Christian science, an apostasy from science and Christianity

CHRISTIAN

scimei

AN APOSTASY FROM

SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY

A COURSE OF LECTURES

DELIVERED BY

REV. CYRIL BUOTICH, O. F. M.

IN ST. BONIFACE CHURCH

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

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http://www.archive.org/details/christianscienceOObuotrich

AN APOSTASY FROM

SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY

A COURSE OF LECTURES

DELIVERED BY

REV. CYRIL BUOTICH, O. F. M.

IN ST. BONIFACE CHURCH

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

COPYRIGHT. 1916

BY

CYRIL BUOTICH. O. F. M

FOREWORD

The lectures herewith presented were deliv-
ered during the services of the Pious Union of
St. Anthony. They appear in their present
form in response to the request of Superiors
and the inquiries of many who were in attend-
ance.

If their style prove unpalatable to some lit-
erary critic, I can only plead the excuse that
it is mine, and that I. could devote to the revi-
sion of notes only the uncertain moments
snatched from the more pressing duties of the
priestly ministry.

If severity be given expression to, I offer no
apology. These lectures were prepared to be
spoken not coldly, but with the intense desire
of striking — ^not at the individual Christian
Scientist, who may be an honest victim of a
gigantic swindle — but at the movement of
Christian Science, which is not a harmless fad,
but a distinct form of religion, appropriating
the name of Christian, yet insidiously inimical
to Jesus Christ, professing to relieve the suf-
ferings of humanity, yet, if universally ac-

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IV

cepted, bound to increase those sufferings a
hundredfold. If Mrs. Eddy has been made an
object of attack, it is because, as F. W. Pea-
body observes, Mrs. Eddy is Christian Science,
and Christian Science is Mrs. Eddy.

Among the books and lesser publications I
read and used in preparing these lectures I
desire to mention "Christian Science in the
Light of Holy Scripture, ^^ by Dr. I. M. Halde-
man; "The Eeligio-Medical Masquerade," by
F. W. Peabody, LL. B.; "Christian Science
against Itself," by M. W. Gifford, Ph. D.;
"What Is Christian Science?" by P. C. Wol-
cott, B. D.; "Hypnotism," by Dr. A. Moll;
"Psychotherapy," by J. J. Walsh, M. D.,
LL. D.; "Pastoral Medicine," by A. E. San-
ford, M. D.

Unless otherwise stated, the 1913 edition of
"Science and Health" is quoted.

Fr. Cyril, 0. F. M.

Imprimi potest

Fr. Hugolinus Storff, 0. F. M.,
Min. Provlis.

Imprimatur

^Eduardus J. Hanna,

ArcMepiscopus Sancti Francisci.

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE

"But though zve, or an' angel from heaven, preach a gospel
besides that ivhich we have preached to you, let him be
anathema." Gal. 1:8.

It was on the blessed day, when Jesus Christ,
standing on the mountain in Galilee, addressed
to His assembled apostles the momentous
words, ''All power is given to Me in heaven
and on earth. Going therefore, teach ye all
nations, '^ that the Catholic Church received her
commission to be the Oracle of truth and the
Teacher of mankind, and to pass down the
ages bearing in one hand for the children of
men the sacred scroll of the Gospels and in the
other the blessed fruits of the redeeming death
of the Divine Savior on the cross.

Glorious Career of the Divinely Instituted
Church.

How faithfully she has heeded that com-
mand, and what magnificent triumphs she has
achieved in the interests of Christ as well as
for the welfare of men, her record today after
a career of nineteen centuries bears glorious

and undying testimony. In every cycle and
century she has proclaimed the teachings of
Christ as she heard them from His own sacred
lips; to every race and generation she has
carried the tidings of redemption; in every
clime and country she has erected altars of the
unbloody sacrifice, whence flow the graces of the
crucified Savior into the souls of those who
adore Him as their God and Redeemer. What
marvel, then, that millions have learnt lovingly
to gaze upon her as their Mother, and rever-
ently to honor her as the Spouse of Jesus
Christ, bearing the fourfold mark of unity,
sanctity, catholicity and apostolicity.

Unrelenting Antagonism.

Yet I bid you to gaze back over her history
and judge what violent opposition and agony
of keen rivalry have been her portion, from
the very day she first set forth to accomplish
her mission to this very hour and moment.
The Christ-hating emperors of Rome un-
sheathed the sword of persecution ; the jealousy
of pagan religions and pagan philosophy
heaped upon her ignominy and slander; and
the blood of thousands, of millions, of her
mangled children soaked the hot sands of the
arenas of antiquity. The blood of martyrs,
however, became the seed of new Christians,
and the arms of the tiger-hearted emperors of

Rome sank exhausted and paralyzed to their
sides. The cross was raised aloft over the
ruins of Paganism, and shone forth in trium-
phant glory.

False Prophets and False Christs, Old
and New.

But, alas, the respite of peace and calm was
short-lived. There arose other enemies, not
violent but the more dangerous, because the
more insidious. There appeared in the field
new religions, — religions, that usurped the
name of Jesus, falsely claimed divine commis-
sion and illumination, and, to bear out their
contention, hesitated not to appeal to wonder-
ful cure and prodigy.

They lived their day; but bearing within
themselves the germs of error and falsehood,
they eventually sank into the dust of the grave,
and, we would hope, into unceasing oblivion.
But, alas, no! The spirit of Neo-platonism
and Gnosticism has come to life again. Today
also have appeared intruders and counterfeits,
philosophers and hierophants, with honeyed
words upon their tongues and poison beneath
their tongues, presenting to the world strange
^4sms" and new religions, garbed, indeed, in
the robes of Christian truth and Christian
charity, yet replete within with deceit and
cruelty. Such ' a masquerading impostor we

charge the form of worship and healing system
founded by Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Eddy to
be, which she called Christian Science and
described as ''based on teachings of Scripture
which it interprets, giving the Christ principle
in divine metaphysics which heals the sick and
the sinner/'

The Appearance of Christian Science.
Its Progress.

Having discovered Christian Science as the
result of scriptural research (as I understand
her), Mrs. Eddy first began her active propa-
ganda in 1867. In the year 1875 appeared her
bible and authoritative textbook, "Science and
Health." Within the space of twenty years,
Mrs. Eddy witnessed her religion pass in a
triumphant march from the Atlantic Coast to
our own Western shores, spreading the seeds
of her teachings broadcast over the land and
conquering the hearts of thousands of the
American people. In the wake of its victories
have arisen Christian Scientist churches in
every city of size and importance, and in Bos-
ton, Massachusetts, towers aloft today the
Scientists' "Temple," representing an expen-
diture of millions of dollars.

Quality of Membership.
The magnificence of the majority of these
structures and their grandeur of architecture,

as well as the luxurious limousines parked in
their vicinity, lead us to believe that those who
attend Christian Science services, are not men
and women of very humble means, much less
down-and-outs of the slum districts who, for
soup and lodging, affiliate each succeeding
night with a different Church, but representa-
tives of the so-called circles of society and
aristocracy of wealth.

True, an abundance of wealth among Chris-
tian Scientists does not necessarily connote an
abundance of gray brain-matter and intelli-
gence. We doubt not at all, that the larger
number of the adherents of Christian Science
is formed of that class of people, for whom, it
may be feared, ''a little learning is a danger-
ous thing,'' people who are sufficiently educated
to rant and rave over mystical and oracular
paradoxes, yet not learned enough to detect
sophistry and shallowness of argument. . Still
the further fact remains true, amazing as it is,
that into the fold of Christian Science have
wandered also persons of acknowledged intel-
lectual power and culture, men who are the
avowed exponents of the very sciences which
Christian Science tends to supplant and de-
stroy, men of eminence in the legal and educa-
tional professions; and it is this spectacle of
intelligence and sincere human endeavor sacri-
ficed before the idol, reared by a comparatively

uncultured and absolutely unsympathetic
woman, that fills us with disgust and renders
us sick at heart.

Explanation of Mark Twain.

Witnessing this phenomenon, Mark Twain
in a personal letter written to F. W. Peabody
of the Boston Bar offers the following expla-
nation: ''At bottom I suppose I take private
delight in seeing the human race make an ass
of itself again — which it has always done when-
ever it had a chance, — so far as I know men
have never shown any noticeable degree of san-
ity in their affairs, and to me it appears rather
large flattery to intimate that they are capable
of it. See them get down and worship that
old creature [meaning Mrs. Eddy]. A century
hence they'll be at it. Sanity — in the human
race! This is really fulsome."

These are the words of Mark Twain, and not
ours. We have conceived and retain too high
a regard of the dignity of human nature. Shall
we ridicule and jest? No, the hour is too ear-
nest and the sacrifice too appalling. Shall
our words be those of contempt and sneer and
scoff? No, we feel only pity; and even in the
supposed truth of Mark Twain's assertion, we
could not bring ourselves to a chuckling with
delight over the sight of the human race mak-
ing an ass of itself.

Element of Truth in All Erroneous Systems.

But, as a matter of fact, we do not think
asininity, as alleged by Mark Twain, to be the
secret of the wide success of Christian Science
in gaining converts. No, we prefer to propose
another explanation — an explanation based
upon the theory that there is no absolute and
unmitigated error, but that in every heresy,
grotesque and egregious though it be, there is
an element of truth, and that it is this element
precisely, presented in novel form and fashion,
which constitutes an attractive feature.

According to this theory, then. Christian
Science has struck upon and drawn from the
past some principle, some truth, that lay long-
obscured and much neglected, and it is by
means of this truth that it today wields an
immense influence.

True Principle in Christian Science.

There can be no doubt that we have been
quite thoroughly saturated with medicine. The
gold-lettered '^M. D.'^ signs staring down at us
from- a hundred windows in every street, the
drug stores with their long rows of brightly
colored patent medicines, labeled to cure every
sickness, ill, infirmity, bruise, stiffness, lacera-
tion, are quite sufficient evidence that we have
become a medicine-soaked and an over-drugged
generation. Moreover, many have not only

8

been steeped in medicine, but also in the errors
of materialism. The scalpel of the surgeon
cannot reach the soul; therefore, the existence
of the soul has been denied. Mrs. Baker Eddy
appeared, — and undoubtedly for many as an
angel of light. When they lay in the throes
of the hideous nightmare of materialism, she
awoke them to the fact and truth of the exist-
ence and superiority of spirit. When they pos-
sessed, at best, a ghastly, despiritualized form
of Christianity, she brought them a creed which
in some measure produced in their souls a sense
of spirituality.

Nay, she has done more. She has reduced
the truth of the superiority of mind over mat-
ter to practice. She has demonstrated that
under certain conditions the soul can exercise
control over the body for the obtaining of
health, having conquered hypochondria in a
vast number of cases, bettered the condition
of many whose ailment depended upon the
nervous system directly, nay, it is possible,
won triumphs in the realm of disease whose
connection with the nervous system, though
not fully apparent, was none the less real,
although indirect.

Finding hope, when hopeless, and cure, when
abandoned, ''no wonder, '' to use her own
words, ''the American spirit, unquiet in a

drug-soaked body, arose with joy at the sug-
gestion of a new evangel.''

Whif Do We Quarrel with Christian Science?

Right in Some Affirmations — Wrong in

Thousand Negations.

In view of these facts, why should we quar-
rel with Christian Science? Why? Because
we have considered only the ounce of truth
contained in Mrs. Eddy's system, and not as
yet touched upon the large admixture of error
and falsehood. For though Christian Science
is, indeed, correct in some isolated affirmations,
it is wrong, damnably wrong, in a thousand
negations. It has truthfully reasserted against
Materialism the superiority of mind over mat-
ter, but at the same time it has swung like a
pendulum to the opposite extreme and lapsed
into a stultifying form of Idealism ; it may pro-
fess belief in the existence of God, yet it con-
ceals within itself the vagaries of Pantheism;
it may impart a taste of the spiritual, yet it
crams down bulging mouthfuls of blasphemy;
it may have effected, by virtue of the principle
of control of mind over body, cures in a few
isolated cases, yet there are scores of others,
where innocent children and duped adults have

10

been victimized and sacrificed to fanaticism
and ignorance.

Will Perish. Whilst It Endures Will Prove a
Menace.

Shall we, therefore, let Christian Science
alone? Shall my voice fail to ring in denunci-
ation and invective against it? No! Convinced
though I am, that eventually it will die the
same inglorious death and share the same fate
as its foundress, now mouldering in the ceme-
tery of Mt. Auburn, yet I realize that, whilst
it continues to wear the masque of bluff and
hypocrisy, it will entice vast numbers into its
clutches and crush the Christian life and spirit
out of them upon its bosom.

Deliberately, therefore, have I made those
charges against Christian Science, and it shall
be my endeavor during the course of these
lectures to sustain and prove them, — not ex-
actly with the purpose of discharging a duty
of truth-telling towards Christian Scientists
(for genuine investigation has been boycotted
and forbidden to them, and demonstration falls
dead upon deaf ears), but from a sense of duty
towards those who are sincerely perplexed and
are wandering towards error, and, most of all,
to sound the tocsin of warning to Catholics,
lest some of them forsake the bosom of their
Mother Church and be decoyed by a religion,

11

that wears but the masque of Christianity, a
religion, that promises them fruit from the
tree of knowledge and life, yet in reality otf ers
them Dead Sea apples, beautiful from without,
but filled with ashes and corruption, poison
and death.

MATTER NOT A REALITY

"In the beginning God created heaven, and earth." Gen. 1:1.

EiGHTLY and aptly has gratitude ever been re-
garded as the noblest adornment of the human
soul, whereas mgratitude has at all times been
abhorred as the mark of a mind, ignoble and
mean. It was our endeavor in the course of
the last lecture to escape the ignominy of the
latter and to merit the glory of the former.
Frankly we conceded that Christian Science
has lent its efforts towards thwarting the prog-
ress of Materialism, one of the most groveling
forms of error and yet one of the favorite
philosophic systems of the closing years of the
past century. We know that the Catholic
Church, divinely constituted the Teacher of
truth and endowed with never-dying power, is
as vigorous today and as confident of obtaining
ultimate victory over every foe, as she was
in centuries gone by. Yet why should we not
welcome and hail with delight the advent and
co-operation of every ally, promising to strive
against falsehood and uphold truth in its orig-

13

inal purity! Hence we could not but give
expression to our sentiments of rejoicing and
gratefulness, faint though they were, that Mrs.
Baker Eddy, by virtue of her practical demon-
strations, recalled many from perhaps the
darkest cavern of error to the glorious con-
sciousness, that there lives a spark of immortal
fire, that all within us and about us is not mat-
ter, but that in our bodies of flesh and blood
resides a spiritual soul, holding and wielding
influence for good.

We Recoil from Mrs. Eddy.

But had Mrs. Eddy only ceased there! Had
she not, unsteadied and unguided by the hand
of the Spouse of Christ, rushed to the other
extreme! The Materialist shocked us, by af-
firming that all is matter. Mrs. Eddy would
insult our intelligence, by telling us that all
is mind. And now, — we recoil from her. She
proposes a philosophy, which would delude us
into the belief, that we and all our ancestors
to the cradle of the race, have been in throes
of a nightmare, when we asserted the existence
of body and limb, nay, of sky and sun and
universe, a philosophy which would convince us
that our five senses, those God-given mediums
of the human soul through which it obtains its

14

knowledge of the outside world, are so many
lying mediums.

Testimony of the Senses False. No Matter.

Sweepingly she assails their testimony in
the following words : ' ' The five physical senses
are the avenues and instruments of human
error, and they correspond with error. ' '
(^'Science and Health,'' pg. 293.) ^'Christian
Science reveals man as the idea of God, and
declares the corporeal senses to be mortal and
erring delusions." (''Science and Health,"
pg. 477.) Having denied their evidence, she
then apodictically establishes as the fundamen-
tal tenet in the metaphysics of Christian Sci-
ence the following proposition: ''Matter seems
to be, but is not." ("Science and Health," pg.
123.) "Divine Science, rising above physical
theories, excludes matter, resolves things into
thoughts." ("Science and Health," pg. 123.)
"Matter and death are mortal illusions."
("Science and Health," pg. 289.)

Human Body a Concept of Mortal Mind. Bones
Have Only the Substance of Thought.

Hence, according to this woman clothed in
the rays of wisdom, the very pews of oak,
which you this moment occupy, are thoughts.
You are sitting upon "spiritual ideas." You
may reassure me, you feel the hardness of the

15

wood, and see the gloss and brilliancy of the
varnish. But that avails you nothing. Mrs.
Eddy has declared your senses are so many
false witnesses and you are the victims of their
illusions. Moreover, your bodies exist only in
false belief. Your eyes, now fixed upon me,
your ears now listening, your hands resting
upon your knees, the very bones which serve
as a frame for your build of flesh and veins
and blood — all are unreal in the system of this
woman, who writes (in ''Science and Health, '^
pg. 177): "Matter or body, is a false concept
of mortal mind.'' (And pg. 423): "Bones
have only the substance of thought which
formed them. They are only phenomena (ap-
pearance) of the mind of mortals."

Question of Weight, One of Mind.

Mrs. Eddy anticipates, when you are inclined
to argue. She puts the question, "How can
I believe there is no such thing as matter when
I weigh over two hundred pounds and carry
this weight about daily T' (Misc., pg. 46,
quoted by I. M. Haldeman) and then answers:
"By learning that matter is manifest mortal
mind. You entertain an adipose belief of
yourself as substance." (Misc., pg. 47, quoted
by I. M. Haldeman.) Accordingly, weight is
not a matter of scales but of imagination. Ac-
credit yourself the weight of a battleship and

16

you will weigh tons, or, by a broad jump to
the opposite extreme, with a fine taste for the
delicate, fancy yourself as light as the feather
whirled about by the breeze, and you average
not the weight of a letter transmitted through
the mails for a two-cent stamp. Pity 'tis, Mrs.
Eddy herself made not practical use of this
hint during the last years of her life, if we are
to credit the descriptions of her personal ap-
pearance !

Man or Woman — Your Choice!! Material
Order of Generation Rendered Silent.

Finally she makes an assertion regarding the
anatomy of the human body and the mysteries
of life, that I would loathe to express, were it
not, that an adequate treatment of the subject
demands it. With serious mien Mrs. Eddy
assures us, "Gender is a quality of mind, not
of matter." ("Science and Health," pg. 201,
74 ed., quoted by I. W. Haldeman.) There is,
therefore, in her teaching no physiological dis-
tinction of sex. The Almighty created them
not male and female. Your being a man or a
woman depends upon your subjective belief.
Stunning as may be this piece of absurdity
that issued from the pen of a woman, whom
thousands revere as the Light and Truth, gasp
not for breath till you hear the further conclu-
sion that she draws, namely, "Generation rests

17

on no sexual basis" ("Science and Health,"
pg. 274, 74 ed., quoted by I. W. Haldeman)^
but "The so-called substance of bone is formed
first by the parent's mind, through self^
division. Soon the child becomes a separate,
individualized mortal mind, which takes pos-
session of itself and its own thoughts of
bones." ("Science and Health," pg. 424.)
Mrs. Eddy, Married Three Times, Believes Not
in Marriage.

This is appalling. Quite readily do we now
understand how this same woman could write:
"To abolish marriage at this period and main-
tain morality and generation, would put in-
genuity to ludicrous shifts; yet this is possible
in science (Christian Science), although it is
today problematic." (Misc., pg. 286, quoted
by C. E. Locke.) We are not unprepared to
accord belief to the statement that, at the dedi-
cation of "Mother Church" in Boston, Mrs.
Eddy characterized marriage as "synonymous
with legalized lust." Christian Scientists
strongly deny this, yet Mr. Peabody of the
Boston Bar assures us that it can be found in
the Christian Science Sentinel for June 16,
1906, and in the Christian Science Journal for
July, 1906.

The Universe, a Construction of Mind.

But to return from our digression — you will
pass out and wander into the night. The vault

18

and dome of the firmament above is studded
with a thousand burnished lights. In yonder
quarter of the heavens the moon rolls in cloudy
grandeur. Her rays fall softly upon the bosom
of the bay, and her silvery glow bathes the
city in glory. The words of the Psalmist rise
spontaneously from your heart, ''The heavens
show forth the glory of God." But no ! Chris-
tian Science will ruthlessly awaken you from
your revery. Vain man, cease your wonder-
ing! Marvel not over mortal error! For all
you behold is not the universe, as you and your
forefathers conceived it — matter hanging in
space — but all a construction of mind based
upon the fallacy of false-belief. We have
learned to pity Hamlet in the paroxysms of
his madness. But he was not mad. He raved
not. He spoke the sober and absolute truth,
when he said, "This goodly frame, the earth,
seems to me a sterile promontory, — this majes-
tical roof fretted with golden fire, why it ap-
pears no other thing to me than a foul and
pestilent congregation of vapors." Poor Ham-
let ! We thought him raving and mad. Lo, he
was but an advanced Christian Scientist.

You may think that I am with deliberate
intent poking fun at the system of Christian
Science and rendering it ludicrous and ridicu-
lous. But I protest, I am not. If there be any
nonsense, to which expression has been given,

19

it lies solely in what Mrs. Eddy has asserted
and in the inference obviously to be drawn
from it.

Theory and Practice of Christian Scientists.
We know full well that Christian Scientists
do not fashion their lives and actions after the
teachings of their system. Mrs. Eddy may
deny the existence of matter, but we know that
she as well as her followers take special care
to avoid a headlong collision with a locomotive,
turn in the fire alarm when their houses are
wrapped in flame and fire, make careful distinc-
tion between dollars and cents. They may
deny the existence of body, yet we understand
that they, too, sit at the table three times a
day, and partake not of the products of imagi-
nation, but of the products of the pastures,
fields and meadows. Furthermore, Mrs. Eddy
may assert that a diversity of sex exists only
in the mind and its belief, yet we notice that
followers of Christian Science exercise particu-
lar care to marry an ^'idea,'' opposite in gen-
der from themselves, and in the case of Mrs.
Eddy not once but twice and thrice a male
^4dea."

Arguments Afford No Justification to
Catalogue of Negations.
Yet what Christian Scientists do, engages
not at present our attention. Since it is evi-

20

dent that the foundress of Christian Science
has negated the existence of matter and has
formally rejected the testimony of the senses,
what interests us now is to ask what proofs
does Mrs. Eddy offer in justification of her
sweeping negations. Formally she offers al-
most none, and substantially none at all. She
may rightly contend that God is an omnipres-
ent spirit, yet wrong and unwarranted is her
further statement that hence His existence ex-
cludes the existence of matter. God is an
infinite Spirit, and, as such, must not be con-
strued as a space-filling bulk. Moreover, the
senses may have erred in some instances, yet
why should their testimony be accounted false
in every instance! And if, from uncritical and
narrow observation, men, crediting their senses,
did entertain in the past the erroneous belief
that the earth is flat and stationary, still were
not those very same senses employed later on
in gaining the necessary evidence that cor-
rected the erroneous inference regarding the
stellar system! Finally, vain is the appeal of
Mrs. Eddy based upon the fact that the mind
can conjure imaginary objects. True, I can
imagine a fleet of ships riding in proud array
at anchor. Yet affords this an argument that
ships and bay exist not? Does not the very
fact that I can conceive in my imagination
ships and bay, argue that at some time I have

21

perceived the realities of both! The shadow
presupposes the existence of the reality. And
is it not just because there are realities which
obtrude themselves on every normal mind pre-
cisely as realities, that men can distinguish per-
ceptions of the senses from mere ghostly
products of a heated and feverish mind? Some
Christian Scientists assert that their system
negates the existence of no object, but only
affirms it to be mental. This contention, how-
ever, is equally absurd. The untutored savage
of the forest primeval will tell you, that there
is a difference between the deer, which he fol-
lows in his dream, and the deer, which he de-
tects grazing in the forest depths. The latter
exists, and is real. The former is merely an
idea of a deer. And an idea of a deer is not a
deer either in the mind or in the forest.

Two classes of individuals appear to be un-
able to perceive the distinction between objects
oF reality and those of fancy. One we meet in
the D. T. wards of our hospitals, and the other,
if we are to believe their words, in the circle
of Christian Scientists.

Ch7^istian Science Destructive of the Physical
Sciences.

Such then is the fundamental and first plank
in the platform of Christian Science — perfo-
rated with error and falsehood. Men of sci-

22

ence, of different religious persuasion than
our own, with particular delight and relish
point the finger of scorn at our Mother Church,
and designate the centuries of her sway as
^'dark ages/' Why do they not now turn the
outpourings of their indignation upon the mod-
ern Prophetess of New England'? This time
their wrath would prove righteous. Mrs. Eddy
teaches, ^'matter is nothing, and nothing is
matter." It is her '^ plank." Now, rest upon
this plank the efforts and achievements of men
of science of every age — and then hearken to
the crash! For if matter exists not, then all
the properties of matter, weight, porosity, ten-
acity, etc., are vaporous dreams; attraction,
electricity, sound, heat, etc., are childish fan-
cies. What remains, therefore, of the natural
sciences and the teachings of physics'? What
further purpose serves chemistry in the cur-
riculum of our colleges, since all the tedious
work of experiment deals with the discovery of
''inverted thought"? We thought chemical
properties exist whether discovered or not by
mind, yet, according to Eddyism, they ema-
nate from mortal mind. Ye astronomers, in-
vert— destroy your telescopes ! Scan not the
skies by night! Those twinkling stars and
wheeling orbs possess no substantiality. They
are mere fireflies flitting across the empty
spaces of mind. Ye plain and common people,

23

arise in indignation and raze to the ground the
colleges of medicine and surgery! For within
those walls are being carefully trained the men,
who will swindle you into the belief that bone
is mostly lime, and that flesh and blood are
chemical compounds, whereas (as teaches Mrs.
Eddy) lung and liver, stomach and heart are
but forms of mortal error and false belief.
Nay (pardon the digression), ye housewives,
hang up your brooms and dusters! There is
no dust on your parlor table, — the cobwebs
hang not in the corners of your rooms, but in
the corners of your mind ! You may have been
ignorant of this fact in the past, and exerted
useless effort, but then you knew not ^'Sci-
ence. ' '

Christian Science Contradicts the Bible
Narrative of Creation.

Veritably Carrie Nation displayed not a
more destructive temper in wrecking saloons,
than does Mrs. Eddy in assailing the edifice of
science. Her attacks on the Bible and its
author, however, recall the ignominious mem-
ory of Eobert Ingersoll. Moses writing under
divine inspiration opens the Book of Genesis
with the solemn words, ''In the beginning God
created heaven, and earth.'' Minutely and
graphically he describes the formation of the
universe, the separation of the dry land from

24

the waters, the enriching of the former with
flower and fruit, the filling of the latter with
fishes that wander "through the paths of the
sea." In the last place he records the creation
of Adam and Eve, so that if is evident that
matter existed and was fashioned into design
and order long before deluded individuals with
mortal minds even existed. So plain are the
inspired writer's words, so manifest is his
intention to record a creation of matter, so
clearly does his record convey a condemnation
of the theories of Christian Science, that Mrs.
Eddy could not escape, but growing desperate,
had no other refuge than to call Moses an
ignoramus. For she writes, ''Spiritually fol-
lowed, the Book of Genesis is the history of
the untrue image of God, named a sinful mor-
tal." (''Science and Health," pg. 502.) "The
translators of this record (the Genesis record
of creation) entertained a false sense of be-
ing." Why? Because they contradicted Mrs.
Eddy — "they believed in the existence of mat-
ter." ("Science and Health," pg. 545.) In-
spired or uninspired, by God or angel or devil,
anyone presuming to contradict Mrs. Eddy is
unqualifiedly ignorant.

Mrs. Eddy Blasphemes.

In her insolence she proceeds farther. You
recollect the scene in Paradise. The first par-

25

ents of the human race had listened to the
overtures of the Ambassador of Evil. They
virtually had declared, ^'We shall not serve. '^
Upon them the angered Sovereign and Creator
passed the appalling sentence, '^Dust thou art
and unto dust thou shalt return.'^ The evi-
dent meaning of the text is: Thy body, which
is formed originally of the slime of the earth
(dust), shall again, through the natural forces
of dissolution, pass into dust. But Mrs. Eddy
would correct even the Almighty God. She
would cause Him to say, '^Dust (nothingness)
thou art, and unto dust (nothingness) thou
shalt return. '^ (^'Science and Health," pg.
545.) What meant then the infinitely wise
God? Has He imposed sentence upon noth-
ing, and decreed that nothing should be reduced
to nothing! Either Mrs. Eddy in her negation
of the existence of matter and body is wrong,
damnably wrong, or the All-wise God, of whom
the Apostle, St. Paul, speaks in rapture, '^0,
the depth of the riches of the wisdom and
knowledge of God!'* has spoken in the sense-
less babble of a child.

Mrs. Baker Eddy professedly has made a
'' discovery, ' ' and proffered it to the world
under the names of '^Science" and ^'Christian-
ity''; but witnessing her in unhesitating and
unqualified terms reject the evidence of the
senses testifying to the existence of the uni-

26

verse, witnessing her in consequence sweep
from under all the natural sciences their very
foundations, witnessing her, in mad endeavor
to maintain her proposition, assail the Word
of God, I beg of you to pass judgment if Chris-
tian Science be not in truth an apostacy from
Science and Christianity.

MAN IS NEVER SICK

"And He healed many that were troubled with diverse dis-
eases." Mark 1 :34.

In the solenm and silent hour of midnight
wander into the hospital and through the
wards, where on couches, white and well-
ordered, lie the city's sick and wounded. From
our innermost heart we thank heaven for the
beautiful charity, exhibited by the white-clad
figure, silently moving from one sufferer to
another, soothing fever and thirst in turn.

We depart with the heart's most tender
cords deeply stirred, and with the firm resolve,
that, if millions were our portion, we would
employ them in erecting for those sufferers the
most comfortable shelter and the best equip-
ment that art and science can devise and erect
— thus in some slight measure to lift the heavy
hand of pain and agony, weighing upon the
human race on account of its first transgres-
sion.

Disease Unreal.

From the far off days, when Christ healed
the sick in the hamlets of Galilee, to the pres-

28

ent hour, such have ever been the sentiments
of those who glory in His blessed name and
call themselves Christian. However, there is
one bold exception, namely, the Christian Sci-
entist. He has sat at the feet of Mrs. Eddy.
In his heart now no sentiments of commisera-
tion and charity dwell. Not only is it his con-
tention that hospital of brick and steel would
prove a phantasmal structure of deluded mind,
but having been taught that human body also
exists not, from this premise he draws the
farther conclusion, cruel and merciless in its
logic, that all the sad and sorrowful drama of
the world's disease and sickness is but one
huge mistake of mortal mind. There is no heart
to suffer valvular leakage; there are no eyes
to be blind, no ears to be deaf, no lungs to be
corroded with tuberculosis. Hence Mrs. Eddy
writes, ^'A self-evident proposition in the sci-
ence of mind-healing, is that disease is unreal."
C^No and Yes," pg. 4.) ^'Some time it will be
learned that mortal mind constructs the mortal
body with this mind's own mortal materials.
In Science, no breakage nor dislocation can
really occur." (''Science and Health," pg.
402.) ''All that we term sin, sickness, and
death is a mortal belief." ("Science and
Health," pg. 278.)

29

The Message of Christian Science to Grieving
Parents.

Such is the message (consolatory or distract-
ing, I know not) that Mrs. Eddy would bring
the youthful mother, as she beholds her first
born wither and waste upon her bosom like the
bruised flower of spring; such is the philosophy
that Christian Science would offer the silent
and sorrowing father, as he bends over the bed
and contemplates the wasting form of him,
upon whom he once centered hope and pride,
but whom he now sees in the clutches of the
skeleton-god, shortly to bear him to the grave.
Such also is the assurance that the consistent
Eddyite would offer you when, as a spectator,
you witness the harrowing scene of a man
dragged from beneath the wheels of a trolley
car — his lower limbs ground into an unsightly
pulp of blood and bone and rags. "No break-
age nor dislocation can really occur.'' ("Sci-
ence and Health," pg. 402.)

The man writhing in his blood may appeal
to his exposed and quivering nerves, that he
feels the pain, — the pale spectators may argue
that with their eyes they see the mutilated
limbs. But, foolish mortals! therein precisely
lies the fatal error. "Realize that the evidence
of the senses is not to be accepted in the case
of sickness, any more than it is in the case of
sin." ("Science and Health," pg. 386.)

30

All Disease the Result of Education.
Therefore, we are not ill, we are not racked
with pain, we are not wounded by the assas-
sin's bullet, nay, we are not even stretched out
a lifeless corpse as the deadly missive speeds
through the center of the heart — no, victims of
false belief, we imagine it all. For teaches
Mrs. Eddy: ''Damp atmosphere and freezing
snow empurpled the plump cheeks of our an-
cestors, but they never indulged in the refine-
ment of inflamed bronchial tubes. They were
as innocent as Adam, before he ate the fruit
of false knowledge, of the existence of tuber-
cles and troches, lungs and lozenges." (''Sci-
ence and Health," pg. 175.) "All disease is
the result of education." ("Science and
Health," pg. 176.) Nay, even horse-diseases
are "the result of education," for Mrs. Eddy
writes : ' ' You can even educate a healthy horse
so far in physiology that he will take cold with-
out his blanket, whereas the wild animal, left
to his instincts, sniffs the wind with delight.
The epizootic is a humanly evolved ailment,
which a wild horse might never have." ("Sci-
ence and Health," pg. 179.)

Christian Science Would Cure Disease by

Denying Its Existence.
Belief and education! Upon their truth or
falsity depends either the "glowing exuberance

31

of health" or the '' wasting of dire and ravag-
ing disease." False belief inaugurated into
the world the drama of sickness and wretched-
ness, of blood and death. Now, correct that
erroneous belief, invert the idea of sickness,
^'turn his gaze from the false evidence of the
senses to the harmonious facts of Soul and
immortal being. Tell him that he suffers only
as the insane suffer, from false beliefs" (*^ Sci-
ence and Health," pg. 420), and behold the
wondrous change and glorious result! The
demon spectre of plague absconds, the rattling-
skeleton of death, with the scythe upon his
shoulder, scampers away, and the golden days
of Paradise burst anew, where neither pain
does hurt, nor fever burn. But, alas, methinks
it is all a dream.

Unconscious Patients Incapable of False Belief.

Have you watched the babe contort and
twitch its infant features in pain? The fright-
ened mother will summon the physician, who
will administer medicine for colic. The Eddy-
ite, however, will say it is a case of false belief.
But how can that infant, in whose mind not
even the first rays of intelligence have as yet
burst, exercise belief, true or false?

On his bed the typhoid-stricken patient rolls
and tosses. Again, ^' false belief"! But how
can that mind, maddened with raging fever

32

and stupefied into nnconsciousness, exercise
belief, correctly or erroneously?

Down the hatchway of the lumber-schooner
the stevedore falls. He is picked up a limp
and unconscious form, with a fractured skull.
Again perhaps, ''false belief"! With brain
deranged, the gray matter perhaps oozing
through the rift, and in the 'soul the darkness
of absolute insensibility reigning, how can that
man think that his head is split open!

Unconscious Patients Incapable of Correcting
False Belief.

Now, these patients sometimes recover. To
the infant a dose of catnip is given, and the
paroxysms of pain disappear. On the steve-
dore an operation is performed, the surgeon
with deft hand lifting the bone of the skull
resting on the brain, and consciousness returns.
We assert the recovery was due to the efficacy
of the medicine and to the science of surgery.
The Christian Scientist, however, will argue,
no, the patient merely corrected his belief, dis-
engaging himself from the erroneous idea that
he was afflicted. But how can an unconscious
patient correct his belief, argue himself into a
state of health? Then it must have been due
to the faith that the patient reposed in the
medicine, namely, in its curative virtue. But,
I ask, was not the medicine administered, the

33

operation performed, whilst the patient was
still incapable of thought and volition? How
could he elicit an act of faith that the medicine
would give him a new lease on life?

Drugs Produce Effects by Imputed Virtue.

But granted that the patient were conscious
and capable of thought, why, as a matter of
fact and undeniable observation, will a small
dose of arsenic benefit him, whilst a large dose
proves his undoing? Depends that also on
faith? Dr. Marston writes: ^'The not uncom-
mon notion that drugs possess absolute, inher-
ent, curative virtues of their own involves an
error. Arnica, quinine, opium could not pro-
duce the effects ascribed to them except by
imputed virtue.

"Men think they will act thus in the physical
system, and consequently they do. The prop-
erty of alcohol is to intoxicate ; but if the com-
mon thought had endowed it with a nourishing
quality like milk, it would produce a similar
effect."

Intoxicated at the Buttermilk Counter. Suicide
by Swallowing Cough-Medicine!

Accordingly, if the general belief prevailed,
that milk were an intoxicant and alcohol a
nutrient, men after a long sitting at the butter-
milk counter would reel homewards in the same

34

zigzag course as after leaving the corner saloon
in the early hours of the morning, whereas if
a growing child or an emaciated convalescent
would swallow an otherwise staggering dose
of alcohol, it would prove to be a true tonic,
feeding the nerves and giving fresh vigor. Or,
to apply the same principle to other drugs and
medicines, if catnip were conceived to be a
deadly poison, then its taking would produce
the same fatal results as a dose of strychnine
or perhaps carbolic acid. But now let us ask
— suppose one person with suicidal intent swal-
lows, by mistake, cough-medicine for strychnine
and another person, to relieve a slight cold,
takes strychnine for cough-medicine, why then
should not the effect upon the body in both
cases correspond to the belief that is attached
to each respectively? Yet we know, aside of
a slight dizziness, the small dose of quinine
will leave the one of unrequited love quite hale
and sound, whilst the strychnine, though taken
by mistake, likely will mean a free transporta-
tion to the city morgue.

Majority Opinion Rules. Majority Opinion
Enters Not into the Matter.

But Mrs. Eddy, unruffled, presses the further
explanation, and we think to more glowing ab-
surdities, saying, ''In such cases a few persons
believe the potion swallowed by the patient to

35

be harmless, but the vast majority of mankind,
though they know nothing of this particular
case and this special person, believe the arsenic,
the strychnine, or whatever the drug used, to
be poisonous, for it is set down as a poison
by mortal mind." (''Science and Health," pg.
177.) Hence, similarly as in political elections,
majority rules — the thought of the larger part
of mankind pitted against and preponderating
over that of the lesser part. But, I ask, how
can the majority opinion enter into the matter
at all! It knows not even of the existence of
the particular drug. Concede that a chemical
deterioration has occurred, why loses the medi-
cine the potency it formerly possessed? Neither
you nor I nor the rest of men were aware of
the fact of the change; and yet the medicine
that formerly possessed all the virulence lurk-
ing in the poison bags of a rattlesnake, now
perhaps is as harmless as the water of a moun-
tain brook.

Why argue further? Mrs. Eddy has sweep-
ingly denied the existence of body and disease,
medicine and poison. With what consistency
can she speak of recovery or of death, attrib-
ute health to medicine or death to poison?
Consistency, however, appears to be a minor
virtue among the Eddyites. I know from per-
sonal statements, that in this city Christian
Scientists visit a certain herb specialist. They

36

proffer the explanation that God created the
herbs. But are not finally the majority of
medicines extracted from herbs? And are not
herbs, even when prepared by Chinese special-
ists, still medicine? Moreover, Arthur Preuss,
in the issue of his Review for August, 1902,
writes that Mrs. Eddy had a tooth drawn. In-
deed, there is nothing extraordinary in an old
woman having a decaying molar extracted.
But knowing the position of Christian Science
relative to the existence of tooth and pain, we
marvel over Mrs. Eddy's conduct. We can
hardly believe that she was so vain in her last
days, as to submit to the painful operation
merely for the purpose of increasing her
beauty !

We do not criticise Christian Scientists for
seeking the services of a dentist. It demon-
strates that, despite Christian Science, they
still retain some of the common sense they in-
herited from their grandparents. But we ask
them, how can they hold a philosophy assert-
ing that tooth and forceps and dentist are
folly, and still ask the dentist to employ those
same forceps on their jaws, or, what is more
puzzling, how, after the material tooth has been
extracted and they have the ideal state of
nothingness existing in its place, can they be-
come so enamored of matter as to feel the need

37

of having an artificial tooth inserted? (A. C.
Dixon.)

Mechanical Injuries to the Body. The Un-
thinking Lobster, a Perfect Christian
Scientist.

But to return from the digression — let us
consider the theory of Mrs. Eddy regarding
mechanical injuries to the body. In ''Science
and Health," page 423, she writes: ''Bones
have only the substantiality of thought which
forms them." And on page 472 (74 ed.,
"Science and Health") : "When the unthinking
lobster loses his claw it grows again. If the
science of health were understood, it would be
found that the senses of the mind are never
lost, and that matter has no sensation. Then
the human limb would be replaced as readily
as the lobster's claw — not with an artificial
limb, no, but with a genuine one." We are
not so envious as to begrudge the blushing-
lobster the eulogy that Mrs. Eddy bestows
upon him for being a perfect Christian Scien-
tist, still we are constrained to ask, how can a
lobster lose a claw, since claw is matter, and
matter is nothing? and how can he be equipped
with a new and second one, since the newly
acquired member also would be matter, and
again matter is nothing? Lose nothing, and

38

replace it with nothing? Thus equivalently
Mrs. Eddy.

In Christian Science the Insane Are Immune
from Disease and Accident.

But accepting the lobster illustration, the
conclusion is evident that all who are as irra-
tional and dumb as the snapping lobster are
immune from every disease and sickness, and
accident. Hence, all degenerates, lunatics,
idiots, ought to be able to sever their hands
and feet, nose and ears, at will — and replace
them with new ones. Pity 'tis, we all are not
lobsters! Still all of us can leap from the
dizzy heights of a precipice, fall from Zeppe-
lins, roll under the grinding wheels of the loco-
motive, for says Mrs. Eddy, '^ bones have only
the substance of thought,'' — and you cannot
grind a thought even under the ponderous
wheels of a locomotive.

Insane Asylums — Temples of Hygeia.

Accept, then, the teachings of Christian Sci-
ence and every insane asylum becomes a temple
of Hygeia; for lunatics, in whom reason has
been dethroned, exercise no belief — they are
quite similar to the ''unthinking lobster."
Christian Science Puts a Premium on Igno-
rance. Blots Out Knowledge of Sani-
tation, Medicine and Surgery.

Accept the teachings of Christian Science,

39

and all the proud and marvelous progress that
knowledge and sanitary science have made, is
but retrogression; knowledge is simply a curse,
and a premium is to be set upon ignorance.

Accept the teachings of Christian Science,
and the city of San Francisco has exploited
your hard-earned money by rearing the City
and County, the Emergency and the Detention
Hospitals. They are indeed magnificent build-
ings, yet they serve only to foster a popular
and fatal delusion. Systems of sanitation,
the flushing of streets, proper sewerage, are
sources of worthless expenditure and wasted
funds. Microbes of smallpox and typhoid are
but ^'bugs" in your deluded minds; reeking
and pestilential marshes are as sweet and
healthy as dew-laden flowers glistening in the
morning sun.

Christian Science Contradicts the Bible.

Bereft of every shred of sense or logic, this
mountebank, like so many others who prey
upon public credulity, must steal the name of
Jesus and the cloak of Christianity! Yet,
there is not an inspired scriptural writer, from
Moses who recorded the punishment inflicted
upon a fallen race, to the Seer of Patmos who
predicted the various plagues, that Mrs. Baker
Eddy does not antagonize and contradict, —
thus rendering the Bible, with its continuous

40

tale of woe and pain, one long tale of lie and
imposition.

St. Paul Not a Christian Scientist.

St. Paul, whom I consider every bit as thor-
ough a Christian as Mrs. Eddy, writes to
Timothy, his disciple, ''Use a little wine for
thy stomach's sake." Did the Apostle suffer
an acute attack of false belief in the existence
of wine and stomach, or was he positively so
unprincipled as to confirm his disciple in error,
and lend credence to a falsehood for genera-
tions to come!

Christian Science Destroys the Proving Poiver
of the Works of Christ.

Unchristian as is "Christian Science," it is
also positively anti-christian. The disciples of
St. John the Baptist asked the Savior, ''Art
Thou He, who art to come, or shall we look
for another!" Christ answered, "Go, relate
to John, what you have heard and seen. The
blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, ' ' etc. Now, why pointed the God-man
to these phenomena? Were they not works
that by reason of their miraculous and super-
natural character were calculated to prove be-
yond argument His claims to the Messiahship?
Did not He Himself issue the challenge to the
doubting bystanders, "If you do not believe

41

Me, believe My works?" But, if according to
the teachings of Christian Science, those men
in the Gospel were not lame and blind, then the
fact that they walked and saw, was most un-
miraculous and quite natural. The supernatu-
ral and extraordinary, namely, the cures ef-
fected by Christ, presupposes the existence of
the natural and ordinary, namely, of diseases.
Thus Mrs. Eddy impudently would destroy the
proving power that Christ attaches to the
works He performed among the people of
Palestine.

Jesus Christ the Good Samaritan. Christian
Science the Proud Priest.

Christian Science claims to be the religion
of Jesus Christ. But what bears it in common
with suffering humanity's greatest Friend, to
bear out its claim? Jesus Christ is the good
Samaritan who, touched with compassion,
bound the wounds of the man fallen among
robbers, and bore him to a haven of rest and
peace. Eddyism, however, like the haughty
and supercilious priest and levite, passes by
the afflicted and unfortunate traveler on the
way of life, without a tear or throb of pity,
without moving a hand to close his bleeding
wounds, without administering a particle of
medicine to revive his drooping strength, with-
out an asylum or hospital to its credit to house

42

him during the days of convalescence. For the
dictum of Christian Science is, "Sympathy
with sin, sorrow, and sickness would dethrone
God.''

The most that Christian Science does is to
induce man to say, "There is no pain, there is
no death." This, however, compels him to
play the hypocrite, stultify his intellect, forfeit
the service and aid of anaesthetics and surgery,
thus a hundred fold to increase his sufferings,
and for all this misery to pay hard cash.

Now judge ye, if this system that closes its
ears to the cry of sick children dying on their
mothers' bosoms, that dries up the fountains of
sympathy and love for your sick and invalid,
that, if it could obtain full dominion, would
change a civilized and Christian land into a
pagan India with the horrors of the Kiver
Ganges, be the religion of Jesus Christ,^ — or if
it be not preparing itself for the curse that
.will fall from His own sacred lips on the
final day: "I was hungry, and you gave Me
not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me not
to drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me
not in; naked, and you covered Me not: sick
and in prison, and you did not visit Me."
(Matt. 25:42, 43.) "Depart from Me you
cursed into everlasting fire." (Matt. 25:41.)

Finally cast one more glance upon the system
of Mrs. Eddy as far as she claims it to be

43

*' Science." Not only did Mrs. Baker Eddy,
during the days when as a gray-haired, stiff-
jointed, old and palsied woman, she hid herself
from public gaze, prove a living embodiment
of the errors of her teachings, but now above
all does her corpse, lying in the cold and moul-
dering grave at Mt. Auburn, prove to absolute
conclusiveness that her "Science" also is des-
tined to the same fate of decay and oblivion.

MAN IS INCAPABLE OF SIN

"If we say that we have no sin, zve deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us." I John 1 :8.

In the Garden of Eden man first sinned.
Direful and terrible was the punishment that
fell upon him from the lips of the angered
Almighty. But did man profit by its infliction!
No! Despite the fact that he was exiled by the
avenging angel to wander over the barren
wastes of the plain and through the valleys,
replete with thorns and thistles, still his record
quite consistently has been one of rebellion and
transgression and sin.

In the Past Sinning Man Bemoaned His Fall.

Still if in times gone by man sinningly erred,
he was ashamed of his transgressions. The
first parents after their fall sought conceal-
ment in the shrubbery of the Garden; Cain,
haunted by the cry of his brother's blood, in
remorse wandered over the face of the earth.
David bemoaned his sins in ashes and sack-
cloth. Nay, even the renegade Apostle con-
fessed, ^'I have betrayed innocent blood," and

45

maddened by the enormity of his guilt sus-
pended himself with a halter.

In This Age Some Deny Their Guilt.

Through the centuries the drama of sin and
crime continues. Today also men sin, yield to
the seductions of the lying serpent, transgress
the Law Divine. But behold, some in this late
age even go farther. They not only violate
the Commandments, but in their insolence and
anarchy turn to the Almighty Lawgiver and
Sovereign God, and declare they have not
sinned.

Man Incapable of Sin.

Thus spoke in New England a woman, who
declared in her book ("Science and Health,"
pg. 459, 74 ed.) : ''Man is incapable of sin."
(Pg. 480): "Evil is an illusion. It is false
belief." "The only reality of sin is the awful
fact that unrealities seem real." ("Science
and Health," pg. 456, 74 ed.)

The tragedy of sin, accordingly, that in our
belief, has filled the world with moan and sigh,
destroyed in man the bloom of innocence and
streaked the pages of history with the scarlet
of crime, and rendered the world a stench in
the nostrils of Jehovah, so that only the life-
blood of His Son shed in sacrifice saved it from
being hurled into perdition — is not real, but a

46

mere pliantasmal picture thrown upon the
screen of the imagination.

Christian Science Not Irksome.

Need we now marvel that in this age, chaf-
ing under the yoke of the Commandments,
snarling at the restraint of spirit over passion
and flesh, assailing the lofty ideals of morality,
as superstition born of priestcraft, such a doc-
trine should find wide acceptance! For if ^^man
is incapable of sin," then he never sins. If
he never sins, then there is no guilt. If there
is no guilt, then no just condemnation is pos-
sible.

The Tendency of the Doctrine of Christian
Science Relative to' Sin.

Not for a moment will I affirm that Chris-
tian Scientists love not virtue, cherish not
chastity, exalt not honesty. Still if they are
chaste and honest and pure, it is not by means
or because of Christian Science, but rather,
and I shall not hesitate to utter it, in spite of
Christian Science. For beguiled oftentimes by
the specious promise of obtaining health of
body and serenity of soul, they have unfor-
tunately hearkened to the voice of a teacher,
announcing a doctrine, which, if literally re-
duced to practice and consistently carried out,
would break down every barrier and restraint,

47

eliminate every boundary line between virtue
and vice, open the flood gates of impurity, and
give free rein to degeneracy and crime.

Christian Science Destructive of the Ethical,
Moral and Judicial Sciences.

We have witnessed Mrs. Eddy, maintaining
the non-existence of matter and sickness, assail
the physical, psychological and medical sci-
ences. In denying the reality of evil and sin
she has formed a new plank, and with it she
threatens destruction to the ethical and judicial
sciences.

If there exists no line of demarcation be-
tween good and evil, if man is incapable of
exercising free choice for good or evil, and,
consequently, is not a moral and a responsible
being, if sin is not only not a fact, but not so
much as a possibility, what remains of the
science of ethics and morality?

Upon the human heart nature has impressed
the rudiments of the moral law. From these
primary laws the Sages of antiquity, the
Fathers of the early Christian centuries, the
Schoolmen of the medieval ages, the teachers
in modern theological seminaries and colleges
of law, have drawn further conclusions, more
minute and defined, and have elaborated a code,
calculated to make the world and mankind more
honest and gentle and pure. But if the tenets

48

of Mrs. Eddy be correct, then the moralists
have contributed their time and energy in
rearing sciences whose foundations rest upon
illusions — nay, we could charge them with
having placed all the world under the tyran-
nical sway of an erroneous and false con-
science.

Nor is this all. If ' ' man is incapable of sin, ' '
what purpose and object is there in judicial
science? For if there is no sin, there can be
no guilt. Where then the sense of endeavoring
to establish guilt? Moreover, if there is no
guilt, where the right and the guarantee to
pass condemnation and inflict punishment? If
the whole world be as crimeless and sinless as
Mrs. Baker Eddy conceives it, why should civ-
ilized lands maintain at an enormous expense
judiciary systems? All fail of object and pur-
pose.

If the Criminal Be a Christian Scientist.

A few weeks ago there was perpetrated in
the city of San Francisco a damnable outrage,
that bespattered with blood the pavement of
Market Street and littered it with shattered
bone and bleeding limbs. A mingled feeling of
horror and indignation arose from every normal
heart. Every effort that commonwealth can
exert, was made to apprehend the villain and

49

to convict him of his crime in order that sen-
tence may be passed upon him.

I am expressing no opinion as to the identity
of the culprit. But if he or she be a consistent
Eddyite thus may the case be argued: ''Those
bystanders, hale and sound that afternoon, but
now lying in their graves, were neither maimed
nor killed. Whyf Because 'no breakage nor
dislocation can really occur' ('Science and
Health,' pg. 402) and 'there is no death.'
('Science and Health,' pg. 426, 74 ed.) More-
over, though I constructed and set off that
infernal machine, I committed no sin and con-
tracted no guilt. Why I Because 'man is in-
capable of sin.' ('Science and Health,' pg.
459, 74 ed.) Hence you cannot judge me guilty
nor impose a penalty." That man may be
convicted by the testimony of a thousand wit-
nesses ; he may confess his deed and crime with
his own lips; yet if Christian Science be
adopted, thus he may argue ; and if Mrs. Eddy
be also our teacher, we must accept his argu-
ments and conclusions, and bestow upon him
the kiss of peace.

Justice Blinded — Anarchy Rampant.

With bated breath and harrowing sense of
fear we witness to what lengths the theories of
Mrs. Eddy would lead us. Not a murderer or
villain, not a degenerate or adulterer, not a

50

robber or embezzler, but with whom we should
fraternize and whom we should clasp in loving
embrace as our innocent brother. Not a prose-
cuting attorney, but who is obtaining money
under false pretenses. Not a judge, who inflicts
punishment, but who is inflicting suffering upon
the innocent, and should be stripped of his
ermine. Not a criminal behind prison bars,
but who, though his hands be reddened with
the blood of his brother, and though he may
have robbed woman of her fairest flower, may
not plead that the prison doors be flung open
and liberty be granted him. Not a State peni-
tentiary, but whose walls should be razed and
reduced to smouldering ruins. Thus from her
pedestal the heroic figure of justice, upholding
the scales and the sword, would be hurled to
fragments on the pavement below. The de-
mand of the creditor would be in vain, the
pleading of the orphaned and helpless disre-
garded, the cry of outraged innocence choked,
— and grim-visaged and bloody-eyed sin would
hold reign in this night of license.

There lurk in the dark haunts of the city,
there stalk about past the midnight hour, some
who would welcome this advent of anarchy, —
but we and, we doubt not, all respectable
Christian Scientists are stricken with horror
at its mere possibility. Yet thither would soci-
ety hasten, if despite the testimony of our con-

51

science the tenets of Mrs. Baker Eddy, viz.,
''man is incapable of sin" and ''evil is an illu-
sion," were accorded belief, and were to be-
come the norm and standard of our lives and
actions.

The Ten Commandments Not a Joke.

But besides the catastrophe that would ensue
upon the adoption of the tenet of Eddyism re-
garding sin, there are further reasons, namely,
scriptural, that should impel us forever to re-
ject the teaching that sin is an illusion. Above
reigns a Sovereign Lord and God, whose wis-
dom and omnipotence fashioned and made us.
We are His creatures and dependents. On
Mt. Sinai, amid the blinding flash of lightning
and deafening peal of thunder, He gave the ten
Commandments engraven upon two tablets of
stone. Now, to transgress those Divine Com-
mandments, is either a sin or not a sin. If it
is a sin, then Mrs. Eddy's theory, viz., "Man
is incapable of sin," and "Evil is an illusion,"
is false. If it is not a sin, and Mrs. Baker
Eddy is correct, then the Almighty Legislator
must have been in jesting mood, and the heav-
ens lighted up with lightning flashes, with the
old prophet of the past Dispensation trembling
with awe, merely a dramatic setting to empha-
size the farce.

But why did not the Divine Legislator and

52

His prophet tell ns that merely a joke was
being passed upon the human race? Why did
not Moses returning from the Mount proclaim
to the sons of Israel that the ten Command-
ments were merely plays and outbursts of
humor on the part of Jehovah? Why, on the
contrary, did he inscribe them in the Bible, the
most serious book ever written? Why did God
Almighty Himself instill the fear into our
heart, that every time we transgressed those
Commandments, we committed sin, we incurred
His displeasure and were rendering ourselves
liable to the flames of hell? Why? Because,
as matter of fact, and despite Mrs. Eddy, they
are not a joke, but as seriously made and im-
posed as God alone could make and impose
them. The God of omnipotence, justice, sanc-
tity— jesting with and fooling His creatures!!
The High Priestess of Concord may endeavor
to reduce the Almighty God to this humiliating
position, by telling us, we incur no sin when
we transgress His commands and are foolish
for experiencing pang and scruple. But we
regard her action as blasphemy. We recoil
from it. We shudder at the mere thought of
it. We believe that God Almighty was serious,
nay, intensely serious.

Why Punishes God the Sinner?
Moreover, if sin is an illusion, why does God

53

inflict punishment for its commission! The
pages of the Bible burn, nay, curl and turn
crisp with the fire and wrath breathed upon
those who thwart the will of the Creator and
break His Commandments. In the 13th chap-
ter of the Book of Isaias, the Prophet predicts
the desolation to descend upon the city of
Babylon in the following words: ''Behold, the
day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and
full of indignation and of wrath and of fury,
to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sin-
ners thereof out of it." In the 19th chapter
of Genesis is described the storm of fire and
brimstone, that swept over the cities of the
plain, Sodom and Gomorrah, leaving direful
devastation in its wake.

Why Suffer the Damned f

But why speak of the flames of earth? Could
we but thrust aside the curtains of eternity,
and gaze into those fiery depths where languish
the disembodied souls ! Why that holocaust —
why those lurid flames — why those soul-
harrowing torments'? Those, that suffer there-
in, lived their days upon the earth. They,
indeed, transgressed the Commandments Di-
vine, deprived the widow of her portion,
plunged the cold steel into their brother's
heart, spent their nights in ribaldry and las-
civiousness. But, if Mrs. Eddy's contention is

54

true that man is incapable of sin, and that evil
is an illusion, evidently they incurred no guilt.
Why then were they condemned! Why upon
them was passed the irate sentence, '* Depart
from me ye accursed into everlasting fire"?
Has God lost His sense of justice and stripped
Himself of mercy? Like fiend and monster
does He gloat over the sufferings of those who
were "incapable of sin"? No.

Ah, those very agonizing souls in the flames
proclaim His justice. Could once their voice
be heard rising from that pit of fire and dun-
geon of hell, they would proclaim to us whether
or not sin is a reality. In the mad paroxysms
of their crimes they may have declared to God
Almighty and boasted to man, ''Sin is false
belief," but the flaring fires of hell have en-
lightened them to know better, namely, that sin
is reality, nay dread reality.

Why Died Christ on Calvary?
\^ Mrs. Eddy Beneath the Cross?

I close this lecture with the scene on Mount
Caivary. The sun has slightly passed the
meridian. A cry startles the appalling still-
ness, "My God, my God, why hast Thou for-
saken me?" Nailed to the Tree of shame
hangs the Son of God. His sacred head is
encircled with thorns. His countenance is
swollen and His eyes are shot with blood.

55

From ^ve deep and gaping wounds gushes
forth in crimson streams His life-blood. Oh!
that Priestess of New England who nineteen
centuries later proclaimed a religion in His
name and exploited the love we bear Him
for commercial aggrandizement, — oh! had she
stood that hot sultry afternoon beneath that
cross, with the hot and ruddy drops from the
veins of the dying God-man trickling, nay,
gushing forth and drenching her garments,
would she from beneath that cross, I ask, have
proclaimed to the world that He, the Son of
the living God, was dying for "mere nothing-
ness,'' for a "false belief"?

So bitter was the chalice into which had been
pressed the sins and iniquities of the world,
that even His own stout heart quailed, and
from His own sacred lips escaped the cry,
"May this chalice pass from me," so intensely
hated His Heavenly Father sin, that He hesi-
tated not to smite with His wrath His only
begotten Son, so deeply had sin outraged the
Divine and Supreme Majesty that only then
was the anger of the Father of Heaven Ap-
peased when the thorn-crowned head of His
Son bowed in death, and still Mrs. Baker Eddy,
the foundress of Christian Science, declared to
the world that sin is an illusion. Oh ! may that
blood that she contemns as having been spilled
for a mere illusion cry not out against her on
the day of wrath and judgment.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. THE CULT OF
THE INFIDEL

"Your eyes shall be opened; and you shall be as Gods."
Gen. 3:5.

Men, denying the truth of the creation of
the universe, have erred in either of two direc-
tions. They have either denied the existence
of God, or have exalted the universe to the
supreme plane of the Deity.

Both, so to speak, stand on a high and com-
manding promontory, jutting out from some
lofty mountain. Below them they behold the
deep and wide valleys, the rolling plains and
prairies, the sparkling lakes and winding
rivers, the cities and hamlets, with the thou-
sands that there live and labor. Both men
affirm that all the magnificent panorama of sky
and land and water below them, is uncreated
and self-existent. The one, however, denies
there is a God, spiritual and infinite in nature,
and exclaims, ^'God created man? No such
thing. The monads developed him. The heav-
ens declare the glory of God? No such thing.
They declare only the glory of the astronomer.

57

We have no need of the hypothesis of God.
The divine existence is not only unnecessary,
but absolutely unreal — a creature of the human
imagination.'^ Thus has spoken the atheist
and materialist. The other, however, maintains
that all that they behold is God. This man is
a pantheist. Both, denying the record of the
Scriptures, are manifestly at variance with the
teachings of Christianity and are unquestion-
ably infidels.

Infidelity!

Infidelity! a stinging and mean charge, and
emphatically such if we predicate it of one
claiming to possess a superior understanding,
and professing to come in the name of God for
the alleviation of woe and misery oppressing
mankind. True, Mrs. Eddy stoutly cast back
this charge, and her disciples today hotly
resent our making the imputation. We do not
desire to stir up their wrath and indignation,
but if we study the teachings of Christian
Science regarding God and His nature, we
are constrained to make the above-mentioned
charge.

Christian Science, Dangerous Form of
Pantheism,

Quasi-parodoxical expressions, quasi-philo-
sophical terms, nugatory statements, flat con-

58

tradictions form one amazing mass of tangle
and confusion in the writings of Mrs. Eddy.
We read and endeavor to understand, but the
mind grows bewildered, and is overwhelmed
with a feeling similar to that which neuritis
produces in the body. Still, if at the conclusion
the reader retains the use of his faculties and
is not hypnotized, he lays down the book with
the conviction that, though it is labeled ^'Chris-
tian," it nevertheless contains an admixture of
Brahmin Theosophy, ancient Gnosticism, Mani-
chseism, and, forming the largest portion, Hin-
doo Pantheism.

Mrs. Eddy's Egregious Blunder. Her Arbi-
trary Definition of Pantheism. Pan-
theism Correctly Defined.

Mrs. Eddy answering the question, whether
or not Christian Science is pantheistic, affirms,
''Christian Science refutes Pantheism, finds
Spirit neither in matter nor in the modes of
mortal mind.'' ("No and Yes," pg. 15,
95 ed.). Mrs. Eddy frames a novel and"
a convenient definition of her own, and then
quite readily frees herself from the charge of
being a pantheist. She indicates that panthe-
ism is the belief of spirit and intelligence
existing in matter. Now, if this be pantheism,
it is evident that Christian Science, denying
matter and hence intelligence in matter, is any-

59

thing but pantheistic. But Mrs. Eddy has elab-
orated an arbitrary, and not only that, but a
wrong definition of pantheism. Any culprit
before the bar could frame his own defini-
tion of a crime and then demand that he be
declared innocent. For instance, a robber
could assert that theft means the slaying of a
man, — and then argue, "I have killed no man,
— therefore, I am no thief.'' We would have
no mercy on that man, but judge him according
to the definition which really sets forth the
nature of the crime. So also Mrs. Eddy must
answer to the charge of pantheism, not as she
defines it, but according to that what all men
believe it to be, namely, the doctrine which
asserts that God is the only substance, of which
the universe and man are only manifestations,
— the doctrine, accordingly, which identifies
God and the universe, and is accompanied with
the denial of God's personality. Some panthe-
ists maintain and assert the existence of mat-
ter; others, as idealist pantheists, deny it.
However, they all agree that all that exists,
whether it be material or not, is God.

Pure Pantheism.

Hence if Mrs. Eddy declares, ''Nothing pos-
sesses reality or substance, except Mind, God,''
how can she escape the charge! In "Science
and Health," p. 466, she asks the question,

60

''What are spirits and souls!" She answers,
'/To human belief they are personalities con-
stituted of mind and matter, life and death,
truth and error, good and evil. The term
souls or spirits is as improper as the term
gods. Soul or Spirit signifies Deity, and noth-
ing else. There is no finite soul or spirit."
According to her own words, therefore, there
is only one soul or spirit, "since the term souls
or spirits is as improper as the term gods."
This one soul or spirit is not finite (there is
no finite soul or spirit), but "signifies the
Deity, and nothing else." Do we grasp the
meaning of Mrs. Eddy's words? If so, what
do they embody but pantheism, bald and bla-
tant, pantheism that echoes the error of cen-
turies before Christ, namely, "Brahma is all,
and all is Brahma, and whatever is not Brahma
is a dream and an illusion"?

Christian Science Denies God's Creation.

In the teachings of Mrs. Eddy there lives
only one being — uncreated and uncreating; un-
created— because if that one being were cre-
ated, his creation would demand the existence
of a being who created him, and hence there
would be two beings; uncreating — because if
the uncreated being created, then his creature
would mean the existence of another being, and
hence, again, there would be two beings. Mrs.

61

Eddy, therefore, necessarily must eliminate the
ideas of creator and creature.

The Term "Expression'' — Pantheistic.

Christian Science writers, in the endeavor to
save their "Mother'' from the ugly charge and
conviction of being pantheistic, attempt the
explanation that the universe is an expression
of the Divine Mind. But what meaning can
the term "expression'' have in Mrs. Eddy's
system! Christian Science negates the exist-
ence of matter, and teaches that all is "Spirit,"
and whatever is not this "Spirit," is unreal.
Consequently the term "expression" when ap-
plied to man and the universe can only mean
that man and universe form a certain mode of
being of this one and only existing "Spirit."
They are, so to speak, what bubbles are on
the bosom of the ocean. But as waves and
bubbles and ocean form in reality only one
being, namely, ocean — so also whether the uni-
verse be called an expression or not, it and
God form only one being, and according to the
declarations of Christian Science this being is
God. "God is all, and all is God."

Appalling Absurdities. Man Is God.

To what appalling absurdities the pantheism
lurking in the teachings of Eddyism would lead
us, we need not indicate: Mrs. Eddy does it

62

herself. Writing in ' ' Science and Health, ' ' pg.
619 of Index (74 ed.), she says, ^'He is self-
existent and eternal, like God." Man, accord-
ingly, has neither origin nor beginning. Be-
fore he stepped upon this globe, he pre-existed.
''If man did not exist before the material or-
ganization began, he could not exist after the
body is disintegrated. If we live after death
and are immortal, we must have lived before
birth, for if Life ever had any beginning, it
must also have an ending, even according to the
calculations of natural science." (''Science
and Health," pg. 429.) He had neither a
father, who begot him, nor a mother, of whose
flesh he was conceived, and who bore him. He
never was young nor does he grow old. "He
has neither birth nor death." ("Science and
Health," pg. 244.)

If through some form of mortal error you
believe yourself at some time to have rested
as an infant upon your mother's bosom, you
were not one fraction of a moment younger
than you are at this present moment, even
though the snows of life's winter be fast gath-
ering over your brow. "Man in Science is
neither young nor old. He has neither birth
nor death." ("Science and Health," pg. 244.)
What wonder that Christian Science has grown
so popular! Surely a happy find for those
ashamed of their age. For Christian Science

63

says : ' ' Never record ages. Chronological data
are no part of the vast forever. Time-tables
of birth and death are so many conspiracies
against manhood and womanhood. " (^ ^ Science
and Health/' pg. 246.)

God Is One. All Men Form One Being.

Vain and false is also every census. The
human family never added a new member, nor
did it ever lose one. In fact, in Christian Sci-
ence we dare not speak of a human family.
For a family presupposes a plurality of per-
sons, whereas in ''Science,'' since all men are
God and God is only one, there is only one
being. Accordingly, just and unjust are only
one; saint and sinner are only one; wise and
unwise are only one; rich and poor are only
one. Thus, Cain and Abel were not separate
individuals, but identical; Caesar and Brutus
were not distinct, but identical; Jesus and
Judas were not distinct, but identical; nay, the
Kaiser of Germany and the Czar of Russia are
not separate individuals, but identical; finally,
Mrs. Eddy and you and I are only one — and
this one being is the one Divine and Infinite
Spirit.

Accordingly, when Cain slew Abel it was the
one being both killing and being killed; when
Judas betrayed Christ, it was the one being-
betraying and being betrayed. When Mrs.

64

Eddy pronounces her teachings scientific and
Christian and I designate them as humbug and
blasphemy, it is the one being simultaneously
calling them truth and error.

God Is Man.

Thus far we have predicated of man the at-
tributes that belong to God. But since man
and God are identical, we may pursue a differ-
ent course of argument and attribute to God
all that pertains to man.

Blasphemy! Appalling!

Accordingly, God is the grim-visaged mur-
derer; God is the glib-tongued liar; God is the
smooth-shaven adulterer; God is the cactus-
bearded villain of Mexico. Moreover, since
God is identical with all these men, it follows
that all their actions also are those of God.
When the murderer, therefore, dips his hands
in the blood of his fellow man, it is God who
murders; when the adulterer crosses the
threshold of a home and there spreads the
slime of his impurity, it is God that commits
adultery; when the villains in Mexico dese-
crate sanctuaries, mutilate men and violate vir-
gins, it is God who commits those outrages.
Hence all the misery, all the woe, all the im-
morality that has filled the world with shame
and despair, have emanated from the one Infi-

65

nite Being. Behold the God whom Mrs. Baker
Eddy would set up for veneration and love to
those who follow her voice. Perhaps she does
it not intentionally, but it is a necessary con-
sequence of her teachings.

Moreover, since '^God is all, and all is God,''
when man is sick, when the typhoid patient
raves in delirium, when the leper smells with
the malodor of the grave, when the soldier is
shot and torn by shell and bullet on the battle-
field, when the suicide turns the gun upon him-
self, God it is who is sick, who is stricken with
fever, who is wounded, who commits suicide,
who is killed.

''Mortal Mind'' Theory Offers No Refuge,

Christian Science may try to rally to the
defense and insist, ' ' Hold ! sin and sickness and
death are mere illusions of the mortal mind."
But now that '' mortal mind" either exists or
does not exist. If it does not exist, how can it
harbor illusions'? If it does exist, then, since
"God is all, and all is God," it is identical with
Mind, God. Mrs. Eddy may have the alterna-
tive of choosing either for glaring nonsense or
for shocking blasphemy.

The God of Christian Science a Monstrosity.

Candidly — I think, were the teachings of
Mrs. Eddy urged to their ultimate conclusion,

66

we should discover that Christian Science has
no God at all, but that it is a system absolutely
Godless. For — in the light of Christian Sci-
ence— regard Him as a Principle, and He is a
Principle self-contradicting, at once right and
wrong, a nonentity as impossible of being as a
circle round and square ; regard Him as a per-
son, and He is a monster with truth and error
simultaneously upon His tongue, breathing hot
and cold in the one and the same breath, with
virtue and vice simultaneously in His heart.

Christian Science Impudently Assails the
Dogma of the Trinity.

Mrs. Eddy has set forth the dictum, ''God
is all, and all is God," as the cardinal teaching
of her system — and you have beheld what she
has made of God. And yet she dares to assail
the supreme dogma of our Christian religion,
namely, that of the Blessed Trinity, saying,
"The theory of three persons in one (that is,
a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests poly-
theism, rather than the one ever-present 'I
am.' 'Hear, 0 Israel: the Lord our God is one
Lord.'" ("Science and Health," pg. 256.)
But who is she that would insinuate that we,
washed in the waters of regeneration in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Ghost, that we, believing in the Trinity,
are like the heathens and pagans of old who

67

believed in and worshiped a multiplicity of
gods? Who is she that, raising her finger in
correction, would point to our belief in the
plurality of persons in the Deity as ^' basic of
idolatry''? No! we are not heathens, nor do
we worship three gods. But more readily
would I prostrate myself before three gods
like the pagan in the darkness of the forest,
than follow the voice of Mrs. Baker Eddy and
worship no God at all, — or rather worship
every man, including herself, whom she has
deified.

Christian Science Dethrones God.

But as a matter of fact we worship one God
only, in whom there are three Divine Persons
possessing the one Divine Nature. We con-
fess we cannot fathom or comprehend this
mystery of three persons possessing one Divine
Nature. We accept it with whole-souled faith,
we bow our intellects before it. Why? Be-
cause God has revealed it, because the Scrip-
tures contain it, and because the Church of
Jesus Christ proposes it to our belief.

But what cares Mrs. Eddy of New England,
who founded her own Church, for the Church
of Jesus Christ? What cares she for the Scroll
of God's Word when she contemns it as a
dusty text-book "no more important to our
well-being than the history of Europe and

68

America'"? Nay, what cares she for God, Him-
self, when she has dethroned Him, reduced
Him to an impersonal thing, called Principle,
heaped upon Him all the world's huge pile of
crime and sin and sickness — and then sub-
merged and drowned Him in the ocean of crea-
tion! I conclude this lecture with the words
of C. A. Dixon: '^It (Christian Science) is
guilty, so far as it can be, of deicide."

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. THE CULT OF
THE UNCHRISTIAN

"Behold thou shalt conceive in thy zvomb, and shalt bring
forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall he
great, and shall be called the Son of the most High." Luke
1:31, 32.

During the course of the last few decades
advertisement has developed into a fine art.
Men of business readily recognize its value,
and its progress has paved the way to some
of their most colossal successes. A medium,
indifferent in its nature, it has been employed
in the interests of truth, as well as in the serv-
ice of fraud. Mrs. Baker Eddy evidently was
not a woman to lack the shrewdness of grasp-
ing the value of this medium and of utilizing
it to raise a towering fortune. To a people,
to whom no name on earth or above earth is
more sweet and dear than "Jesus," to a
people, for whom no figure in history lives
more cherished than the Savior soothing the
afflicted and sorrowful of Israel, — shrewd and
sly Mrs. Eddy realized that she could sell her
''copyrighted" religion with the largest success
and profit, if she clothed it in the cover of

70

Christianity and promised to bring back Christ
Jesus into their desolate hearts and mournful
souls.

Christian Scientists Should Lament As Did the
So rroiu ing Magdalene.

But, ah, methinks she has cruelly and ruth-
lessly deceived and duped them. Mrs. Eddy
has labored to convict us of teaching men to
hug delusions. But having listened to this
woman's teachings regarding the nature of
God, regarding the human body, regarding suf-
fering and death, I should say it is she who
has attempted to foist upon men a mere delu-
sion, and who has cruelly swindled from out of
their lives the true Christ, so that in truth and
fact those who have listened to her voice and
followed her teachings, should lament as did
the sorrowing Magdalene at the door of the
emj)ty tomb, because her Lord had been taken
away.

Jesus Christ the Mental Offspring of a Perfect

Christian Scientist. Incarnation of

Christ Not Miraculous.

The two chief mysteries in the life of the
God-man are undoubtedly His Incarnation and
His Death of atonement. Mrs. Eddy, indeed,
retains the belief that Jesus Christ was born
of a woman who had known no man, and that

71

His birth was virginal. But forthwith disillu-
sion your mind, that she consequently regards
it in the same sacred light as St. Luke records
it in his Gospel, and as we celebrate the event
on Christmas Day. No, in the bible of Mrs.
Eddy He was but the son of an advanced
Christian Scientist. '^ Jesus," she writes, '^was
the offspring of Mary's self-conscious com-
munion with God." (''Science and Health,"
pg. 30.) Jesus Christ! — the mental offspring
of a woman's consciousness! The Blessed
Mother merely caught a gleam of Eddyism!
She possessed sufficient ''Science" to create a
child by mental generation and thus to "put
to silence the material law and its order of
generation." Her virginal delivery must be
considered precisely the same as that of any
other woman who obtains an adequate knowl-
edge of Christian Science and can become a
virginal mother. Hence there is neither mys-
tery nor miracle surrounding the birth of
Christ. "Generation rests on no sexual basis."
("Science and Health," pg. 274, 74 ed.) "The
so-called substance of bone is formed first by
the parent's mind, through self-division. Soon
the child becomes a separate, individualized
thought." This suffices. This moment Mrs.
Eddy should divest herself of the robes of a
Christian. She has stolen them.

72

Jesus Is Not the Christ. Dual Personality.
In Christian thought and sentiment we wor-
ship the Divine Savior as a Divine Person, who
to the Divine Nature, that He possessed from
all eternity, joined the human nature, which in
time He assumed of the Virgin Mary. He gave
us assurance for this belief, perhaps, at the
most solemn moment of His mortal life. Stand-
ing before the Sanhedrim, the supreme religious
tribunal of the Jewish nation. He was asked by
the High-priest the precise and unequivocal
question: "I adjure Thee by the living God,
that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ, the
Son of the living God." And Jesus answered
him, ^'Thou hast said it." To this categorical
affirmation He added, "Hereafter you shall see
the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the
power of God and coming in the clouds of
heaven." Then the High-priest rent his gar-
ments, and said, ''He has blasphemed." Why
does not Mrs. Eddy also rend her garments?
In her estimation, too, that man Jesus standing
there, clad in a body of flesh and blood, was not
''the Christ, the Son of the living God." She
writes and confesses this, saying, "Jesus, as
material manhood, was not the Christ." (Misc.,
pg. 84.)

JesurS Is Not God.
Jesus, therefore, is not regarded by Mrs.

73

Eddy as God, for she says, ^'A portion of God
could not enter corporeal mortal man, . . .
God can only be reflected by spiritual, incor-
poreal man." (''Science and Health," pg. 231,
74 ed.) We can now comprehend how she
could write, ''At the time when Jesus felt our
infirmities He had not conquered all the beliefs
of flesh, or His sense of material life, nor had
He risen to His final demonstration of spiritual
power." ("Science and Health," pg. 209, 74
ed.) Jesus, accordingly, a plain mortal like
ourselves, was steeped in materialism and an
individual deluded by mortal error. Very
reverential words, Mrs. Eddy !

Compliments of Mrs. Eddy to Christ.

On the same page in "Science and Health"
she writes, "To accommodate Himself to im-
mature ideas of spiritual power, Jesus called
the body — He raised from the grave, 'flesh and
bones.' " On page 396, she added, "These in-
stances show us the concessions which Jesus
was willing to make to popular ignorance."
For instance, "He sometimes called a disease
by name." ("Science and Health," pg. 396,
74 ed.) Mrs. Eddy evidently concedes that at
a later period the knowledge of "Science" did
dawn upon and enlighten the soul of Jesus;
but it seemingly improved not His morals. For
though Jesus at that precise time was better

74

informed, still He possessed not the courage of
His convictions. For He yielded and made
concessions to popular ignorance. Nay, He
positively deluded the people by deliberately
lying to them, for though He full well knew
that flesh and bone were merely dreams of
fancy, He, nevertheless, solemnly assured His
disciples, ''flesh and bones such as you see Me
to have." (Luke 24:29.)

Mrs. Baker Eddy has, therefore, given elesus
Christ the lie. We must associate her with
the motley throng and mob that with perjured
oaths clamored for His condemnation, because
"He perverted the nation.'^

If in the Mob before the Tribunal of Pilate
There Had Been an Eddyite!

The drama of the passion opens. From
Pilate to Herod, and from Herod to Pilate
they have dragged Him. The Eoman Gov-
ernor in a final attempt to secure the release
of Jesus presents Him to the people with the
piteous appeal, "Behold the man!" But from
a sea of upturned faces, white as the ocean
froth with hate, rises the thunderous cry, like
the voice of many waters, "Crucify him! cru-
cify him!" Pilate yields and passes the sen-
tence of death upon the Savior of mankind.
But the Eddyite would rush in and cry out,
"Hold! — Crucify whom! Christ, the Divine

75

Idea! Crucify an idea! Absurd! Crucify the
corporeal Jesus! Body is an illusion. Crucify
an illusion! Equally absurd!"

But enough, of Christian Science; the steel
hammers driving- the gruesome nails awaken
us only too painfully to the fact that the scene
on Mt. Calvary is grim reality. Fastened to
the cross He hangs between heaven and earth.
In sacrificial agony He quivers, He moans,
He suffers; finally crying in a loud voice, ''It
is finished!" He bows His thorn-crowned head
in death.

It is finished! Oh! ye, who love and adore
that mangled body even in death, hearken to
that cry still echoing down the centuries ! What
is finished! You and I and all who worship
Him as the Redeemer and the Savior, believe
that finished and fulfilled is the promise that
He made in eternity before His angered
Father's throne, the promise, to lay down His
life in sacrifice and atonement for us sinners,
and to wash away our iniquities in His blood.

Christian Science Denies Christ's Atonement.

But from beneath that crimson stream of
redeeming blood one of the sin-stained children
of Adam withdraws. It is Mrs. Baker Eddy,
the mother of Christian Science. Denying the
reality of sin and that our souls were ever
stained or soiled, denying the fumes and flames

76

of hell, denying the reality of nails and wood
and cross and flesh, she denies also Christ's
death, atonement and sacrifice. In the death-
like stillness of Calvary she gazes back over
the career of the dead Jesus, and beholds in it
not the mission to save men from sin, but from
the belief in sin, not to lead men to repent of
sin, but to deny sin, for she writes, 'Mesus
came to seek and to save such as believe in the
reality of the unreal! to save them from this
false belief.'' (Misc., pg. 63.) Cold and un-
moved she looks upon the crimson pool gath-
ered at the foot of the instrument of death,
and says of that blood that washed away the
sins of the world, ''The material blood of
Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from
sin when it was shed upon 'the accursed tree,'
than when it was flowing through His veins,
as He went daily about His Father's busi-
ness." ("Science and Health," pg. 330, 74
ed.) Even on the Mount of His bloody death
she can bring her heart no farther than to pay
Him the tribute (tribute!! save the mark!) of
being a "way shower" ("Science and Health"
Index, pg. 13, 74 ed.). Mrs. Eddy denies the
supreme truths of the Christian faith, and she
confesses it, writing, "That God's wrath should
be vented upon His Beloved Son, is divinely
unnatural. It is a man-made theory." ("Sci-
ence and Health," pg. 328, 74 ed.)

77

From the sorrowing group on Mt. Golgotha
let us remove the figure of Mrs. Eddy. She
belongs not there where the Blessed Mother
of Jesus and His Penitent Child are crushed
in grief and sorrow.

The cross yields its burden, and the corpse
of the slain God-man rests in the lap of His
Mother. In mournful procession He is borne
to the rich man's garden. In the hush of night
they deposit His mutilated body in the tomb.
The seal is affixed on the sepulchre, and the
Roman sentry stands guard. But lo ! the dawn
of the third day bursts over those Judean hills,
and witness! from the tomb of death issues the
living Christ, — yes, living, robed in immortality
and glorious in the fulfilment of His prophecy,
''Destroy this temple, and in three days I shall
rebuild it."

Christ in the Sepulchre Not Dead. Gave a

Demonstration of the Healing Efficacy

of Christian Science.

St. Paul wrote, ''If Christ be not risen, then
vain is our preaching, and your faith is also
vain, yea, and we are found false witnesses."
For nineteen centuries the Christian world, in
the light of the Apostle's words, has regarded
the Resurrection on Easter Morn as the key-
stone in the arch of Christianity. But now
after the lapse of nineteen centuries it re-

78

mained for a woman in New England to insult
the Apostle and designate him as a false wit-
ness. For teaches Mrs. Eddy, Christ in the
sepulchre lay not in the white sleep of death.
He was alive, practicing Christian Science.
Thus Mrs. Eddy \^riting in ''Science and
Health," pg. 44: "The lonely precincts of the
tomb gave Jesus a refuge from His foes, a
place in which to solve the great problem of
being. His three days' work in the sepulchre
set the seal of eternity on time. He proved
Life to be deathless and Love to be the master
of hate. He met and mastered on the basis of
Christian Science, the power of Mind over
matter, all the claims of medicine, surgery, and
hygiene.

"He took no drugs to allay inflammation.
He did not depend upon food or pure air to
resuscitate wasted energies. He did not re-
quire the skill of a surgeon to heal the torn
palms and bind up the wounded side and
lacerated feet, that He might use those hands
to remove the napkin and winding-sheet, and
that He might employ His feet as before.''

"His disciples believed Jesus to be dead
while He was hidden in the sepulchre, whereas
He was alive." ("Science and Health," pg.
44.) Hence it was as natural for Him to rise
and reappear among E[is disciples, as it is for
a man after three days' retirement and rest in

79

the privacy of his chamber to issue out again
among his friends.

Christian Science the Antithesis of Historic
Christianity.

Do you understand the meaning of the wordh
of Mrs. Eddy! It is plain and obvious. She
has flatly denied the truth upon which your
Christian and Catholic faith stands and falls.
Eddyism still parades before the world with
the title ''Christian" — and I tell you it is
the most colossal act of fraud and effrontery
of the age. This moment you either sever all
connections with Christian Science or call St.
John, who witnessed Jesus, dead and buried, a
dupe or a downright prevaricator, and the
Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Mary Magdalene,
who came to anoint the body of the Savior with
spices, as insanely hysterical women, befogged
in materialism.

After His resurrection, Jesus appeared and
spoke with His disciples. On the way to Em-,
maus he walked in their company, and in the
evening He broke bread with them. He bade
the doubting Thomas to insert his finger in
the wounds of His hands and feet, and to place
his hand in the opening of His sacred side.
Why did the Savior insist upon this? To as-
sure His disciple of the consoling fact of the
fulfilment of the prophecy made in the Gospel

80

of St. Luke (18:33): ''And after they have
scourged Him, they will put Him to death;
and the third day He shall rise again.''

Christ's Tarrying upon Earth, a Campaign of
Deception.

We, therefore, must regard the tarrying of
our dear Savior upon earth as the last act of
His love, to fortify forever the principal truth
upon which He based the Divinity of His mis-
sion, and upon which we also rest our hopes
and our soul's supreme aspiration. But Mrs.
Eddy! All through His mortal life, from crib
to cross, she has dogged His steps, stripping
His person of every trace of divinity, imputing
to Him now ignorance, now positive falsehood,
— and now, even after His death and resurrec-
tion, she desists not from maligning His char-
acter, but continues to assail Him, designating
His reappearance in the flesh as a campaign of
deception for the purpose of strengthening His
disciples in the belief that He possessed the
selfsame body, which was stained with blood
and pierced with a spear, whereas His body
and its wounds were "illusions" and "mortal

The Savior Merciful.

Finally on Mount Olivet the heart of the
Savior was touched with pity at His followers

81

groveling in error, and He determined to dis-
illusion them. He, therefore, permitted His
body to melt into nothingness. Thus equiva-
lently Mrs. Eddy writing, ''Jesus' unchanged
physical condition after what seemed to be
death was followed by His exaltation above all
material conditions; and this exaltation ex-
plained His ascension. ' ' ( ' ' Science and
Health,'' pg. 46.)

The Angels Cruel.

But ye men of Galilee, we pity you! Jesus
on Mount Olivet tried to disengage your minds
from error. But, alas, two angels appeared
and plunged you back into your former lament-
able condition, for they said, "Ye men of
Galilee, why stand ye gazing up to heaven?
This same Jesus shall come in like manner as
you have seen Him go." The disciples be-
lieved that Jesus had been clothed in flesh
during His mortal life, and now they are led
to believe by these messengers from on High
that His selfsame body of flesh and blood still
endures in the mansions of eternity.

These men of Galilee descended from Mount
Olivet, and departed for different parts of the
world. They recorded their impressions in the
Gospels, and upon these writings are based the
dogmas of Christianity.

82

The Writings of Mrs. Eddy an Antithesis of the
Record of the Evangelists,

Tonight you have heard Mrs. Baker Eddy
set forth her views regarding the Divine Sa-
vior. She has flatly contradicted the testimony
of the men of Galilee, taken a bold and defiant
stand against historic Christianity, and ren-
dered Jesus Christ a perfect Christian Sci-
entist.

To Whom Shall We Accord Belieff

To whose voice will you hearken? To the
voice of the men of Galilee sounding down the
centuries — of the men, who lived and labored
with the Messiah during the heat of the day
and in the shade of the evening sat at His feet
and learned from His own sacred lips His doc-
trine divine, or to the voice of Mrs. Eddy, a
woman, who, separated from Christ by a space
of nineteen centuries, sat at her desk with a
Bible and a heap of cheap commentaries before
her, and believed herself inspired'? To whose
testimony will you accord belief? To the tes-
timony of men who confessed their religion
before emperor and tyrant and sealed it with
the blood of cruel martyrdom, or to the testi-
mony of a woman who, shrewdly embodying
her religion in a copyrighted book, amassed
through its sale a fortune, and spent her days
in luxury and ease? Upon whom will you gaze

83

as your spiritual Mother and the Oracle of
truth! Upon Mother Eddy, who sank into a
grave like any ordinary mortal, and who, de-
spite the promise of her disciples that she
would rise as a final demonstration of .the truth
of her system, still lies mouldering in the
grave at Mt. Auburn, or upon the Roman and
Catholic and Apostolic Church, who, though
she was born on the day when the Holy Ghost
descended in pentecostal flames of fire, still
lives without spot or wrinkle upon her counte-
nance, without the gray or white of age upon
her head, without flaw or error upon the record
of her dogmatical and moral teachings?

You Cannot Be a Christian and Christian Scien-
tist. Christian Scientists Excommunicated.

The hour is solemn. Your decision is of tre-
mendous, nay, possibly of everlasting impor-
tance. Mrs. Eddy shall no longer wear the
mantle of Christianity, and no one standing
beneath its folds shall be designated as Chris-
tian. Now — either declare for Mrs. Baker
Eddy and be excommunicated from the com-
munion of this Church, before whose altar you
tonight worship, or forswear Mrs. Eddy and
Christian Science, and live and die —
"Within this rock-built Church that wavers
never.

84

Here reigns the Shepherd-King, a Father ever

To him who seeks and loves the light.

This priestly King shall rule till doom's dread

day,
Then yield the keys to Him who gave this

wondrous sway."

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SCHEME
OF HEALING

"For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and
shall show great signs and wonders, inasmuch, as to deceive
(if possible) even the elect." Matt. 24 :24.

With serious mind we have paid Mrs. Baker
Eddy the compliment of having possessed a
shrewd and calculating sense of business, a
deeply practical understanding of the weakness
and foibles of human nature, and of the method
how best to turn them to her advantage and
favor. She recognized with what self-effacing
obeisance men will prostrate themselves before
any vagary presented in the name of ^'Sci-
ence/'— and to secure for her system the power
of enthralling, she called it ^'Science." Quite
well did she know that religion rules as one of
the dominant passions in the human heart, —
and to add to her system the sanction and the
theological dignity of a religious cult, she
called it ^^ Christian.'*

Christian Science Divested of Its Masquerade
Costume — A Sanitary System.
But with Christian Science, inasmuch as it is
presented to the world as a system of meta-

86

physics and of theology, we are done. It shall
no longer engage our attention, as it is vested
in its masquerade costume, and never again
shall we with advertence pronounce its name
save as the ^'so-called Christian Science.'' We
now desire to look upon it in its nakedness.

Patent medicines often, I might say, gener-
ally depend for a wide sale not so much upon
their merits as upon bold advertisement. Our
eye is caught by some vivid description of an
accident or crime, by some interesting observa-
tion about religion, history, science, etc. We
read on with increasing interest and only near
the close do we discover that we have been
reading a newspaper advertisement formally
urging us to take Peruna, sure cure for coughs,
colds, catarrh.

We read a book entitled '^Science and
Health." It is printed and bound in the shape
and form of a pocket Bible; it contains scin-
tillating metaphors, sophomoric effusions, and
lame iambics, all melting into one confused and
confusing composition, labeled ''Science." Still
if the reader at its conclusion retains the use
of his faculties, he cannot lay down the ''pre-
cious volume" but with the conviction that
the authoress of "Science and Health," in a
manner much more clever than patent medicine
advertisements, has made a bid to him to adopt
Christian Science as a sanitary system — as a

87

panacea for every ill and hurt and pain inher-
ited by the children of Adam.

A sanitary system — such we judge the true
nature of Christian Science to be. That we
err not, Mrs. Eddy herself testifies, writing in
^'Eetrospection and Introspection,^' page 304,
'^The motive of my early years has never been
changed. It was to relieve the sufferings of
humanity by a sanitary system." It is in the
light of this definition that we shall presently
consider Christian Science, so called.

^^ Science and Health" Reminds of Patent
Medicine Literature.

We cannot resist thinking of Lydia Pink-
ham's Compound pamphlets, with the appended
testimonial letters from profoundly grateful
patients. For in '^ Science and Health" also
there has been embodied a chapter entitled
'^Fruitage," in which Mrs. Eddy presents a
collection of letters "in testimony of the heal-
ing efficacy of Christian Science and particu-
larly of the vast number of people who have
been reformed and healed through the peru-
sal or study of this book." ("Science and
Health," pg. 600.)

Patients — Profoundly Grateful, Indeed, Yet

Perhaps Over -enthusiastic.
Organs of Credulity Marvelously Developed.
Mrs. Eddy has identified her system with
the Holy Ghost, writing, "The Science of God

and man is the Holy Ghost/' ('^ Unity of
Good/' pg. 52.) But I prefer to hazard a sin
against the Holy Ghost (as Mrs. Eddy con-
ceives him) than to accept absolutely and in-
discriminately all the letters of testimony
quoted by Mrs, Eddy. Some, therefore, I dis-
miss unreservedly as absurd and preposterous.
Their contents contradict the most palpable
experience of our senses and the clearest judg-
ments of our intellect. On page 605 (^'Science
and Health") we find a letter introduced as
^'A Case of Mental Surgery/' in which a dis-
ciple testifies that, lying in the dust with a
broken arm received from a fall, he declared
to himself the truth that there can be no break
in the realm of Divine Love, and forthwith
arose with the bone of his arm perfectly knit-
ted, mounted his bicycle and rode home. I
reject the testimony of this man; nor am I
compelled to present an elaborate argument
for my action any more than I would be held
to oifer proof and reasons for refusing to
believe that a man could stop the roll of the
waves with a pitchfork. A statement mani-
festly absurd needs no refutation.

Other cases may sound surprising and as-
tounding, but we reject them not. They may
lie out of the realm of our own personal expe-
rience; still they violate not reason, and for
their truth we have the testimony and guaran-

89

tee of persons, whose character for knowledge
and veracity is beyond impeachment.

Finally, other cases are produced, which fall
under the ken of our own personal observation,
and for which we find a parallel every day.

Therefore, we concede, and we do it frankly,
that in the temples of Christian Science some
persons have found hope and relief, perhaps
even after the doctors had abandoned them as
beyond the aid of their efforts, and their close
relatives were mournfully calculating the fun-
eral expenses.

Healing Successes Not Due to Religio-
,' metaphysical Theories.

£ Now, what does the fact that a few cures
have been effected, argue I Do they form a
physical demonstration of the truth and valid-
ity of the religio-metaphysical theories of Mrs.
Baker Eddy? This I flatly deny.

Spiritism also, of which Mrs. Baker Eddy
herself remarks, "No greater opposites can be
conceived than Christian Science, Spiritism,
and Theosophy,'' claims cures equally wonder-
ful, or rather seemingly wonderful, and, I judge,
as truthfully as Christian Science. In Utah
the Mormons are said to effect cures without
the administering of medicine. In every neigh-
borhood periodically appears the wonder-
working evangelist ; he claims to be the Mes-

90

siah, though to some he may be known to have
no more conscience than a thieving tom-cat. In
the deserts of Arizona over the sick Indian the
medicine-man chants his weird incantations;
he believes not in Christian Science, and yet
missionaries inform us that his rude efforts are
often attended with marvelous results.

How shall we explain the cures effected by
these various religious healers'? Shall we say
that the devil aids them? No. To the devil
too much credit is already given. Has Heaven
granted them some preternatural power? No.
Their character and methods preclude such a
possibility. Is it in virtue of the truth of their
respective theories regarding the nature of the
Supreme Being and metaphysics (if by a
stretch of the imagination we can associate
metaphysics with a war-painted Indian) ? No.
Their teachings contradict and antagonize one
another, and among contradictories some are
evidently false.

Mind Controls Body.

There must be some other fact that explains
their therapeutic successes, and it is this : they
all— the Utah Mormon, the itinerant evangelist,
the red Indian and Mrs. Baker Eddy — have
laid hold of the truth that mind can control
body, and surrounded it with a mass of fan-
tastic, weird and mutually contradicting terms.

91

They cure, not because their respective relig-
ious teachings are true, for these are absurd
and nonsensical, but because they succeed in
gaining influence over the mind (whether by
telling the truth or falsehood matters not), and
through the mind over the body.

Do we doubt this control of mind over body?
Witness how friend affects friend, the joy or
sorrow of one producing happiness or gloom
in the other. But where find we friends more
intimately connected and closely allied than the
soul and the body? In the moment of concep-
tion the hand of the Creator interlocks them,
and through life they pass, so to speak, hand
in hand. What wonder, then, that the condi-
tion of one affects the disposition of the other.
Is the soul enkindled with anger? Does it
burn with revenge? Witness the body also
affected — the eyes blaze fire, the lips grow blue
and quiver, the cheek is hot and scarlet.

Is the soul seized with fear? Hovers over
it some calamity? Threatens it dire punish-
ment? Witness the body also influenced — the
face is pale and haggard, the lips tremble, the
mouth is parched and dry.

Finally witness the man who thinks his best
efforts blighted. His eyes lose lustre. Keen
disappointment gnaws away his life. But when
to his surprise he beholds a change, and his

92

work blossoms forth into success, those eyes
glisten again with new life and ambition and
pride.

Indigestion Due to Mental Attitude.

These instances from daily life exemplify the
control of mind over body-. Shall we marvel,
then, that it can exercise the same control in
the sphere of therapeutics? The most crude
function in the human body is that of digestion
of food, and yet J. J. Walsh, M. D., informs us
that it is largely under the control of the
soul. As an illustration he quotes the story
of a European traveling in China. On his first
day out from Hongkong he was treated to a
stew of dark meat, which he relished im-
mensely. Desirous of learning its name and
not understanding Chinese, he pointed to the
dish and very suggestively said, '^ Quack!
quack!'' But the waiter negatively shook his
head and added, ''Bow! wow!" It was a most
unfortunate answer to a very unfortunate
question. Undoubtedly the result was pain-
fully unhappy. Still it illustrates that the
attack of indigestion was merely consequent
and due to a mental attitude.

The same observation may be made of other
organs in the body. Prof. Oppenheim (quoted
by J. J. Walsh, M. D.) writes: "The heart
rebels, as it were, against this surveillance.

93

which not only accelerates, but may even in-
hibit its action and render it irregular.

^^And so it is with all the organs of the body
which act spontaneously (automatically or me-
chanically, like a clock) ; they get out of order
and become functionally defective, if, as the
result of the attention and self -observation
directed towards them, impulses flow to them
from the centers of consciousness and will in
the same way as they flow to the organs (e. g.,
the muscles) which are normally under the
control of the will.

^'Whenever you succeed in controlling the
action of your heart by means of introspection,
there flows from your brain to your heart a
current of innervation which disturbs the auto-
matic movement of the organ. You know whom
you have to thank for the irregularity in the
action of your heart. I have frequently proved
this to myself in your case: if I succeeded in
feeling your pulse without your becoming
aware of it, holding your attention by a con-
versation which interested you, the action of
your heart was always absolutely regular. If,
however, I tried it under your control, whilst
your attention was anxiously directed to your
heart, its action at once became irregular, and
you experienced the very unpleasant sensation
of palpitation.'^

94

Change of Mental Attitude Produces Cure of
Body.
As a summary, therefore, we state: An ab-
normal condition of the mind — caused by fear,
disappointment, morbid introspection, worry,
etc. — produces an abnormal condition of the
body. Such is the nature, generally speaking,
of nervous and hysterical disorders. The
functions of the organs have been interfered
with; and this functional derangement we call
a disease. All that is necessary to cure a dis-
ease of this nature is, that the abnormal condi-
tion of the mind be removed.

Enter the Practitioner,

Bearing these facts in mind, let us now
watch the Christian Scientist practitioner ex-
ercise his art. ''With steady, solemn, silent
step'^ he enters the sick room and approaches
the patient. He impresses upon the mind of
the sufferer that his sickness is an illusion; he
removes the disquieting fear of symptoms; he
reanimates that wavering heart with courage
and resistance and hope of recovery. He con-
tinues this ''treatment" until the mind is really
soothed and calmed, and quite naturally he
often succeeds in curing the body.

Conclusion Not Warranted.

Now, does this justify the Eddyite to jump
up, and, his face lighted up with triumph, to

95

exclaim, '^ Behold a cure! a demonstration of
the trnth of Christian Science!" Not at all.
Not so fast, my man ! The attitude of the mind
has been changed. Vain fears have been dis-
sipated; but whether it was accomplished by
telling the truth or the falsehood, is quite a
different question.

Use Christian Science — Prescribe Fire Engine
for Cure of Headache!

You and I are aware that many shrewd
mothers soothe the pain of a crying infant by
handing it a circular cracker with the assur-
ance that it is the moon, — ^that oftentimes doc-
tors cure heartache and headache by prescrib-
ing sugar-pellets and telling the patients that
they are taking powerful drugs. Moreover,
a splitting headache may be torturing you
through the hours of the night, but once your
house begins to burn, and you hear the rumble
of the arriving fire engines, the clanging of the
bells, the hoarse shouts of the firemen, you
forget your head and its ache. Will you now
seriously prescribe a fire engine for the cure
of a headache!

The metaphysical and theological teachings
of Christian Science have as much connection
with the therapeutic successes it claims, as
have the sugar pills, the conflagration, with
the cures enumerated above. In both cases the

96

mind was influenced, and regardless of the way
it was done, still a beneficial effect was pro-
duced in the body.

But shall we suffer ourselves to be treated
like infants holding a cracker in their tiny
hands and believing it to be the moon? Shall
we pay the price of an expensive drug for
plain water with an admixture of a little table
salt*? Shall we swallow morsels of blasphemy,
of absurdity? Shall we be duped and fraudu-
lently deceived to obtain the benefits of mind
cure? Not at all.

Catholic Church Influences Mind, Beneficially
Yet Not Fraudulently.

I appeal to-yqu t^ <?onsider the Sacraments
of the Catholic Church ! Not a Catholic clergy-
man but who can testify to the marvelous
power they exercise over the mind and,
through the mind, upon the body. Witness the
man with his soul laden with sin. No man
knows of his crime committed in the dark
hours of night, yet remorse and keen regret
eat away his vitality and vigor. But once that
man confesses his sin, and God's minister as-
sures him that his soul is purged of guilt, mark
the wondrous change! Calm and peace are
restored; the haggard and worn look disap-
pears; no longer gazes he with furtive and
nervous glance, but stands before the world,
confident and composed.

97

Again, who, having knelt about the Catholic
sick bed, cannot tell of the wonderful effects of
Extreme Unction f In every case this Sacra-
ment produces hope and peace, calm and con-
fidence ; in a considerable number of cases even
bodily health is restored, while doctors stand
about in wonder. Of course it is to be noted
that the Sacraments produce their effect prin-
cipally in virtue of their inherent, supernatural
power.

Finally, the precepts, the promises, the
heroic example of Jesus Christ! If only we
more faithfully carried out the rule of life con-
tained in His Grospels, if only we more confi-
dently hearkened to His words, ''Be not anx-
ious for the morrow!" if only we did not ig-
nore the fact that ''whom the Lord loveth. He
chastiseth," if only we more often meditated
upon the courage and steadfastness with which
He bore the cross on the Via Dolorosa, oh!
never would we be tempted in order to relieve
fretful worries, to drink of the poisonous foun-
tain of Eddyism, but in our own religion we
would discover there abides the secret of god-
liness and the secret of health and contentment
as well.

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SCHEME
OF HEALING.- Continued.

"The dissembler with his tongue deceiveth his friend."
Prov. 11:9.

Slander and calumny have attempted to
fasten upon tlie Jesuits the iniquitous charg-e
of having- taug-ht the principle that the end
justifies the means, — for instance, that a man
in order to acquire a good or avoid an evil jus-
tifiably may resort to lying and duplicity. The
Order of St. Ignatius, however, ever innocent
of the charge, has successfully vindicated its
name in the minds of all, if we except the des-
picable, big-ot-minded and lantern-jawed editors
of the Menace type. In the course of the first
few lectures we unmistakably learned that
Christian Science, so called, preaches the self-
same principle; and in the last lecture we wit-
nessed that it also makes practical use of it.
The ills of many are intimately connected with
an abnormal state of mind. Christian Science
quiets the mind and restores to it peace and
calm. The consequence often is a return of
health to the body. But how has Science

99

soothed the mind? By lying and deceit — by
imposing upon that mind an apostasy from
every Christian teaching and a travesty on all
scientific thought. Still, though we do not
approve but utterly detest the method, we
cannot gainsay that ''Science" sometimes ob-
tains its end, namely, cure of the body.

But not always do unjust means obtain their
end. Often they are employed and no result
follows, since they are entirely inadequate. Or
a good effect may be in evidence, still it is in
no wise due to the evil means, which are inade-
quate, but to another factor.

Cured — Christian Science^ Hoivever, Innocent.

During the past weeks I have been ap-
proached by persons assuring me that within
the circle of their acquaintances are persons
who have been cured by ''Science" of other
diseases than those mentioned in the last lec-
ture. I would answer that I doubt not the
words of their estimable friends in so far as
they state that they have been cured. But if
their diseases were different from those I made
mention of last week, I positively deny that
they can attribute their cure to Christian
Science.

Nature Cures Him.

Witness the ragamuffin in the street. He too
occasionally contracts colds, suffers severe

100

pains, and is affected with fever. Yet he re-
covers without the aid of doctor or nurse, medi-
cine or attention. Did he use Christian Sci-
ence? No. In all probability he possessed not
even a clear idea of it. We say that he re-
covered ''naturally/' meaning- that nature
cured him — and we have voiced the truth.

The Recuperative Potver of Nature.

There resides in the human body a certain
recuperative power called ''vis medicatrix na-
turae." Every living organism of its nature
tends to throw off sickness, and to repair the
ravages inflicted by disease. Sickness is an
abnormal condition of the body, and nature
strives to restore the natural condition, the
equilibrium of health.

Sir John Forbes, an eminent English physi-
cian, is quoted by Dr. Buckley as saying:.
"First, that in a large proportion of the cases
treated by allopathic physicians, the disease" is
cured by nature, and not by them. Second,
that in a lesser but still not a small proportion,
the disease is cured by nature in spite of them ;
in other words, their interference retarding
instead of assisting the cure. Third, that in,
consequently, a considerable proportion of dis-
eases it would fare as well or better with
patients if all remedies — at least all active
remedies, especially drugs — were abandoned.''

191

Again, Sir John Marshall is quoted as say-
ing: ''The Vis Medicatrix Naturae is the agent
to employ in the healing of an ulcer, or the
union of a broken bone; and it is equally true
that the physician and surgeon never cured a
disease; he only assists the natural processes
of cure/' (P. C. Wolcott, B. D.)

Christian Science Steals Credit Due to Nature.

From the testimony of these men — authori-
ties in their profession — we recognize that
many diseases have the tendency to run their
course in the system, and then disappear. This
fact affords Christian Scientists an opportun-
ity to echo a triumph. Just after the disease
has reached its crisis and is about to leave the
body, the Christian Science practitioner ar-
rives. He awards the credit of the cure to
Christian Science, and pockets the patient's
money.

The Eddyite may urge that he prescribed no
medicine. Why then did he accept the money?
He may insist, because he gave him Christian
Science treatment. But I tell you Christian
Science was totally innocent of the patient's
cure. Nature cured the man.

Finally we must discuss the cases, where
Christian Science claims cures, whereas in truth
no cure has been effected.

102

Jesus Christ cured the lame and the blind
and the deaf and the dumb. Nay, He even
commanded Lazarus who lay four days in the
dominion of death to issue from the grave;
and Lazarus laid aside the cerements of death
and came out of the grave — alive. Now, Mrs.
Baker Eddy, claiming to be the equal of Jesus,
must also claim cures equally as wonderful as
were those wrought by Christ. She unhesi-
tatingly does this in a communication to the
New York Sun for Dec. 16, 1891 (as quoted by
F. W. Peabody). She said: ''I challenge the
world to disprove what I hereby declare. After
my discovery of Christian Science, I healed
consumption in its last stages, that the M. D. 's,
by verdict of the stethoscope and the schools,
declared incurable, the lungs being mostly con-
sumed. I healed malignant tubercular diph-
theria and carious bones that could be dented
by the finger, saving them when the surgeon's
instruments were lying on the table ready for
their amputation. I have healed at one visit
a cancer that had so eaten the flesh of the
neck as to expose the jugular vein so that it
stood out like a cord."

Mrs. Eddy Claims Offhand Manufacture of
Lungs.

Mrs. Baker Eddy plainly asserts that in one
visit she pulled out a malignant cancer, manu-

103

factured a new pair of lungs, and produced
new and solid bone. She evidently employed
neither medicine nor knife. Mind healing is
her only method. But I tell you it is equally
impossible for mind to produce a new pair of
lungs as it is for mind to decapitate a man.
I challenge all the Eddyites in the world to
stand at a respectable distance from me, and
merely by power of mind to take my head off
my shoulders. It is equally impossible for
mind to knit a fractured bone as it is for mind
to break that bone.

A Christian Science Expedition to War-Stricken
Europe Suggested.

Moreover, if present-day Christian Scientists
have inherited the power of their '^Mother,''
and if the case of ''Mental Surgery'' recorded
in "Science and Health,'' page 605, is based
on fact and truth, why do they not embark on
an expedition of mercy to war-torn Europe?
Shot and shrapnel and bayonet and sabre have
wounded and maimed millions of valiant men —
husbands and sons. Countries like France and
Germany have been converted into vast Red
Cross camps. What a wave of rejoicing would
not sweep over those lands, what towering
monuments, as tokens of gratitude for help
accorded in the darkest hour, would not be
erected, if a corps of Christian Science healers

104

would pass down between those long rows of
beds, where lie the wounded and the mutilated,
and send them off, as rapidly as Mother Eddy
effected her cures, skipping and rejoicing with
new pairs of legs and arms ! If lungs can be
completely restored, why not legs?

Cork Leg, Not Christian Science, Benefited Him.

A. B. Dixon writes that a certain Christian
Science practitioner attempted surgery of this
nature in New England, possibly because she
believed charity begins at home— on this side
of the Atlantic. Noticing a veteran painfully
limping past her door morning after morning,
she determined to give him absent treatment.
Highly gratified, indeed, was this good woman
a few days later to see the limp disappear. She
informed the veteran that his cure was due to
the absent treatment she had administered. He
agreed not fully with her, but preferred to give
credit for his being better able to walk to the
newly acquired cork leg, which he had substi-
tuted for his old, clumsy wooden leg. Whether
this cure also was heralded in the Christian
Science publications as a new triumph for
Eddyism or not, A. B. Dixon informs us not.
Still even in case it were, it would possess
every ounce of sense and truth that scores of
others recorded in the patent-medicine-litera-
ture chapter, "Fruitage,'^ possess.

105

The species of suggestion used by Christian
Science can be of avail only as far as the mind
can exercise an influence over the body. But
when an organ of the human body is injured,
torn, bruised, the mind is completely powerless,
and so are all the efforts of Christian Science.

Symptoms Associated ivith Organic Disease

Often Disappear with Change of Mental

Attitude. Organic Disease Remains.

We are fully aware that with serious organic
diseases there are often associated symptoms
occasionally more difficult to bear than the dis-
ease itself. Upon learning that he is afflicted
with an incurable organic disease, the patient
often suffers a depression of spirit, loss of
hope of recovery, indigestion. These adventi-
tious symptoms are often attributed to the
organic disease, whereas in fact they are due
to the mental condition. Having been caused
by the mind, mental healing may aid in remov-
ing them. The deplorable fact, however, is,
that many persons believe that with the dis-
appearance of the adventitious symptoms, the
underlying disease also has been cured, — which
is false.

Christian Science Creates for Its Votaries a
Fool's Paradise.

There is truth in the saying that a person
can fool himself. No doubt hearing the words.

106

*^There is no body, no sickness/' continually
dinned into his ears, many a one begins to
believe himself cured, whereas the disease re-
mains. P. C. Wolcott makes the statement that
this form of suggestion can take on so potent
a form, that it results in hypnosis. Under this
hypnosis a person may be entirely unaware that
his normal psychical balance has been disturbed
and still be rendered completely insensible
to pain. In the Cosmopolitan Magazine for
March, 1907, the Earl of Dunamore, over his
own signature, tells how Christian Science
healed him of a disease, which the most emi-
nent physicians in London had pronounced in-
curable. Yet hardly had the magazine gotten
into the hands of the subscribers, and just
as thousands were reading his statement re-
garding his cure, the Earl of Dunamore died
of the very same incurable disease. He may
have learnt in Eddyism to repeat the equation,
^^ Accident, sickness, sin, disease and pain are
equal to zero," but, alas, that made them not
zero.

The Modern Moloch.

Tragedies of this nature are occurring daily ;
and this forms one of the darkest phases of the
Christian Science healing activities. Mothers
are persuaded not to invoke the aid of a phy-

107

sician when their children are perhaps dying
before their eyes ; nay, people gasping on their
death beds, are still taught to hug the delu-
sion, ''There is no death.'' True, just before
the last breath is to be drawn a doctor may be
summoned. But why! To obtain the death
certificate. If the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals obtains a warrant of
arrest for the miser neglecting to feed his
horse and permitting the brute to starve to
death, why does not civilized society rise up
against these practitioners of fraud, who per-
mit hundreds of human beings to perish by
wilful and culpable neglect — often equivalent
to murder — of the God-given remedies for dis-
ease and pain?

Dr. Stephen Paget Describes the Tragedies in
the Shadow of Christian Science.

I do not deem the words of Dr. Stephen
Paget too strong, in presenting this dangerous
phase of Eddyism, when he writes: ''They
bully dying women, and let babies die in pain;
let cases of paralysis tumble about and hurt
themselves; let appendicitis go on to septic
peritonitis, gastric ulcer to perforation of the
stomach, nephritis to uremic convulsions, and
strangulated hernia to the miserere mei of gan-
grene; watch, day after day, while a man or
woman slowly bleeds to death; and compel

108

them who should be kept still to take exercise.
To these works of the devil they bring their
one deft, wilful and complete ignorance ; and
their 'nursing' would be a farce if it were not
a tragedy. Such is the way of Christian Sci-
ence, face to face, as she loves to be, with bad
cases of organic disease.

''Seeing the gross and shameful malprac-
tices of Christian Science, and the long trail
of pain and of death that she leaves behind
her, and her impudent concealment of all her
failures and worse than failures, and her
notion that all diseases alike are mental, and
none of them in reality there; and her mad
resolve never to examine a case or read a
medical book, or look at a specimen, or take
a temperature, or listen to a chest, or use a
microscope, or acknowledge any difference be-
tween ordinary backache and spinal caries, be-
tween functional paralysis and organic paraly-
sis, between indigestion and cancer of the
stomach; between pain in the breast and can-
cer of the breast; and her frequent cruelty,
especially to small children; and her brutal
way of saying that her patients die of want
of understanding what she tells them — seeing
all these abominations, we ought to prevent
even the faintest shadow of them from falling
across our church. '^ (Quoted by C. E. Locke.)

109

Mrs. Eddy an Emhodiment of the Falsity of the
Teachings of Christia^i Science.

As a final demonstration of the inability of
the Christian Science scheme of healing to
make good its extravagant claims, I point to
the person of Mrs. Baker Eddy. If she were
free from the attacks of disease and inroads of
infirmity and age, why during the closing years
of her life did she conceal her person from
public gaze and view! If Christian Science
affords a constant security for interior serenity
and peace, why near the end of her days did
she give evidence of being either insane or
obsessed? Those intimately associated with
her testify that she lived her last days in
mortal dread of enemies, who she thought were
mentally hurling cancer against her. A former
student of Christian Science and a resident in
the Metaphysical College with Mrs. Eddy,
writes: "Mrs. Eddy was constantly having at-
tacks of illness (always in the night). We
were often called up about eleven o'clock at
night to treat her, and were obliged to remain
up until about two o'clock a. m. These attacks,
we were told, were brought on by the ^ enemy,'
working through us, as her students. She
claimed that the only way the ^ enemy' could
reach her was through her students, she being
so strong and so pure that their 'malicious

110

animal magnetism' could not reach her in any
other way. So we used to go into the parlor,
after breakfast and supper, each day, and men-
tally 'take up the enemy/ We were taught to
recognize the error, and treat ourselves and
the 'enemy,' so that they ('the enemy') could
have no power over us, or our patients; and
every time we gave the treatments we were
taught to first 'treat the enemy.'

"The result of all this was, that Mrs. Eddy
was always full of fear; as the 'enemy' were
supposed to have power to prevent all kinds
of desired results, not only in healing, but in
business, as well.

"I was taught that the postal clerks were
so mesmerized that letters to and from the
College would never reach their destination
unless certain conditions were complied with;
also that the telegraph operators were so under
this malicious influence that a message sent by
telegraph would not reach the person to whom
it was sent unless certain precautions were
taken. I was once sent from her house to West
Newton to forward a telegraph message to
Chicago, so that it would be sent by way of
Worcester, instead of Boston, as all Boston
operators were supposed to be so mesmerized
by the 'enemy' that no message from Mrs. Eddy
could reach its destination, if sent through

Ill

their hands. And so I might run on for hours,
giving you facts about such things.

^'I was told to treat the ^ enemy' (Kennedy,
Arnes, Choate and Childs) to cause their ^old
beliefs' to return, 'and prostrate them at once!'
'Old beliefs' meant former diseases, from
which they had been healed, in some cases
even tumors and cancers." (Quoted by F. W.
Peabody.)

Do not the events, recounted above, demon-
strate that the mind of Mrs. Eddy was fairly
ridden by the witchcraft delusion! Can we
imagine anyone acting in the manner described,
save a person possessed by the devil or hope-
lessly insane?

The Death of Mrs. Eddy a Proof of the Failure

of Christian Science. The Spectre

of Eddyism.

Finally an attack of pneumonia seized Mrs.
Eddy. Whether she employed Christian Sci-
ence healing or invoked the aid of a doctor of
medicine, I know not. This much is history:
Mrs. Eddy perished, was laid out a stiff corpse,
was buried, and rose not again from the dead.
Her death is the last stab, the mortal blow, to
her heartless and cruel fraud. Her own person
has refuted its claims, — and over her grave
tonight stands the system she has founded, a
robber appropriating the science of mind heal-

112

ing, which was already practiced in the land of
the Nile when the pyramids were building, a
merciless fraud claiming cures when none are
effected, an absolute failure, as attested by the
hundreds of tombstones that mark the graves
of the deluded ones, who until their dying
breath clung to Eddyism, turned their faces
from the physician, and in their folly met their
death.

MORAL BLEMISHES DISQUALIFY THE
CLAIMS OF MRS. EDDY

"And through covetousncss shall they zvith feigned zuords
make merchandise of you." II Peter 2:3.

The creatures, whom God in love created,
rose in defiance and rebellion. The light of
God's countenance, in consequence, was with-
drawn from them, and men wandered into the
darkness of error and superstition, many fall-
ing by the wayside, fatigued and dying.

"Which of You Can Convince Me of Sinf"

Before His Father's throne stepped the Son
of God. His resolve, as noble as only a God
could conceive it, was to become our Redeemer.
He came in appearance as the Son of Joseph,
the carpenter, — and yet men of unprejudiced
will have accepted Him as the Messiah. Why!
Because He raised the infirm from their beds
of sickness, and called the dead from the sleep
of the tomb; because He preached a dogmatic
and moral teaching in which blend the beauty
of truth and the sweetness of charity; because,
finally. His life and conduct in unrivaled man-

114

ner corresponded with the sublime ideals Ho
propounded, so that His bitterest and most
malignant enemies could not answer the chal-
lenge, * ' Which of you can convince Me of sin ? ' '

Mrs. Eddy Claims a Divine Revelation.

Wellnigh nineteen centuries later appeared
Mrs. Baker Eddy. In no uncertain terms she
laid claim to having received a special divine
revelation, writing of herself, '^God had been
graciously preparing me during many years
for the reception of this final revelation of the
absolute divine Principle of scientific mental
healing." (''Science .and Health,'' pg. 107.)
''No human pen nor tongue taught me the
Science contained in this book, 'Science and
Health'; and neither tongue nor pen can over-
throw it." ("Science and Health," pg. 110.)

This final revelation she intimates to be
superior to the teachings of Christ, when she
writes: "Our Master healed the sick and
taught the generalities of His Divine Princi-
ple; but He left no definite rule for demon-
strating His Principle of healing and prevent-
ing disease. This remained to be discovered
through Christian Science." ("Science and
Health," pg. 98, 1898 ed.) As a consequence
Mrs. Eddy designated her gospel and religion
as the completion and plenitude of God's reve

115

lation, and identified it with the Holy Ghost.
''The ego is revealed as Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost; but the full truth is found in divine
Science, where we see God as Life, Truth, and
Love. The Science of God and man is the
Holy Ghost.'' ("Unity of Good," pgs. 51 and
52.)

Conduct Not Indifferent to the Claims of
Mrs. Eddy.

Conduct and character cannot be indifferent
relative to the mission claimed by Mrs. Baker
Eddy. We shall, hence, briefly consider Mrs.
Eddy's life, and witness, whether or not she
was qualified to be God's ambassador "to pro-
claim His doctrine to this age." ("Science
and Health," Preface XL)

Hears Voices, When Not Called.

Mrs. Eddy was born near Concord, N. H.,
in 1821. As a child she is described by Sybil
Wilbur to have been precocious, emotional and
argumentative. When she was twelve years
old she began to hear voices and fancied her-
self called by her mother when she was not.

Mrs. Eddy informs us that when a girl she
was graduated from Dyer H. Sanborn's Acad-
emy. But, according to her old schoolmates,
the "institution" which Mrs. Eddy dignified
with the name "academy" was merely a large

116

room over a district school, where the children
received little instruction, — never in fact get-
ting beyond the three R's. (F. W. Peabody.)

Mrs. Eddy Lays Claim to a Classical and
Philosophical Education!?

Mrs. Eddy claims to have received a classi-
cal education, telling us that her brother
taught her Latin, Greek and Hebrew. She
was, according to her own testimony, at the
tender age of twelve also a student of philos-
ophy,— ethics and logic being the branches of
predilection. But the least we can say is, that
her progress in these various branches must
have come to a sudden stop. Logic above all
is exceedingly conspicuous in her writings — by
its absence.

Mrs. Eddy Visits Dr. Quimby. She Eulogizes
Him.

After dabbling in Spiritism and Mesmerism,
and practicing clairvoyance, she formed an
acquaintance with Doctor (doctor by courtesy
only) Phineas Quimby.

Dr. Quimby 's method of healing was a spe-
cies of suggestion. Besides the practical part
of his system, Dr. Quimby had elaborated a set
of abstract doctrines, both metaphysical and
theological. Mrs. Eddy describes the first visit
she paid Dr. Quimby and the cure he wrought

117

in her in an article to the Portland E veiling
Courier for Nov. 7, 1862. ''Three weeks ago,'^
she writes, ''I quitted my nurse and sick room
en route for Portland. The belief of my re-
covery had died out of the heart of those who
were most anxious for it. With this mental
and physical depression I visited P. P. Quimby,
and in less than one week from that time I
ascended by a stairway of one hundred and
eighty-two steps to the dome of the City Hall,
and am improving ad infinitum. This truth
which he opposes to the error of giving intel-
ligence to matter and placing pain where it
never placed itself, if received understand-
ingly, changes the currents of the system to
their normal action and the mechanism of the
body goes on undisturbed. That this is a
science capable of demonstration becomes clear
to the minds of those patients who reason upon
the process of their cure. The truth which he
establishes in the patient, cures him (although
he may be wholly unconscious thereof), and
the body, which is full of light, is no longer in
disease." (F. W. Peabody.)

Mrs. Eddy Scorns Dr. Quimhy.

About twenty-five years later Mrs. Baker
Eddy wrote of this same Dr. Quimby: ''I never
heard him intimate that he healed diseases
mentally. His healing was never considered

118

or called any thing but Mesmerism." {Chris-
tian Science Journal, June, 1887.)

Why the Change of Sentiment? What Fears
Mrs. Eddyf

Now why this change of attitude on the part.
of Mrs. Baker Eddy towards Dr. Quimby?
Did she grow afraid that the world would
doubt her claim that Heaven had revealed
Christian Science to her, and would believe
that she had stolen and learnt the- theory and
practice of Christian Science from Dr. Quimbyf
F. W. Peabody and other writers accuse Mrs.
Baker Eddy of this charge.

God-given, or Stolen from Br. Quimhy?

Dr. Quimby with the aid of friends managed
to set forth his doctrine in a series of essays,
which he communicated to his patients, also
to Mrs. Eddy. These essays contain in sub-
stance what comprises the theorizings of Mrs.
Eddy in later years ; their terminology is often
identical with that in ''Science and Health";
and in various places Dr. Quimby calls his
system "Christian Science."

Mrs. Eddy's Claims Rejected. She Lacks
Truthfulness.

Mrs. Eddy denies any obligation to Dr.
Quimby, but having established a long record

119

for lying regarding her early education, re-
garding the cures she alleges in the fictitious
chapter entitled ''Fruitage,'' having flipflopped
from the position of adoring Dr. Quimby as
the one ''who healed as Jesus healed" to the
position of scorning him and calling him "a
magnetic doctor," how can we take her word
relative to the origin of her religion, which
she claims to have received as a revelation
from Heaven? One of the first requisites that
we demand in a person claiming to be an am-
bassador of God to men is truthfulness. Is
truthfulness, however, apparent in Mrs. Baker
Eddy's character!

Second Feature Deeply Compromising Mrs.
Eddy's Moral Record.

The second feature in Mrs. Eddy's life dis-
qualifying her claim to a Divine mission, is her
remorseless, rapacious greed.

Preaches for Cash.

As stated, Mrs. Eddy announced to the world
that she had received from Heaven a doctrine
necessary for salvation to all men. The truths
of this new revelation she taught at the follow-
ing rates: First at whatever price she could
exact; then one hundred dollars in advance,
with ten per cent, royalty on the students' sub-
sequent income from practice, and one thou-

120

sand dollars if, having learned the system, he
did not care to practice it; then three hundred
dollars for twelve lessons ; and finally three
hundred dollars for seven lessons — cash strictly
in advance. (F. W. Peabody.)

Fifty-cent Book Sold at the Price of Three to
Six Dollars. Neiv Editions Periodically.

Moreover, Mrs. Eddy also wrote a book in
which she embodied her '' God-given'' doctrine.
From three to six dollars, according to bind-
ing, was continuously the charge for the book.
Each teacher of Christian Science and each
teacher's student was required to procure a
copy. Mrs. Eddy was accustomed to receive
new gushes of inspiration. This meant a new
edition of ''Science and Health"; whereupon
every loyal Christian Scientist was expected
to discard the old copy and procure the latest
edition. Thus in February, 1908, was pub-
lished, over the signature of Mrs. Eddy, the
following notice (quoted by F. W. Peabody) :

i i

TAKE NOTICE

''I request Christian Scientists universally
to read the paragraph beginning at line thirty
of page 442 in the edition of 'Science and
Health,' which will be issued, February 29.
I consider the information there given to be of
great importance at this stage of the workings

121

of animal magnetism, and it will greatly aid
the students in their individual experiences.

''Mary. Baker G. Eddy."

The new edition came forth. What was the
new gush of ''inspiration"? This: "Christian
Scientists, be a law to yourselves, that mental
malpractice can harm you neither when asleep
nor when awake." For this bit of information
every obedient Christian Scientist procured the
latest edition and paid from three to six dol-
lars into the coffers of "inspired" Mrs. Eddy.

Christian Science Spoons.

Finally Mrs. Eddy imparted Christian Sci-
ence by the spoonfuls. The following command
was issued (quoted by F. W. Peabody) :
"Christian Science Spoons — On each of these
most beautiful spoons is a motto in bas-relief
that every person on earth needs to hold in
thought. Mother requests that Christian Sci-
entists shall not ask to be informed what this
motto is, but each Scientist shall purchase at
least one spoon, and those who can afford it,
one dozen spoons, that their families may read
this motto at every meal and their guests be
made partakers of its simple truth.

"Mary Baker Eddy."

122

A Consistent Record for Greed Disqualifies the
Claims of Mrs. Eddy.

We have stated the facts : let" us now draw
the conclusions. Shall we believe this woman
who reduced religion to a business asset, who
descended to mammonish expedients to trick
her victims, who imparted to them ^^ divine
revelation'' by the earfuls and eyefuls and
mouthfuls for profit in dollars and cents, shall
we believe her, I ask, to be the one selected
from among the children of men by God Al-
mighty to be His ambassador and teacher in
this late age?

Mrs. Eddy Compared to Jesus Christ, the
Savior.

Mrs. Eddy claims equality with, nay, supe-
riority to the Messiah. Now imagine Jesus
Christ preaching to the multitudes in the ham-
lets of Palestine at a fixed price per hour, —
fancy Him healing the wretched and the sick
for cash to be paid in advance, — see Him rush-
ing them into court if they failed to live up to
the contract, — conceive Him instructing His
disciples in the truths eternal upon payment
of a heavy fee, and then commissioning them
to go into the whole world, and to preach His
Gospel for gold and silver, a percentage, how-
ever, of their earnings to be returned to Him, —
finally contemplate Him, not dying in stark and

123

naked poverty on the cross, bnt spending the
last years of His life amid a splendor rivaling
that of Herod's court, — then I say yon have a
faint type of Mrs. Baker Eddy, the religio-
medical financier!

Heaven Inspired Her to Charge a Heavy Fee If

In ''Eetrospection and Introspection'' (page
50) Mrs. Eddy writes: "When God impelled
me to set a price on my instruction in Chris-
tian Science Mind-healing, I could think of no
financial equivalent for an impartation of a
knowledge of that divine power which heals;
but I was led to name three hundred dollars as
the price for each pupil in one course of les-
sons at my College, — a startling sum for tui-
tion lasting barely three weeks. This amount
greatly troubled me. I shrank from asking
it, but was finally led, by a strange providence,
to accept this fee."

Tender Soul! Providence to Blame.

This an inspiration from Heaven? No. It
is another sleight-of-hand trick on the part of
Mrs. Eddy. She pulls the black cap tighter
over the eyes of her victims, thus the better
to pick their pockets. Conceive, if you can,
the Almighty God bending down from His
throne and whispering into the ear of Mrs.
Eddy to charge Three Hundred Dollars! Ten-

124

der soul! she draws back. It would bleed her
heart to take three hundred dollars. But God
persists, and finally, slowly and reluctantly
Mother Eddy yields. Later on God showed
her, she writes, '4n multitudinous ways the
wisdom of this decision.'' True there was
wisdom in it — commercial wisdom ! Mrs. Eddy
herself writes that within seven years four
thousand students were taught by her. Four
thousand times three hundred equals one mil-
lion two hundred thousand. One million two
hundred thousand dollars gained within seven
years !

The God of Christianity Not the God of
Christian Science.

If God were the God that Mrs. Eddy por-
trayed Him to be, — a God who in ten times ten
pages contradicts Himself one hundred times, a
God who reveals to Mrs. Eddy a doctrine in
diametrical contradiction to the dogmatical and
moral teachings which He delivered to the chil-
dren of Israel through His Prophet Moses, and
finally to all the children of the world through
His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, I say, if
God were such a God, then I hesitate not to
believe that He would condescend to give to
Mrs. Eddy a gospel that should serve merely
for her own pecuniary profit. But such a God
is a monstrositv, a God of deceit and falsehood

125

and mammon. Mammon and Power — these
were the twin gods before whom Mrs. Eddy
worshiped, for whom she lived and labored, and
who inspired her.

No Injustice Done. Evidence Lies in the Open.

From this world Mrs. Eddy has already
passed. Her naked soul has been judged be-
fore the tribunal of Him whose love she ex-
ploited, namely, Jesus Christ. We wish her
mercy at His hands. But for the deeds, the
fraud, she inaugurated and which today her
successors are perpetuating, words fail me to
express contempt sufficiently deep. Harsh
words have I uttered regarding Mrs. Eddy. I
regret them not nor do I feel constrained to
offer an apology.

No Harsh Words for Christian Scientists.

For her followers, those, namely, who have
been honestly deluded into the snares of Chris-
tian Science, we feel only compassion. They
have done violence to their reason; they have
handed themselves over to Eddyism, bound
hands and feet; they have prostrated them-
selves before a Christ existing only in the
dreams of a scheming woman; and, most piti-
able of all, their case is hopeless, for genuine
investigation is forbidden to them.

126

Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

High-browed Scientists may pity us, for the
reason that we are not intelligent enough to
grasp the deep meaning of Mrs. Eddy's phil-
osophy, not spiritual enough to appreciate the
blessings that God has entrusted to her for the
welfare of mankind. I confess that I experi-
ence difficulty in following Mother Eddy in her
wild flights of fancy and zigzag course of rea-
soning. But if I be unable to grasp the mean-
ing of her words, I can at least understand
the meaning of her actions. Actions speak
louder than words. Would, then, these people
— if they dare not question the words of Mrs.
Eddy — at least consider her character? ^^No
doubt, as a woman of extraordinary nervous
tension, she could be rather fascinating in her
happier moods. But what could be more fool-
ish and aberrant than to permit impressions
derived from any superficial self-manifestation
to weigh against the moral blemishes with
which her career is broadly streaked? Insight
into the nature of the actual record must make
it appear as one of the most amazing misad-
justments in all religious history that this
woman should be brought into temples of wor-
ship and placed there, as respects the authority
of her teaching, on a level with Jesus Christ. ''
(H. C. Sheldon.)

127

Final Word to Catholics. Genuine Christian
Science.

To ye, Catholics, one last word I address.
You are convinced that Christian Science is not
of God, — else this moment you are no longer
Catholics. The only allurement that can entice
you into the fold of Eddyism is a specious
promise of health. But even if Eddyism pos-
sessed the monopoly of mental healing, are you
prepared for health of body, which like the
grass of the field perishes and fades, to sacri-
fice your intellect and your faith — your faith
that you recognize and love as Divine — and
hazard your souPs eternal salvation?

But, as a matter of fact, every healing expe-
dient that Christian Science possesses can be
paralleled in your own Church. Not a genuine
truth in Christian Science, but which is found
in the teachings of the Catholic Church. If
you, and the world, be ignorant of this fact,
then the fault lies not with the Church, but
with your ignorance.

The Catholic Church teaches that God is the
Supreme Good, that His Goodness endowed us
with life and being, that '4n Him we live and
move and are.^'

The Catholic Church teaches that God de-
scended to this earth and dwelt amongst us,
that he imparted to us a doctrine lighting up

128

the way to our eternal destiny, that He insti-
tuted external signs, the seven Sacraments, to
benefit not only our souls, but also our bodies.
The Catholic Church teaches that we are not
God, but that God dwells within us by His
Holy Spirit and in the Holy Eucharist; that,
though we cannot be the sons of God by
nature, nevertheless, He calls us to be His sons
by adoption, and joint-heirs with Christ.

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