy goes on to say "the Bible and theabove-named book, with other works by the same author, " etc. 

It is an unfortunate sentence, for it could mislead a hasty or carelessreader for a moment. Mrs. Eddy framed it--it is her very own--it bearsher trade-mark. "The Bible and Science and Health, with other works bythe same author, " could have come from no literary vacuum but the onewhich produced the remark (in the Autobiography): "I remember reading, in my childhood, certain manuscripts containing Scriptural Sonnets, besides other verses and enigmas. "

We know what she means, in both instances, but a low-priced Clerk wouldnot necessarily know, and on a salary like his he could quite excusablyaver that the Pastor Emeritus had commanded him to come and makeproclamation that she was author of the Bible, and that she was thinkingof discharging some Scriptural sonnets and other enigmas upon thecongregation. It could lose him his place, but it would not be fair, ifit happened before the edict about "Understanding Communications" waspromulgated. 

"READERS" AGAIN

The By-law book makes a showy pretence of orderliness and system, but itis only a pretence. I will not go so far as to say it is a harum-scarumjumble, for it is not that, but I think it fair to say it is at leastjumbulacious in places. For instance, Articles III. And IV. Set forthin much detail the qualifications and duties of Readers, she thenskips some thirty pages and takes up the subject again. It lookslike slovenliness, but it may be only art. The belated By-law has asufficiently quiet look, but it has a ton of dynamite in it. It makesall the Christian Science Church Readers on the globe the personalchattels of Mrs. Eddy. Whenever she chooses, she can stretch her longarm around the world's fat belly and flirt a Reader out of his pulpit, though he be tucked away in seeming safety and obscurity in a lostvillage in the middle of China:

"In any Church. Sec. 2. The Pastor Emeritus of the Mother-Church shallhave the right (through a letter addressed to the individual and Churchof which he is the Reader) to remove a Reader from this office in anyChurch of Christ, Scientist, both in America and in foreign nations;or to appoint the Reader to fill any office belonging to the ChristianScience denomination. "

She does not have to prefer charges against him, she does not have tofind him lazy, careless, incompetent, untidy, ill-mannered, unholy, dishonest, she does not have to discover a fault of any kind in him, she does not have to tell him nor his congregation why she dismisses anddisgraces him and insults his meek flock, she does not have to explainto his family why she takes the bread out of their mouths and turns themout-of-doors homeless and ashamed in a strange land; she does not haveto do anything but send a letter and say: "Pack!--and ask no questions!"

Has the Pope this power?--the other Pope--the one in Rome. Has heanything approaching it? Can he turn a priest out of his pulpit andstrip him of his office and his livelihood just upon a whim, a caprice, and meanwhile furnishing no reasons to the parish? Not in America. Andnot elsewhere, we may believe. 

It is odd and strange, to see intelligent and educated people amongus worshipping this self-seeking and remorseless tyrant as a God. Thisworship is denied--by persons who are themselves worshippers of Mrs. Eddy. I feel quite sure that it is a worship which will continue duringages. 

That Mrs. Eddy wrote that amazing By-law with her own hand we have muchbetter evidence than her word. We have her English. It is there. Itcannot be imitated. She ought never to go to the expense of copyrightingher verbal discharges. When any one tries to claim them she should callme; I can always tell them from any other literary apprentice's at aglance. It was like her to call America a "nation"; she would call asand-bar a nation if it should fall into a sentence in which she wasspeaking of peoples, for she would not know how to untangle it and getit out and classify it by itself. And the closing arrangement of thatBy-law is in true Eddysonian form, too. In it she reserves authority tomake a Reader fill any office connected with a Science church-sexton, grave-digger, advertising-agent, Annex-polisher, leader of the choir, President, Director, Treasurer, Clerk, etc. She did not mean that. She already possessed that authority. She meant to clothe herself withpower, despotic and unchallengeable, to appoint all Science Readers totheir offices, both at home and abroad. The phrase "or to appoint"is another miscarriage of intention; she did not mean "or, " she meant"and. "

That By-law puts into Mrs. Eddy's hands absolute command over the mostformidable force and influence existent in the Christian Science kingdomoutside of herself, and it does this unconditionally and (by auxiliaryforce of Laws already quoted) irrevocably. Still, she is not quitesatisfied. Something might happen, she doesn't know what. Therefore shedrives in one more nail, to make sure, and drives it deep:

"This By-law can neither be amended nor annulled, except by consent ofthe Pastor Emeritus. "

Let some one with a wild and delirious fancy try and see if he canimagine her furnishing that consent. 

MONOPOLY OF SPIRITUAL BREAD

Very properly, the first qualification for membership in theMother-Church is belief in the doctrines of Christian Science. 

But these doctrines must not be gathered from secondary sources. Thereis but one recognized source. The candidate must be a believer in thedoctrines of Christian Science "according to the platform and teachingcontained in the Christian Science text-book, 'Science and Health, withKey to the Scriptures, ' by Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy. "

That is definite, and is final. There are to be no commentaries, nolabored volumes of exposition and explanation by anybody except Mrs. Eddy. Because such things could sow error, create warring opinions, split the religion into sects, and disastrously cripple its power. Mrs. Eddy will do the whole of the explaining, Herself--has done it, in fact. She has written several books. They are to be had (for cash in advance), they are all sacred; additions to them can never be needed and willnever be permitted. They tell the candidate how to instruct himself, how to teach others, how to do all things comprised in the business--andthey close the door against all would-be competitors, and monopolize thetrade:

"The Bible and the above--named book [Science and Health], withother works by the same author, " must be his only text-books for thecommerce--he cannot forage outside. 

Mrs. Eddy's words are to be the sole elucidators of the Bible andScience and Health--forever. Throughout the ages, whenever there isdoubt as to the meaning of a passage in either of these books theinquirer will not dream of trying to explain it to himself; he wouldshudder at the thought of such temerity, such profanity, he would behaled to the Inquisition and thence to the public square and the stakeif he should be caught studying into text-meanings on his own hook; hewill be prudent and seek the meanings at the only permitted source, Mrs. Eddy's commentaries. 

Value of this Strait-jacket. One must not underrate the magnificenceof this long-headed idea, one must not underestimate its giantpossibilities in the matter of trooping the Church solidly together andkeeping it so. It squelches independent inquiry, and makes such a thingimpossible, profane, criminal, it authoritatively settles every disputethat can arise. It starts with finality--a point which the Roman Churchhas travelled towards fifteen or sixteen centuries, stage by stage, and has not yet reached. The matter of the Immaculate Conception ofthe Virgin Mary was not authoritatively settled until the days of PiusIX. --yesterday, so to speak. 

As already noticed, the Protestants are broken up into a long array ofsects, a result of disputes about the meanings of texts, disputes madeunavoidable by the absence of an infallible authority to submit doubtfulpassages to. A week or two ago (I am writing in the middle of January, 1903), the clergy and others hereabouts had a warm dispute in the papersover this question: Did Jesus anywhere claim to be God? It seemed aneasy question, but it turned out to be a hard one. It was ably andelaborately discussed, by learned men of several denominations, but inthe end it remained unsettled. 

A week ago, another discussion broke out. It was over this text:

"Sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor. "

One verdict was worded as follows:

"When Christ answered the rich young man and said for him to give to thepoor all he possessed or he could not gain everlasting life, He did notmean it in the literal sense. My interpretation of His words is that weshould part with what comes between us and Christ. 

"There is no doubt that Jesus believed that the rich young man thoughtmore of his wealth than he did of his soul, and, such being the case, itwas his duty to give up the wealth. 

"Every one of us knows that there is something we should give up forChrist. Those who are true believers and followers know what they havegiven up, and those who are not yet followers know down in their heartswhat they must give up. "

Ten clergymen of various denominations were interviewed, and nine ofthem agreed with that verdict. That did not settle the matter, becausethe tenth said the language of Jesus was so strait and definite that itexplained itself: "Sell all, " not a percentage. 

There is a most unusual feature about that dispute: the nine personswho decided alike, quoted not a single authority in support of theirposition. I do not know when I have seen trained disputants do the likeof that before. The nine merely furnished their own opinions, foundedupon--nothing at all. In the other dispute ("Did Jesus anywhere claim tobe God?") the same kind of men--trained and learned clergymen--backed uptheir arguments with chapter and verse. On both sides. Plenty of verses. Were no reinforcing verses to be found in the present case? It looksthat way. 

The opinion of the nine seems strange to me, for it is unsupportedby authority, while there was at least constructive authority for theopposite view. 

It is hair-splitting differences of opinion over disputed text-meaningsthat have divided into many sects a once united Church. One mayinfer from some of the names in the following list that some ofthe differences are very slight--so slight as to be not distinctlyimportant, perhaps--yet they have moved groups to withdraw fromcommunions to which they belonged and set up a sect of their own. Thelist--accompanied by various Church statistics for 1902, compiled byRev. Dr. H. K. Carroll--was published, January 8, 1903, in the New YorkChristian Advocate:

Adventists (6 bodies), Baptists (13 bodies), Brethren (Plymouth) (4bodies), Brethren (River) (3 bodies), Catholics (8 bodies), CatholicApostolic, Christadelphians, Christian Connection, Christian Catholics, Christian Missionary Association, Christian Scientists, Church of God(Wine-brennarian), Church of the New Jerusalem, Congregationalists, Disciples of Christ, Dunkards (4 bodies), Evangelical (2 bodies), Friends (4 bodies), Friends of the Temple, German EvangelicalProtestant, German Evangelical Synod, Independent congregations, Jews (2bodies), Latter-day Saints (2 bodies), Lutherans (22 bodies), Mennonites(12 bodies), Methodists (17 bodies), Moravians, Presbyterians (12bodies), Protestant Episcopal (2 bodies), Reformed (3 bodies), Schwenkfeldians, Social Brethren, Spiritualists, Swedish EvangelicalMiss. Covenant (Waldenstromians), Unitarians, United Brethren (2bodies), Universalists. 

Total of sects and splits--139. 

In the present month (February), Mr. E. I. Lindh, A. M. , has communicatedto the Boston Transcript a hopeful article on the solution of theproblem of the "divided church. " Divided is not too violent a term. Subdivided could have been permitted if he had thought of it. He camenear thinking of it, for he mentions some of the subdivisions himself:"the 12 kinds of Presbyterians, the 17 kinds of Methodists, the 13 kindsof Baptists, etc. " He overlooked the 12 kinds of Mennonites and the 22kinds of Lutherans, but they are in Rev. Mr. Carroll's list. Altogether, 76 splits under 5 flags. The Literary Digest (February 14th) is pleasedwith Mr. Lindh's optimistic article, and also with the signs of thetimes, and perceives that "the idea of Church unity is in the air. "

Now, then, is not Mrs. Eddy profoundly wise in forbidding, for all time, all explanations of her religion except such as she shall let on to beher own?

I think so. I think there can be no doubt of it. In a way, they will beher own; for, no matter which member of her clerical staff shall furnishthe explanations, not a line of them will she ever allow to be printeduntil she shall have approved it, accepted it, copyrighted it, cabbagedit. We may depend on that with a four-ace confidence. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE NEW INFALLIBILITY

All in proper time Mrs. Eddy's factory will take hold of thatCommandment, and explain it for good and all. It may be that one memberof the shift will vote that the word "all" means all; it may be that tenmembers of the shift will vote that "all" means only a percentage; butit is Mrs. Eddy, not the eleven, who will do the deciding. And if shesays it is percentage, then percentage it is, forevermore--and thatis what I am expecting, for she doesn't sell all herself, nor anyconsiderable part of it, and as regards the poor, she doesn't declareany dividend; but if she says "all" means all, then all it is, to theend of time, and no follower of hers will ever be allowed to reconstructthat text, or shrink it, or inflate it, or meddle with it in any way atall. Even to-day--right here in the beginning--she is the sole personwho, in the matter of Christian Science exegesis, is privileged toexploit the Spiral Twist. The Christian world has two Infallibles now. 

Of equal power? For the present only. When Leo XIII. Passes to his restanother Infallible will ascend his throne; others, and yet others, andstill others will follow him, and be as infallible as he, and decidequestions of doctrine as long as they may come up, all down the farfuture; but Mary Baker G. Eddy is the only Infallible that will everoccupy the Science throne. Many a Science Pope will succeed her, butshe has closed their mouths; they will repeat and reverently praise andadore her infallibilities, but venture none themselves. In her grave shewill still outrank all other Popes, be they of what Church they may. She will hold the supremest of earthly titles, The Infallible--witha capital T. Many in the world's history have had a hunger for suchnuggets and slices of power as they might reasonably hope to grab outof an empire's or a religion's assets, but Mrs. Eddy is the only personalive or dead who has ever struck for the whole of them. For smallthings she has the eye of a microscope, for large ones the eye of atelescope, and whatever she sees, she wants. Wants it all. 

THE SACRED POEMS

When Mrs. Eddy's "sacred revelations" (that is the language of theBy-laws) are read in public, their authorship must be named. The By-lawstwice command this, therefore we mention it twice, to be fair. 

But it is also commanded that when a member publicly quotes "from thepoems of our Pastor Emeritus" the authorship shall be named. For theseare sacred, too. There are kindly people who may suspect a hiddengenerosity in that By-law; they may think it is there to protect theOfficial Reader from the suspicion of having written the poems himself. Such do not know Mrs. Eddy. She does an inordinate deal of protecting, but in no distinctly named and specified case in her history has NumberTwo been the object of it. Instances have been claimed, but they havefailed of proof, and even of plausibility. 

"Members shall also instruct their students" to look out and advertisethe authorship when they read those poems and things. Not on Mrs. Eddy'saccount, but "for the good of our Cause. "

THE CHURCH EDIFICE

1. Mrs. Eddy gave the land. It was not of much value at the time, but itis very valuable now. 2. Her people built the Mother-Church edifice onit, at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 3. Then theygave the whole property to her. 4. Then she gave it to the Board ofDirectors. She is the Board of Directors. She took it out of one pocketand put it in the other. 5. Sec. 10 (of the deed). "Whenever saidDirectors shall determine that it is inexpedient to maintain preaching, reading, or speaking in said church in accordance with the terms of thisdeed, they are authorized and required to reconvey forthwith said lotof land with the building thereon to Mary Baker G. Eddy, her heirs andassigns forever, by a proper deed of conveyance. "

She is never careless, never slipshod, about a matter of business. Owning the property through her Board of Waxworks was safe enough, stillit was sound business to set another grip on it to cover accidents, and she did it. Her barkers (what a curious name; I wonder if it iscopyrighted); her barkers persistently advertise to the public hergenerosity in giving away a piece of land which cost her a trifle, anda two--hundred--and--fifty--thousand--dollar church which cost hernothing; and they can hardly speak of the unselfishness of it withoutbreaking down and crying; yet they know she gave nothing away, and neverintended to. However, such is the human race. Often it does seem such apity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat. 

Some of the hostiles think that Mrs. Eddy's idea in protecting thisproperty in the interest of her heirs, and in accumulating a great moneyfortune, is, that she may leave her natural heirs well provided for whenshe goes. I think it is a mistake. I think she is of late years givingherself large concern about only one interest-her power and glory, andthe perpetuation and worship of her Name--with a capital N. Her Churchis her pet heir, and I think it will get her wealth. It is the torchwhich is to light the world and the ages with her glory. 

I think she once prized money for the ease and comfort it could bring, the showy vanities it could furnish, and the social promotion it couldcommand; for we have seen that she was born into the world with littleways and instincts and aspirations and affectations that are duplicatesof our own. I do not think her money-passion has ever diminished inferocity, I do not think that she has ever allowed a dollar that had nofriends to get by her alive, but I think her reason for wanting ithas changed. I think she wants it now to increase and establish andperpetuate her power and glory with, not to add to her comforts andluxuries, not to furnish paint and fuss and feathers for vain display. I think her ambitions have soared away above the fuss-and-feather stage. She still likes the little shows and vanities--a fact which sheexposed in a public utterance two or three days ago when she was notnoticing--but I think she does not place a large value upon them now. She could build a mighty and far-shining brass-mounted palace if shewanted to, but she does not do it. She would have had that kind of anambition in the early scrabbling times. She could go to England to-dayand be worshiped by earls, and get a comet's attention from themillion, if she cared for such things. She would have gone in the earlyscrabbling days for much less than an earl, and been vain of it, andglad to show off before the remains of the Scotch kin. But those thingsare very small to her now--next to invisible, observed through thecloud-rack from the dizzy summit where she perches in these great days. She does not want that church property for herself. It is worth but aquarter of a million--a sum she could call in from her far-spread flocksto-morrow with a lift of her hand. Not a squeeze of it, just a lift. Itwould come without a murmur; come gratefully, come gladly. And if herglory stood in more need of the money in Boston than it does where herflocks are propagating it, she would lift the hand, I think. 

She is still reaching for the Dollar, she will continue to reach for it;but not that she may spend it upon herself; not that she may spend itupon charities; not that she may indemnify an early deprivation andclothe herself in a blaze of North Adams gauds; not that she may havenine breeds of pie for breakfast, as only the rich New-Englander can;not that she may indulge any petty material vanity or appetite that oncewas hers and prized and nursed, but that she may apply that Dollar tostatelier uses, and place it where it may cast the metallic sheen of herglory farthest across the receding expanses of the globe. 

PRAYER

A brief and good one is furnished in the book of By-laws. The Scientistis required to pray it every day. 

THE LORD'S PRAYER-AMENDED

This is not in the By-laws, it is in the first chapter of Science andHealth, edition of 1902. I do not find it in the edition of 1884. Itis probable that it had not at that time been handed down. Science andHealth's (latest) rendering of its "spiritual sense" is as follows:

"Our Father-Mother God' all-harmonious, adorable One. Thy kingdom iswithin us, Thou art ever-present. Enable us to know--as in heaven, soon earth--God is supreme. Give us grace for to-day; feed the famishedaffections. And infinite Love is reflected in love. And Love leadeth usnot into temptation, but delivereth from sin, disease, and death. ForGod is now and forever all Life, Truth, and Love. "

If I thought my opinion was desired and would be properly revered, Ishould say that in my judgment that is as good a piece of carpenteringas any of those eleven Commandment--experts could do with the materialafter all their practice. I notice only one doubtful place. "Lead us notinto temptation" seems to me to be a very definite request, and that thenew rendering turns the definite request into a definite assertion. Ishall be glad to have that turned back to the old way and the marks ofthe Spiral Twist removed, or varnished over; then I shall be satisfied, and will do the best I can with what is left. At the same time, I dofeel that the shrinkage in our spiritual assets is getting serious. First the Commandments, now the Prayer. I never expected to see thesesteady old reliable securities watered down to this. And this is notthe whole of it. Last summer the Presbyterians extended the Calling andElection suffrage to nearly everybody entitled to salvation. They didnot even stop there, but let out all the unbaptized American infantswe had been accumulating for two hundred years and more. There are somethat believe they would have let the Scotch ones out, too, if they couldhave done it. Everything is going to ruin; in no long time we shall havenothing left but the love of God. 

THE NEW UNPARDONABLE SIN

"Working Against the Cause. Sec. 2. If a member of this Church shallwork against the accomplishment of what the Discoverer and Founder ofChristian Science understands is advantageous to the individual, to thisChurch, and to the Cause of Christian Science"--out he goes. Forever. 

The member may think that what he is doing will advance the Cause, but he is not invited to do any thinking. More than that, he is notpermitted to do any--as he will clearly gather from this By-law. When aperson joins Mrs. Eddy's Church he must leave his thinker at home. Leaveit permanently. To make sure that it will not go off some time or otherwhen he is not watching, it will be safest for him to spike it. If heshould forget himself and think just once, the By-law provides that heshall be fired out-instantly-forever-no return. 

"It shall be the duty of this Church immediately to call a meeting, anddrop forever the name of this member from its records. "

My, but it breathes a towering indignation!

There are forgivable offenses, but this is not one of them; there areadmonitions, probations, suspensions, in several minor cases; mercy isshown the derelict, in those cases he is gently used, and in time he canget back into the fold--even when he has repeated his offence. But lethim think, just once, without getting his thinker set to Eddy time, and that is enough; his head comes off. There is no second offence, andthere is no gate open to that lost sheep, ever again. 

"This rule cannot be changed, amended, or annulled, except by unanimousvote of all the First Members. "

The same being Mrs. Eddy. It is naively sly and pretty to see her keepputting forward First Members, and Boards of This and That, and otherbroideries and ruffles of her raiment, as if they were independententities, instead of a part of her clothes, and could do things all bythemselves when she was outside of them. 

Mrs. Eddy did not need to copyright the sentence just quoted, itsEnglish would protect it. None but she would have shovelled thatcomically superfluous "all" in there. 

The former Unpardonable Sin has gone out of service. We may frame thenew Christian Science one thus:

"Whatsoever Member shall think, and without Our Mother's permission actupon his think, the same shall be cut off from the Church forever. "

It has been said that I make many mistakes about Christian Sciencethrough being ignorant of the spiritual meanings of its terminology. I believe it is true. I have been misled all this time by that wordMember, because there was no one to tell me that its spiritual meaningwas Slave. 

AXE AND BLOCK

There is a By-law which forbids Members to practice hypnotism; thepenalty is excommunication. 

1. If a member is found to be a mental practitioner--2. Complaint is tobe entered against him--3. By the Pastor Emeritus, and by none else;4. No member is allowed to make complaint to her in the matter; 5. UponMrs. Eddy's mere "complaint"--unbacked by evidence or proof, and withoutgiving the accused a chance to be heard--his name shall be dropped fromthis Church. 

Mrs. Eddy has only to say a member is guilty--that is all. That endsit. It is not a case of he "may" be cut off from Christian Sciencesalvation, it is a case of he "shall" be. Her serfs must see to it, andnot say a word. 

Does the other Pope possess this prodigious and irresponsible power?Certainly not in our day. 

Some may be curious to know how Mrs. Eddy finds out that a member ispracticing hypnotism, since no one is allowed to come before her throneand accuse him. She has explained this in Christian Science History, first and second editions, page 16:

"I possess a spiritual sense of what the malicious mental practitioneris mentally arguing which cannot be deceived; I can discern in the humanmind thoughts, motives, and purposes, and neither mental arguments norpsychic power can affect this spiritual insight. "

A marvelous woman; with a hunger for power such as has never been seenin the world before. No thing, little or big, that contains any seed orsuggestion of power escapes her avaricious eye; and when once she getsthat eye on it, her remorseless grip follows. There isn't a ChristianScientist who isn't ecclesiastically as much her property as if she hadbought him and paid for him, and copyrighted him and got a charter. She cannot be satisfied when she has handcuffed a member, and put aleg-chain and ball on him and plugged his ears and removed his thinker, she goes on wrapping needless chains round and round him, just as aspider would. For she trusts no one, believes in no one's honesty, judges every one by herself. Although we have seen that she has absoluteand irresponsible command over her spectral Boards and over everyofficial and servant of her Church, at home and abroad, over everyminute detail of her Church's government, present and future, and canpurge her membership of guilty or suspected persons by various plausibleformalities and whenever she will, she is still not content, but mustset her queer mind to work and invent a way by which she can take amember--any member--by neck and crop and fling him out without anythingresembling a formality at all. 

She is sole accuser and sole witness, and her testimony is final andcarries uncompromising and irremediable doom with it. 

The Sole-Witness Court! It should make the Council of Ten and theCouncil of Three turn in their graves for shame, to see how little theyknew about satanic concentrations of irresponsible power. Here we haveone Accuser, one Witness, one Judge, one Headsman--and all four bunchedtogether in Mrs. Eddy, the Inspired of God, His Latest Thought to HisPeople, New Member of the Holy Family, the Equal of Jesus. 

When a Member is not satisfactory to Mrs. Eddy, and yet is blameless inhis life and faultless in his membership and in his Christian Sciencewalk and conversation, shall he hold up his head and tilt his hat overone ear and imagine himself safe because of these perfections? Why, in that very moment Mrs. Eddy will cast that spiritual X-ray of hersthrough his dungarees and say:

"I see his hypnotism working, among his insides--remove him to theblock!"

What shall it profit him to know it isn't so? Nothing. His testimony isof no value. No one wants it, no one will ask for it. He is not presentto offer it (he does not know he has been accused), and if he were thereto offer it, it would not be listened to. 

It was out of powers approaching Mrs. Eddy's--though not equallingthem--that the Inquisition and the devastations of the Interdict grew. She will transmit hers. The man born two centuries from now will thinkhe has arrived in hell; and all in good time he will think he knows it. Vast concentrations of irresponsible power have never in any age beenused mercifully, and there is nothing to suggest that the ChristianScience Papacy is going to spend money on novelties. 

Several Christian Scientists have asked me to refrain from prophecy. There is no prophecy in our day but history. But history is atrustworthy prophet. History is always repeating itself, becauseconditions are always repeating themselves. Out of duplicated conditionshistory always gets a duplicate product. 

READING LETTERS AT MEETINGS

I wonder if there is anything a Member can do that will not raise Mrs. Eddy's jealousy? The By-laws seem to hunt him from pillar to post allthe time, and turn all his thoughts and acts and words into sins againstthe meek and lowly new deity of his worship. Apparently her jealousynever sleeps. Apparently any trifle can offend it, and but one penaltyappease it--excommunication. The By-laws might properly and reasonablybe entitled Laws for the Coddling and Comforting of Our Mother's PettyJealousies. The By-law named at the head of this paragraph reads itstransgressor out of the Church if he shall carry a letter from Mrs. Eddyto the congregation and forget to read it or fail to read the whole ofit. 

HONESTY REQUISITE

Dishonest members are to be admonished; if they continue in dishonestpractices, excommunication follows. Considering who it is that draughtedthis law, there is a certain amount of humor in it. 

FURTHER APPLICATIONS OF THE AXE

Here follow the titles of some more By-laws whose infringement ispunishable by excommunication:

Silence Enjoined. Misteaching. Departure from Tenets. Violation ofChristian Fellowship. Moral Offences. Illegal Adoption. Broken By-laws. Violation of By-laws. (What is the difference?) Formulas Forbidden. Official Advice. (Forbids Tom, Dick, and Harry's clack. ) Unworthy ofMembership. Final Excommunication. Organizing Churches. 

This looks as if Mrs. Eddy had devoted a large share of her time andtalent to inventing ways to get rid of her Church members. Yet inanother place she seems to invite membership. Not in any urgent way, it is true, still she throws out a bait to such as like notice anddistinction (in other words, the Human Race). Page 82:

"It is important that these seemingly strict conditions be compliedwith, as the names of the Members of the Mother-Church will be recordedin the history of the Church and become a part thereof. "

We all want to be historical. 

MORE SELF-PROTECTIONS

The Hymnal. There is a Christian Science Hymnal. Entrance to it wasclosed in 1898. Christian Science students who make hymns nowadays maypossibly get them sung in the Mother-Church, "but not unless approved bythe Pastor Emeritus. " Art. XXVII, Sec. 2. 

Solo Singers. Mrs. Eddy has contributed the words of three of the hymnsin the Hymnal. Two of them appear in it six times altogether, each ofthem being set to three original forms of musical anguish. Mrs. Eddy, always thoughtful, has promulgated a By-law requiring the singing of oneof her three hymns in the Mother Church "as often as once each month. "It is a good idea. A congregation could get tired of even Mrs. Eddy'smuse in the course of time, without the cordializing incentive ofcompulsion. We all know how wearisome the sweetest and touchingestthings can become, through rep-rep-repetition, and stillrep-rep-repetition, and more rep-rep-repetition-like "the sweetby-and-by, in the sweet by-and-by, " for instance, and "Tah-rah-rahboom-de-aye"; and surely it is not likely that Mrs. Eddy's machine hasturned out goods that could outwear those great heart-stirrers, withoutthe assistance of the lash. "O'er Waiting Harpstrings of the Mind" ispretty good, quite fair to middling--the whole seven of the stanzas--butrepetition would be certain to take the excitement out of it in thecourse of time, even if there were fourteen, and then it would soundlike the multiplication table, and would cease to save. The congregationwould be perfectly sure to get tired; in fact, did get tired--hence thecompulsory By-law. It is a measure born of experience, not foresight. 

The By-laws say that "if a solo singer shall neglect or refuse to singalone" one of those three hymns as often as once a month, and oftener ifso directed by the Board of Directors--which is Mrs. Eddy--the singer'ssalary shall be stopped. It is circumstantial evidence that somesoloists neglected this sacrament and others refused it. At least thatis the charitable view to take of it. There is only one other view totake: that Mrs. Eddy did really foresee that there would be singerswho would some day get tired of doing her hymns and proclaiming theauthorship, unless persuaded by a Bylaw, with a penalty attached. Theidea could of course occur to her wise head, for she would know that aseven-stanza break might well be a calamitous strain upon a soloist, andthat he might therefore avoid it if unwatched. He could not curtail it, for the whole of anything that Mrs. Eddy does is sacred, and cannot becut. 

BOARD OF EDUCATION

It consists of four members, one of whom is President of it. Its membersare elected annually. Subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval. Art. XXX. , Sec. 2. 

She owns the Board--is the Board. 

Mrs. Eddy is President of the Metaphysical College. If at any time sheshall vacate that office, the Directors of the College (that is to say, Mrs. Eddy) "shall" elect to the vacancy the President of the Board ofEducation (which is merely re-electing herself). 

It is another case of "Pastor Emeritus. " She gives up the shadow ofauthority, but keeps a good firm hold on the substance. 

PUBLIC TEACHERS

Applicants for admission to this industry must pass a thorough threedays' examination before the Board of Education "in Science and Health, chapter on 'Recapitulation'; the Platform of Christian Science; page 403of Christian Science Practice, from line second to the second paragraphof page 405; and page 488, second and third paragraphs. "

BOARD OF LECTURESHIP

The lecturers are exceedingly important servants of Mrs. Eddy, and shechooses them with great care. Each of them has an appointed territoryin which to perform his duties--in the North, the South, the East, theWest, in Canada, in Great Britain, and so on--and each must stick tohis own territory and not forage beyond its boundaries. I think it goeswithout saying--from what we have seen of Mrs. Eddy--that no lecture isdelivered until she has examined and approved it, and that the lectureris not allowed to change it afterwards. 

The members of the Board of Lectureship are elected annually--

"Subject to the approval of Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy. "

MISSIONARIES

There are but four. They are elected--like the rest of thedomestics--annually. So far as I can discover, not a single servant ofthe Sacred Household has a steady job except Mrs. Eddy. It is plain thatshe trusts no human being but herself. 

THE BY-LAWS

The branch Churches are strictly forbidden to use them. 

So far as I can see, they could not do it if they wanted to. The By-lawsare merely the voice of the master issuing commands to the servants. There is nothing and nobody for the servants to re-utter them to. 

That useless edict is repeated in the little book, a few pages fartheron. There are several other repetitions of prohibitions in the book thatcould be spared-they only take up room for nothing. 

THE CREED It is copyrighted. I do not know why, but I suppose it is tokeep adventurers from some day claiming that they invented it, andnot Mrs. Eddy and that "strange Providence" that has suggested so manyclever things to her. 

No Change. It is forbidden to change the Creed. That is important, atany rate. 

COPYRIGHT

I can understand why Mrs. Eddy copyrighted the early editionsand revisions of Science and Health, and why she had a mania forcopyrighting every scrap of every sort that came from her pen in thosejejune days when to be in print probably seemed a wonderful distinctionto her in her provincial obscurity, but why she should continue thisdelirium in these days of her godship and her far-spread fame, I cannotexplain to myself. And particularly as regards Science and Health. Sheknows, now, that that Annex is going to live for many centuries; and so, what good is a fleeting forty-two-year copyright going to do it?

Now a perpetual copyright would be quite another matter. I would like togive her a hint. Let her strike for a perpetual copyright on that book. There is precedent for it. There is one book in the world which bearsthe charmed life of perpetual copyright (a fact not known to twentypeople in the world). By a hardy perversion of privilege on the part ofthe lawmaking power the Bible has perpetual copyright in Great Britain. There is no justification for it in fairness, and no explanation of itexcept that the Church is strong enough there to have its way, rightor wrong. The recent Revised Version enjoys perpetual copyright, too--astronger precedent, even, than the other one. 

Now, then, what is the Annex but a Revised Version itself? Which ofcourse it is--Lord's Prayer and all. With that pair of formidableBritish precedents to proceed upon, what Congress of ours--

But how short-sighted I am. Mrs. Eddy has thought of it long ago. Shethinks of everything. She knows she has only to keep her copyright of1902 alive through its first stage of twenty-eight years, and perpetuityis assured. A Christian Science Congress will reign in the Capitol then. She probably attaches small value to the first edition (1875). Althoughit was a Revelation from on high, it was slim, lank, incomplete, paddedwith bales of refuse rags, and puffs from lassoed celebrities to fillit out, an uncreditable book, a book easily sparable, a book not tobe mentioned in the same year with the sleek, fat, concise, compact, compressed, and competent Annex of to-day, in its dainty flexiblecovers, gilt--edges, rounded corners, twin screw, spiral twist, compensation balance, Testament-counterfeit, and all that; a book justborn to curl up on the hymn-book-shelf in church and look just too sweetand holy for anything. Yes, I see now what she was copyrighting thatchild for. 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION

It is true in matters of business Mrs. Eddy thinks of everything. Shethought of an organ, to disseminate the Truth as it was in Mrs. Eddy. Straightway she started one--the Christian Science Journal. 

It is true--in matters of business Mrs. Eddy thinks of everything. Assoon as she had got the Christian Science Journal sufficiently in debtto make its presence on the premises disagreeable to her, it occurredto her to make somebody a present of it. Which she did, along withits debts. It was in the summer of 1889. The victim selected washer Church--called, in those days, The National Christian ScientistAssociation. 

She delivered this sorrow to those lambs as a "gift" in consideration oftheir "loyalty to our great cause. "

Also--still thinking of everything--she told them to retain Mr. Baileyin the editorship and make Mr. Nixon publisher. We do not know what itwas she had against those men; neither do we know whether she scored onBailey or not, we only know that God protected Nixon, and for that I amsincerely glad, although I do not know Nixon and have never even seenhim. 

Nixon took the Journal and the rest of the Publishing Society'sliabilities, and demonstrated over them during three years, then broughtin his report:

"On assuming my duties as publisher, there was not a dollar in thetreasury; but on the contrary the Society owed unpaid printing andpaper bills to the amount of several hundred dollars, not to mentiona contingent liability of many more hundreds"--represented byadvance--subscriptions paid for the Journal and the "Series, " the whichgoods Mrs. Eddy had not delivered. And couldn't, very well, perhaps, ona Metaphysical College income of but a few thousand dollars a day, or aweek, or whatever it was in those magnificently flourishing times. Thestruggling Journal had swallowed up those advance-payments, but its"claim" was a severe one and they had failed to cure it. But Nixon curedit in his diligent three years, and joyously reported the news that hehad cleared off all the debts and now had a fat six thousand dollars inthe bank. 

It made Mrs. Eddy's mouth water. 

At the time that Mrs. Eddy had unloaded that dismal gift on to herNational Association, she had followed her inveterate custom: she hadtied a string to its hind leg, and kept one end of it hitched to herbelt. We have seen her do that in the case of the Boston Mosque. Whenshe deeds property, she puts in that string-clause. It provides thatunder certain conditions she can pull the string and land the propertyin the cherished home of its happy youth. In the present case shebelieved that she had made provision that if at any time the NationalChristian Science Association should dissolve itself by a formal vote, she could pull. 

A year after Nixon's handsome report, she writes the Association thatshe has a "unique request to lay before it. " It has dissolved, and sheis not quite sure that the Christian Science Journal has "already falleninto her hands" by that act, though it "seems" to her to have met withthat accident; so she would like to have the matter decided by a formalvote. But whether there is a doubt or not, "I see the wisdom, " she says, "of again owning this Christian Science waif. "

I think that that is unassailable evidence that the waif was makingmoney, hands down. 

She pulled her gift in. A few years later she donated the PublishingSociety, along with its real estate, its buildings, its plant, itspublications, and its money--the whole worth twenty--two thousanddollars, and free of debt--to--Well, to the Mother-Church!

That is to say, to herself. There is an act count of it in the ChristianScience Journal, and of how she had already made some other handsomegifts--to her Church--and others to--to her Cause besides "an almostcountless number of private charities" of cloudy amount and otherwiseindefinite. This landslide of generosities overwhelmed one of herliterary domestics. While he was in that condition he tried to expresswhat he felt:

"Let us endeavor to lift up our hearts in thankfulness to... Our Motherin Israel for these evidences of generosity and self-sacrifice thatappeal to our deepest sense of gratitude, even while surpassing ourcomprehension. "

A year or two later, Mrs. Eddy promulgated some By-laws of aself-sacrificing sort which assuaged him, perhaps, and perhaps enabledhis surpassed comprehension to make a sprint and catch up. These are tobe found in Art. XII. , entitled. 

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY

This Article puts the whole publishing business into the hands of apublishing Board--special. Mrs. Eddy appoints to its vacancies. 

The profits go semi-annually to the Treasurer of the Mother-Church. Mrs. Eddy owns the Treasurer. 

Editors and publishers of the Christian Science Journal cannot beelected or removed without Mrs. Eddy's knowledge and consent. 

Every candidate for employment in a high capacity or a low one, on theother periodicals or in the publishing house, must first be "acceptedby Mrs. Eddy as suitable. " And "by the Board of Directors"--which issurplusage, since Mrs. Eddy owns the Board. 

If at any time a weekly shall be started, "it shall be owned by TheFirst Church of Christ, Scientist"--which is Mrs. Eddy. 

CHAPTER VIII

I think that any one who will carefully examine the By-laws (I haveplaced all of the important ones before the reader), will arrive at theconclusion that of late years the master-passion in Mrs. Eddy's heart isa hunger for power and glory; and that while her hunger for money stillremains, she wants it now for the expansion and extension it can furnishto that power and glory, rather than what it can do for her towardssatisfying minor and meaner ambitions. 

I wish to enlarge a little upon this matter. I think it is quite clearthat the reason why Mrs. Eddy has concentrated in herself all powers, all distinctions, all revenues that are within the command of theChristian Science Church Universal is that she desires and intendsto devote them to the purpose just suggested--the upbuilding of herpersonal glory--hers, and no one else's; that, and the continuing of hername's glory after she shall have passed away. If she has overlooked asingle power, howsoever minute, I cannot discover it. If she has foundone, large or small, which she has not seized and made her own, there isno record of it, no trace of it. In her foragings and depredations sheusually puts forward the Mother-Church--a lay figure--and hides behindit. Whereas, she is in manifest reality the Mother-Church herself. Ithas an impressive array of officials, and committees, and Boards ofDirection, of Education, of Lectureship, and so on--geldings, every one, shadows, spectres, apparitions, wax-figures: she is supreme over themall, she can abolish them when she will; blow them out as she would acandle. She is herself the Mother-Church. Now there is one By-law whichsays that the Mother-Church:

"shall be officially controlled by no other church. "

That does not surprise us--we know by the rest of the By-laws that thatis a quite irrelevant remark. Yet we do vaguely and hazily wonder whyshe takes the trouble to say it; why she wastes the words; what herobject can be--seeing that that emergency has been in so many, manyways, and so effectively and drastically barred off and made impossible. Then presently the object begins to dawn upon us. That is, it does afterwe have read the rest of the By-law three or four times, wonderingand admiring to see Mrs. Eddy--Mrs. Eddy--Mrs. Eddy, of allpersons--throwing away power!--making a fair exchange--doing a fairthing for once more, an almost generous thing! Then we look it throughyet once more unsatisfied, a little suspicious--and find that it isnothing but a sly, thin make-believe, and that even the very title of itis a sarcasm and embodies a falsehood--"self" government:

"Local Self-Government. The First Church of Christ, Scientist, inBoston, Massachusetts, shall assume no official control of otherchurches of this denomination. It shall be officially controlled by noother church. "

It has a most pious and deceptive give-and-take air of perfect fairness, unselfishness, magnanimity--almost godliness, indeed. But it is all art. 

In the By-laws, Mrs. Eddy, speaking by the mouth of her other self, theMother-Church, proclaims that she will assume no official control ofother churches-branch churches. We examine the other By-laws, and theyanswer some important questions for us:

1. What is a branch Church? It is a body of Christian Scientists, organized in the one and only permissible way--by a member, in goodstanding, of the Mother-Church, and who is also a pupil of one of Mrs. Eddy's accredited students. That is to say, one of her properties. Noother can do it. There are other indispensable requisites; what arethey?

2. The new Church cannot enter upon its functions until its members haveindividually signed, and pledged allegiance to, a Creed furnished byMrs. Eddy. 

3. They are obliged to study her books, and order their lives by them. And they must read no outside religious works. 

4. They must sing the hymns and pray the prayers provided by her, anduse no others in the services, except by her permission. 

5. They cannot have preachers and pastors. Her law. 

6. In their Church they must have two Readers--a man and a woman. 

7. They must read the services framed and appointed by her. 

8. She--not the branch Church--appoints those Readers. 

9. She--not the branch Church--dismisses them and fills the vacancies. 

10. She can do this without consulting the branch Church, and withoutexplaining. 

11. The branch Church can have a religious lecture from time to time. Byapplying to Mrs. Eddy. There is no other way. 

12. But the branch Church cannot select the lecturer. Mrs. Eddy does it. 

13. The branch Church pays his fee. 

14. The harnessing of all Christian Science wedding-teams, membersof the branch Church, must be done by duly authorized and consecratedChristian Science functionaries. Her factory is the only one that makesand licenses them. 

[15. Nothing is said about christenings. It is inferable from this thata Christian Science child is born a Christian Scientist and requires notinkering. ]

[16. Nothing is said about funerals. It is inferable, then, that abranch Church is privileged to do in that matter as it may choose. ]

To sum up. Are any important Church-functions absent from the list? Icannot call any to mind. Are there any lacking ones whose exercisecould make the branch in any noticeable way independent of the Mother. Church?--even in any trifling degree? I think of none. If the namedfunctions were abolished would there still be a Church left? Would therebe even a shadow of a Church left? Would there be anything at all left?even the bare name?

Manifestly not. There isn't a single vital and essential Church-functionof any kind, that is not named in the list. And over every one of themthe Mother-Church has permanent and unchallengeable control, uponevery one of them Mrs. Eddy has set her irremovable grip. She holds, in perpetuity, autocratic and indisputable sovereignty and control overevery branch Church in the earth; and yet says, in that sugary, naive, angel-beguiling way of hers, that the Mother-Church:

"shall assume no official control of other churches of thisdenomination. "

Whereas in truth the unmeddled-with liberties of a branch ChristianScience Church are but very, very few in number, and are these:

1. It can appoint its own furnace-stoker, winters. 2. It can appointits own fan-distributors, summers. 3. It can, in accordance with its ownchoice in the matter, burn, bury, or preserve members who are pretendingto be dead--whereas there is no such thing as death. 4. It can take up acollection. 

The branch Churches have no important liberties, none that give them animportant voice in their own affairs. Those are all locked up, and Mrs. Eddy has the key. "Local Self-Government" is a large name and soundswell; but the branch Churches have no more of it than have the privatesin the King of Dahomey's army. 

"MOTHER-CHURCH UNIQUE"

Mrs. Eddy, with an envious and admiring eye upon the solitary andrivalless and world-shadowing majesty of St. Peter's, reveals in herBy-laws her purpose to set the Mother-Church apart by itself in astately seclusion and make it duplicate that lone sublimity under theWestern sky. The By-law headed "Mother-Church Unique" says--

"In its relation to other Christian Science churches, the Mother-Churchstands alone. 

"It occupies a position that no other Church can fill. 

"Then for a branch Church to assume such position would be disastrous toChristian Science, "Therefore--"

Therefore no branch Church is allowed to have branches. There shallbe no Christian Science St. Peter's in the earth but just one--theMother-Church in Boston. 

"NO FIRST MEMBERS"

But for the thoughtful By-law thus entitled, every Science branch in theearth would imitate the Mother-Church and set up an aristocracy. Everylittle group of ground-floor Smiths and Furgusons and Shadwells andSimpsons that organized a branch would assume that great title, of"First Members, " along with its vast privileges of "discussing" theweather and casting blank ballots, and soon there would be such alocust-plague of them burdening the globe that the title would lose itsvalue and have to be abolished. 

But where business and glory are concerned, Mrs. Eddy thinks ofeverything, and so she did not fail to take care of her Aborigines, her stately and exclusive One Hundred, her college of functionlesscardinals, her Sanhedrin of Privileged Talkers (Limited). After takingaway all the liberties of the branch Churches, and in the same breathdisclaiming all official control over their affairs, she smites them onthe mouth with this--the very mouth that was watering for those nobbyground-floor honors--

"No First Members. Branch Churches shall not organize with FirstMembers, that special method of organization being adapted to theMother-Church alone. "

And so, first members being prohibited, we pierce through the cloudof Mrs. Eddy's English and perceive that they must then necessarilyorganize with Subsequent Members. There is no other way. It will occurto them by-and-by to found an aristocracy of Early Subsequent Members. There is no By-law against it. 

"THE"

I uncover to that imperial word. And to the mind, too, that conceivedthe idea of seizing and monopolizing it as a title. I believe it is Mrs. Eddy's dazzlingest invention. For show, and style, and grandeur, andthunder and lightning and fireworks it outclasses all the previousinventions of man, and raises the limit on the Pope. He can never puthis avid hand on that word of words--it is pre-empted. And copyrighted, of course. It lifts the Mother-Church away up in the sky, andfellowships it with the rare and select and exclusive little company ofthe THE's of deathless glory--persons and things whereof history andthe ages could furnish only single examples, not two: the Saviour, theVirgin, the Milky Way, the Bible, the Earth, the Equator, the Devil, the Missing Link--and now The First Church, Scientist. And by clamor ofedict and By-law Mrs. Eddy gives personal notice to all branch ScientistChurches on this planet to leave that THE alone. 

She has demonstrated over it and made it sacred to the Mother-Church:

"The article 'The' must not be used before the titles of branchChurches--

"Nor written on applications for membership in naming such churches. "

Those are the terms. There can and will be a million First Churchesof Christ, Scientist, scattered over the world, in a million towns andvillages and hamlets and cities, and each may call itself (suppressingthe article), "First Church of Christ. Scientist"--it is permissible, and no harm; but there is only one The Church of Christ, Scientist, andthere will never be another. And whether that great word fall in themiddle of a sentence or at the beginning of it, it must always have itscapital T. 

I do not suppose that a juvenile passion for fussy little worldly showsand vanities can furnish a match to this, anywhere in the history ofthe nursery. Mrs. Eddy does seem to be a shade fonder of little specialdistinctions and pomps than is usual with human beings. 

She instituted that immodest "The" with her own hand; she did not waitfor somebody else to think of it. 

A LIFE-TERM MONOPOLY

There is but one human Pastor in the whole Christian Science world; shereserves that exalted place to herself. 

A PERPETUAL ONE

There is but one other object in the whole Christian Science worldhonored with that title and holding that office: it is her book, theAnnex--permanent Pastor of The First Church, and of all branch Churches. 

With her own hand she draughted the By-laws which make her the onlyreally absolute sovereign that lives to-day in Christendom. 

She does not allow any objectionable pictures to be exhibited in theroom where her book is sold, nor any indulgence in idle gossip there;and from the general look of that By-law I judge that a lightsome andimproper person can be as uncomfortable in that place as he could be inheaven. 

THE SANCTUM SANCTORUM AND SACRED CHAIR

In a room in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, there is a museumof objects which have attained to holiness through contact with Mrs. Eddy--among them an electrically lighted oil-picture of a chair whichshe used to sit in--and disciples from all about the world go softlyin there, in restricted groups, under proper guard, and reverently gazeupon those relics. It is worship. Mrs. Eddy could stop it if she was notfond of it, for her sovereignty over that temple is supreme. 

The fitting-up of that place as a shrine is not an accident, nor acasual, unweighed idea; it is imitated from age--old religious custom. In Treves the pilgrim reverently gazes upon the Seamless Robe, andhumbly worships; and does the same in that other continental churchwhere they keep a duplicate; and does likewise in the Church of theHoly Sepulchre, in Jerusalem, where memorials of the Crucifixion arepreserved; and now, by good fortune we have our Holy Chair and things, and a market for our adorations nearer home. 

But is there not a detail that is new, fresh, original? Yes, whateverold thing Mrs. Eddy touches gets something new by the contact--somethingnot thought of before by any one--something original, all her own, andcopyrightable. The new feature is self worship--exhibited in permittingthis shrine to be installed during her lifetime, and winking her sacredeye at it. 

A prominent Christian Scientist has assured me that the Scientists donot worship Mrs. Eddy, and I think it likely that there may be five orsix of the cult in the world who do not worship her, but she herselfis certainly not of that company. Any healthy-minded person who willexamine Mrs. Eddy's little Autobiography and the Manual of By-lawswritten by her will be convinced that she worships herself; and that shebrings to this service a fervor of devotion surpassing even that whichshe formerly laid at the feet of the Dollar, and equalling any whichrises to the Throne of Grace from any quarter. 

I think this is as good a place as any to salve a hurt which I was themeans of inflicting upon a Christian Scientist lately. The first thirdof this book was written in 1899 in Vienna. Until last summer I hadsupposed that that third had been printed in a book which I publishedabout a year later--a hap which had not happened. I then sent thechapters composing it to the North American Review, but failed in oneinstance, to date them. And so, in an undated chapter I said a lady toldme "last night" so and so. There was nothing to indicate to the readerthat that "last night" was several years old, therefore the phraseseemed to refer to a night of very recent date. What the lady had toldme was, that in a part of the Mother-Church in Boston she had seenScientists worshipping a portrait of Mrs. Eddy before which a light waskept constantly burning. 

A Scientist came to me and wished me to retract that "untruth. " He saidthere was no such portrait, and that if I wanted to be sure of it Icould go to Boston and see for myself. I explained that my "last night"meant a good while ago; that I did not doubt his assertion that therewas no such portrait there now, but that I should continue to believe ithad been there at the time of the lady's visit until she should retracther statement herself. I was at no time vouching for the truth of theremark, nevertheless I considered it worth par. 

And yet I am sorry the lady told me, since a wound which brings me nohappiness has resulted. I am most willing to apply such salve as I can. The best way to set the matter right and make everything pleasant andagreeable all around will be to print in this place a description of theshrine as it appeared to a recent visitor, Mr. Frederick W. Peabody, ofBoston. I will copy his newspaper account, and the reader will see thatMrs. Eddy's portrait is not there now:

"We lately stood on the threshold of the Holy of Holies of theMother-Church, and with a crowd of worshippers patiently waited foradmittance to the hallowed precincts of the 'Mother's Room. ' Over thedoorway was a sign informing us that but four persons at a time would beadmitted; that they would be permitted to remain but five minutes only, and would please retire from the 'Mother's Room' at the ringing of thebell. Entering with three of the faithful, we looked with profaneeyes upon the consecrated furnishings. A show-woman in attendancemonotonously announced the character of the different appointments. Set in a recess of the wall and illumined with electric light was anoil-painting the show-woman seriously declared to be a lifelike andrealistic picture of the Chair in which the Mother sat when she composedher 'inspired' work. It was a picture of an old-fashioned? country, haircloth rocking-chair, and an exceedingly commonplace-looking table with apile of manuscript, an ink-bottle, and pen conspicuously upon it. Onthe floor were sheets of manuscript. 'The mantel-piece is of pure onyx, 'continued the show-woman, 'and the beehive upon the window-sill is madefrom one solid block of onyx; the rug is made of a hundred breasts ofeider-down ducks, and the toilet-room you see in the corner is of thelatest design, with gold-plated drain-pipes; the painted windows arefrom the Mother's poem, "Christ and Christmas, " and that case containscomplete copies of all the Mother's books. ' The chairs upon which thesacred person of the Mother had reposed were protected from sacrilegioustouch by a broad band of satin ribbon. My companions expressed theiradmiration in subdued and reverent tones, and at the tinkling of thebell we reverently tiptoed out of the room to admit another delegationof the patient waiters at the door. "

Now, then, I hope the wound is healed. I am willing to relinquish theportrait, and compromise on the Chair. At the same time, if I were goingto worship either, I should not choose the Chair. 

As a picturesquely and persistently interesting personage, there is nomate to Mrs. Eddy, the accepted Equal of the Saviour. But some of hertastes are so different from His! I find it quite impossible to imagineHim, in life, standing sponsor for that museum there, and takingpleasure in its sumptuous shows. I believe He would put that Chair inthe fire, and the bell along with it; and I think He would make theshow-woman go away. I think He would break those electric bulbs, and the"mantel-piece of pure onyx, " and say reproachful things about the goldendrain-pipes of the lavatory, and give the costly rug of duck-breasts tothe poor, and sever the satin ribbon and invite the weary to rest andease their aches in the consecrated chairs. What He would do with thepainted windows we can better conjecture when we come presently toexamine their peculiarities. 

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PASTOR-UNIVERSAL

When Mrs. Eddy turned the pastors out of all the Christian Sciencechurches and abolished the office for all time as far as human occupancyis concerned--she appointed the Holy Ghost to fill their place. If thislanguage be blasphemous, I did not invent the blasphemy, I am merelystating a fact. I will quote from page 227 of Science and Health(edition 1899), as a first step towards an explanation of this startlingmatter--a passage which sets forth and classifies the Christian ScienceTrinity:

"Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune God, or triply divinePrinciple. They represent a trinity in unity, three in one--the same inessence, though multiform in office: God the Father; Christ the type ofSonship; Divine Science, or the Holy Comforter.... 

"The Holy Ghost, or Spirit, reveals this triune Principle, and (the HolyGhost) is expressed in Divine Science, which is the Comforter, leading into all Truth, and revealing the divine Principle of theuniverse--universal and perpetual harmony. "

I will cite another passage. Speaking of Jesus--

"His students then received the Holy Ghost. By this is meant, that byall they had witnessed and suffered they were roused to an enlargedunderstanding of Divine Science, even to the spiritual interpretation..... Of His teachings, " etc. 

Also, page 579, in the chapter called the Glossary:

"HOLY GHOST. Divine Science; the developments of Life, Truth, and Love. "

The Holy Ghost reveals the massed spirit of the fused trinity; thismassed spirit is expressed in Divine Science, and is the Comforter;Divine Science conveys to men the "spiritual interpretation" ofthe Saviour's teachings. That seems to be the meaning of the quotedpassages. 

Divine Science is Christian Science; the book "Science and Health" is a"revelation" of the whole spirit of the Trinity, and is therefore "TheHoly Ghost"; it conveys to men the "spiritual interpretation" of theBible's teachings and therefore is "the Comforter. "

I do not find this analyzing work easy, I would rather saw wood; and aperson can never tell whether he has added up a Science and Health sumright or not, anyway, after all his trouble. Neither can he easily findout whether the texts are still on the market or have been discardedfrom the Book; for two hundred and fifty-eight editions of it have beenissued, and no two editions seem to be alike. The annual changes--intechnical terminology; in matter and wording; in transpositions ofchapters and verses; in leaving out old chapters and verses and puttingin new ones--seem to be next to innumerable, and as there is no index, there is no way to find a thing one wants without reading the bookthrough. If ever I inspire a Bible-Annex I will not rush at it in ahalf-digested, helter-skelter way and have to put in thirty-eight yearstrying to get some of it the way I want it, I will sit down and think itout and know what it is I want to say before I begin. An inspirer cannotinspire for Mrs. Eddy and keep his reputation. I have never seen suchslipshod work, bar the ten that interpreted for the home market the"sell all thou hast. " I have quoted one "spiritual" rendering of theLord's Prayer, I have seen one other one, and am told there arefive more. Yet the inspirer of Mrs. Eddy the new Infallible casts acomplacent critical stone at the other Infallible for being unable tomake up its mind about such things. Science and Health, edition 1899, page 33:

"The decisions, by vote of Church Councils, as to what should andshould not be considered Holy Writ, the manifest mistakes in the ancientversions: the thirty thousand different readings in the Old Testamentand the three hundred thousand in the New--these facts show how a mortaland material sense stole into the divine record, darkening, to someextent, the inspired pages with its own hue. "

To some extent, yes--speaking cautiously. But it is nothing, reallynothing; Mrs. Eddy is only a little way behind, and if her inspirerlives to get her Annex to suit him that Catholic record will have to "go'way back and set down, " as the ballad says. Listen to the boastful songof Mrs. Eddy's organ, the Christian Science Journal for March, 1902, about that year's revamping and half-soling of Science and Health, whose official name is the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, and who is nowthe Official Pastor and Infallible and Unerring Guide of every ChristianScience church in the two hemispheres, hear Simple Simon that met thepieman brag of the Infallible's fallibility:

"Throughout the entire book the verbal changes are so numerous as toindicate the vast amount of time and labor Mrs. Eddy has devoted to thisrevision. The time and labor thus bestowed is relatively as great asthat of--the committee who revised the Bible.... Thus we have additionalevidence of the herculean efforts our beloved Leader has made and isconstantly making for the promulgation of Truth and the furtherance ofher divinely bestowed mission, " etc. 

It is a steady job. I could help inspire if desired; I am not doingmuch now, and would work for half-price, and should not object to thecountry. 

PRICE OF THE PASTOR-UNIVERSAL

The price of the Pastor-Universal, Science and Health, called in Scienceliterature the Comforter--and by that other sacred Name--is threedollars in cloth, as heretofore, six when it is finely bound, and shapedto imitate the Testament, and is broken into verses. Margin of profitabove cost of manufacture, from five hundred to seven hundred percent. , as already noted In the profane subscription-trade, it coststhe publisher heavily to canvass a three-dollar book; he must pay thegeneral agent sixty per cent. Commission--that is to say, one dollar andeighty-cents. Mrs. Eddy escapes this blistering tax, because she ownsthe Christian Science canvasser, and can compel him to work for nothing. Read the following command--not request--fulminated by Mrs. Eddy, overher signature, in the Christian Science Journal for March, 1897, andquoted by Mr. Peabody in his book. The book referred to is Science andHealth:

"It shall be the duty of all Christian Scientists to circulate and tosell as many of these books as they can. "

That is flung at all the elect, everywhere that the sun shines, but nopenalty is shaken over their heads to scare them. The same command wasissued to the members (numbering to-day twenty-five thousand) of TheMother-Church, also, but with it went a threat, of the infliction, incase of disobedience, of the most dreaded punishment that has a placein the Church's list of penalties for transgressions of Mrs. Eddy'sedicts--excommunication:

"If a member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, shall fail toobey this injunction, it will render him liable to lose his membershipin this Church. MARY BAKER EDDY. "

It is the spirit of the Spanish Inquisition. 

None but accepted and well established gods can venture an affront likethat and do it with confidence. But the human race will take anythingfrom that class. Mrs. Eddy knows the human race; knows it better thanany mere human being has known it in a thousand centuries. My confidencein her human-beingship is getting shaken, my confidence in her godshipis stiffening. 

SEVEN HUNDRED PER CENT. 

A Scientist out West has visited a bookseller--with intent to find faultwith me--and has brought away the information that the price at whichMrs. Eddy sells Science and Health is not an unusually high one for thesize and make of the book. That is true. But in the book-trade--thatprofit-devourer unknown to Mrs. Eddy's book--a three-dollar book thatis made for thirty-five or forty cents in large editions is put atthree dollars because the publisher has to pay author, middleman, andadvertising, and if the price were much below three the profit accruingwould not pay him fairly for his time and labor. At the same time, ifhe could get ten dollars for the book he would take it, and his moralswould not fall under criticism. 

But if he were an inspired person commissioned by the Deity to receiveand print and spread broadcast among sorrowing and suffering and poormen a precious message of healing and cheer and salvation, he would haveto do as Bible Societies do--sell the book at a pinched margin abovecost to such as could pay, and give it free to all that couldn't; andhis name would be praised. But if he sold it at seven hundred per cent. Profit and put the money in his pocket, his name would be mocked andderided. Just as Mrs. Eddy's is. And most justifiably, as it seems tome. 

The complete Bible contains one million words. The New Testament byitself contains two hundred and forty thousand words. 

My '84 edition of Science and Health contains one hundred and twentythousand words--just half as many as the New Testament. 

Science and Health has since been so inflated by later inspirations thatthe 1902 edition contains one hundred and eighty thousand words--notcounting the thirty thousand at the back, devoted by Mrs. Eddy toadvertising the book's healing abilities--and the inspiring continuesright along. 

If you have a book whose market is so sure and so great that youcan give a printer an everlasting order for thirty or forty or fiftythousand copies a year he will furnish them at a cheap rate, becausewhenever there is a slack time in his press-room and bindery he canfill the idle intervals on your book and be making something insteadof losing. That is the kind of contract that can be let on Science andHealth every year. I am obliged to doubt that the three-dollar Scienceand Health costs Mrs. Eddy above fifteen cents, or that the six dollarcopy costs her above eighty cents. I feel quite sure that the averageprofit to her on these books, above cost of manufacture, is all of sevenhundred per cent. 

Every proper Christian Scientist has to buy and own (and canvass for)Science and Health (one hundred and eighty thousand words), and he mustalso own a Bible (one million words). He can buy the one for from threeto six dollars, and the other for fifteen cents. Or, if three dollars isall the money he has, he can get his Bible for nothing. When the SupremeBeing disseminates a saving Message through uninspired agents--the NewTestament, for instance--it can be done for five cents a copy, but whenHe sends one containing only two-thirds as many words through the shopof a Divine Personage, it costs sixty times as much. I think thatin matters of such importance it is bad economy to employ a wild-catagency. 

Here are some figures which are perfectly authentic, and which seem tojustify my opinion. 

"These [Bible] societies, inspired only by a sense of religious duty, are issuing the Bible at a price so small that they have made it thecheapest book printed. For example, the American Bible Society offers anedition of the whole Bible as low as fifteen cents and the New Testamentat five cents, and the British Society at sixpence and one penny, respectively. These low prices, made possible by their policy of sellingthe books at cost or below cost, " etc. --New York Sun, February 25, 1903. 

CHAPTER IX

We may now make a final footing-up of Mrs. Eddy, and see what she is, inthe fulness of her powers. She is:

The Massachusetts Metaphysical College Pastor Emeritus; President; Boardof Directors; Board of Education; Board of Lectureships; Future Board ofTrustees, Proprietor of the Publishing-House and Periodicals; Treasurer;Clerk; Proprietor of the Teachers; Proprietor of the Lecturers;Proprietor of the Missionaries; Proprietor of the Readers; Dictator ofthe Services; sole Voice of the Pulpit; Proprietor of the Sanhedrin;Sole Proprietor of the Creed. (Copyrighted. ); Indisputable Autocratof the Branch Churches, with their life and death in her hands; SoleThinker for The First Church (and the others); Sole and InfallibleExpounder of Doctrine, in life and in death; Sole permissibleDiscoverer, Denouncer, Judge, and Executioner of Ostensible Hypnotists;Fifty-handed God of Excommunication--with a thunderbolt in every hand;Appointer and Installer of the Pastor of all the Churches--the PerpetualPastor-Universal, Science and Health, "the Comforter. "

CHAPTER X

There she stands-painted by herself. No witness but herself has beenallowed to testify. She stands there painted by her acts, and decoratedby her words. When she talks, she has only a decorative value asa witness, either for or against herself, for she deals mainly inunsupported assertion; and in the rare cases where she puts forward averifiable fact she gets out of it a meaning which it refuses to furnishto anybody else. Also, when she talks, she is unstable, she wanders, she is incurably inconsistent; what she says to-day she contradictstomorrow. 

But her acts are consistent. They are always faithful to her, they nevermisinterpret her, they are a mirror which always reflects her exactly, precisely, minutely, unerringly, and always the same, to date, with onlythose progressive little natural changes in stature, dress, complexion, mood, and carriage that mark--exteriorly--the march of the years andrecord the accumulations of experience, while--interiorly--through allthis steady drift of evolution the one essential detail, the commandingdetail, the master detail of the make-up remains as it was in thebeginning, suffers no change and can suffer none; the basis of thecharacter; the temperament, the disposition, that indestructible ironframework upon which the character is built, and whose shape it musttake, and keep, throughout life. We call it a person's nature. 

The man who is born stingy can be taught to give liberally--with hishands; but not with his heart. The man born kind and compassionatecan have that disposition crushed down out of sight by embitteringexperience; but if it were an organ the post-mortem would find it stillin his corpse. The man born ambitious of power and glory may live longwithout finding it out, but when the opportunity comes he will know, will strike for the largest thing within the limit of his chances at thetime-constable, perhaps--and will be glad and proud when he gets it, and will write home about it. But he will not stop with that start; hisappetite will come again; and by-and-by again, and yet again; and whenhe has climbed to police commissioner it will at last begin to dawn uponhim that what his Napoleon soul wants and was born for is something awayhigher up--he does not quite know what, but Circumstance and Opportunitywill indicate the direction and he will cut a road through and find out. 

I think Mrs. Eddy was born with a far-seeing business-eye, but did notknow it; and with a great organizing and executive talent, and did notknow it; and with a large appetite for power and distinction, and didnot know it. I think the reason that her make did not show up untilmiddle life was that she had General Grant's luck--Circumstance andOpportunity did not come her way when she was younger. The qualitiesthat were born in her had to wait for circumstance and opportunity--butthey were there: they were there to stay, whether they ever got a chanceto fructify or not. If they had come early, they would have found herready and competent. And they--not she--would have determined what theywould set her at and what they would make of her. If they had elected tocommission her as second-assistant cook in a bankrupt boarding-house, I know the rest of it--I know what would have happened. She would haveowned the boarding-house within six months; she would have had the lateproprietor on salary and humping himself, as the worldly say; she wouldhave had that boarding-house spewing money like a mint; she would haveworked the servants and the late landlord up to the limit; she wouldhave squeezed the boarders till they wailed, and by some mysteriousquality born in her she would have kept the affections of certain of thelot whose love and esteem she valued, and flung the others down the backarea; in two years she would own all the boarding-houses in the town, infive all the boarding-houses in the State, in twenty all the hotels inAmerica, in forty all the hotels on the planet, and would sit at homewith her finger on a button and govern the whole combination as easilyas a bench-manager governs a dog-show. 

It would be a grand thing to see, and I feel a kind ofdisappointment--but never mind, a religion is better and larger; andthere is more to it. And I have not been steeping myself in ChristianScience all these weeks without finding out that the one sensible thingto do with a disappointment is to put it out of your mind and think ofsomething cheerfuler. 

We outsiders cannot conceive of Mrs. Eddy's Christian Science Religionas being a sudden and miraculous birth, but only as a growth from a seedplanted by circumstances, and developed stage by stage by command andcompulsion of the same force. What the stages were we cannot know, butare privileged to guess. She may have gotten the mental-healing ideafrom Quimby--it had been experimented with for ages, and was no one'sspecial property. [For the present, for convenience' sake, let usproceed upon the hypothesis that that was all she got of him, and thatshe put up the rest of the assets herself. This will strain us, butlet us try it. ] In each and all its forms and under all its many names, mental healing had had limits, always, and they were rather narrowones--Mrs. Eddy, let us imagine, removed the fence, abolished thefrontiers. Not by expanding mental-healing, but by absorbing its smallbulk into the vaster bulk of Christian Science--Divine Science, The HolyGhost, the Comforter--which was a quite different and sublimer force, and one which had long lain dormant and unemployed. 

The Christian Scientist believes that the Spirit of God (life and love)pervades the universe like an atmosphere; that whoso will study Scienceand Health can get from it the secret of how to inhale that transformingair; that to breathe it is to be made new; that from the new man allsorrow, all care, all miseries of the mind vanish away, for that onlypeace, contentment and measureless joy can live in that divine fluid;that it purifies the body from disease, which is a vicious creation ofthe gross human mind, and cannot continue to exist in the presence ofthe Immortal Mind, the renewing Spirit of God. 

The Scientist finds this reasonable, natural, and not harder to believethan that the disease germ, a creature of darkness, perishes whenexposed to the light of the great sun--a new revelation of profanescience which no one doubts. He reminds us that the actinic ray, shiningupon lupus, cures it--a horrible disease which was incurable fifteenyears ago, and had been incurable for ten million years before; thatthis wonder, unbelievable by the physicians at first, is believed bythem now; and so he is tranquilly confident that the time is coming whenthe world will be educated up to a point where it will comprehend andgrant that the light of the Spirit of God, shining unobstructed upon thesoul, is an actinic ray which can purge both mind and body from diseaseand set them free and make them whole. 

It is apparent, then, that in Christian Science it is not one man's mindacting upon another man's mind that heals; that it is solely the Spiritof God that heals; that the healer's mind performs no office but toconvey that force to the patient; that it is merely the wire whichcarries the electric fluid, so to speak, and delivers the message. Therefore, if these things be true, mental-healing and Science-healingare separate and distinct processes, and no kinship exists between them. 

To heal the body of its ills and pains is a mighty benefaction, but inour day our physicians and surgeons work a thousand miracles--prodigieswhich would have ranked as miracles fifty years ago--and they have sogreatly extended their domination over disease that we feel so wellprotected that we are able to look with a good deal of composure andabsence of hysterics upon the claims of new competitors in that field. 

But there is a mightier benefaction than the healing of the body, andthat is the healing of the spirit--which is Christian Science's otherclaim. So far as I know, so far as I can find out, it makes it good. Personally I have not known a Scientist who did not seem serene, contented, unharassed. I have not found an outsider whose observationof Scientists furnished him a view that differed from my own. Buoyantspirits, comfort of mind, freedom from care these happinesses we allhave, at intervals; but in the spaces between, dear me, the black hours!They have put a curse upon the life of every human being I have everknown, young or old. I concede not a single exception. Unless it mightbe those Scientists just referred to. They may have been playing a partwith me; I hope they were not, and I believe they were not. 

Time will test the Science's claim. If time shall make it good; if timeshall prove that the Science can heal the persecuted spirit of man andbanish its troubles and keep it serene and sunny and content--why, thenMrs. Eddy will have a monument that will reach above the clouds. For ifshe did not hit upon that imperial idea and evolve it and deliver it, its discoverer can never be identified with certainty, now, I think. It is the giant feature, it is the sun that rides in the zenith ofChristian Science, the auxiliary features are of minor consequence [Letus still leave the large "if" aside, for the present, and proceed as ifit had no existence. ]

It is not supposable that Mrs. Eddy realized, at first, the size of herplunder. (No, find--that is the word; she did not realize the size ofher find, at first. ) It had to grow upon her, by degrees, in accordancewith the inalterable custom of Circumstance, which works by stages, andby stages only, and never furnishes any mind with all the materials fora large idea at one time. 

In the beginning, Mrs. Eddy was probably interested merely in themental-healing detail, and perhaps mainly interested in it pecuniary, for she was poor. 

She would succeed in anything she undertook. She would attract pupils, and her commerce would grow. She would inspire in patient and pupilconfidence in her earnestness, her history is evidence that she wouldnot fail of that. 

There probably came a time, in due course, when her students began tothink there was something deeper in her teachings than they hadbeen suspecting--a mystery beyond mental-healing, and higher. It isconceivable that by consequence their manner towards her changed littleby little, and from respectful became reverent. It is conceivable thatthis would have an influence upon her; that it would incline her towonder if their secret thought--that she was inspired--might not be awell-grounded guess. It is conceivable that as time went on thethought in their minds and its reflection in hers might solidify intoconviction. 

She would remember, then, that as a child she had been called, morethan once, by a mysterious voice--just as had happened to little Samuel. (Mentioned in her Autobiography. ) She would be impressed by that ancientreminiscence, now, and it could have a prophetic meaning for her. 

It is conceivable that the persuasive influences around her and withinher would give a new and powerful impulse to her philosophizings, andthat from this, in time, would result that great birth, the healing ofbody and mind by the inpouring of the Spirit of God--the central anddominant idea of Christian Science--and that when this idea came shewould not doubt that it was an inspiration direct from Heaven. 

CHAPTER XI

[I must rest a little, now. To sit here and painstakingly spin out ascheme which imagines Mrs. Eddy, of all people, working her mind ona plane above commercialism; imagines her thinking, philosophizing, discovering majestic things; and even imagines her dealing insincerities--to be frank, I find it a large contract But I have begunit, and I will go through with it. ]

CHAPTER XII

It is evident that she made disciples fast, and that their belief in herand in the authenticity of her heavenly ambassadorship was not of thelukewarm and half-way sort, but was profoundly earnest and sincere. Her book was issued from the press in 1875, it began its work ofconvert-making, and within six years she had successfully launched a newReligion and a new system of healing, and was teaching them to crowds ofeager students in a College of her own, at prices so extraordinarythat we are almost compelled to accept her statement (no, her guardedintimation) that the rates were arranged on high, since a mere humanbeing unacquainted with commerce and accustomed to think in penniescould hardly put up such a hand as that without supernatural help. 

From this stage onward--Mrs. Eddy being what she was--the rest of thedevelopment--stages would follow naturally and inevitably. 

But if she had been anybody else, there would have been a differentarrangement of them, with different results. Being the extraordinaryperson she was, she realized her position and its possibilities;realized the possibilities, and had the daring to use them for all theywere worth. 

We have seen what her methods were after she passed the stage where herdivine ambassadorship was granted its executer in the hearts and mindsof her followers; we have seen how steady and fearless and calculatedand orderly was her march thenceforth from conquest to conquest; we haveseen her strike dead, without hesitancy, any hostile or questionableforce that rose in her path: first, the horde of pretenders that sprangup and tried to take her Science and its market away from her--shecrushed them, she obliterated them; when her own National ChristianScience Association became great in numbers and influence, and looselyand dangerously garrulous, and began to expound the doctrines accordingto its own uninspired notions, she took up her sponge without a tremorof fear and wiped that Association out; when she perceived thatthe preachers in her pulpits were becoming afflicted withdoctrine-tinkering, she recognized the danger of it, and did nothesitate nor temporize, but promptly dismissed the whole of them in aday, and abolished their office permanently; we have seen that, as fastas her power grew, she was competent to take the measure of it, and thatas fast as its expansion suggested to her gradually awakening nativeambition a higher step she took it; and so, by this evolutionaryprocess, we have seen the gross money-lust relegated to second place, and the lust of empire and glory rise above it. A splendid dream; and byforce of the qualities born in her she is making it come true. 

These qualities--and the capacities growing out of them by the nurturinginfluences of training, observation, and experience seem to be clearlyindicated by the character of her career and its achievements. They seemto be:

A clear head for business, and a phenomenally long one; Clearunderstanding of business situations; Accuracy in estimating theopportunities they offer; Intelligence in planning a business move;Firmness in sticking to it after it has been decided upon; Extraordinarydaring; Indestructible persistency; Devouring ambition; Limitlessselfishness; A knowledge of the weaknesses and poverties and docilitiesof human nature and how to turn them to account which has never beensurpassed, if ever equalled. 

And--necessarily--the foundation-stone of Mrs. Eddy's character is anever-wavering confidence in herself. 

It is a granite character. And--quite naturally--a measure of the talcof smallnesses common to human nature is mixed up in it and distributedthrough it. When Mrs. Eddy is not dictating servilities from her thronein the clouds to her official domestics in Boston or to her far-spreadsubjects round about the planet, but is down on the ground, she is kinto us and one of us: sentimental as a girl, garrulous, ungrammatical, incomprehensible, affected, vain of her little human ancestry, unstable, inconsistent, unreliable in statement, and naively and everlastinglyself-contradictory-oh, trivial and common and commonplace as thecommonest of us! just a Napoleon as Madame de Remusat saw him, a brassgod with clay legs. 

CHAPTER XIII

In drawing Mrs. Eddy's portrait it has been my purpose to restrictmyself to materials furnished by herself, and I believe I have donethat. If I have misinterpreted any of her acts, it was not doneintentionally. 

It will be noticed that in skeletonizing a list of the qualities whichhave carried her to the dizzy summit which she occupies, I have notmentioned the power which was the commanding force employed in achievingthat lofty flight. It did not belong in that list; it was a force thatwas not a detail of her character, but was an outside one. It wasthe power which proceeded from her people's recognition of her asa supernatural personage, conveyer of the Latest Word, and divinelycommissioned to deliver it to the world. The form which such arecognition takes, consciously or unconsciously, is worship; and worshipdoes not question nor criticize, it obeys. The object of it does notneed to coddle it, bribe it, beguile it, reason with it, convinceit--it commands it; that is sufficient; the obedience rendered is notreluctant, but prompt and whole-hearted. Admiration for a Napoleon, confidence in him, pride in him, affection for him, can lift him highand carry him far; and these are forms of worship, and are strongforces, but they are worship of a mere human being, after all, and areinfinitely feeble, as compared with those that are generated by thatother worship, the worship of a divine personage. Mrs. Eddy has thisefficient worship, this massed and centralized force, this force whichis indifferent to opposition, untroubled by fear, and goes to battlesinging, like Cromwell's soldiers; and while she has it she can commandand it will obey, and maintain her on her throne, and extend her empire. 

She will have it until she dies; and then we shall see a curious andinteresting further development of her revolutionary work begin. 

CHAPTER XIV

The President and Board of Directors will succeed her, and thegovernment will go on without a hitch. The By-laws will bear thatinterpretation. All the Mother-Church's vast powers are concentrated inthat Board. Mrs. Eddy's unlimited personal reservations make the Board'sostensible supremacy, during her life, a sham, and the Board itself ashadow. But Mrs. Eddy has not made those reservations for any one butherself--they are distinctly personal, they bear her name, they are notusable by another individual. When she dies her reservations die, andthe Board's shadow-powers become real powers, without the change ofany important By-law, and the Board sits in her place as absolute andirresponsible a sovereign as she was. 

It consists of but five persons, a much more manageable Cardinalate thanthe Roman Pope's. I think it will elect its Pope from its own body, andthat it will fill its own vacancies. An elective Papacy is a safe andwise system, and a long-liver. 

CHAPTER XV

We may take that up now. 

It is not a single if, but a several-jointed one; not an oyster, but avertebrate. 

1. Did Mrs. Eddy borrow from Quimby the Great Idea, or only the littleone, the old-timer, the ordinary mental-healing-healing by "mortal"mind?

2. If she borrowed the Great Idea, did she carry it away in her head, orin manuscript?

3. Did she hit upon the Great Idea herself? By the Great Idea I mean, ofcourse, the conviction that the Force involved was still existent, andcould be applied now just as it was applied by Christ's Disciples andtheir converts, and as successfully. 

4. Did she philosophize it, systematize it, and write it down in a book?

5. Was it she, and not another, that built a new Religion upon the bookand organized it?

I think No. 5 can be answered with a Yes, and dismissed from thecontroversy. And I think that the Great Idea, great as it was, wouldhave enjoyed but a brief activity, and would then have gone to sleepagain for some more centuries, but for the perpetuating impulse it gotfrom that organized and tremendous force. 

As for Nos. 1, 2, and 4, the hostiles contend that Mrs. Eddy got theGreat Idea from Quimby and carried it off in manuscript. But theirtestimony, while of consequence, lacks the most important detail; so faras my information goes, the Quimby manuscript has not been produced. Ithink we cannot discuss No. 1 and No. 2 profitably. Let them go. 

For me, No. 3 has a mild interest, and No. 4 a violent one. 

As regards No. 3, Mrs. Eddy was brought up, from the cradle, anold-time, boiler-iron, Westminster-Catechism Christian, and knewher Bible as well as Captain Kydd knew his, "when he sailed, when hesailed, " and perhaps as sympathetically. The Great Idea had struck amillion Bible-readers before her as being possible of resurrection andapplication--it must have struck as many as that, and been cogitated, indolently, doubtingly, then dropped and forgotten--and it could havestruck her, in due course. But how it could interest her, how itcould appeal to her--with her make this a thing that is difficult tounderstand. 

For the thing back of it is wholly gracious and beautiful: the power, through loving mercifulness and compassion, to heal fleshly ills andpains and grief--all--with a word, with a touch of the hand! This powerwas given by the Saviour to the Disciples, and to all the converted. All--every one. It was exercised for generations afterwards. Any Christian who was in earnest and not a make-believe, not apolicy--Christian, not a Christian for revenue only, had that healingpower, and could cure with it any disease or any hurt or damage possibleto human flesh and bone. These things are true, or they are not. If theywere true seventeen and eighteen and nineteen centuries ago it would bedifficult to satisfactorily explain why or how or by what argument thatpower should be nonexistent in Christians now. 

To wish to exercise it could occur to Mrs. Eddy--but would it?

Grasping, sordid, penurious, famishing for everything she sees--money, power, glory--vain, untruthful, jealous, despotic, arrogant, insolent, pitiless where thinkers and hypnotists are concerned, illiterate, shallow, incapable of reasoning outside of commercial lines, immeasurably selfish--

Of course the Great Idea could strike her, we have to grant that, butwhy it should interest her is a question which can easily overstrain theimagination and bring on nervous prostration, or something like that, and is better left alone by the judicious, it seems to me--

Unless we call to our help the alleged other side of Mrs. Eddy'smake and character the side which her multitude of followers see, andsincerely believe in. Fairness requires that their view be statedhere. It is the opposite of the one which I have drawn from Mrs. Eddy'shistory and from her By-laws. To her followers she is this:

Patient, gentle, loving, compassionate, noble hearted, unselfish, sinless, widely cultured, splendidly equipped mentally, a profoundthinker, an able writer, a divine personage, an inspired messenger whoseacts are dictated from the Throne, and whose every utterance is theVoice of God. 

She has delivered to them a religion which has revolutionized theirlives, banished the glooms that shadowed them, and filled them andflooded them with sunshine and gladness and peace; a religion which hasno hell; a religion whose heaven is not put off to another time, witha break and a gulf between, but begins here and now, and melts intoeternity as fancies of the waking day melt into the dreams of sleep. 

They believe it is a Christianity that is in the New Testament; thatit has always been there, that in the drift of ages it was lost throughdisuse and neglect, and that this benefactor has found it and given itback to men, turning the night of life into day, its terrors into myths, its lamentations into songs of emancipation and rejoicing. 

There we have Mrs. Eddy as her followers see her. She has liftedthem out of grief and care and doubt and fear, and made their livesbeautiful; she found them wandering forlorn in a wintry wilderness, andhas led them to a tropic paradise like that of which the poet sings:

 "O, islands there are on the face of the deep Where the leaves never fade and the skies never weep. "

To ask them to examine with a microscope the character of such abenefactor; to ask them to examine it at all; to ask them to look at ablemish which another person believes he has found in it--well, in theirplace could you do it? Would you do it? Wouldn't you be ashamed to doit? If a tramp had rescued your child from fire and death, and saved itsmother's heart from breaking, could you see his rags? Could you smellhis breath? Mrs. Eddy has done more than that for these people. 

They are prejudiced witnesses. To the credit of human nature it is notpossible that they should be otherwise. They sincerely believe thatMrs. Eddy's character is pure and perfect and beautiful, and her historywithout stain or blot or blemish. But that does not settle it. Theysincerely believe she did not borrow the Great Idea from Quimby, but hitupon it herself. It may be so, and it could be so. Let it go--thereis no way to settle it. They believe she carried away no Quimbymanuscripts. Let that go, too--there is no way to settle it. Theybelieve that she, and not another, built the Religion upon the book, andorganized it. I believe it, too. 

Finally, they believe that she philosophized Christian Science, explained it, systematized it, and wrote it all out with her own hand inthe book Science and Health. 

I am not able to believe that. Let us draw the line there. The knownand undisputed products of her pen are a formidable witness againsther. They do seem to me to prove, quite clearly and conclusively, thatwriting, upon even simple subjects, is a difficult labor for her: thatshe has never been able to write anything above third-rate English; thatshe is weak in the matter of grammar; that she has but a rude anddull sense of the values of words; that she so lacks in the matter ofliterary precision that she can seldom put a thought into words thatexpress it lucidly to the reader and leave no doubts in his mind as towhether he has rightly understood or not; that she cannot even draught aPreface that a person can fully comprehend, nor one which can by anyart be translated into a fully understandable form; that she canseldom inject into a Preface even single sentences whose meaning isuncompromisingly clear--yet Prefaces are her specialty, if she has one. 

Mrs. Eddy's known and undisputed writings are very limited in bulk;they exhibit no depth, no analytical quality, no thought above schoolcomposition size, and but juvenile ability in handling thoughts of eventhat modest magnitude. She has a fine commercial ability, and couldgovern a vast railway system in great style; she could draught a setof rules that Satan himself would say could not be improved on--fordevilish effectiveness--by his staff; but we know, by our excursionsamong the Mother-Church's By-laws, that their English would discreditthe deputy baggage-smasher. I am quite sure that Mrs. Eddy cannot writewell upon any subject, even a commercial one. 

In the very first revision of Science and Health (1883), Mrs. Eddy wrotea Preface which is an unimpeachable witness that the rest of the bookwas written by somebody else. I have put it in the Appendix along with apage or two taken from the body of the book, and will ask the reader tocompare the labored and lumbering and confused gropings of this Prefacewith the easy and flowing and direct English of the other exhibit, andsee if he can believe that the one hand and brain produced both. 

And let him take the Preface apart, sentence by sentence, andsearchingly examine each sentence word by word, and see if he can findhalf a dozen sentences whose meanings he is so sure of that he canrephrase them--in words of his own--and reproduce what he takes to bethose meanings. Money can be lost on this game. I know, for I am the onethat lost it. 

Now let the reader turn to the excerpt which I have made from thechapter on "Prayer" (last year's edition of Science and Health), andcompare that wise and sane and elevated and lucid and compact piece ofwork with the aforesaid Preface, and with Mrs. Eddy's poetry concerningthe gymnastic trees, and Minerva's not yet effete sandals, and thewreaths imported from Erudition's bower for the decoration of PlymouthRock, and the Plague-spot and Bacilli, and my other exhibits (turn backto my Chapters I. And II. ) from the Autobiography, and finally withthe late Communication concerning me, and see if he thinks anybody'saffirmation, or anybody's sworn testimony, or any other testimony ofany imaginable kind would ever be likely to convince him that Mrs. Eddywrote that chapter on Prayer. 

I do not wish to impose my opinion on any one who will not permitit, but such as it is I offer it here for what it is worth. I cannotbelieve, and I do not believe, that Mrs. Eddy originated any of thethoughts and reasonings out of which the book Science and Health isconstructed; and I cannot believe, and do not believe that she everwrote any part of that book. 

I think that if anything in the world stands proven, and well andsolidly proven, by unimpeachable testimony--the treacherous testimony ofher own pen in her known and undisputed literary productions--it is thatMrs. Eddy is not capable of thinking upon high planes, nor of reasoningclearly nor writing intelligently upon low ones. 

Inasmuch as--in my belief--the very first editions of the book Scienceand Health were far above the reach of Mrs. Eddy's mental and literaryabilities, I think she has from the very beginning been claiming asher own another person's book, and wearing as her own property laurelsrightfully belonging to that person--the real author of Science andHealth. And I think the reason--and the only reason--that he has notprotested is because his work was not exposed to print until after hewas safely dead. 

That with an eye to business, and by grace of her business talent, she has restored to the world neglected and abandoned features of theChristian religion which her thousands of followers find gracious andblessed and contenting, I recognize and confess; but I am convinced thatevery single detail of the work except just that one--the delivery ofthe Product to the world--was conceived and performed by another. 

APPENDIX A

ORIGINAL FIRST PREFACE TO SCIENCE AND HEALTH

There seems a Christian necessity of learning God's power and purpose toheal both mind and body. This thought grew out of our early seekingHim in all our ways, and a hopeless as singular invalidism that drugsincreased instead of diminished, and hygiene benefited only for aseason. By degrees we have drifted into more spiritual latitudes ofthought, and experimented as we advanced until demonstrating fully thepower of mind over the body. About the year 1862, having heard of amesmerist in Portland who was treating the sick by manipulation, wevisited him; he helped us for a time, then we relapsed somewhat. Afterhis decease, and a severe casualty deemed fatal by skilful physicians, we discovered that the Principle of all healing and the law that governsit is God, a divine Principle, and a spiritual not material law, andregained health. 

It was not an individual or mortal mind acting upon another so-calledmind that healed us. It was the glorious truths of Christian Sciencethat we discovered as we neared that verge of so-called material lifenamed death; yea, it was the great Shekinah, the spirit of Life, Truth, and Love illuminating our understanding of the action and might ofOmnipotence! The old gentleman to whom we have referred had some veryadvanced views on healing, but he was not avowedly religious neitherscholarly. We interchanged thoughts on the subject of healing the sick. I restored some patients of his that he failed to heal, and left inhis possession some manuscripts of mine containing corrections of hisdesultory pennings, which I am informed at his decease passed into thehands of a patient of his, now residing in Scotland. He died in 1865 andleft no published works. The only manuscript that we ever held of his, longer than to correct it, was one of perhaps a dozen pages, most ofwhich we had composed. He manipulated the sick; hence his ostensiblemethod of healing was physical instead of mental. 

We helped him in the esteem of the public by our writings, but neverknew of his stating orally or in writing that he treated his patientsmentally; never heard him give any directions to that effect; and haveit from one of his patients, who now asserts that he was the founder ofmental healing, that he never revealed to anyone his method. We referto these facts simply to refute the calumnies and false claims of ourenemies, that we are preferring dishonest claims to the discovery andfounding at this period of Metaphysical Healing or Christian Science. 

The Science and laws of a purely mental healing and their method ofapplication through spiritual power alone, else a mental argumentagainst disease, are our own discovery at this date. True, the Principleis divine and eternal, but the application of it to heal the sick hadbeen lost sight of, and required to be again spiritually discernedand its science discovered, that man might retain it through theunderstanding. Since our discovery in 1866 of the divine science ofChristian Healing, we have labored with tongue and pen to found thissystem. In this endeavor every obstacle has been thrown in our path thatthe envy and revenge of a few disaffected students could devise. Thesuperstition and ignorance of even this period have not failed tocontribute their mite towards misjudging us, while its Christianadvancement and scientific research have helped sustain our feebleefforts. 

Since our first Edition of Science and Health, published in 1875, twoof the aforesaid students have plagiarized and pirated our works. In theissues of E. J. A. , almost exclusively ours, were thirteen paragraphs, without credit, taken verbatim from our books. 

Not one of our printed works was ever copied or abstracted from thepublished or from the unpublished writings of anyone. Throughout ourpublications of Metaphysical Healing or Christian Science, when writingor dictating them, we have given ourselves to contemplation wholly apartfrom the observation of the material senses: to look upon a copy wouldhave distracted our thoughts from the subject before us. We were seldomable to copy our own compositions, and have employed an amanuensisfor the last six years. Every work that we have had published has beenextemporaneously written; and out of fifty lectures and sermons that wehave delivered the last year, forty-four have been extemporaneous. Wehave distributed many of our unpublished manuscripts; loaned to one ofour youngest students, R. K--------y, between three and four hundredpages, of which we were sole author--giving him liberty to copy but notto publish them. 

Leaning on the sustaining Infinite with loving trust, the trials ofto-day grow brief, and to-morrow is big with blessings. 

The wakeful shepherd, tending his flocks, beholds from the mountain'stop the first faint morning beam ere cometh the risen day. So fromSoul's loftier summits shines the pale star to prophet-shepherd, andit traverses night, over to where the young child lies, in cradledobscurity, that shall waken a world. Over the night of error dawn themorning beams and guiding star of Truth, and "the wise men" are led byit to Science, which repeats the eternal harmony that it reproduced, inproof of immortality. The time for thinkers has come; and the time forrevolutions, ecclesiastical and civil, must come. Truth, independent ofdoctrines or time-honored systems, stands at the threshold of history. Contentment with the past, or the cold conventionality of custom, may nolonger shut the door on science; though empires fall, "He whose right itis shall reign. " Ignorance of God should no longer be the stepping-stoneto faith; understanding Him, "whom to know aright is Life eternal, " isthe only guaranty of obedience. 

This volume may not open a new thought, and make it at once familiar. Ithas the sturdy task of a pioneer, to hack away at the tall oaks and cutthe rough granite, leaving future ages to declare what it has done. We made our first discovery of the adaptation of metaphysics to thetreatment of disease in the winter of 1866; since then we have testedthe Principle on ourselves and others, and never found it to fail toprove the statements herein made of it. We must learn the science ofLife, to reach the perfection of man. To understand God as the Principleof all being, and to live in accordance with this Principle, is theScience of Life. But to reproduce this harmony of being, the errorof personal sense must yield to science, even as the science of musiccorrects tones caught from the ear, and gives the sweet concord ofsound. There are many theories of physic and theology, and many calls ineach of their directions for the right way; but we propose to settle thequestion of "What is Truth?" on the ground of proof, and let that methodof healing the sick and establishing Christianity be adopted that isfound to give the most health and to make the best Christians; sciencewill then have a fair field, in which case we are assured of its triumphover all opinions and beliefs. Sickness and sin have ever had theirdoctors; but the question is, Have they become less because of them? Thelongevity of our antediluvians would say, No! and the criminal recordsof today utter their voices little in favor of such a conclusion. Notthat we would deny to Caesar the things that are his, but that weask for the things that belong to Truth; and safely affirm, from thedemonstrations we have been able to make, that the science of manunderstood would have eradicated sin, sickness, and death, in a lessperiod than six thousand years. We find great difficulties in startingthis work right. Some shockingly false claims are already made to ametaphysical practice; mesmerism, its very antipodes, is one of them. Hitherto we have never, in a single instance of our discovery, foundthe slightest resemblance between mesmerism and metaphysics. No especialidiosyncrasy is requisite to acquire a knowledge of metaphysicalhealing; spiritual sense is more important to its discernment than theintellect; and those who would learn this science without a high moralstandard of thought and action, will fail to understand it until theygo up higher. Owing to our explanations constantly vibrating between thesame points, an irksome repetition of words must occur; also the use ofcapital letters, genders, and technicalities peculiar to the science. Variety of language, or beauty of diction, must give place to closeanalysis and unembellished thought. "Hoping all things, enduring allthings, " to do good to our enemies, to bless them that curse us, and tobear to the sorrowing and the sick consolation and healing, we committhese pages to posterity. 

MARY BAKER G. EDDY. 

APPENDIX B

The Gospel narratives bear brief testimony even to the life of our greatMaster. His spiritual noumenon and phenomenon, silenced portraiture. Writers, less wise than the Apostles, essayed in the Apocryphal NewTestament, a legendary and traditional history of the early life ofJesus. But Saint Paul summarized the character of Jesus as the modelof Christianity, in these words: "Consider Him who endured suchcontradictions of sinners against Himself. Who for the joy that was setbefore Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down atthe right hand of the throne of God. "

It may be that the mortal life battle still wages, and must continuetill its involved errors are vanquished by victory-bringing Science; butthis triumph will come! God is over all. He alone is our origin, aim, and Being. The real man is not of the dust, nor is he ever createdthrough the flesh; for his father and mother are the one Spirit, and hisbrethren are all the children of one parent, the eternal Good. 

Any kind of literary composition was excessively difficult for Mrs. Eddy. She found it grinding hard work to dig out anything to say. Sherealized, at the above stage in her life, that with all her trouble shehad not been able to scratch together even material enough for a child'sAutobiography, and also that what she had secured was in the main notvaluable, not important, considering the age and the fame of the personshe was writing about; and so it occurred to her to attempt, in thatparagraph, to excuse the meagreness and poor quality of the feast shewas spreading, by letting on that she could do ever so much better ifshe wanted to, but was under constraint of Divine etiquette. To feedwith more than a few indifferent crumbs a plebeian appetite for personaldetails about Personages in her class was not the correct thing, and sheblandly points out that there is Precedent for this reserve. When Mrs. Eddy tries to be artful--in literature--it is generally after the mannerof the ostrich; and with the ostrich's luck. Please try to find theconnection between the two paragraphs. --M. T. 

APPENDIX C

The following is the spiritual signification of the Lord's Prayer:

Principle, eternal and harmonious, Nameless and adorable Intelligence, Thou art ever present and supreme. And when this supremacy ofSpirit shall appear, the dream of matter will disappear. Give us theunderstanding of Truth and Love. And loving we shall learn God, andTruth will destroy all error. And lead us unto the Life that is Soul, and deliver us from the errors of sense, sin, sickness, and death, ForGod is Life, Truth, and Love for ever. --Science and Health, edition of1881. 

It seems to me that this one is distinctly superior to the one that wasinspired for last year's edition. It is strange, but to my mind plain, that inspiring is an art which does not improve with practice. --M. T. 

APPENDIX D

"For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt inhis heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall cometo pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. 

"Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye askHim. "--CHRIST JESUS. 

The prayer that reclaims the sinner and heals the sick, is an absolutefaith that all things are possible to God--a spiritual understanding ofHim--an unselfed love. Regardless of what another may say or thinkon this subject, I speak from experience. This prayer, combined withself-sacrifice and toil, is the means whereby God has enabled me to dowhat I have done for the religion and health of mankind. 

Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind. Desire is prayer;and no less can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they maybe moulded and exalted before they take form in audible word, and indeeds. 

What are the motives for prayer? Do we pray to make ourselves better, orto benefit those that hear us; to enlighten the Infinite, or to be heardof men? Are we benefited by praying? Yes, the desire which goes forthhungering after righteousness is blessed of our Father, and it does notreturn unto us void. 

God is not moved by the breath of praise to do more than He has alreadydone; nor can the Infinite do less than bestow all good, since He isunchanging Wisdom and Love. We can do more for ourselves by humblefervent petitions; but the All-loving does not grant them simply on theground of lip-service, for He already knows all. 

Prayer cannot change the Science of Being, but it does bring us intoharmony with it. Goodness reaches the demonstration of Truth. A requestthat another may work for us never does our work. The habit of pleadingwith the divine Mind, as one pleads with a human being, perpetuates thebelief in God as humanly circumscribed--an error which impedes spiritualgrowth. 

God is Love. Can we ask Him to be more? God is Intelligence. Can weinform the infinite Mind, or tell Him anything He does not alreadycomprehend? Do we hope to change perfection? Shall we plead for moreat the open fount, which always pours forth more than we receive? Theunspoken prayer does bring us nearer the Source of all existence andblessedness. 

Asking God to be God is a "vain repetition. " God is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever"; and He who is immutably right will do right, without being reminded of His province. The wisdom of man is notsufficient to warrant him in advising God. 

Who would stand before a blackboard, and pray the principle ofmathematics to work out the problem? The rule is already established, and it is our task to work out the solution. Shall we ask the divinePrinciple of all goodness to do His own work? His work is done; andwe have only to avail ourselves of God's rule, in order to receive theblessing thereof. 

The divine Being must be reflected by man--else man is not the image andlikeness of the patient, tender, and true, the one "altogether lovely";but to understand God is the work of eternity, and demands absoluteconcentration of thought and energy. 

How empty are our conceptions of Deity! We admit theoretically thatGod is good, omnipotent, omnipresent, infinite, and then we try to giveinformation to this infinite Mind; and plead for unmerited pardon, and aliberal outpouring of benefactions. Are we really grateful for the goodalready received? Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings wehave, and thus be fitted to receive more. Gratitude is much more than averbal expression of thanks Action expresses more gratitude than speech. 

If we are ungrateful for Life, Truth, and Love, and yet return thanks toGod for all blessings, we are insincere; and incur the sharp censureour Master pronounces on hypocrites. In such a case the only acceptableprayer is to put the finger on the lips and remember our blessings. While the heart is far from divine Truth and Love, we cannot conceal theingratitude of barren lives, for God knoweth all things. 

What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds. To keep thecommandments of our Master and follow his example, is our proper debt toHim, and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all He hasdone. Outward worship is not of itself sufficient to express loyaland heartfelt gratitude, since He has said: "If ye love Me, keep MyCommandments. "

The habitual struggle to be always good, is unceasing prayer. Itsmotives are made manifest in the blessings they bring--which, ifnot acknowledged in audible words, attest our worthiness to be madepartakers of Love. 

Simply asking that we may love God will never make us love Him; but thelonging to be better and holier--expressed in daily watchfulness, and instriving to assimilate more of the divine character--this will mould andfashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness. We reach the Scienceof Christianity through demonstration of the divine nature; but in thiswicked world goodness will "be evil spoken of, " and patience must workexperience. 

Audible prayer can never do the works of spiritual understanding, whichregenerates; but silent prayer, watchfulness, and devout obedience, enable us to follow Jesus' example. Long prayers, ecclesiasticism, andcreeds, have clipped the divine pinions of Love, and clad religion inhuman robes. They materialize worship, hinder the Spirit, and keep manfrom demonstrating his power over error. 

Sorrow for wrong-doing is but one step towards reform, and the veryeasiest step. The next and great step required by Wisdom is the test ofour sincerity--namely, reformation. To this end we are placed under thestress of circumstances. Temptation bids us repeat the offence, and woecomes in return for what is done. So it will ever be, till we learn thatthere is no discount in the law of justice, and that we must pay "theuttermost farthing. " The measure ye mete "shall be measured to youagain, " and it will be full "and running over. "

Saints and sinners get their full award, but not always in this world. The followers of Christ drank His cup. Ingratitude and persecutionfilled it to the brim; but God pours the riches of His love into theunderstanding and affections, giving us strength according to our day. Sinners flourish "like a green bay-tree"; but, looking farther, thePsalmist could see their end--namely, the destruction of sin throughsuffering. 

Prayer is sometimes used, as a confessional to cancel sin. This errorimpedes true religion. Sin is forgiven, only as it is destroyed byChrist-Truth and Life If prayer nourishes the belief that sin iscancelled, and that man is made better by merely praying, it is an evil. He grows worse who continues in sin because he thinks himself forgiven. 

An apostle says that the Son of God (Christ) came to "destroy theworks of the devil. " We should follow our divine Exemplar, and seek thedestruction of all evil works, error and disease included. We cannotescape the penalty due for sin. The Scriptures say, that if we denyChrist, "He also will deny us. "

The divine Love corrects and governs man. Men may pardon, but thisdivine Principle alone reforms the sinner. God is not separate from thewisdom He bestows. The talents He gives we must improve. Calling onHim to forgive our work, badly done or left undone, implies the vainsupposition that we have nothing to do but to ask pardon, and thatafterwards we shall be free to repeat the offence. 

To cause suffering, as the result of sin, is the means of destroyingsin. Every supposed pleasure in sin will furnish more than itsequivalent of pain, until belief in material life and sin is destroyed. To reach heaven, the harmony of Being, we must understand the divinePrinciple of Being. 

"God is Love. " More than this we cannot ask; higher we cannot look;farther we cannot go. To suppose that God forgives or punishes sin, according as His mercy is sought or unsought, is to misunderstand Loveand make prayer the safety-valve for wrong-doing. 

Jesus uncovered and rebuked sin before He cast it out. Of a sick womanHe said that Satan had bound her; and to Peter He said, "Thou art anoffense unto me. " He came teaching and showing men how to destroy sin, sickness, and death. He said of the fruitless tree, "It is hewn down. "

It is believed by many that a certain magistrate, who lived in the timeof Jesus, left this record: "His rebuke is fearful. " The strong languageof our Master confirms this description. 

The only civil sentence which He had for error was, "Get thee behindMe, Satan. " Still stronger evidence that Jesus' reproof was pointed andpungent is in His own words--showing the necessity for such forcibleutterance, when He cast out devils and healed the sick and sinful. Therelinquishment of error deprives material sense of its false claims. 

Audible prayer is impressive; it gives momentary solemnity and elevationto thought; but does it produce any lasting benefit? Looking deeply intothese things, we find that "a zeal... Not according to knowledge, " givesoccasion for reaction unfavorable to spiritual growth, sober resolve, and wholesome perception of God's requirements. The motives for verbalprayer may embrace too much love of applause to induce or encourageChristian sentiment. 

Physical sensation, not Soul, produces material ecstasy, and emotions. If spiritual sense always guided men at such times, there would grow outof those ecstatic moments a higher experience and a better life, withmore devout self-abnegation, and purity. A self-satisfied ventilationof fervent sentiments never makes a Christian. God is not influenced byman. The "divine ear" is not an auditorial nerve. It is the all-hearingand all-knowing Mind, to whom each want of man is always known, and bywhom it will be supplied. 

The danger from audible prayer is, that it may lead us into temptation. By it we may become involuntary hypocrites, uttering desires whichare not real, and consoling ourselves in the midst of sin, with therecollection that we have prayed over it--or mean to ask forgiveness atsome later day. Hypocrisy is fatal to religion. 

A wordy prayer may afford a quiet sense of self-justification, though itmakes the sinner a hypocrite. We never need despair of an honest heart, but there is little hope for those who only come spasmodically face toface with their wickedness, and then seek to hide it. Their prayers areindexes which do not correspond with their character. They hold secretfellowship with sin; and such externals are spoken of by Jesus as "likeunto whited sepulchres... Full of all uncleanness. "

If a man, though apparently fervent and prayerful, is impure, andtherefore insincere, what must be the comment upon him? If he hadreached the loftiness of his prayer, there would be no occasion for suchcomment. If we feel the aspiration, humility, gratitude, and lovewhich our words express--this God accepts; and it is wise not to try todeceive ourselves or others, for "there is nothing covered that shallnot be revealed. " Professions and audible prayers are like charity inone respect--they "cover a multitude of sins. " Praying for humility, with whatever fervency of expression, does not always mean a desirefor it. If we turn away from the poor, we are not ready to receive thereward of Him who blesses the poor. We confess to having a very wickedheart, and ask that it may be laid bare before us; but do we not alreadyknow more of this heart than we are willing to have our neighbor see?

We ought to examine ourselves, and learn what is the affection andpurpose of the heart; for this alone can show us what we honestly are. If a friend informs us of a fault, do we listen to the rebuke patiently, and credit what is said? Do we not rather give thanks that we are "notas other men?" During many years the author has been most grateful formerited rebuke. The sting lies in unmerited censure--in the falsehoodwhich does no one any good. 

The test of all prayer lies in the answer to these questions: Do welove our neighbor better because of this asking? Do we pursue the oldselfishness, satisfied with having prayed for something better, though we give no evidence of the sincerity of our requests by livingconsistently with our prayer? If selfishness has given place tokindness, we shall regard our neighbor unselfishly, and bless them thatcurse us; but we shall never meet this great duty by simply asking thatit may be done. There is a cross to be taken up, before we can enjoy thefruition of our hope and faith. 

Dost thou "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thysoul, and with all thy mind?" This command includes much--even thesurrender of all merely material sensation, affection, and worship. Thisis the El Dorado of Christianity. It involves the Science of Life, and recognizes only the divine control of Spirit, wherein Soul is ourmaster, and material sense and human will have no place. 

Are you willing to leave all for Christ, for Truth, and so be countedamong sinners? No! Do you really desire to attain this point? No! Thenwhy make long prayers about it, and ask to be Christians, since you carenot to tread in the footsteps of our dear Master? If unwilling to followHis example, wherefore pray with the lips that you may be partakers ofHis nature? Consistent prayer is the desire to do right. Prayer meansthat we desire to, and will, walk in the light so far as we receive it, even though with bleeding footsteps, and waiting patiently on the Lord, will leave our real desires to be rewarded by Him. 

The world must grow to the spiritual understanding of prayer. If goodenough to profit by Jesus' cup of earthly sorrows, God will sustain usunder these sorrows. Until we are thus divinely qualified, and willingto drink His cup, millions of vain repetitions will never pour intoprayer the unction of Spirit, in demonstration of power, and "with signsfollowing. " Christian Science reveals a necessity for overcoming theworld, the flesh and evil, and thus destroying all error. 

Seeking is not sufficient. It is striving which enables us to enter. Spiritual attainments open the door to a higher understanding of thedivine Life. 

One of the forms of worship in Thibet is to carry a praying-machinethrough the streets, and stop at the doors to earn a penny by grindingout a prayer; whereas civilization pays for clerical prayers, in loftyedifices. Is the difference very great, after all?

Experience teaches us that we do not always receive the blessings we askfor in prayer. 

There is some misapprehension of the source and means of all goodnessand blessedness, or we should certainly receive what we ask for. TheScriptures say: "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that yemay consume it upon your lusts. " What we desire and ask for it is notalways best for us to receive. In this case infinite Love will not grantthe request. Do you ask Wisdom to be merciful and not punish sin? Then"ye ask amiss. " Without punishment, sin would multiply. Jesus' prayer, "forgive us our debts, " specified also the terms of forgiveness. Whenforgiving the adulterous woman He said, "Go, and sin no more. "

A magistrate sometimes remits the penalty, but this may be no moralbenefit to the criminal; and at best, it only saves him from one formof punishment. The moral law, which has the right to acquit or condemn, always demands restitution, before mortals can "go up higher. " Brokenlaw brings penalty, in order to compel this progress. 

Mere legal pardon (and there is no other, for divine Principle neverpardons our sins or mistakes till they are corrected) leaves theoffender free to repeat the offense; if, indeed, he has not alreadysuffered sufficiently from vice to make him turn from it with loathing. Truth bestows no pardon upon error, but wipes it out in the mosteffectual manner. Jesus suffered for our sins, not to annul the divinesentence against an individual's sin, but to show that sin must bringinevitable suffering. 

Petitions only bring to mortals the results of their own faith. We knowthat a desire for holiness is requisite in order to gain it; but if wedesire holiness above all else, we shall sacrifice everything for it. We must be willing to do this, that we may walk securely in the onlypractical road to holiness. Prayer alone cannot change the unalterableTruth, or give us an understanding of it; but prayer coupled with afervent habitual desire to know and do the will of God will bring usinto all Truth. Such a desire has little need of audible expression. Itis best expressed in thought and life. 

APPENDIX E

Reverend Heber Newton on Christian Science:

To begin, then, at the beginning, Christian Science accepts the workof healing sickness as an integral part of the discipleship of JesusChrist. In Christ it finds, what the Church has always recognized, theoretically, though it has practically ignored the fact--the GreatPhysician. That Christ healed the sick, we none of us question. Itstands plainly upon the record. This ministry of healing was too largea part of His work to be left out from any picture of that life. Suchservice was not an incident of His career--it was an essentialelement of that career. It was an integral factor in His mission. TheEvangelists leave us no possibility of confusion on this point. Co-equalwith his work of instruction and inspiration was His work of healing. 

The records make it equally clear that the Master laid His charge uponHis disciples to do as He had done. "When He had called unto Him Histwelve disciples, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast themout, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. " Insending them forth, "He commanded them, saying, ... As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse thelepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. "

That the twelve disciples undertook to do the Master's work of healing, and that they, in their measure, succeeded, seems beyond question. Theyfound in themselves the same power that the Master found in Himself, and they used it as He had used His power. The record of The Acts of theApostles, if at all trustworthy history, shows that they, too, healedthe sick. 

Beyond the circle of the original twelve, it is equally clear that theearly disciples believed themselves charged with the same mission, andthat they sought to fulfil it. The records of the early Church make itindisputable that powers of healing were recognized as among the giftsof the Spirit. St. Paul's letters render it certain that these giftswere not a privilege of the original twelve, merely, but that they werethe heritage into which all the disciples entered. 

Beyond the era of the primitive Church, through several generations, theearly Christians felt themselves called to the same ministry of healing, and enabled with the same secret of power. Through wellnigh threecenturies, the gifts of healing appear to have been, more or less, recognized and exercised in the Church. Through those generations, however, there was a gradual disuse of this power, following upon afailing recognition of its possession. That which was originally therule became the exception. By degrees, the sense of authority and powerto heal passed out from the consciousness of the Church. It ceased to bea sign of the indwelling Spirit. For fifteen centuries, the recognitionof this authority and power has been altogether exceptional. Here andthere, through the history of these centuries, there have been those whohave entered into this belief of their own privilege and duty, and haveused the gift which they recognized. The Church has never been leftwithout a line of witnesses to this aspect of the discipleship ofChrist. But she has come to accept it as the normal order of things thatwhat was once the rule in the Christian Church should be now onlythe exception. Orthodoxy has framed a theory of the words of Jesus toaccount for this strange departure of His Church from them. It teachesus to believe that His example was not meant to be followed, in thisrespect, by all His disciples. The power of healing which was in Himwas a purely exceptional power. It was used as an evidence of His divinemission. It was a miraculous gift. The gift of working miracles was notbestowed upon His Church at large. His original disciples, the twelveapostles, received this gift, as a necessity of the critical epoch ofChristianity--the founding of the Church. Traces of the power lingeredon, in weakening activity, until they gradually ceased, and the normalcondition of the Church was entered upon, in which miracles are nolonger possible. 

We accept this, unconsciously, as the true state of things inChristianity. But it is a conception which will not bear a moment'sexamination. There is not the slightest suggestion upon record thatChrist set any limit to this charge which He gave His disciples. On thecontrary, there are not lacking hints that He looked for the possessionand exercise of this power wherever His spirit breathed in men. 

Even if the concluding paragraph of St. Mark's Gospel were a laterappendix, it may none the less have been a faithful echo of words ofthe Master, as it certainly is a trustworthy record of the belief of theearly Christians as to the thought of Jesus concerning His followers. In that interesting passage, Jesus, after His death, appeared to theeleven, and formally commissioned them, again, to take up His work inthe world; bidding them, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospelto every creature. " "And these signs, " He tells them, "shall follow themthat believe"--not the apostles only, but "them that believe, " withoutlimit of time; "in My name they shall cast out devils... They shall layhands on the sick and they shall recover. " The concluding discourse tothe disciples, recorded in the Gospel according to St. John, affirms thesame expectation on the part of Jesus; emphasizing it in His solemn way:"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works thatI do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do. "

APPENDIX F

Few will deny that an intelligence apart from man formed and governs thespiritual universe and man; and this intelligence is the eternalMind, and neither matter nor man created this intelligence and divinePrinciple; nor can this Principle produce aught unlike itself. All thatwe term sin, sickness, and death is comprised in the belief of matter. The realm of the real is spiritual; the opposite of Spirit is matter;and the opposite of the real is unreal or material. Matter is an errorof statement, for there is no matter. This error of premises leads toerror of conclusion in every statement of matter as a basis. Nothingwe can say or believe regarding matter is true, except that matter isunreal, simply a belief that has its beginning and ending. 

The conservative firm called matter and mind God never formed. Theunerring and eternal Mind destroys this imaginary copartnership, formed only to be dissolved in a manner and at a period unknown. Thiscopartnership is obsolete. Placed under the microscope of metaphysicsmatter disappears. Only by understanding there are not two, matterand mind, is a logical and correct conclusion obtained by either one. Science gathers not grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. Intelligencenever produced non-intelligence, such as matter: the immortal neverproduced mortality, good never resulted in evil. The science of Mindshows conclusively that matter is a myth. Metaphysics are above physics, and drag not matter, or what is termed that, into one of its premisesor conclusions. Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchangesthe objects of sense for the ideas of Soul. These ideas are perfectlytangible and real to consciousness, and they have this advantage--theyare eternal. Mind and its thoughts comprise the whole of God, theuniverse, and of man. Reason and revelation coincide with thisstatement, and support its proof every hour, for nothing is harmoniousor eternal that is not spiritual: the realization of this will bringout objects from a higher source of thought; hence more beautiful andimmortal. 

The fact of spiritualization produces results in striking contrast tothe farce of materialization: the one produces the results of chastityand purity, the other the downward tendencies and earthward gravitationof sensualism and impurity. 

The exalting and healing effects of metaphysics show their fountain. Nothing in pathology has exceeded the application of metaphysics. Through mind alone we have prevented disease and preserved health. Incases of chronic and acute diseases, in their severest forms, we havechanged the secretions, renewed structure, and restored health; haveelongated shortened limbs, relaxed rigid muscles, made cicatrized jointssupple; restored carious bones to healthy conditions, renewed thatwhich is termed the lost substance of the lungs; and restored healthyorganizations where disease was organic instead of functional. 

MRS. EDDY IN ERROR

I feel almost sure that Mrs. Eddy's inspiration--works are getting outof repair. I think so because they made some errors in a statement whichshe uttered through the press on the 17th of January. Not large ones, perhaps, still it is a friend's duty to straighten such things out andget them right when he can. Therefore I will put my other duties asidefor a moment and undertake this helpful service. She said as follows:

"In view of the circulation of certain criticisms from the pen of MarkTwain, I submit the following statement:

"It is a fact, well understood, that I begged the students who firstgave me the endearing appellative 'mother' not to name me thus. But, without my consent, that word spread like wildfire. I still must thinkthe name is not applicable to me. I stand in relation to this century asa Christian discoverer, founder, and leader. I regard self-deificationas blasphemous; I may be more loved, but I am less lauded, pampered, provided for, and cheered than others before me--and wherefore? BecauseChristian Science is not yet popular, and I refuse adulation. 

"My visit to the Mother-Church after it was built and dedicated pleasedme, and the situation was satisfactory. The dear members wanted to greetme with escort and the ringing of bells, but I declined, and went alonein my carriage to the church, entered it, and knelt in thanks upon thesteps of its altar. There the foresplendor of the beginnings of truthfell mysteriously upon my spirit. I believe in one Christ, teach oneChrist, know of but one Christ. I believe in but one incarnation, oneMother Mary, and know I am not that one, and never claimed to be. Itsuffices me to learn the Science of the Scriptures relative to thissubject. 

"Christian Scientists have no quarrel with Protestants, Catholics, or any other sect. They need to be understood as following the divinePrinciple God, Love and not imagined to be unscientific worshippers of ahuman being. 

"In the aforesaid article, of which I have seen only extracts, MarkTwain's wit was not wasted In certain directions. Christian Scienceeschews divine rights in human beings. If the individual governed humanconsciousness, my statement of Christian Science would be disproved, butto understand the spiritual idea is essential to demonstrate Scienceand its pure monotheism--one God, one Christ, no idolatry, no humanpropaganda. Jesus taught and proved that what feeds a few feeds all. Hislife-work subordinated the material to the spiritual, and He leftthis legacy of truth to mankind. His metaphysics is not the sport ofphilosophy, religion, or Science; rather it is the pith and finale ofthem all. 

"I have not the inspiration or aspiration to be a first or secondVirgin-Mother--her duplicate, antecedent, or subsequent. What I amremains to be proved by the good I do. We need much humility, wisdom, and love to perform the functions of foreshadowing and foretastingheaven within us. This glory is molten in the furnace of affliction. "

She still thinks the name of Our Mother not applicable to her; and sheis also able to remember that it distressed her when it was conferredupon her, and that she begged to have it suppressed. Her memory is atfault here. If she will take her By-laws, and refer to Section 1 ofArticle XXII. , written with her own hand--she will find that she hasreserved that title to herself, and is so pleased with it, and so--maywe say jealous?--about it, that she threatens with excommunication anysister Scientist who shall call herself by it. This is that Section 1:

"The Title of Mother. In the year 1895 loyal Christian Scientistshad given to the author of their text-book, the Founder of ChristianScience, the individual, endearing term of Mother. Therefore, if astudent of Christian Science shall apply this title, either to herselfor to others, except as the term for kinship according to the flesh, itshall be regarded by the Church as an indication of disrespect for theirPastor Emeritus, and unfitness to be a member of the Mother-Church. "

Mrs. Eddy is herself the Mother-Church--its powers and authorities arein her possession solely--and she can abolish that title whenever it mayplease her to do so. She has only to command her people, wherever theymay be in the earth, to use it no more, and it will never be utteredagain. She is aware of this. 

It may be that she "refuses adulation" when she is not awake, but whenshe is awake she encourages it and propagates it in that museum called"Our Mother's Room, " in her Church in Boston. She could abolish thatinstitution with a word, if she wanted to. She is aware of that. I willsay a further word about the museum presently. 

Further down the column, her memory is unfaithful again:

"I believe in... But one Mother Mary, and know I am not that one, andnever claimed to be. "

At a session of the National Christian Science Association, held in thecity of New York on the 27th of May, 1890, the secretary was "instructedto send to our Mother greetings and words of affection from herassembled children. "

Her telegraphic response was read to the Association at next day'smeeting:

"All hail! He hath filled the hungry with good things and the sick hathHe not sent empty away. --MOTHER MARY. "

Which Mother Mary is this one? Are there two? If so, she is bothof them; for, when she signed this telegram in this satisfied andunprotesting way, the Mother-title which she was going to so strenuouslyobject to, and put from her with humility, and seize with both hands, and reserve as her sole property, and protect her monopoly of it witha stern By-law, while recognizing with diffidence that it was "notapplicable" to her (then and to-day)--that Mother--title was not yetborn, and would not be offered to her until five years later. The dateof the above "Mother Mary" is 1890; the "individual, endearing title ofMother" was given her "in 1895"--according to her own testimony. See herBy-law quoted above. 

In his opening Address to that Convention of 1890, the Presidentrecognized this Mary--our Mary-and abolished all previous ones. He said:

"There is but one Moses, one Jesus; and there is but one Mary. "

The confusions being now dispersed, we have this clarified result:

Were had been a Moses at one time, and only one; there had been a Jesusat one time, and only one; there is a Mary and "only one. " She is not aHas Been, she is an Is--the "Author of Science and Health; and we cannotignore her. "

1. In 1890, there was but one Mother Mary. The President said so. 2. Mrs. Eddy was that one. She said so, in signing the telegram. 3. Mrs. Eddy was not that one for she says so, in her Associated Press utteranceof January 17th. 4. And has "never claimed to be that one"--unless thesignature to the telegram is a claim. 

Thus it stands proven and established that she is that Mary and isn't, and thought she was and knows she wasn't. That much is clear. 

She is also "The Mother, " by the election of 1895, and did not want thetitle, and thinks it is not applicable to her, end will excommunicateany one that tries to take it away from her. So that is clear. 

I think that the only really troublesome confusion connected with theseparticular matters has arisen from the name Mary. Much vexation, muchmisunderstanding, could have been avoided if Mrs. Eddy had used some ofher other names in place of that one. "Mother Mary" was certain to stirup discussion. It would have been much better if she had signedthe telegram "Mother Baker"; then there would have been no Biblicalcompetition, and, of course, that is a thing to avoid. But it is not toolate, yet. 

I wish to break in here with a parenthesis, and then take up thisexamination of Mrs. Eddy's Claim of January 17th again. 

The history of her "Mother Mary" telegram--as told to me by one whoought to be a very good authority--is curious and interesting. Thetelegram ostensibly quotes verse 53 from the "Magnificat, " but reallymakes some pretty formidable changes in it. This is St. Luke's version:

"He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sentempty away. "

This is "Mother Mary's" telegraphed version:

"He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the sick hath He notsent empty away. "

To judge by the Official Report, the bursting of this bombshell in thatmassed convention of trained Christians created no astonishment, sinceit caused no remark, and the business of the convention went tranquillyon, thereafter, as if nothing had happened. 

Did those people detect those changes? We cannot know. I think they musthave noticed them, the wording of St. Luke's verse being as familiar toall Christians as is the wording of the Beatitudes; and I think that thereason the new version provoked no surprise and no comment was, that theassemblage took it for a "Key"--a spiritualized explanation of verse 53, newly sent down from heaven through Mrs. Eddy. For all Scientists studytheir Bibles diligently, and they know their Magnificat. I believe thattheir confidence in the authenticity of Mrs. Eddy's inspirations is solimitless and so firmly established that no change, however violent, which she might make in a Bible text could disturb their composure orprovoke from them a protest. 

Her improved rendition of verse 53 went into the convention's report andappeared in a New York paper the next day. The (at that time) Scientistwhom I mentioned a minute ago, and who had not been present at theconvention, saw it and marvelled; marvelled and was indignant--indignantwith the printer or the telegrapher, for making so careless and sodreadful an error. And greatly distressed, too; for, of course, thenewspaper people would fall foul of it, and be sarcastic, and make funof it, and have a blithe time over it, and be properly thankful for thechance. It shows how innocent he was; it shows that he did not know thelimitations of newspaper men in the matter of Biblical knowledge. Thenew verse 53 raised no insurrection in the press; in fact, it was noteven remarked upon; I could have told him the boys would not know therewas anything the matter with it. I have been a newspaper man myself, andin those days I had my limitations like the others. 

The Scientist hastened to Concord and told Mrs. Eddy what a disastrousmistake had been made, but he found to his bewilderment that she wastranquil about it, and was not proposing to correct it. He was not ableto get her to promise to make a correction. He asked her secretary ifhe had heard aright when the telegram was dictated to him; the secretarysaid he had, and took the filed copy of it and verified its authenticityby comparing it with the stenographic notes. 

Mrs. Eddy did make the correction, two months later, in her officialorgan. It attracted no attention among the Scientists; and, naturally, none elsewhere, for that periodical's circulation was practicallyconfined to disciples of the cult. 

That is the tale as it was told to me by an ex-Scientist. Verse53--renovated and spiritualized--had a narrow escape from a tremendouscelebrity. The newspaper men would have made it as famous as theassassination of Caesar, but for their limitations. 

To return to the Claim. I find myself greatly embarrassed by Mrs. Eddy'sremark: "I regard self-deification as blasphemous. " If she is rightabout that, I have written a half-ream of manuscript this past weekwhich I must not print, either in the book which I am writing, orelsewhere: for it goes into that very matter with extensive elaboration, citing, in detail, words and acts of Mrs. Eddy's which seem to me toprove that she is a faithful and untiring worshipper of herself, and hascarried self-deification to a length which has not been before venturedin ages. If ever. There is not room enough in this chapter for thatSurvey, but I can epitomize a portion of it here. 

With her own untaught and untrained mind, and without outside help, she has erected upon a firm and lasting foundation the most minutelyperfect, and wonderful, and smoothly and exactly working, and bestsafe-guarded system of government that has yet been devised in theworld, as I believe, and as I am sure I could prove if I had room for mydocumentary evidences here. 

It is a despotism (on this democratic soil); a sovereignty more absolutethan the Roman Papacy, more absolute than the Russian Czarship; it hasnot a single power, not a shred of authority, legislative or executive, which is not lodged solely in the sovereign; all its dreams, itsfunctions, its energies, have a single object, a single reason forexisting, and only the one--to build to the sky the glory of thesovereign, and keep it bright to the end of time. 

Mrs. Eddy is the sovereign; she devised that great place for herself, she occupies that throne. 

In 1895, she wrote a little primer, a little body of autocratic laws, called the Manual of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and putthose laws in force, in permanence. Her government is all there; allin that deceptively innocent-looking little book, that cunning littledevilish book, that slumbering little brown volcano, with hell in itsbowels. In that book she has planned out her system, and classified anddefined its purposes and powers. 

MAIN PARTS OF THE MACHINE

A Supreme Church. At Boston. Branch Churches. All over the world OnePastor for the whole of them: to wit, her book, Science and Health. Termof the book's office--forever. 

In every C. S. Pulpit, two "Readers, " a man and a woman. No talkers, no preachers, in any Church-readers only. Readers of the Bible and herbooks--no others. No commentators allowed to write or print. 

A Church Service. She has framed it--for all the C. S. Churches--selectedits readings, its prayers, and the hymns to be used, and has appointedthe order of procedure. No changes permitted. 

A Creed. She wrote it. All C. S. Churches must subscribe to it. No otherpermitted. 

A Treasury. At Boston. She carries the key. 

A C. S. Book--Publishing House. For books approved by her. No otherspermitted. 

Journals and Magazines. These are organs of hers, and are controlled byher. 

A College. For teaching C. S. 

DISTRIBUTION OF THE MACHINE'S POWERS AND DIGNITIES

Supreme Church. Pastor Emeritus--Mrs. Eddy. Board of Directors. Boardof Education. Board of Finance. College Faculty. Various Committees. Treasurer. Clerk. First Members (of the Supreme Church). Members of theSupreme Church. 

It looks fair, it looks real, but it is all a fiction. 

Even the little "Pastor Emeritus" is a fiction. Instead of being merelyan honorary and ornamental official, Mrs. Eddy is the only official inthe entire body that has the slightest power. In her Manual, she hasprovided a prodigality of ways and forms whereby she can rid herself ofany functionary in the government whenever she wants to. The officialsare all shadows, save herself; she is the only reality. She allows noone to hold office more than a year--no one gets a chance to becomeover-popular or over-useful, and dangerous. "Excommunication" is thefavorite penalty-it is threatened at every turn. It is evidently the petdread and terror of the Church's membership. 

The member who thinks, without getting his thought from Mrs. Eddy beforeuttering it, is banished permanently. One or two kinds of sinners canplead their way back into the fold, but this one, never. To think--inthe Supreme Church--is the New Unpardonable Sin. 

To nearly every severe and fierce rule, Mrs. Eddy adds this rivet: "ThisBy-law shall not be changed without the consent of the Pastor Emeritus. "

Mrs. Eddy is the entire Supreme Church, in her own person, in the matterof powers and authorities. 

Although she has provided so many ways of getting rid of unsatisfactorymembers and officials, she was still afraid she might have left alife-preserver lying around somewhere, therefore she devised a rule tocover that defect. By applying it, she can excommunicate (and this isperpetual again) every functionary connected with the Supreme Church, and every one of the twenty-five thousand members of that Church, at anhour's notice--and do it all by herself without anybody's help. 

By authority of this astonishing By-law, she has only to say aperson connected with that Church is secretly practicing hypnotism ormesmerism; whereupon, immediate excommunication, without a hearing, is his portion! She does not have to order a trial and produceevidence--her accusation is all that is necessary. 

Where is the Pope? and where the Czar? As the ballad says:

 "Ask of the winds that far away With fragments strewed the sea!"

The Branch Church's pulpit is occupied by two "Readers. " Without themthe Branch Church is as dead as if its throat had been cut. To havecontrol, then, of the Readers, is to have control of the BranchChurches. Mrs. Eddy has that control--a control wholly without limit, acontrol shared with no one. 

1. No Reader can be appointed to any Church in the Christian Scienceworld without her express approval. 

2. She can summarily expel from his or her place any Reader, at home orabroad, by a mere letter of dismissal, over her signature, and withoutfurnishing any reason for it, to either the congregation or the Reader. 

Thus she has as absolute control over all Branch Churches as she hasover the Supreme Church. This power exceeds the Pope's. 

In simple truth, she is the only absolute sovereign in all Christendom. The authority of the other sovereigns has limits, hers has none, nonewhatever. And her yoke does not fret, does not offend. Many of thesubjects of the other monarchs feel their yoke, and are restive underit; their loyalty is insincere. It is not so with this one's humanproperty; their loyalty is genuine, earnest, sincere, enthusiastic. The sentiment which they feel for her is one which goes out in sheerperfection to no other occupant of a throne; for it is love, pure fromdoubt, envy, exaction, fault-seeking, a love whose sun has nospot--that form of love, strong, great, uplifting, limitless, whose vastproportions are compassable by no word but one, the prodigious word, Worship. And it is not as a human being that her subjects worship her, but as a supernatural one, a divine one, one who has comradeship withGod, and speaks by His voice. 

Mrs. Eddy has herself created all these personal grandeurs andautocracies--with others which I have not (in this article) mentioned. They place her upon an Alpine solitude and supremacy of power andspectacular show not hitherto attained by any other self-seekingenslaver disguised in the Christian name, and they persuade me that, although she may regard "self-deification as blasphemous, " she is asfond of it as I am of pie. 

She knows about "Our Mother's Room" in the Supreme Church inBoston--above referred to--for she has been in it. In a recentlypublished North American Review article, I quoted a lady as saying Mrs. Eddy's portrait could be seen there in a shrine, lit by always-burninglights, and that C. S. Disciples came and worshiped it. That remark hurtthe feelings of more than one Scientist. They said it was not true, andasked me to correct it. I comply with pleasure. Whether the portrait wasthere four years ago or not, it is not there now, for I haveinquired. The only object in the shrine now, and lit by electrics--andworshiped--is an oil-portrait of the horse-hair chair Mrs. Eddy usedto sit in when she was writing Science and Health! It seems to me thatadulation has struck bottom, here. 

Mrs. Eddy knows about that. She has been there, she has seen it, she hasseen the worshippers. She could abolish that sarcasm with a word. Shewithholds the word. Once more I seem to recognize in her exactly thesame appetite for self-deification that I have for pie. We seem to becuriously alike; for the love of self-deification is really only thespiritual form of the material appetite for pie, and nothing could bemore strikingly Christian-Scientifically "harmonious. "

I note this phrase:

"Christian Science eschews divine rights in human beings. "

"Rights" is vague; I do not know what it means there. Mrs. Eddy is notwell acquainted with the English language, and she is seldom able to sayin it what she is trying to say. She has no ear for the exact word, anddoes not often get it. "Rights. " Does it mean "honors?" "attributes?"

"Eschews. " This is another umbrella where there should be a torch; itdoes not illumine the sentence, it only deepens the shadows. Does shemean "denies?" "refuses?" "forbids?" or something in that line? Does shemean:

"Christian Science denies divine honors to human beings?" Or:

"Christian Science refuses to recognize divine attributes in humanbeings?" Or:

"Christian Science forbids the worship of human beings?"

The bulk of the succeeding sentence is to me a tunnel, but, when Iemerge at this end of it, I seem to come into daylight. Then I seem tounderstand both sentences--with this result:

"Christian Science recognizes but one God, forbids the worship of humanbeings, and refuses to recognize the possession of divine attributes byany member of the race. "

I am subject to correction, but I think that that is about what Mrs. Eddy was intending to convey. Has her English--which is always difficultto me--beguiled me into misunderstanding the following remark, which shemakes (calling herself "we, " after an old regal fashion of hers) in herpreface to her Miscellaneous Writings?

"While we entertain decided views as to the best method for elevatingthe race physically, morally, and spiritually, and shall express theseviews as duty demands, we shall claim no especial gift from our divineorgan, no supernatural power. "

Was she meaning to say:

"Although I am of divine origin and gifted with supernatural power, Ishall not draw upon these resources in determining the best method ofelevating the race?"

If she had left out the word "our, " she might then seem to say:

"I claim no especial or unusual degree of divine origin--"

Which is awkward--most awkward; for one either has a divine origin orhasn't; shares in it, degrees of it, are surely impossible. The idea ofcrossed breeds in cattle is a thing we can entertain, for we are used toit, and it is possible; but the idea of a divine mongrel is unthinkable. 

Well, then, what does she mean? I am sure I do not know, for certain. Itis the word "our" that makes all the trouble. With the "our" in, she isplainly saying "my divine origin. " The word "from" seems to be intendedto mean "on account of. " It has to mean that or nothing, if "our" isallowed to stay. The clause then says:

"I shall claim no especial gift on account of my divine origin. "

And I think that the full sentence was intended to mean what I havealready suggested:

"Although I am of divine origin, and gifted with supernatural power, Ishall not draw upon these resources in determining the best method ofelevating the race. "

When Mrs. Eddy copyrighted that Preface seven years ago, she had longbeen used to regarding herself as a divine personage. I quote from Mr. F. W. Peabody's book:

"In the Christian Science Journal for April, 1889, when it was herproperty, and published by her, it was claimed for her, and with hersanction, that she was equal with Jesus, and elaborate effort was madeto establish the claim. "

"Mrs. Eddy has distinctly authorized the claim in her behalf, that sheherself was the chosen successor to and equal of Jesus. "

The following remark in that April number, quoted by Mr. Peabody, indicates that her claim had been previously made, and had excited"horror" among some "good people":

"Now, a word about the horror many good people have of our making theAuthor of Science and Health 'equal with Jesus. '"

Surely, if it had excited horror in Mrs. Eddy also, she would havepublished a disclaimer. She owned the paper; she could say what shepleased in its columns. Instead of rebuking her editor, she lets himrebuke those "good people" for objecting to the claim. 

These things seem to throw light upon those words, "our [my] divineorigin. "

It may be that "Christian Science eschews divine rights in humanbeings, " and forbids worship of any but "one God, one Christ"; but, ifthat is the case, it looks as if Mrs. Eddy is a very unsound ChristianScientist, and needs disciplining. I believe she has a seriousmalady--"self-deification"; and that it will be well to have one of theexperts demonstrate over it. 

Meantime, let her go on living--for my sake. Closely examined, painstakingly studied, she is easily the most interesting person on theplanet, and, in several ways, as easily the most extraordinary womanthat was ever born upon it. 

P. S. --Since I wrote the foregoing, Mr. McCrackan's article appeared(in the March number of the North American Review). Before his articleappeared--that is to say, during December, January, and February--I hadwritten a new book, a character-portrait of Mrs. Eddy, drawn from herown acts and words, and it was then--together with the three briefarticles previously published in the North American Review--ready tobe delivered to the printer for issue in book form. In that book, byaccident and good luck, I have answered the objections made by Mr. McCrackan to my views, and therefore do not need to add an answer here. Also, in it I have corrected certain misstatements of mine which he hasnoticed, and several others which he has not referred to. There areone or two important matters of opinion upon which he and I are notin disagreement; but there are others upon which we must continue todisagree, I suppose; indeed, I know we must; for instance, he believesMrs. Eddy wrote Science and Health, whereas I am quite sure I canconvince a person unhampered by predilections that she did not. 

As concerns one considerable matter I hope to convert him. He believesMrs. Eddy's word; in his article he cites her as a witness, and takesher testimony at par; but if he will make an excursion through my bookwhen it comes out, and will dispassionately examine her testimonies asthere accumulated, I think he will in candor concede that she is by alarge percentage the most erratic and contradictory and untrustworthywitness that has occupied the stand since the days of the lamentedAnanias. 

CONCLUSION

Broadly speaking, the hostiles reject and repudiate all the pretensionsof Christian Science Christianity. They affirm that it has added nothingnew to Christianity; that it can do nothing that Christianity could notdo and was not doing before Christian Science was born. 

In that case is there no field for the new Christianity, no opportunityfor usefulness, precious usefulness, great and distinguished usefulness?I think there is. I am far from being confident that it can fill it, but I will indicate that unoccupied field--without charge--and if it canconquer it, it will deserve the praise and gratitude of the Christianworld, and will get it, I am sure. 

The present Christianity makes an excellent private Christian, but itsendeavors to make an excellent public one go for nothing, substantially. 

This is an honest nation--in private life. The American Christian is astraight and clean and honest man, and in his private commerce with hisfellows can be trusted to stand faithfully by the principles of honorand honesty imposed upon him by his religion. But the moment he comesforward to exercise a public trust he can be confidently counted uponto betray that trust in nine cases out of ten, if "party loyalty" shallrequire it. 

If there are two tickets in the field in his city, one composed ofhonest men and the other of notorious blatherskites and criminals, hewill not hesitate to lay his private Christian honor aside and vote forthe blatherskites if his "party honor" shall exact it. His Christianityis of no use to him and has no influence upon him when he is acting ina public capacity. He has sound and sturdy private morals, but he has nopublic ones. In the last great municipal election in New York, almosta complete one-half of the votes representing 3, 500, 000 Christians werecast for a ticket that had hardly a man on it whose earned and properplace was outside of a jail. But that vote was present at church nextSunday the same as ever, and as unconscious of its perfidy as if nothinghad happened. 

Our Congresses consist of Christians. In their private life they aretrue to every obligation of honor; yet in every session they violatethem all, and do it without shame; because honor to party is above honorto themselves. It is an accepted law of public life that in it a manmay soil his honor in the interest of party expediency--must do it whenparty expediency requires it. In private life those men would bitterlyresent--and justly--any insinuation that it would not be safe to leaveunwatched money within their reach; yet you could not wound theirfeelings by reminding them that every time they vote ten dollars to thepension appropriation nine of it is stolen money and they the marauders. They have filched the money to take care of the party; they believe itwas right to do it; they do not see how their private honor is affected;therefore their consciences are clear and at rest. By vote they dowrongful things every day, in the party interest, which they could notbe persuaded to do in private life. In the interest of party expediencythey give solemn pledges, they make solemn compacts; in the interestof party expediency they repudiate them without a blush. They would notdream of committing these strange crimes in private life. 

Now then, can Christian Science introduce the Congressional Blush? Thereare Christian Private Morals, but there are no Christian Public Morals, at the polls, or in Congress or anywhere else--except here and thereand scattered around like lost comets in the solar system. Can ChristianScience persuade the nation and Congress to throw away their publicmorals and use none but their private ones henceforth in all theiractivities, both public and private?

I do not think so; but no matter about me: there is the field--a grandone, a splendid one, a sublime one, and absolutely unoccupied. HasChristian Science confidence enough in itself to undertake to enter inand try to possess it?

Make the effort, Christian Science; it is a most noble cause, and itmight succeed. It could succeed. Then we should have a new literature, with romances entitled, How To Be an Honest Congressman Though aChristian; How To Be a Creditable Citizen Though a Christian.