The Truth About Christian Science
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Scenes and Sayings in the Life of Christ.
A Summer Across the Sea.
The World a Spiritual System: An Outline of
Metaphysics.
The Basal Beliefs of Christianity.
The Psychology of Religion.
Can We Believe in Immortality?
The Coming of the Lord: Will It Be Pre-
millennial.''
Is THE World Growing Better?
A Wonderful Night.
The Personality of God.
Twelve Gates: A Study in Catholicity.
^^^H OF Pm.7:
JUN
THE Truth ABicm^i^
Christian science
The Founder and the Faith
By JAMES H. SNOWDEN
PHILADELPHIA
THE WESTMINSTER PRESS
1920
Copyright. 1920
By F. M. BRASELMAN
PREFACE
The author of this book is well aware that it falls
among those "obnoxious books" which the founder of
Christian Science forbade her followers to read in her
endeavor by her censorship to protect them from any
influence or light coming from outside the closed circle of
her own books and other approved writings. It is not
therefore written primarily for Christian Scientists, but
if any of them should look into it, it is not thought they
will find just ground of offense, however strong may be
their dissent. It is difficult to be permanently offended
with facts.
Every important statement in this book relating to the
founder and faith of Christian Science is supported by
quotations from her writings or is based upon trust-
worthy evidence. The most serious allegations per-
taining to Mrs. Eddy are sustained by her own words
found in her acknowledged writings, for in such matters
she is always the most damaging witness against herself.
The author throughout this book has let Mrs. Eddy
speak fairly for herself. Her teaching is entitled to a
patient and even sympathetic hearing in its own behalf
before any judgment is passed upon it. The author
really had no particular prejudice against it when he
began this investigation, and when asked by the publishers
to write a book on it was even inclined to let Christian
Science alone as a rather harmless vagary, and he formed
his judgments of it as he proceeded with this study. It
vi PREFACE
was close acquaintance with and insight into its real
nature that led him to see that it is a graver error than
he had supposed.
If anyone asks for the justification for another book on
this subject, the author answers that he had doubts on
this point himself until he began to look into its literature
and then saw that there appears to be no book that
covers the whole ground of the founder and the faith and
brings its history up to the present time. This book not
only endeavors to do this, but also as a distinctive feature
seeks to see the elements of truth in Christian Science
and recover them to their full use. It is a story that has
often been told, but it will no doubt need to be told again
and again and brought up to date and subjected to the
criticism of new light.
J. H. S.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Introduction 1
1. Truth and Error in Religion
2. Truth and Error in Christian Science
3. Literature of the Subject
II. The Subsoil of Christian Science 14
1. Philosophical Idealism
2. New England Transcendentalism
3. Faith Healing and Spiritualism
III. Life of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy 22
1. Early Years
2. Early Marriages
3. Wander Years
4. At Work in Lynn
5. Enter: Asa Gilbert Eddy, Third Husband
6. Lawsuits at Lynn
7. Malicious Animal Magnetism
8. Life in Boston
9. Retirement and Closing Years
IV. Where Did Mrs. Eddy Get Her System of Healing? 58
1. Mrs. Eddy's Claims
2. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
3. Rev. Warren F. Evans, First Expositor of Quimby
4. Mrs. Eddy's Relations with Dr. Quimby.
5. Mrs. Eddy's Denial of Dependence on Quimby
V. "Science and Health": The Making of the Book. . 77
1. Contents of the Quimby Manuscript
2. Editions of "Science and Health"
3. Who Wrote the Book?
4. Enter: Reverend James Henry Wiggin, Literary Reviser
5. Mrs. Eddy's Claims to Divine Inspiration
VI. "Science and Health": The Contents of the Book . 102
1. Prayer
2. Atonement and Eucharist
3. Marriage
4. Christian Science Versus Spiritualism
5. Animal Magnetism Unmasked
vii
viii CONTENTS
PAGE
6. Science, Theology, Medicine
7. Physiology
8. Footsteps of Truth
9. Creation
10. Science of Being
11. Some Objections Answered
12. Christian Science Practice
13. Teaching Christian Science
14. Recapitulation
15. Genesis
16. The Apocalypse
17. Glossary
18. Fruitage
VII. Christian Science Teaching 149
1. Its Fundamental Denials
(1) Matter
(2) Sickness
(3) Pain and Pleasure
(4) Sin
(5) Death
(6) Moral Tendencies of These Denials
2. The Pantheism of Christian Science
3. Christian Science and Marriage
4. Christian Science and Christian Doctrines
(1) God
(2) Creation
(3) Man
(4) Christ
(5) The Holy Spirit
(6) Matter, Sickness, Suffering, Sin, and Death
(7) Prayer
(8) Atonement
(9) Ordinances
(10) Marriage
(11) The Bible
(12) Healing
(13) Eschatology
VIII. The Christian Science Church 174
1. The Founding of the Church of Christ Scientist
2. Dissensions in the Christian Science Church
3. Organization of the Christian Science Church
4. Christian Science Church Service
5. What Is the Membership of the Christian Science
Church?
CONTENTS
PAGE
IX. Mind Healing and Christian Science Cures .... 223
1. Mind Healing in General
2. Have Miraculous Cures Ceased.'
3. Christian Science Cures
4. The Mercenary Aspect of Christian Science
X. The Appeal OF Christian Science 259
1. The Appeal of Health
2. The Appeal of Comfort
3. The Appeal of Idealism
4. The Appeal of Liberal Revolt
5. The Appeal of Religion
6. The Future of Christian Science
7. Some Recent Mind Healing Movements
(1) New Thought
(2) The Emmanuel Church Movement
XI. Old Truths Newly Emphasized 287
1. The Supremacy of the Spiritual
2. The Gospel of Health
3. The Duty of Cheerfulness
4. The Practice of the Presence of God.
WORKS CONSULTED
Bates, J. H., Christian Science and Its Problems, 1898.
Benson, Robert Hugh, A Book of Essays, 1916.
Berkeley, George, The Principles of Human Knowledge, Krauth's
Edition.
BowNE, Borden P., The Immanence of God, 1905.
Brown, William Leon, Christian Science Falsely So Called, 1911.
Buckley, James M., Faith Healing, Christian Science and Kindred
Phenomena, 1892,
Cabot, Richard C, Article on "One Hundred Christian Science
Cures," in McClure's Magazine, August, 1908.
Calkins, Mary Whiton, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, 1907.
Carpenter, William B., Mental Physiology, 1874.
Carroll, H, K., The Religious Forces of the United States, 1912.
Carroll, Robert S., The Soul in Suffering, 1919.
Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark Twain), Christian Science, 1907.
Coakeley, Thomas J., Christian Science and the Catholic Church,
1912.
Combs, George Hamilton, Some Latter-Day Religions, 1899.
Cooksey, N. B., Christian Science Under the Searchlight, 1915.
Coombs, J. V., Religious Delusions, 1904.
Coppage, L. J., Christian Science in the Light of Reason, 1914.
Coriat, Isador H., Religion and Medicine, 1907.
CuTTEN, George Barton, The Psychological Phenomena of Chris-
tianity, 1908.
Dresser, Horatio W., Health andthe Inner Life, 1906; A Physician
of the Soul, 1908; The Philosophy of the Spirit, 1908; The
History of the New Thought Movement, 1919.
Dresser, Julius A., The True History of Mental Science, 1887.
Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker G., Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures, 1916; Retrospection and Introspection, 1891; Unity
of Good and Unreality of Evil, 1915; Pulpit and Press, 1915;
Rudimental Divine Science, 1915; No and Yes, 1915; Christian
Healing and the People's Idea of God, 1912; Christian Science
versus Pantheism, 1912; Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1898;
The First Church of Christ Scientist and Miscellany, 1914;
The Manual of the Mother Church, 1919.
Edwards, Maurice D., Christian Science Reviewed, 1906.
Farnsworth, Edward C, The Sophistries of Christian Science, 1909;
The Passing of Mary Baker Eddy, 1911.
Fiske, a. a., a Searchlight on Christian Science, 1913,
WORKS CONSULTED xi
Flower, B. O., Christian Science as a Religious Belief and a Thera-
peutic Agent, 1909.
Frothingham, Octavious Brooks, Transcendentalism in New
England, 1897.
Gray, James M., The Antidote of Christian Science, 1907.
Greenbaum, Leon, Folloto Christ, 1916.
Haldeman, I. M., Christian Science in the Light of Holy Scripture,
1909.
Harris, Walter S., Christian Science and the Ordinary Man, 1917.
Hegeman, J. WiNTHROP, Must Protestantism Adopt Christian
Science? 1914.
Hudson, Thomas Jay, The Law of Mental Medicine, 1903.
James, William W., The Principles of Psychology, 1893.
Johnson, Thomas Gary, Some Modern Isms, 1919.
Kratzer, G. a.. Spiritual Man, 1914.
KuHNS, Oscar, The Sense of the Infinite, 1908.
Ladd, George T., Outlines of Physiological Psychology, 1893.
Lambert L. A., Christian Science Before the Bar of Reason, 1908.
Larson, Christian D., The Good Side of Christian Science, 1916.
Lea, Charles Herman, A Plea for the Thorough and Unbiassed In-
vestigation of Christian Science, 1915.
McComb, Samuel, Religion and Medicine, 1907.
Mackay, W. Mackintosh, The Disease and Remedy of Sin, 1919.
Mars, Gerhardt, The Interpretation of Life: Relation of Modern
Culture to Christian Science, 1908.
Marshall, Henry Rutgers, Mind and Conduct, 1919.
Marsten, Francis Edward, The Mask of Christian Science, 1909.
Milmine, Georgine, The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History
of Christian Science, 1909.
MouLTON T. G., An Exposure of Christian Science, 1906.
Newton, R. Heber, Christian Science, 1899.
Paget, Stephen, The Faith and Works of Christian Science, 1909.
Paulsen, Friedrich, Introduction to Philosophy, 1897.
Payot, Jules, The Education of the Will, 1909.
Peabody, Frederick W., The Religio- Medical Masquerade, 1910.
Pod more, Frank, Mesmerism and Christian Science, 1903.
Powell, Lyman V ., Christian Science,theFaith and Its Founder, 1907.
Purrington, W. a.. Christian Science; An Exposition, 1899.
Riley, Woodbridgk, American Thought from Puritanism to Prag-
matism,, 1815.
Rydberg, Viktor, The Magic of the Middle Ages, 1879.
Schofield, Alfred T., The Force of Mind; or. The Mental Factor in
Medicine, 1907.
Sears, Clara Endicott, Gleanings from Old Shaker Journals, 1916.
Seward, Theodore F., How to Get Acquainted with God, 1902.
Sheldon, Henry C, Christian Science So-Called, 1913.
Slater, John Roth well, and others. Searchlight on Christian
Science, 1899.
xii WORKS CONSULTED
Stetson, Augusta E., Give God the Glory, 1911; Vital Issues in
Christian Science, 1914.
Sturge, M. Carta, The Truth and Error of Christian Science.
Swain, Richard L., The Real Key to Christian Science, 1917.
Thompson, W. Hanna, J5rai7i and Personality, 1919.
Trine, Ralph Waldo, In Tune with the Infinite, 1898; The Aline-
ment of Life, 1913.
Troward, T., The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science, 1915.
War FIELD, Benjamin B., Counterfeit Miracles, 1918.
Weaver, Edward E., Mind and Health with an Examination of
Some Systems of Divine Healing, 1913.
White, Andrew D., History of the Warfare of Science with Theology,
1897.
Whitney, Mrs. A. D. T., The Integrity of Christian Science, 1900.
Wilbur, Sibyl, The Life of Mary Baker Eddy, 1907.
WiLBY, Thomas W., What Is Christian Science? 1915.
Woodbury, Josephine C, War in Heaven: Sixteen Years' Experi-
ence in Christian Science; Article on "The Book and the
Woman" in the Arena, May, 1899.
Worcester, Elwood, Religion and Medicine, 1907; The Living
Word, 1908.
Arena, 1899.
Christian Science Journal, 1918, 1919.
Christian Science Sentinel, 1920.
McClures Magazine, 1907, 1908.
Report of Clerical and Medical Committee on Spiritual Healing, 1914.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
— Genesis 1:1.
And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living soul.
— Genesis 2:7.
I have never doubted that fire is hot and that ice is cold.
— Bishop Berkeley.
Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why;
For is He not all but that which has power to feel "I am I."
— Tennyson.
A pseudoscience does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It
contains many truths and even valuable ones. The rottenest bank
starts with a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay
on the strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is commonly a
good .one.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes.
One of the most important of all changes had taken place in the
world — a change in the mode of thinking. The work of Descartes,
Locke, and Sir Isaac Newton had become a common inheritance; the
relation of physical effect with physical cause had become established
even in ignorant and unthinking minds.
— Georgine Milmine
One of the most primitive and fundamental shapes which the
relation of cause and effect takes in the savage mind, is the assumed
connection between disease or death and some malevolent personal
agency. . . The minds of civilized people have become familiar
with the conception of natural law, and that conception has simply
stifled the old superstition as clover chokes out weeds. . , . The
disposition to believe was one of the oldest inheritances of the human
mind, while the capacity for estimating evidence in the cases of
physical causation i§ one of its very latest and most laborious ac-
quisitions.
— John Fiske.
Hereby know ye the spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit
that confesseth not Jesus is not of God.
— / John 4:2
THE TRUTH
ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
It is the purpose of the author of this book to ascertain
and state, as accurately and impartially and fairly as he
can, the facts as to the founder and the faith of Christian
Science. While one cannot wholly escape from the limi-
tations of his personal point of view and from the sub-
jective coloring of his established convictions and un-
conscious preferences, yet objective truth should be his
ideal, and this is the aim and effort of this study.
1. TRUTH AND ERROR IN RELIGION
Religion is our conscious relation to God. All human
beings sustain vital unconscious relations to God, for in
him we necessarily live and move and have our being,
and we could no more escape from his presence and power
than we could slip out of the grip of gravitation. But
it is only as this relation emerges into the field of conscious
life and becomes a matter of personal experience and
choice and action that it becomes rehgion. This experi-
ence is one of the deepest and most universal and vital
facts in our human world, as all history witnesses.
The truth in religion is open to us on the same terms as
1
2 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
truth in other fields: intuition, perception, judgment,
evidence, reasoning, and experience. God is nigh us, even
in our heart. Agnosticism, that peremptorily shuts its
gate against any knowledge of God, is irresistibly battered
down by the reasonings of our minds and the urgencies of
our hearts, and we know God as surely as the child knows
its father, or as the eye sees the sun.
The truth contained in religion is the most vital in the
world, the foundation and framework of all our knowledge
and life. "In the beginning God," is the sublime opening
of the Bible, and it is the beginning of all our science and
philosophy, religion and life. What we think about God
is the bottom principle of all our thinking and shapes
and colors our thoughts on every subject, as the center
of a circle determines every point around its whole cir-
cumference. If we believe in no God, we have a world
without a Cause, a universe without a system and center,
a hopeless confusion and chaos, if not a wild dream of
insanity as well as a colossal cruelty. Give us God, and
the world falls into order and meaning and purpose
around a central throne, and all things work together for
good.
But everything depends on the kind of God we believe
in. Any pantheistic God or impersonal principle or blind
fate does not give us any light but only turns the light
we have into a greater darkness. Our Christian faith
believes in God our heavenly Father, and this fact is its
Rock of ages and its glory. We are "infants crying in
the night,*' and our cry is answered by our Father who
folds us in his everlasting arm, close to his loving heart.
When we have faith in God as our Father we can calm
our perplexed minds and soothe our troubled hearts and
INTRODUCTION 3
be still and know that he is God. This simple faith
solves our problems, makes plain our path, and gives us
strength and courage to resist our temptations and bear
our burdens and win the battle of life.
Yet the field of religion, which yields the most blessed
fruits, also abounds in the most poisonous weeds. Its
very light may turn to darkness, and then *'how great is
that darkness!" The best things are always subject to
the worst perversion and abuse. The science and art
that invent magic machines and multiply material goods
and create all the wonders and splendors of our civilization,
also produce the most diabolical devices of destruction
and death that blast the very face of the earth and destroy
millions of lives. All our education is only a sharp and
cunning tool that bad men can use as powerfully as good
men. The Devil can clothe himself in light seemingly as
pure and beautiful as the holiness of any saint or the
white robes of an angel, and often so artfully as to deceive
the very elect.
It is not surprising, then, but inevitable that religion
should be productive of error as well as of truth, of evil as
well as of good. And this all history confirms. The records
of religion present the aspect of a vast confusion and chaos
and noise of conflicting beliefs and practices, "a dust of
systems and of creeds." Religion divides into innumer-
able forms and sects that are all more or less at war with
one another. Not only are there many antagonistic
general religions, but each religion in itself splits into
sects, and historic Christianity has not escaped this fate
but has divided into upwards of two hundred denomi-
nations, each one of which has its own internal divisions.
In this field are intermingled all forms and varieties of
4 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
truth and error, wholesome grain and deadly weeds.
There is no form of belief so false and fantastic that some
religion or religionist has not held it as a doctrine, and no
religious rite so inhuman and cruel and wicked that it
has not been advocated and practiced as a sacred duty.
In religion.
What damned error but some sober brow
Will bless it, and approve it with a text.
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament.
Hatred and malice and murder and every kind of un-
cleanness have been consecrated on the altar of religion
as truly as purity and love and service and sacrifice. No
demon or Devil could be more vile and vicious in char-
acter and conduct than have been some gods that men
have worshipped. On the other hand, it is not to be
overlooked that such errors and misdeeds are not the
general fact and fruit but are relatively rare in the history
of religion, and that Christianity has an infinitely larger
credit side to its account and has filled its pages with the
best thoughts and noblest deeds and the whitest and
most beautiful characters this world has ever known.
These errors and evils in religion are not all found in the
past, but are still in the world and run rife in Christian
lands and even disfigure professedly Christian forms of
faith and worship. It is necessary to face the diSicult
task of discriminating the wheat from the tares, of trying
the spirits whether they be of God, and of proving all
things and holding fast only that which is good.
2. TRUTH AND ERROR IN CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
It is certain that there is truth in Christian Science.
No pure error could ever last or even get a start in the
INTRODUCTION 5
world. Such an error would totally contradict itself so
that no sane mind could entertain it. Every error not
only impinges on and interlaces with truth around its
whole boundary, but it also contains internal elements of
fact. It is this truth in any erroneous system of belief
and conduct that gives it some working value and enables
it to live and last in the world. Tested by this principle,
Christian Science has proved that it must contain large
elements of important truth, for it has laid hold of many
minds and spread rapidly among men. The adherents ot
this faith are generally people of intelligence and culture
and some of them are of marked ability. It has also
become institutionalized in a great mother church with
thousands of members and with many branches and in a
complex and powerful organization with its sacred book,
its literature, magazines, and daily newspaper, and with
an alert and efficient system of propaganda. It is less
than fifty years old, and few religions have more to show
in so short a time in practical results than has this modern
cult.
Christian Science certainly meets some wide and deep
need in our day. Its success indicates that it has either
discovered some new truth, or else it has emphasized and
utilized some old truth which other forms of religion have
neglected and let fall into desuetude. However much
error it may contain it has rendered a service by calling
attention to this truth and forcing the Christian Church
to do it justice in its own teaching and practice. It is
the duty of Christians to see and accept and utilize this
truth, and it is the purpose of this book to endeavor to do
this in the study of it. The spirit of truth-seeking re-
quires this and it is hoped it may be done in all fairness
6 THIi: TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
and frankness, both out of regard to justice to Christian
Science and of duty to our Christian faith.
On the other hand, the reader will find and, even at
the outset of study and without prejudicing fairness, can
aflSrm, on the general ground of well-known admitted
facts, that there is much error in Christian Science. The
most superficial acquaintance with its doctrines and
practices proves this. A system of belief that bodily
casts overboard as utter delusions anatomy, physiology,
biology, geology, astronomy, and all sciences, repudiates
organized human knowledge and turns the whole natural
world into a baseless illusion of the mind, must contain a
huge error that is the mother of a whole brood of errors.
It will be the business of this study to expose and refute
these errors as it proceeds.
Few subjects have been so beset and beclouded with
personal issues and controversial points as Christian
Science, and it calls for a fair mind and clear vision to dis-
criminate between the truth and error in this system; but
the author will strive to see the facts in the light of
objective truth and write in a spirit of candor and charity.
3. LITERATURE OF THE SUBJECT
The literature of Christian Science has become extensive,
and a number of the more important books on the subject
are named in the list of "Works Consulted'* prefixed to
this volume. It is the purpose of this section to name
and characterize a few of the most important ones, es-
pecially of those on which this study is directly based.
First and foremost are the works of Mrs. Mary Baker
Eddy. She has the right before all others to speak for
herself and should be heard at every step and point.
INTRODUCTION 7
Though at first she was a slow and untrained and even un-
grammatical writer and had to learn after she had passed
her fiftieth year the simplest rudiments of literary art,
yet through patient and persistent practice she was able
to turn out several books, but with what help will be told
in later chapters. Her first and chief book is the well-
known * 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,"
which is the bible of Christian Science, the book that she
claimed and that her followers claim was divinely inspired
in the same sense that the Bible was inspired; the book
that contains her authoritative official teaching and is
officially enjoined to be used and is used along with the
Bible in every Christian Science church and service the
world over. Frequent reference to, and examination of,
this book will be made in the course of this study. Of
course every thorough student of this subject should
read this book, and as a guarantee of good faith the writer
declares that he patiently carried through the task of
reading it from beginning to end: a wearisome labor that
few people outside of the inner circle of the most devoted
followers and practitioners of Christian Science have done
or ever will do.
Another book by Mrs. Eddy is * 'Retrospection and
Introspection," a brief and fragmentary autobiography
which should be read and carefully compared with other
sources of information as to her life. Several other books
are listed among her writings, such as *'Miscellaneous
Writings, 1883-1896," and *'The First Church of Christ
Scientist and Miscellany," but these are mostly composed
of selected articles, contributed to The Christian Science
Journal and The Christian Science Sentinel and other
journals, and of messages to her churches. A number of
8 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
her sermons are also available, many of these being pub-
lished separately. All of her books and writings are
published by the official Christian Science Publishing
Society in Boston, and the edition of * 'Science and Health,"
used in this study bears the date of 1916, except when
otherwise indicated.
One of the most important books on this subject is
'The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of
Christian Science," by Georgine Milmine. This book
first appeared as a series of illustrated articles in McClure's
Magazine in 1906-1907 and was then issued in book form.
Christian Scientists hold this to be a prejudiced and
hostile work, but in the judgment of the author it is a
thoroughly scientific piece of historical investigation and
composition. Miss Milmine made a comprehensive and
searching inquiry into the facts of Mrs. Eddy's life and into
the teaching and practice of Christian Science. She
visited the scenes of Mrs. Eddy's career, followed her from
town to town and through year after year, examined
books and newspapers and court records, interviewed
many persons who knew and had had personal relations
with her, obtained affidavits on important matters, and
secured photographs of many places and documents that
enter into the story. Her book is based on the facts as
thus obtained and is not only illustrated with many
pictures from photographs of places and persons but is
also fortified with facsimiles of some important documents.
The book is written with an evident desire and effort to
find and tell the truth, and it will ever stand as an authori-
tative history based on original investigation and backed
up with names, dates, documents, and affidavits. The
writer has made frequent use of and generous quotations
INTRODUCTION 9
from this book, of which due acknowledgments have been
given.
Another book next in importance to Miss Milmine's
is * 'Christian Science, the Faith and Its Founder," by
Lyman P. Powell, Rector of St. John's Church, North-
ampton, Mass., and now president of Hobart College,
Geneva, N. Y. Dr. Powell says in his preface that he
has made free use of Miss Milmine's articles and adds:
**I have taken the pains, however, in each instance to
verify her statements by correspondence or by interviews
with those concerned. For this purpose alone I have
traveled more than twenty-five hundred miles and am
glad to be able to testify to the singular accuracy of the
articles and the thoroughness with which they have been
prepared." This is a remarkable confirmation of the
trustworthiness of Miss Milmine's book. Dr. Powell
also contributes additional light of value on Christian
Science as the result of his own investigations. The
day for obtaining personal evidence from those that
knew and had relations with Mrs. Eddy is about gone,
and later writers will necessarily largely depend on these
first-hand students and witnesses for the facts in the case.
Miss Milmine's articles in McClure's called forth an
answer in the form of a series of articles that appeared in
the journal, Human Life, and were then issued in a volume
entitled "The Life of Mary Baker Eddy," (1907), by
Sibyl Wilbur O'Brien, now Sibyl Wilbur. This book is
published by The Christian Science Publishing Society,
Boston, and is thus officially authorized. Mrs. Eddy
herself published in the Christian Science Sentinel of
March 12, 1910, the following authorization of the book,
which is now printed in the book itself:
10 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
I have not had sufficient interest in the matter to read or to note
from others' reading what the enemies of Christian Science are
said to be circulating regarding my history, but my friends have
read Sibyl Wilbur's book, "Life of Mary Baker Eddy," and request
the privilege of buying, circulating, and recommending it to the
public. I briefly declare that nothing has occurred in my life's
experience which, if correctly narrated and understood, could injure
me; and not a little is already reported of the good accomplished
therein, the self-sacrifice, etc., that has distinguished all my working
years. I thank Miss Wilbur and the Concord Publishing Company
for their unselfish labors in placing this book before the public,
and hereby say that they have my permission to publish and circu-
late this work. Mary Baker Eddy.
It will be noted that Mrs. Eddy takes advantage of the
occasion to write a recommendation of herself as well as
of the book.
As to Miss Wilbur's book, it bears all the marks of an
interested advocate's statement of facts in dispute and
defense of a character under attack. It is partisan in the
extreme, and everything is turned to Mrs. Eddy's glory.
The many facts in her life that appeai in an unfortunate
and often painful light in Miss Milmine's book are by
Miss Wilbur toned down and glossed over and clothed
in a different aspect. Even the most desperate cases are
made the best of, though the ugly truth cannot always be
denied or explained away. The personal adulation of
Mrs. Eddy, approaching divine worship, is nauseating.
Even such a simple-minded soul and colorless limp
personality as Asa Gilbert Eddy, Mrs. Eddy's third
husband, at whose *'calm, sweet eyes" the presiding judge
in a celebrated trial *'must have wondered," is ridiculously
adulated. In contrast with Miss Milmine's book, which
is abundantly supplied with quotations from and references
to authorities and documents, Miss Wilbur's book is
almost bare of such quotations and references. It ob-
INTRODUCTION 11
viously lacks objective authority and gives the impression
that it is largely a subjective production. It is based
in no small measure on conversations with and explana-
tions and private disclosures which must have come from
Mrs. Eddy herself. Such statements occur as *'Mrs.
Eddy has told the author," and *'Mrs. Eddy has recently
pointed out to the author." There are many of these
confidential revelations, so that one is led to believe that
the book is largely the result of the intimate communings
of the author with Mrs. Eddy and that it is little more
than what Mrs. Eddy wants the world to believe about
herself. The book, however, is a valuable document in
the case and confirms more than it explains away.
Having in hand the books of Mrs. Eddy, Miss Milmine,
Dr. Powell, and Miss Wilbur the student can get at the
essential facts as to the founder and the faith of this cult.
Many other books throw important corroborative light
and critical illumination on it, among which may be
named the following: *'The Interpretation of Life," New
York, (1908), by Gerhardt C. Mars, a New York "lec-
turer," purports to show *'the relation of Modern Culture
to Christian Science." It displays considerable learning
and acumen and strongly supports Mrs. Eddy's claims,
granting her "preternatural insight," but distinguishing
"two phases in Mrs. Eddy's life — as indeed in all our
lives — which are to be borne in mind, viz.: her human
personality, with its mortal limitations, and her spiritual
individuality which is ever seeking to express itself through
the human form," a distinction apparently after the
manner of the infalHbility of the pope, who is infallible
only when speaking in his ofiicial and not in his private
capacity.
12 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
A dispassionate exposition of the system is found in
Thomas W. Wilby's *'What Is Christian Science?" On
the other hand, *'A Plea for the Thorough and Unbiassed
Investigation of Christian Science," by Charles Herman
Lea, an English writer, is anything but "unbiassed" in
its intensely dogmatic and heated defense of this faith.
If italics and black letter type were logic, Mr. Lea would
be very convincing.
*'TheReligio-Medical Masquerade, a Complete Exposure
of Christian Science," (1910), is by Frederick W. Peabody,
a Boston lawyer who was comisel in several cases brought
against Mrs. Eddy and has had intimate relations with
many of the people involved in this story. He tells us
in the introduction to his book that *'the facts herein set
forth are, almost without exception, based, either upon
Mrs. Eddy's own published utterances, her private cor-
respondence, the sworn testimony of witnesses, or the
admissions under oath of her most influential friends and
followers." Mr. Peabody's book, written in a trenchant
style, reveals much inside information and is a damaging
document in the case he presents against Christian
Science.
*'The Faith and Works of Christian Science," (1909),
is an examination of the system, especially in it claims
of healing, by Stephen Paget, M. D., an eminent London
medical authority. Mark Twain's ^'Christian Science,"
(1907), is the humorist's terribly sarcastic but really
serious exposure of the cult, illuminating and sharp as
a flash of lightning. It by no means lacks logic, for so
keen a logician as Dr. Francis L. Patton, of Princeton,
when he was asked what book he read in refutation of
Christian Science, answered with a characteristic snap of
INTRODUCTION 13
his mouth, "Mark Twain!" "Mesmerism and Christian
Science," (1909), by Frank Podmore, an EngUsh psy-
chologist and member of the Society for Psychical Re-
search, is written with a psychologist's insight and in a
judicial spirit. A small but important book is "The
True History of Mental Science," by Julius A. Dresser,
(1887), who was a patient of Dr. Quimby and then a
teacher of his system and had inside and intimate knowl-
edge of the facts that lie at the very origin and root of
Christian Science.
The title of this book occurred to and was adopted by
the writer in May, 1919, and he had almost completed the
manuscript when he discovered that a book with the
same title (except the subtitle) had appeared in 1916,
the author being George M. Searle, of the Paulist Fathers
and formerly Professor of Mathematics in the Catholic
University, Washington, D. C. Father Searle's book is
confined to a critical examination of "Science and Health,"
and is a keen piece of work.
CHAPTER II
THE SUBSOIL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Every system of thought and movement in society has
deep roots and distant connections, and we must under-
stand these in order to comprehend it. Christian Science
has such roots.
1. PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISM
Philosophical idealism is as old as Plato and has come
down into our day in a deepening gulf stream of
thought. It found classical expression in Berkeley's
* 'Principles of Human Knowledge," a book of singular
lucidity which readers untrained in philosophy can under-
stand. Briefly, this system holds that mind or spirit is
the ultimate and sole reality and that matter is a mode of
its activity. The doctrine usually maintains that God
is the infinite and eternal Spirit, who has posited or
created finite spirits, and that the material world is a
mode of the divine will and life. As finite spirits we are
environed in God, in whom "we live and move and have
our being,'* and our experience of the world is caused by
the activity of God which we in some degree share with
him. Idealism, then, does not at all deny the reality of
matter or resolve it into a subjective illusion or delusion,
but only discovers and demonstrates, as it believes, the
true nature of matter as a mode of the divine life.
14
THE SUBSOIL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 15
Dr. Powell says of P. P. Quimby, the mind healer
of Portland, Me., from whom Mrs. Eddy, as we shall see,
derived her ideas: "He read much. The Bible was ever
in his hand, and sometimes Berkeley." Quimby taught
that "error is matter." The uneducated Portland clock
maker thus had obtained a perverted notion of Berkeley's
idealism, and this trickled down into Mrs. Eddy's mind.
She mentions Berkeley but only to disown him and it is
not likely that she ever read him, but in some way she
got an inkling of this philosopher's theory in the form
that matter, instead of being a phenomenal experience of
objective spiritual reality, is a pure subjective delusion to
be "denied" and cast out of the mind; and this initial
mistake lies at the root of her system and is the beginning
of all her trouble. The basis of Christian Science is a
misunderstood and spurious form of idealism. Philo-
sophical idealism in all its forms repudiates Christian
Science as an illegitimate and deformed child and will
acknowledge no responsibility for it.
2. NEW ENGLAND TRANSCENDENTALISM
Mrs. Eddy grew up in New England at a time when a
peculiar type of transcendentalism was running its course
and blighting the roots of historic Christian faith. Re-
action against the extreme Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards
and his successors had swung to Unitarianism and then
had escaped from the gravitation of Christianity into
free thought. Channing and Parker, Frothingham and
Freeman Clarke were leaders in the movement that gave
the world "the pale negations of Boston Unitarianism."
Emerson went beyond them and became lost in the
16 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
pantheistic Oversoul. He was a seer of wonderful insight
and taught truth of imperishable value, yet he emitted
a cold, white light that corruscated brilliantly in the brain
but gave no warmth to the heart and little religious
satisfaction to the soul. The literary genius of Long-
fellow and Lowell and Holmes produced some high-grade
poetry, but yielded very thin religion. Transcendentalism
reached its limit in A. Bronson Alcott whose "orphic
sayings" and subjective exhalations were bits of pale
clouds that have long since evaporated into nothingness.
New England transcendentalism thus did some notable
literary work and emitted some splendid fireworks, but
it burned New England over with a kind of slow-consuming
fire of religious indifference and skepticism that left the
ground ready for a new crop of reactionary movements.
Such a crop is sure to spring up. Deprive people of relig-
ious bread and they will take to stones rather than do
without any spiritual food. When the human soul is
swept and left empty, it is in a dangerous condition, and
if nothing else comes in, devils will. As faith in the myth-
ological gods died out in the ancient Greek and Roman
world, it swarmed with all manner of wild, fantastic cults.
Dead orthodoxy becomes the rank hothouse and seedbed
of heresy. As rational faith wither^, fads flourish. The
human heart is ^'incurably religious" and will have its
god and its cult, and if robbed of one thing it will take to
another, though it be a god as false and foolish as a hideous
idol of wood or stone.
New England in the middle decades of the last century
was just the soil in which Christian Science could strike
root and flourish, and it took advantage of its opportunity.
THE SUBSOIL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 17
3. FAITH HEALING AND SPIRITUALISM
New England was prolific in these strange cults. At
East Canterbury, New Hampshire, within five miles of
Tilton, Mary Baker's childhood home, was the main
community of the Shakers, a sect that had been founded
by Ann Lee. Their peculiar doctrines and still more
peculiar practices were the cause of much popular ex-
citement and of considerable indignation in the region
round about, and the impressionable young girl who after-
wards became Mrs. Eddy must have heard and seen much
of these strange doings. While Shakerism and Christian
Science are not closely connected, yet they have many
points of affinity and contact. The Shakers always
prayed to *'Our Father and Mother which art in heaven,'*
while Mrs. Eddy's *'spiritually interpreted" version of
The Lord's Prayer begins, *'Our Father-Mother God."
The Shakers proclaimed Ann Lee to be the woman of
the Apocalypse, and Mrs. Eddy made the same suggestion
with reference to herself. The Shakers called Ann Lee
"Mother," and Mrs. Eddy arrogated this name to her-
self and forbade her followers to bestow it upon others,
although afterwards she withdrew the privilege of apply-
ing it to herself and denied that she had ever authorized
such use. The Shakers claimed that Ann Lee was in-
spired, and Mrs. Eddy made the same claim. Ann Lee
declared that she had the gift of healing, and this was
Mrs. Eddy's chief stock in trade. The Shakers called
their organization "The Church of Christ," and Mrs.
Eddy adopted this name with the addition of "Scientist."
The Shakers forbade audible prayer, and Mrs. Eddy dis-
approved of it and has none of it, except The Lord's
Prayer with her "interpretation" of it, in her services.
18 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Ann Lee enjoined celibacy, and Mrs. Eddy, though
practicing marriage Hberally herself, discouraged it in
others. 1
Andrew Jackson Davis, born in Orange County, N. Y.,
in 1826, was a clairvoyant and magnetic healer and later
a spiritualist, who attained notoriety as a traveling
lecturer, and published several volumes setting forth his
doctrines and methods of healing. He used in a peculiar
sense such terms as "truth,'* "error," and especially
"principle," in very much the same way as they were
adopted as characteristic terms in Mrs. Eddy's teaching.
"Truth," he says, "is positive principle; error is a negative
principle." "Power, wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy,
truth, are the gradual developments of an eternal and
internal principle, constituting the divine, original es-
sence." He taught that Christ employed animal mag-
netism in making cures, and that to dispel disease the
divine principle has provided certain remedial agents. ^
Dr. Warren F. Evans, in a work entitled "Mental Medi-
cine" and published three years before the first edition
of Mrs. Eddy's book "Christian Science," said: "Disease
being in its root a wrong belief, change that belief and we
cure the disease. By faith we are thus made whole. "^
He will appear later in this study.
Another remarkable man was Thomas Lake Harris,
born in 1823, who established a community at Brocton,
N. Y., fell into trances, and spoke rhapsodically by in-
spiration, discouraged marriage as a "terrible" thing,
and had strange hypnotic power over his followers, even
1 See Clara Endicott Sears, Gleanings frovi Old Quaker Journals,
and Milmine, History, pp. 494, 495.
2 Milmine History, pp. 489, 493.
3 Ibid, p. 483.
THE SUBSOIL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 19
captivating and enslaving Lady Oliphant and her well-
known son Laurence Oliphant. ^
Joseph Smith, born in 1805 at Sharon, Vt., of il-
literate and neuropathic parents, and who became dis-
satisfied with the clash of creeds at Palmyra, N. Y.,
whither his parents had removed in 1815, began to have
"visions'* and the "Book of Mormon" was produced
which was the start of Mormonism, another religious
vagary with roots running back into New England.
Mormonism and Christian Science have many points of
affinity. Both sprang from the same region at about the
same time out of the same social and religious conditions;
both had founders of neurotic, physical constitution and
hysterical temperament, who had very meager education
and claimed to receive divine revelations; both have an
alleged inspired book or bible, and both of these books,
it is charged, were plagiarized by their authors from other
writings; both claim to be a later revelation and higher
form of Christianity; both hold peculiar views on the
marriage relation; and both in their practices have come
into conflict with the civil law.
In the meanwhile mesmerism was spreading like wild-
fire over New England. Charles Poyen, a French disciple
of Mesmer, traveled through the region lecturing and
performing feats of mesmeric influence in the same towns
in which Mary Baker then lived. In 1837 he published
"Animal Magnetism,'* in which he called his system
"Truth," "the Power of Mind over Matter," a "demon-
stration," a "discovery given of God" and a "science. "2
^ Podmore, Mesmerism and Christian Science. Ch. XIII.
2 Milmine, History, p. 23.
20 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
The teaching and work of P. P. Quimby, the faith healer
of Portland, Me., will be considered later.
The excitement over the alleged spirit rappings of the
Fox sisters at Rochester, N. Y., broke out in 1853 and
spread through New York and New England. Alleged
^'mediums" multiplied and *'communications" from de-
parted spirits became a common belief and practice.
Judge Edmonds, of the Supreme Court of New York,
and Dr. Dexter, an eminent physician of New York City,
investigated the subject and published a work that
became an authority and gave wide currency and respect-
ability to belief in the system.
*'Thus in the '30's," to quote Miss Milmine, *'the first
wave of mental science, animal magnetism, and clair-
voyance swept over New England. The atmosphere was
charged with the occult, the movement ranging all the
way from phrenology and mind-reading to German
transcendentalism. Quimby*s interest was directly stim-
ulated by the visit of Charles Poyen, the well-known
French mesmerist, who came to lecture in Belfast (Me.).
The inquiring clock maker became absorbed in Poyen's
theories, formed his acquaintance, and followed him from
town to town. . . Then, as now, the public mind as-
sociated occult sciences with the cure of physical disease.
Clairvoyants, magnetisers, and mind readers treated all
imaginable ills. . . Hundreds of men, women, and
children, Vhose cases the doctors had given up as hope-
less,' fervently testified to their power. Consumptives,
according to popular report, began to get well, the blind
saw, and the halt walked. "l
This state of things in New England was the soil out of
1 History, pp. 45, 46.
THE SUBSOIL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 21
which Christian Science grew, the environment in which
Mary Baker was reared, the atmosphere she breathed,
the mental and rehgious influences that unconsciously
molded and colored her highly nervous, neurotic, im-
pressionable nature. Christian Science had its roots
in this soil; both the founder and the faith are the proper
fruits of such seeds.
CHAPTER III
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY
The following is a rapid outline of the life of the remark-
able woman who was the founder of Christian Science
and the veritable incarnation of the whole system. It
takes a large volume to trace all the windings and dis-
entangle all the knots in her strangely checkered career,
and only the more important points can be touched on
here.
1. EARLY YEARS
Mary A. Morse Baker, the youngest of the six children
of Mark and Abigail Ambrose Baker, was born July
16, 1821, in Bow township, near Concord, New Hampshire.
The parents were members of the Congregational Church,
and the father was a man of narrow mind and dogmatic
temper who pushed his opinions on other people and had
a conscience that gave great trouble to his neighbors.
The mother was of a quiet disposition and faithfully
attended to her home cares and church duties. The
family were in meager circumstances, and hard work on
a lonely farm in the days when there were no railroads
and few newspapers was the daily routine of their life.
Mary early attracted attention as a beautiful and bright
child, but even in infancy she was subject to attacks of
a hysterical nature. The irascibility of her father came
out in her in intensified temper and weakened self-control.
The family soon learned that they must yield to her whims,
and all rules were in abeyance when she had one of her
22
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 23
"fits." The Sabbath was an especially dangerous day
with her, and even her domineering father had then to
relax some of his rules, *'for she invariably had one of her
bad attacks, and the day ended in excitement and anxiety."
*'Mrs. Baker, the mother, often told her friends that
Mary, of all her children, was the most difficult to care
for, and they were all at their wits* end to keep her quiet
and amuse her."i gj^g attended the district school for
a short time, but on account of her peculiar disposition
she was allowed to stop and went no more until she had
reached her fifteenth year.
In her autobiography, * 'Retrospection and Introspec-
tion," Mrs. Eddy relates, as her chief remembrance of
the Bow farm days, the following incident:
For some twelve months, when I was about eight years old, I
repeatedly heard a voice, calling me distinctly by name, three times,
in an ascending scale. I thought this was my mother's voice, and
sometimes went to her, beseeching her to tell me what she wanted.
Her answer was always: ''Nothing, child! What do you mean?"
Then I would say: "Mother, who did call me? I heard somebody
call 'Mary' three times!" This continued until I grew discouraged,
and my mother was perplexed and anxious.
The similarity to the call of the child Samuel, I Sam.,
ch. 3, is obvious, and Mrs. Eddy completes the parallel
as follows:
My mother read to me the Scriptural narrative of little Samuel,
and bade me, when the voice called again, to reply as he did, "Speak,
Lord; for thy servant heareth." The voice came; but I did not
answer. Afterward I wept, and prayed that God would forgive me,
resolving to do, next time, as my mother had bidden me. When
the call came again I did answer, in the words of Samuel, but never
again to the material senses was that mysterious call repeated. 2
1 These and other quotations without references are from Miss
Milmine's History.
2 Retrospection and Introspection, pp. 8, 9.
24 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Mark Baker lived on the Bow farm from 1785 to 1836)
and then removed to Tilton (then Sanborton Bridge)
eighteen miles north of Concord, where he lived until his
death in 1865. Here Mary again went to the district
school, and as she was backward in her studies she was
placed in a class with younger children. Miss Milmine
interviewed a number of her classmates and quotes one
of them as follows: *'I remember Mary Baker very well,"
said one of her classmates living (1907) in Tilton.
"She began to come to district school in the early summer
of 1836. I recollect her very distinctly because she sat
just in front of me, and because she was such a big girl
to be in our class. I was only nine, but I helped her
with her arithmetic when she needed help. We studied
Smith's Grammar and ciphered by ourselves in Adam's
New Arithmetic, and when she left school in three or
four weeks we had both reached long division. She left
on account of sickness."
Turning to * 'Retrospection and Introspection," we
read Mrs. Eddy's own account of these days. She says
that she was kept out of school because her father was
taught to believe that her brain was too large for her
body; that her brother Albert, then a student in college,
taught her Greek, Latin, and Hebrew; that her favorite
childhood studies were natural philosophy, logic, and
moral science; that at ten years of age she was as familiar
with Lindley Murray's Grammar as with the Westminster
Catechism; and that she graduated from Dyer H. San-
born's Academy at Tilton. Her schoolmates when inter-
viewed by Miss Milmine could not reconcile these state-
ments with their own knowledge. They do not believe
her brother taught her Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, for
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 25
he entered college when Mary was nine and left home
when she was thirteen years old. Dyer H. Sanborn
did not conduct an ^'academy" and there were no "grad-
uations'* from it; and they insist that Mary left school
when she had only reached long division. Mrs. Eddy
further says in her autobiography, * 'After my discovery
of Christian Science, most of the knowledge I had gleaned
from schoolbooks vanished like a dream"! As she never
gave any indication of ever having possessed any knowl-
edge of "Hebrew, Greek, and Latin," "natural philosophy,
logic, and moral science," it is evident that her belief
or claim that she once had such learning was a dream
also. "Learning was so illumined," she continues, "that
grammar was eclipsed." There is plenty of evidence of
this in her own unassisted writings. "Etymology was
divine history, voicing the idea of God in man's origin
and signification." Her "spiritual sense, which is also
their original meaning" of words as given in her "Glossary"
in "Science and Health," is always purely fanciful and
often screamingly ridiculous. "Syntax was spiritual order
and unity." Her syntax may have been "spiritual,"
but it certainly was not grammatical. "Prosody, the
song of angels, and no earthly inglorious theme." If
angels sang in her prose, they refused to do so in her
"poetry."!
One other incident in these earliest years may be
mentioned. She tells us that "at the age of twelve years
I was admitted to the Congregational (Trinitarian)
Church." She had a horror of the doctrine of predesti-
nation and denied it before the deacons of the church.
"Distinctly do I recall what followed. I stoutly main-
^ Retros'pection and Introspection, p. 10.
26 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
tained that I was willing to trust God, and take my chance
of spiritual safety with my brothers and sisters — not one
of whom had then made any profession of religion. . .
This was so earnestly said, that even the oldest church-
members wept. After the meeting was over they came
and kissed me. To the astonishment of many, the good
clergyman's heart was melted, and he received me into
their communion, and my protest along with me.'* Her
recollection is "distinctly" vivid as to details, but on
the one concrete fact wherein it can be tested, she is wrong.
Instead of being twelve she was seventeen years of age
at this time. The official record of the Tilton Congre-
gational Church contains this entry: "1838. July 26,
Received into this church, Stephen Grant, Esq., John
Gilly and his wife Hannah, Mrs. Susan French, wife of
William French, Miss Mary A. M. Baker, by profession,
the two former receiving the ordinance of baptism.
Greenaugh McQuestion, Scribe."^ Why was this incident
put at the age of twelve years .^ The visit of Jesus to
the Temple at the same age may have suggested another
parallel.
Through these early years the hysterical, cataleptic
nature of Mary Baker continued to give anxiety to the
Baker household and to be a subject of general talk in the
neighborhood. On this point Miss Milmine writes •
At home Mary was still allowed to have her own way as com-
pletely as in her baby days. Indeed, by this time she, as well as
the family, had come to consider this privilege a natural right, and
she grew constantly more insistent in her demands upon her parents
and brothers and sisters, who had found by long experience that
the only way to live at all with Mary was to give in to all her whims.
. . . Mary's hysteria was, of course, her most effective argument
1 Milmine, History, p. 20.
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 27
in securing her way. Like the sword of Damocles, it hung perilously
over the household, which constantly surrendered and conceded
and made shift with Mary to avert the inevitable climax. . .
These attacks, which continued until very late in life, have been
described to the writer by many eyewitnesses, some of whom have
watched by her bedside and treated her in Christian Science for her
aflQiction. Mary fell headlong to the floor, writhing and screaming
in apparent agony. Again she dropped as lifeless, and lay limp
and motionless, until restored. At other times she became rigid
like a cataleptic, and continued for a time in a state of suspended
animation. . . Nothing had the power of exciting Mark Baker
like one of Mary's "fits," as they were called. His neighbors in
Tilton remember him as he went to fetch Dr. Ladd, how he lashed
his horse down the hill, standing upright in his wagon and shouting
in his tremendous voice, "Mary is dying." ... A neighbor,
passing the house one morning, stopped at Mark's gate and in-
quired why Mary, who was at that moment rushing wildly up and
down the second-story piazza, was so excited; to which Mark replied
bitterly: "The Bible says Mary Magdalen had seven devils, but
our Mary has got ten." ^
It was in these days that Charles Poyen, the French
mesmerist, appeared as a lecturer in the neighborhood of
Tilton, and while it is not known that Mary Baker heard
him personally, she must have heard about him and his
theories and practice, because of the fact that "Animal
Magnetism" came to occupy a large place in her own
teaching and life. The influences of Shakerism and
transcendentalism and other peculiar cults that were
then rife in New England were also in the air and must
have reached and left their impress on her sensitive and
absorbent nature. She grew up in a kind of hotbed of
*'isms," and her life was the proper outgrowth of such a
nature in such an environment.
2. EARLY MARRIAGES
In December, 1843, at the age of twenty-two Mary
Baker was married to George Washington Glover, who
1 History, pp. 19, 20.
28 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
is described as "a big, kind-hearted, young fellow," whose
parents were neighbors of the Bakers at Bow. *'Wash"
Glover was a bricklayer and, attracted by higher wages,
had gone South. On one of his visits back home he
married Mary Baker and took her as his bride to Wil-
mington, N. C. Within six months, in June, 1844, the
young husband died of yellow fever and left his widow
without money among strangers. The Freemasons,
to whose order George Glover belonged, provided the
means for the funeral and for the return of the widow to
her parents' home at Tilton.
In September of the same year Mrs. Glover gave birth
to a son, her only child, whom she named George Wash-
ington after his father. The relation of the mother to
this son is one of the peculiar things in Mrs. Eddy's
career. Her sisters and brothers were now married and
gone from home, and her parents were growing old.
Mrs. Glover **took it for granted that she was to receive
not only sympathy of her relatives but their support
and constant service, and that they should assume the
care of her child." She frequently left it with her aged
parents or with her married sister, or with a neighbor
woman, while she went off visiting. The child annoyed
her irritable nature, and her father said, *'Mary acts
like an old ewe that won't own its lamb. She won't
have the boy near her."
When the boy was seven years old the mother gave
him to Mahala Sanborn, who had served as a nurse
in the family, and, when this worthy woman was married
to Russell Cheney and was about to move from Tilton,
she begged her to take the boy with her. The Cheneys
lived for a time at Groton, N. H., where Mrs. Glover
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 29
would see her son occasionally, but in 1857 they removed to
Enterprise, Minn. In 1861 George W. Glover enlisted
in the Union Army and made an excellent record as a
soldier, and afterwards settled in Lead, S. D., where
he was appointed United States marshall. Mrs. Eddy
never saw her son after his removal to the West at the
age of thirteen until 1878, when he was thirty-four years
of age and was married and had two children.
Mrs. Eddy's own account of her relations with her son
is given in * 'Retrospection and Introspection" as follows:
A few months before my father's second marriage, . . my little
son, about four years of age, was sent away from me, and put under
the care of our family nurse, who had married, and resided in the
northern part of New Hampshire. I had no training for self-
support, and my home I regarded as very precious. The night
before my child was taken from me, I knelt by his side throughout
the dark hours, hoping for a vision of relief from this trial. . . My
dominant thought in marrying again was to get back my child,
but after our marriage his stepfather was not willing he should
have a home with me. A plot was consummated for keeping us
apart. The family to whose care he was committed, very soon
removed to what was then regarded as the Far West. After his
removal a letter was read to my little son informing him that his
mother was dead and buried. Without my knowledge he was
appointed a guardian, and I was then informed that my son was
lost. Every means within my power was employed to find him,
but without success. We never met again until he had reached the
age of thirty-four, had a wife and two children, and by a strange
providence had learned that his mother still lived, and came to see
me in Massachusetts. ^
However, when her son did want to come to visit her
he received small encouragement. In fact, she wrote
him a letter in which she positively forbade him to come,
and said, *'If you come after getting this letter I shall
feel you have no regard for my interest or feelings, which
1 Pp. 20, 21.
80 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
I hope not to be obliged to feel." This was in 1907.
In 1902 Mrs. Eddy built her son a handsome house and
otherwise provided for him. In 1907, for some reason
she tried to get from her son all the letters she had ever
written him, saying: *'My dear Son: The enemy to
Christian Science is by the wickedest powers of hypnotism
trying to do me all the harm possible by acting on the
minds of people to make them lie about me and my
family." She then asked him to *'send by express all
the letters of mine that I have written you. This will
be a great comfort to your mother if you do it. Send
all — all of them." This letter with its peculiar request
appears to have been occasioned by the fact that her son
was about to bring action against ten leading Christian
Scientists on the ground that they were controlling her
property and that she through age and failing faculties
was incompetent to manage it. Mrs. Eddy met this
by placing her property in the hands of trustees, and
several months later the suit was withdrawn. With this
incident is closed our account of the relations of Mrs.
Eddy with her son.
In these early years of her life spiritualism swept in
a wave over the region, and Mrs. Glover developed her
susceptibility as a medium. Seances were held at Mark
Baker's house and there was considerable excitement
over the strange phenomena. One elderly woman recalls
a night spent with Mrs. Glover when her rest was fre-
quently disturbed by mysterious "rappings" and by Mrs.
Glover's announcements of the "appearance" of different
spirits as they came and went. A few years later she
received "messages" from her deceased brother Albert.
Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health," second edition,
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 31
(1878), denied that she ever was a medium, but said,
"We have explained to the class calling themselves
Spiritualists how their signs and wonders were wrought,
and have illustrated them by doing them."l At this
time also Mrs. Glover began to do some writing and
* 'there was a tradition that she wrote a love story for
*Godey's Lady's Book,* and this gave her some local
fame as an 'authoress.'"
In 1853 after having been a widow for nine years
and at the age of thirty-two Mrs. Glover was married to
Daniel Patterson, a peripatetic dentist who made oc-
casional visits to Tilton. Mrs. Glover was so ill on the
day of the wedding that Dr. Patterson had to carry
her downstairs for the ceremony and then back again.
He is described as a handsome man with a full black
beard, who wore a frock coat and a silk hat and was
popular with his patrons. Nevertheless he earned only
a meager and precarious income, and their married life
was a struggle with hard circumstances. They first
settled in Franklin, a village near Tilton.
The Pattersons moved from place to place, leaving
behind them a trail of stories about Mrs. Patterson's
invalidism and hysteria and "fits" and quarrels with her
neighbors. 2 During the Civil War Dr. Patterson went
South seeking employment as an army surgeon and, stray-
ing into enemy lines, was captured and held as a prisoner,
and Mrs. Patterson again went back to her relatives.
On his release and return the Pattersons settled in Lynn,
Mass., where the doctor opened an office in 1864. Two
years later Dr. Patterson left his wife, and they never
1 Milmine, History, pp. 30, 66.
2 Ibid, History, p. 38.
32 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
lived together again. Mrs. Eddy, in a published state-
ment in the Boston Post, of March 7, 1883, said that her
"husband had eloped with a married woman," but her
neighbors never heard of such an elopement, and Dr.
Patterson told her family that he could not endure her
any longer. Dr. Patterson paid his wife an annuity of
$200 for several years, but in 1873 she obtained a divorce
from him, and he dropped out of her life, dying in 1896.
It was while living with Dr. Patterson that Mrs.
Patterson heard of Dr. P. P. Quimby, the mind healer
of Portland, Me., and went to him and received help
from him for her illness and also derived from him her
ideas, but this affair in her life is so important that it
will be reserved for a separate chapter, and this outline
will be continued as a framework for the events more
directly connected with her main work.
3. WANDER YEARS
Mrs. Patterson first visited Quimby in 1862 and again
in 1864, and then after her separation from her husband
she wandered around staying with various families until
she settled in Lynn in 1870. The story of these years is
one of a constant succession of quarrels in these homes.
Although only a visitor occasionally paying a nominal
rent, yet she was extremely exacting in her demands,
doing no work and requiring everyone to serve her.
"Untrained in any kind of paid work, she fell back upon
the favor of her friends or chance acquaintances, living
precariously upon their bounty, and obliged to go from
house to house, as one family after another wearied of
her." During these years she was practicing healing
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 33
herself, calling it "Moral Science" and attributing it
to Quimby. Her first announcement appeared in the
Banner of Light, a Spiritualist organ, on July 4, 1868,
and read in part: "Any Person desiring to learn how to
heal the sick can receive of the undersigned instructions
that will enable them to commence healing on a principle
of science with a success far beyond any of the present
modes. . . Address, Mrs. Mary B. Glover, Amesbury,
Mass.'* In all her teaching she represented her system as
being that of P. P. Quimby, as will be brought out later on.
When her husband left her at Lynn, Mrs. Patterson
went to room at the Russells, but she soon had to leave
because Russell's "wife, who had greatly admired her
when she first came, soon declared she could not endure
Mrs. Patterson's remaining there." She then went to
Mrs. Clark, and then to the home of Mrs. Armenius
Newhall, but soon afterward .left the house, at Mrs.
Newhall's request. Mrs. James Wheeler, of Swampscott,
"then offered her shelter," where, according to an affidavit
of Mrs. Julia Walcott, a sister of Mrs. Patterson's former
landlord and an intimate friend of Mrs. Wheeler, "Mrs.
Patterson was the means of creating discord in the Wheeler
family." From the Wheelers she went to live with Mrs.
Mary Ellis, and next we find her with Hiram Craft at
East Stoughton, where, according to an affidavit of Ira
Holmes, a brother of Mrs. Craft, "she caused trouble in
the household, and urged Mr. Craft to get a bill of divorce
from his wife, Mary Craft." She then went to the home
of Captain Webster, in Amesbury, Mass. A long affidavit
by Mary Bartlett, a granddaughter of Captain Webster,
gives an account of her trouble-making in this home,
which at last grew so exasperating that Captain Webster's
34 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
son put Mrs. Patterson out of the house and locked the
door against her.
The friendless woman was then taken into the home of
Miss Sarah Bageley, a dressmaker and Spiritualist of
Amesbury, Mrs. Patterson teaching her the Quimby
method of healing. By this time it was understood
that Mrs. Glover, who had now again adopted this name,
was writing a book, and she was working at manuscripts
which eventually resulted in * 'Science and Health."
From Amesbury she drifted to Stoughton, Mass., to the
home of Mrs. Sally Wentworth, another Spiritualist, where
she had the usual quarrel and on leaving was charged
with having tried to set the house on fire.^
While with the Wentworths Mrs. Glover was writing
manuscripts, and she wrote out instructions for Mrs.
Wentworth, to direct her in healing the sick. Horace
T. Wentworth, a son, had these instructions in* Mrs.
Glover's own handwriting in his possession when Miss
Milmine wrote her "History " and she gives two pages
from the original manuscript, literally reproducing the
spelling and punctuation. We here insert them as they
contain the germ of Mrs. Eddy's system and also show
her unassisted English style:
An argument for the sick having what is termed fever chills and
heat with sleepless nights, and called spinal inflammation.
The patient has been doctoring the sick one patient is an opium
eater, with catarrh, great fear of the air, etc. Another had inflam-
mation of the joints or rheumatism, and liver complaint another
scrofula and rheumatism, and another dyspepsia, all of them having
the most intense fear.
First the fever is to be argued down. What is heat and chills
we answer nothing but an effect produced upon the body by images
^ Affidavits giving the details of this affair made by a son and a
niece of Mrs. Wentworth are given in Milmine, History, p. 125.
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 35
of disease before the spiritual senses wherefore you must say of
heat and chill you are not hot you are not cold you are only the
effect of fright there is no such thing as heat and cold if there were
you would not grow hot when angry or abashed or frightened and
the temperature around not changed in the least.
Inflammation is not inflammation or redness and soreness of any
part this is your belief only and this belief is the red dragon the
King of beasts which means this belief of inflammation is the leading
lie out of which you get your fright that causes chills and heat.
Now look it down cause your patient to look at this truth with you
call upon their spiritual senses to look with your view which sees no
such image and thus waken them out of their dream that is causing
them so much suffering. l
These years were strewn with a constant succession of
personal quarrels and estrangements. After the death
of Mark Baker, Mrs. Eddy's father, in 1865, her own
sister, Mrs. Tilton, closed her door against her. On this
point Miss Milmine writes:
When Mrs. Tilton, who had taken care of Mrs. Patterson from
childhood and supported her in her widowhood, finally turned
against her sister, she was as hard as she had been generous before.
"I loved Mary best of all my sisters and brothers," she said to her
friends, "but it is all gone now." The bitterness of her feeling
lasted to the day of her death. She instructed her family not to
allow Mary to see her after death nor to attend her funeral, and her
wishes were carried out. 2
When the Christian Science Church in Concord, N. H.,
was dedicated on July 16, 1904, a North Groton corre-
spondent, under the head, *'Time Makes Changes,"
wrote in the "Plymouth Record":
With the dedication of the Christian Science Church at Concord,
the gift of Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy, the thoughts of
many of the older residents have turned back to the time when
Mrs. Eddy, as the wife of Daniel Patterson, lived in this place.
1 Milmine, History, pp. 130, 131.
2 Ibid, p. 108.
36 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
These people remember the woman at that time as one who carried
herself above her fellows. With no stretch of the imagination they
remember her ungovernable temper and hysterical ways, and partic-
ularly well do they remember the night ride of one of the citizens
who went for her husband to calm her in one of her unreasonable
moods. The Mrs. Eddy of to-day is not the Mrs. Patterson of then,
for this is a sort of Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll case, and the woman
is now credited with many charitable and kindly acts.i
From the Wentworths in Stoughton Mrs. Glover
returned to her friend, Miss Bageley in Amesbury, where
two years before she had met with Richard Kennedy,
then a youth of eighteen, and had discerned in him a
promising student and had given him lessons in the
Quimby art of healing. She now proposed to him a
partnership in which she would teach and he would practice
this art. Up to this time she had little success herself
in healing, and in fact she was chary of trying her hand
at the business down to the end of her life. This ar-
rangement was entered into, and this agreement marked
a turning point in Mrs. Eddy's life and brought these
troubled wander years to an end.
4. AT WORK IN LYNN
In June, 1870, a sign appeared in the yard in front of
a house in Lynn, bearing the announcement, *'Dr.
Kennedy." Several rooms on the second floor had been
sublet from a young woman who conducted a school on
the first floor. Kennedy used the front room as an
office, and Mrs. Glover occupied the other rooms as her
living quarters and as a schoolroom for her pupils, her
card bearing the announcement, *'Mrs. Mary Glover,
Teacher of Moral Science." Soon patients began to
1 Milmine, History, pp. 35, 36.
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 37
appear in Dr. Kennedy's office and students in Mrs.
Glover's classes, and for the first time in her life Mary-
Baker Glover began to be eased of the burden of poverty
and to experience the joys of prosperity. Her students
were required to copy a Quimby manuscript which she
called "The Science of Man," and they obligated them-
selves to pay one hundred dollars in advance for the course
of lessons and ten per cent of their annual income from
their practice.
For twelve years Mrs. Eddy continued her work in
Lynn, until she removed to Boston in 1882. These were
trying years in many ways and brought out the masterful
qualities of her strange personality. She was nearly
fifty years of age, with no means or influential friends
and with very meager education, and was burdened
and often tortured with ill health, when she found herself
and started out on her course that was destined to grow
into a great career and world-wide fame. During these
years she developed her system of healing and wrote her
book * 'Science and Health," the first edition of which
she was able to get published in 1875. Her classes grew,
her charges increased from one hundred to three hundred
dollars for a course of twelve lessons and then the course
was reduced to seven lessons for the same price, and gold
began to flow in copious streams into her coffers;
within eighteen months she had $6000 to her credit
in the bank. She began to extend her private teaching
to public speaking and at length developed her system
of healing into a religion and founded a church. At
last she assumed the office of minister and blossomed
out as the *'Rev. Mary Baker Eddy," only stopping
short of appending a *'D. D." to her name. She was
38 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
already dreaming of a great religion and world fame,
and one day she said to Kennedy, "Richard, you will
live to hear the church bells ring out my birthday."
Her dream came true.
At this time Miss Milmine gives us a vivid glimpse
into her classroom:
Whatever disagreement Mrs. Glover had with individual students,
their number constantly increased, and for every deserter there were
several new adherents. Her following grew not only in numbers
but in zeal; her influence over her students and their veneration of
her were subjects of comment and astonishment in Lynn. Of some
of them it could be truly said that they lived only for and through
Mrs. Glover. They continued to attend in some manner to their
old occupations, but they became like strangers to their own families,
and their personalities seemed to have undergone an eclipse. Like
their teacher, they could talk of only one thing and had but one
vital interest. One disciple let two of his three children die under
metaphysical treatment without a murmur. Another married the
woman whom Mrs. Glover designated. . . The closer students, who
constituted Mrs. Glover'scabinet and bodyguard, executed her com-
missions, transacted her business, and were always at her call. To-day
some of these who have long been accounted as enemies by Mrs.
Eddy, and whom she has anathematized in print and discredited
on the witness stand, still declare that what they got from her was
beyond equivalent in gold or silver. They speak of a certain
spiritual or emotional exaltation which she was able to impart in
her classroom; a feeling so strong that it was like the birth of a new
understanding and seemed to open to them a new heaven and a
new earth. . . They lived by a new set of values; the color
seemed to fade out of the physical world about them; men and
women became shadow-like, and their humanity grew pale. The
reality of pain and pleasure, sin and grief, love and death, once
denied, the only positive thing in their lives was their belief — and
that was almost wholly negation.
5. ENTER: ASA GILBERT EDDY. THIRD HUSBAND
Among those who came within the sphere of her at-
traction was Daniel H. Spofford, a worker in a shoe factory,
who became her student in 1875 and was soon "Dr.
1 History, pp. 155, 15e.
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 39
Spofford, Scientific Physician," and had a flourishing
practice. Spofford brought Asa Gilbert Eddy to Mrs.
Glover as a student, and presently he gave her the name
that she took and made famous as the founder of a new
religion. Eddy was a weaver and was described by people
who knew him in Lynn *'as a quiet, dull, little man,
docile and yielding up to a certain point, but capable of
dogged obstinancy. He was short of stature, slow in
his movements, and always taciturn." He was a bachelor
who did his own washing and his sister-in-law said "he
could do up a shirt as well as any woman." This simple-
minded plastic soul at once yielded to Mrs. Glover*s
magnetic personality and was presently her favorite so
obviously as to excite comment and jealousy among
the other students. On Sunday evening, December 31,
1876, Eddy brought to Spofford a note which read as
follows: "Dear Student: For reasons best known to
myself I have changed my views in respect to marrying
and ask you to hand this note to the Unitarian clergyman
and please wait for an answer. Your teacher, M. B. G."
"Hand or deliver reply to Dr. Eddy."
Spofford was astonished out of measure and said:
"You've been very quiet about all this, Gilbert." "Indeed,
Dr. Spofford," said Eddy, "I didn't know a thing about
it myself until last night." On looking at the marriage
license Spofford noticed that the ages of both the bride
and groom were put down at forty years. As he knew
that Eddy himself was only forty but that Mrs. Glover
was then fifty-six, "he remarked upon the inaccuracy,
but Mr. Eddy explained that the statement of age was
a mere formality and that a few years more or less was
of no consequence." It will be remembered that Mrs.
40 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Eddy also misstated her age at which she was received
into the Congregational Church, and this was another
instance in which *'a few years more or less was of no
consequence." *'Dr." Eddy was a very useful addition
to Mrs. Eddy's establishment. *'He would solicit students
for his wife or take up the collection at the Sunday service
when she preached the sermon." "He did what he
was told," and after his marriage he had plenty of it to do.
6. LAWSUITS AT LYNN
These years at Lynn were also marked by interminable
quarrels and lawsuits. Her relations with Richard
Kennedy lasted only two years, and she then regarded
him as one of her bitterest enemies and poured upon him
the vials of her wrath, charging him with exercising
"Malicious Animal Magnetism" against her and branding
him in the third edition of "Science and Health" as
"the Nero of to-day." Next, Daniel H. Spofford, who
had become the publisher of her book, fell under her dis-
pleasure and was expelled from the Christian Scientists*
Association, receiving the following notice: "Dr. D. H.
Spofford of Newburyport has been expelled from the
Association of Christian Scientists for immorality and as
unworthy to be a member." The word "immorality"
as used by Mrs. Eddy did not at all mean the sin that
usually goes under that name, but only personal dis-
agreement with her. This is only one of the instances
in which she uses words in a sense wholly peculiar to
herself. Years afterwards she accused a prominent woman
in the mother church in Boston of being "an adulteress,"
and when the frantic woman begged to know the ground
LIFE OF Mrs. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 41
of such a charge, she repHed, "You have adulterated the
Truth; what are you, then, but an adulteress?" It would
take a long catalogue of names to mention all the students
that met a like fate. Already she wa^ exercising the
powers of an absolute despot and her simple and sudden
word would dismiss anybody from her school or church
and blacken the name of the victim with some grave but
utterly unfounded charge.
Lawsuits flew thick and fast. The air was surcharged
with litigation. She brought suit against George Tuttle
and Charles Stanley, two of her students, for unpaid
tuition. The case was tried before Judge George F.
Choate, and in rendering a decision for the defendant
Judge Choate said:
Upon a careful examination I do not find any instructions given
by her nor any explanations of her "science" or "method of healing"
which appear intelligible to ordinary comprehension, or which
could in any way be of value in fitting defendant as a competent
and successful practitioner of any intelligible art or method of
healing the sick, and I am of the opinion that the consideration
for the agreement has wholly failed, and I so find.
This court decision is interesting as being the first
legal evaluation of Christian Science.
In 1877 George W. Barry, one of her students, brought
suit against Mrs. Eddy for service rendered in attending
to her business and obtained judgment against her.
In 1878 she sued Richard Kennedy for two years' in-
struction and lost. The same year she sued Daniel
Spofford to recover royalty on his practice and lost. She
lost every case brought for the recovery of tuition, i
1 Peabody, Masquerade, p. 123.
42 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
7. MALICIOUS ANIMAL MAGNETISM
The case of Daniel Spofford, which was brought to
trial at Salem, Mass., in May, 1878, introduces the subject
of Malicious Animal Magnetism, which came to be known
in the Eddy household as *'M. A. M.," and also as
"Malicious Mesmerism." Every religion must have a
devil, and *'M. A. M." was Mrs Eddy's Satan. By this
name she meant the power of one mind, called by her
**mortal mind," to influence and injure and even poison
and drive insane and kill another mind. This notion
became her obsession and infatuation that plagued her
day and night, the mortal fear that tortured her and gave
her no security and rest. It early became implanted in
her mind, and in the first edition (1875) of *'Science
and Health" we read:
In coming years the person or mind that hates his neighbor will
have no need to traverse his fields, to destroy his flocks and herds,
and spoil his vines; or to enter his house to demoralize his house-
hold; for the evil mind will do this through mesmerism; and not in
propria personae be seen committing the deed. Unless this terrible
hour be met and restrained by science, mesmerism, that scourge of
man, will leave nothing sacred when mind begins to act under
direction of conscious power. 1
In the thirteenth edition of the same book she says;
The evidence of the power that the mind exercises over the body
has accumulated in weight and clearness until it culminates, at this
period, in scientific statement and proof. Our courts recognize the
evidence that goes to prove the committal of crime; then, if it be
clear that the so-called mind of one mortal has killed another, is not
this mind proved a murderer, and shall not the man be sentenced
whose mind, with malice aforethought, kills?
1 Science and Health, 1875, p. 123.
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 43
This demon proved all its powers of ubiquitous presence
and evil influence and malignant destructiveness in her
own household. It bedeviled her printers, froze her
water pipes, and made the boiler leak. It got into her
household furniture and kitchen utensils, her coal and
blankets and feather pillows and silver spoons and caused
them to disappear as if by some magician's wand. She
accused nearly all her servants of stealing and charged
their perversity to "M. A. M." She would send servants
to outlying towns to mail letters and dispatch telegrams
so that they would not pass through Boston where the
mail clerks and telegraph operators were supposed to be
"mesmerized" and could poison the messages with their
evil power. A long succession of tenants and housekeepers
went wrong under the same evil influence. Any personal
annoyance or irritation that she experienced was in-
stantly charged to this devil. Friend after friend fell
under this accusation and was forthwith excommunicated.
No language could be bitter enough, no punishment
could be dire enough to express her sense of the horror
of this evil thing, l
The first one to fall under this condemnation m its
fell fury was Richard Kennedy, and the following passage
from the chapter on "Demonology" in ^'Science and
1 This obsession as to the evil presence and power of the Devil was
rampant in the Middle Ages and was one of the terrors of those
dark days. "The highest authorities of the Church constantly
nourished that awe of the Devil and his tools which filled the mind,
and they could do it without scruple, being themselves seized by
the same terror. Thus Pope John XXII promulgated, A.D. 1303,
two letters in which he complains that he himself not less than
countless numbers of his sheep, was in danger of his life by the acts
of sorcerers who could send devils into mirrors and rings, and make
away with men by their words alone." Viktor Rydberg, The
Magic of the Middle Ages, p. 162.
44 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Health," edition of 1881, was aimed at him and illustrates
her style and spirit:
The Nero of to-day, regaling himself through a mental method
with the tortures of individuals, is repeating history, and will fall
upon his own sword, and it shall pierce him through. Let him
remember this when, in the dark recesses of thought, he is robbing,
committing adultery, and killing; when he is attempting to turn
friend away from friend, ruthlessly stabbing the quivering heart;
when he is clipping the thread of life, and giving to the grave youth
and its rainbow hues; when he is turning back the reviving sufferer
to her bed of pain, clouding her first morning after years of night;
and the Nemesis of that hour shall point to the tyrant's fate, who
falls at length upon the sword of justice.
And now we come to the case of Daniel Spofford.
After her quarrel with him her hatred for him grew until
it could no longer contain itself. "Accordingly," as Miss
Milmine tells the story, "Mrs. Eddy got out a postscript
to 'Science and Health.' The second edition, which
Mr. Spofford had labored to prepare, was hastily revised
and converted into a running attack upon him, hurried to
press, labeled Volume II., and sent panting after 'Science
and Health,' which was not labeled Volume I., and which
had already been in the world three years. This odd
little brown book, with the ark and troubled waves on
the cover, is made up of a few chapters snatched from
the 1875 edition, interlarded with vigorous rhetoric
such as the following apostrophe to Spofford:"
Behold! thou criminal mental marauder, that would blot out the
sunshine of earth, that would sever friends, destroy virtue, put out
truth, and murder in secret the innocent befouling thy track with
the trophies of thy guilt — I say, "Behold the cloud no bigger than a
man's hand," already rising in the horizon of truth, to pour down
upon thy guilty head the hailstones of doom.
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 45
This "doom" came down upon *'the guilty head" of
Spofford in the form of a bill filed before the Supreme
Judicial Court at Salem in the spring of 1878, charging
him with practicing witchcraft upon one of Mrs. Eddy's
former students, Lucretia L. S. Brown. Miss Brown was
a maiden woman of fifty years of age, who was an invalid
and had been healed by Christian Science and suffered
a relapse. Mrs. Eddy persuaded her that Dr. Spofford
was practicing "Malicious Animal Magnetism" upon her
and that was the cause of her relapse; and she selected
twelve of her students and trained them to serve as wit-
nesses, saying to one of them, who protested at the railway
station as they were about to take the train for Salem
that she did not know anything about the case, "You
will be told what to say."
The case came to trial before a crowded court room,
for it attracted great attention in the newspapers. Mr.
Spofford did not appear, but his attorney filed a demurrer,
which Judge Gray sustained, "declaring with a smile
that it was not within the power of the court to control
Mr. Spofford's mind."
Miss Milmine concludes her detailed account of this
celebrated case with these striking comments:
So, after a lapse of nearly two centuries, another charge of witch-
craft was made before the court in Salem village. But it was an
anachronism merely and elicited such ridicule that it was hard to
realize that, because of charges quite as fanciful one hundred and
twenty-six persons were once lodged in Salem jail, nineteen persons
were hanged, and an entire community was plunged into anguish
and horror.
During the long years that the grass had been growing and
withering above the graves of Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse
and their wretched companions, one of the most important of all
possible changes had taken place in the world — a change in the
46 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
mode of thinking. The works of Descartes, Locke, and Sir Isaac
Newton had become a common inheritance; the relation of physical
effect with physical cause had become established even in ignorant
and unthinking minds, and a schoolboy of 1878 would have rejected
as absurd the evidence upon which Judge Hawthorne condemned a
woman like Mary Easty to death. l
A fitting climax and conclusion of Mr. Spofford's
relations with the Eddy people in Lynn came in a cele-
brated case which was brought in the Municipal Com-t
in December following the trial at Salem. To this case
Miss Milmine devotes an entire chapter (ch. XIII) of
her *'History," giving part of the court records and of
the testimony. Mr. Peabody gives an account of it
from a lawyer's point of view (in ch. XI of his book),
strongly hinting that Mrs. Eddy was back of the "con-
spiracy," but Dr. Powell in his book (page 80) condenses
it into a brief summary which is sufficient for our purpose
and the writer here transcribes it:
The last strange chapter in as strange a story as ever yet was
told of Mrs. Eddy's strange career was the indictment the following
December of Asa Gilbert Eddy, Mrs. Eddy's husband, and Edward
J. Arens, one of her students, by the grand jury on the charge of
conspiracy to murder Daniel H. Spofford. The evidence was
dubious and inconsequential. No inference can to-day be drawn
from it except that there was probably hysteria on one side and
panic on the other. The case was nolle procsed, and never came to
trial. Mr. Eddy paid the costs, and Mr. Spofford still lives (1907)
and at the age of sixty-five enjoys the confidence of those who
know him well.
1 History, pp. 218-244. On Malicious Animal Magnetism, see
also Powell, Christian Science, ch. VI, and Peabody, The Religio-
Medical Masquerade, ch. XII. For an account of the belief in and
the torture or witches, "which must forever be considered as among
the most fearful calamities in human history," see A. D. White's
History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, vol. I, pp. 350-
363. II: 135-167.
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 47
xMiss Wilbur also devotes to this case a chapter (ch. XVI)
of her "Life of Mary Baker Eddy," which virtually gives
Mrs. Eddy's version of the affair, stating that the * 'mon-
strous charge was thus dismissed without a trial," and de-
ploring that *'the men accused were made to appear too
insignificant in the world's affairs to warrant a full and
clear exoneration." It seems to be a perplexing point
in the case that Dr. Eddy was willing to pay the costs
when it was dismissed.
In closing this account of Mrs. Eddy's work at Lynn
it will be sufficient to note that she organized the Christian
Science Church in 1879 and her Metaphysical College
in 1881. But the numerous quarrels and lawsuits and
dissensions of the Christian Scientists made them un-
popular in that city, "and to this day the Christian
Science Church there has never prospered. . . They
were constantly quarreling and bickering among them-
selves, accusing each other of fraud, dishonesty, witch-
craft, bad temper, greed of money, hypocrisy, and finally
of a conspiracy to murder. Unquestionably Mrs. Eddy,
as the accepted messenger of God, was more severely
criticized for her part in these altercations than if she had
appeared before the courts merely as a citizen of Lynn,
and this criticism had much to do with the cloud of suspi-
cion and distrust which hung over the Church when, in
the early part of the winter of 1882, Mrs. Eddy left
Lynn forever behind her and went to Boston. "l
8. LIFE IN BOSTON
Boston! the "hub of the universe," the "literary Athens
of America," redolent of memories of Emerson and Lowell
1 Milmine, History, p. 279.
48 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
and Holmes; the seat of Harvard University; the luminary
that has emitted the cold, white light of Unitarianism and
liberal thought ; distinguished from colonial days by eminent
scholars and divines and statesmen and literary geniuses;
Boston with all its literary and social exclusiveness and
superiority and pride; that this city set on a hill should
become the home and throne of Christian Science is surely
the paradox and irony of history. How are the mighty
fallen! If the light that is in Boston turn to darkness,
how great is that darkness!
The home and throne of Christian Science is what
Boston became when Mary Baker Eddy, at the age of
sixty-one years, set foot in its precincts and located her
establishment on Columbus Avenue, afterwards trans-
ferring it to the fashionable Commonwealth Avenue.
On Columbus Avenue she set up her "Massachusetts
Metaphysical College," of which she herself was the
entire faculty and in which she charged three hundred
dollars for a course of seven lessons. Half a dozen of
her students made their home with her, and the business
of teaching on her part and of practicing on their part
began in this city.
In June of the same year the death of Dr. Eddy oc-
curred, for death, which according to Mrs. Eddy and her
"Science'* is only a "false belief" and "delusion" and
"myth" and "nothing," has never spared the followers
of Mrs. Eddy, not even her own husbands. Mrs. Eddy
had an autopsy performed by a regular physician, who
pronounced the cause of death to be organic disease of
the heart. "Dr. Rufus K. Noyes of Boston," says
Mr. Peabody, "who performed the autopsy, tells me that,
having removed the diseased organ from Mr. Eddy's
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 49
breast, he exhibited it upon a platter to the sorrowing
widow, who craved the ocular demonstration, and pointed
out to her curious and eager inspection the precise cause
of death in its diseased condition. And it was after,
and notwithstanding, her close scrutiny of the physical
heart that had so robustly throbbed with love for her,
that, much to Dr. Noyes' amusement, Mrs. Eddy gave
out the statement, to the extent of a column or more in
the newspapers, that arsenical poison mentally admin-
istered by absent treatment had in fact torn her loved
one a third time, and finally, from her clinging grasp." ^
The following are several extracts from this interview
which appeared in the Boston Post, June 5, 1882, the
"Dr. Eastman" mentioned in it being one of Mrs. Eddy's
students and not a graduate of any regular medical school:
My husband's death was caused by malicious mesmerism. Dr.
C. J. Eastman, who attended the case after it had taken an alarming
turn, declares the symptoms to be the same as those of arsenical
poisoning. On the other hand. Dr. Rufus K. Noyes, late of the
City Hospital, who held an autopsy over the body to-day, affirms
that the corpse is free from all material poisons, although Dr. East-
man still holds to his original belief. I know it was poison that
killed him, not material poison, but mesmeric poison. My husband
was in uniform health, and but seldom complained of any kind of
ailment. During his brief illness, just preceding his death, his
continual cry was, "Only relieve me of this continual suggestion,
through the mind, of poison, and I will recover." It is well known
that by constantly dwelling upon any subject in thought finally
comes the poison of belief through the whole system. . Oh, isn't
it terrible, that this fiend of malpractice is in the land! The only
remedy that is effective in meeting this terrible power possessed by
the evil-minded is to counteract it by the same method that I use in
counteracting poison. They require the same remedy. Circum-
stances debarred me from taking hold of my husband's case. He
declared himself perfectly capable of carrying himself through, and
I was so entirely absorbed in business that I permitted him to try,
1 Masquerade, p. 44.
50 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
and when I awakened to the danger it was too late. . . We all
know that disease of any kind cannot reach the body except through
the mind, and that if the mind is cured the disease is soon relieved.
Only a few days ago I disposed of a tumor in twenty-four hours
that the doctors had said must be removed by the knife. I changed
the course of the mind to counteract the effect of the disease. This
proves the myth of matter. ^
It was really unfortunate for the poor husband that
a wife with such power was *'so entirely absorbed in
business'* that ''circumstances debarred [her] from taking
hold of [his] case."
Soon after Mr. Eddy's death Mrs. Eddy called into
her service Calvin A. Frye, who ever after played a large
and intimate part in her life until her death. He was a
striking exception among her many students and followers
in that she did not quarrel with him and dismiss him
peremptorily under a charge of "Malicious Mesmerism"
or "Malpractice." He was a machinist employed at
Lawrence, Mass., when at the age of twenty-seven he
was summoned to come to Mrs. Eddy, from whom he
had formerly received instruction. Writing in 1908,
Miss Milmine gives the following summary account of him :
For twenty-seven years Mr. Frye has occupied an anomalous
position in Mrs. Eddy's household. He has been her house steward,
bookkeeper, and secretary. When he attends her upon her cere-
monial drives in Concord, he wears the livery of a footman. In a
letter to her son, George Glover, written April 27, 1898, Mrs. Eddy
describes Mr. Frye as her "man-of-all-work." Since Mrs. Eddy's
retirement [1889] to Concord eighteen years ago, Calvin Frye has
lived in an isolation almost as complete as her own, the object of
surmises and insinuations. He has no personal friends outside of
the walls of Pleasant View, and the oft-repeated assertion that in
twenty-seven years he has not been beyond Mrs. Eddy's call for
twenty-four hours is perhaps literally true. Although her treatment
1 Milmine, History, pp. 286, 287.
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 51
of liim has often been contemptuous in the extreme, his fidelity has
been invaluable to Mrs. Eddy; but the actual donning of livery by
a middle-aged man of some education and of sturdy, independent
New England ancestry, is a difficult thing to understand. Whether
he feels the grave charges which have recently been brought against
him, or the ridicule of which he has long been the object, it is not
likely that anyone will ever learn from Mr. Frye.^
Mr. Peabody offers like testimony as to the strange
relations of this man and woman. *'He is," he says, *'her
major-domo, master of ceremonies in her pretentious
establishment, and director of her large retinue of assistant
secretaries, literary experts, personal healers, mental
protectors, and domestic servants. These positions Mr.
Frye has adorned, as a resident member of Mrs, Eddy's
family, occupying an adjoining room, for upwards of
thirty years." For years he held the legal title of all her
property down to the very jewels she wore, and this con-
dition continued until Mr. Peabody, who was associate
counsel in a legal case in connection with Mrs. Eddy's
property, called attention to it and Mr. Frye reconveyed
it to Mrs. Eddy. In view "of all these circumstances,
taken with the confident opinion of one long a member of
her household," Mr. Peabody, speaking with an inside
knowledge of the facts, expresses his judgment of the
relations of these two people, which anyone interested in
knowing it can find recorded in his book. 2
The seven years that Mrs. Eddy spent in Boston at the
head of her complex and growing establishment, con-
sisting of her household. Metaphysical College and church,
were marked by the usual personal quarrels, church dis-
sensions, lawsuits, and mesmeric monomania. The devil
1 History, pp. 293, 294.
2 Masquerade, pp. 45, 46.
52 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
of "M. A. M." was very busy in Boston and let no day
pass without some visible mark of his presence and dis-
pleasure. One who spent several years in her Boston
household declares it was *'a madhouse." Miss Milmine
gives the following glimpse into it :
The atmosphere of Mrs. Eddy's house derived its peculiar char-
acter from her belief in malicious mesmerism, which exerted a
sinister influence over everyone under her roof. Her students could
never get away from it. Morning, noon, and night the thing had
to be reckoned with, and the very domestic arrangements were
ordered to elude or to combat the demoniacal power. If Mrs. Eddy
had kept in her house a dangerous maniac or some horrible physical
monstrosity which was always breaking from confinement and
stealing around her chambers and hallways, it could scarcely have
cast a more depressing anxiety over her household. Those of her
students who believed in mesmerism were always on their guard
with each other, filled with suspicion and distrust. If a member
of that household denied the doctrine, or even showed a lack of
interest in it, he was at once pronounced a mesmerist and requested
to leave. Mr. Eddy's death had given malicious animal magnetism
a new vogue. Mrs. Eddy was now always discovering in herself
and her students symptoms of arsenical poisons or of other baneful
drugs. Her nocturnal illnesses, which she had for years attributed
to malicious mesmerism, were now more frequent and violent than
ever.i
In 1888, Mrs. Eddy at the age of sixty-eight adopted as
her legal son Ebenezer Johnson Foster, a man of forty-
one, who then became known as Ebenezer J. Foster Eddy.
He was a homeopathic physician and Mrs. Eddy was
glad to have a medically trained man in her service so
that on occasion she could use him for her own purposes.
Dr. Foster Eddy served her well for a time and became
publisher of her books, but in time he was charged with
being short in his accounts and with having conducted
himself improperly with a married woman, and Mrs.
1 History, p. 301.
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 53
Eddy then sent him to Philadelphia to build up a church.
When it was found that discreditable stories had followed
him to that city Mrs. Eddy wrote to him: *'Dear Doctor,
I have silenced every word of the slander started in Boston
about that woman by saying that I had not the least
idea of any wrong conduct between you and her, for I
know you are chaste. . . This silly stuff is dead. Always
kindly yours, Mary Baker Eddy." Dr. Foster Eddy left
Philadelphia, but he was already under suspicion with
Mrs. Eddy, and soon after when he sought to see her, she
"cut short the interview and went upstairs while he was
speaking," and he drops out of this history.
Mrs. Eddy was having almost constant trouble with
her publishers and editors whom she appointed and dis-
missed at her own arbitrary pleasure. In one letter she
reprimanded W. G. Nixon, her publisher, for not afl&xing
her name whenever he mentioned "Science and Health"
in the Christian Science Journal, and in another letter
reproof fell on his unlucky head for having omitted the
title "Reverend" before her name. Mr. Nixon thought
that the Journal should not be conducted simply as the
personal organ of Mrs. Eddy and ventured to suggest to
her that it would be more dignified to keep her name a
little more in the background, but this drew from her the
following note:
Those who are trying to frighten you over my name at suitable
intervals and who are crying personality are the very ones that
persist in their purpose to keep my personality before the public
through abusing it and to harness it to all the faults of other per-
sonalities and make it responsible for them. But neither of these
efforts disposes of personality nor handle it on the rule our Master
taught nor deal with mortal personality scientifically.
On Sept. 30, 1889, Mrs. Eddy wrote to Mr. Nixon,
54 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
saying: "God our God has just told me who to recommend
to you for the Editor of C. S. Jour, but you are not to
name me in this transaction. It is Rev. Charles Ma-
comber Smith, D. D., 164 Summer St., Somerville, Mass.
. . . Get him sure." But before Mr. Nixon could act
on this letter she wrote him again, saying, *'I regret
having named the one I did for Editor. It is a mistake,
he is not fit. It was not God evidently that suggested
that thought but the person who suggests many things
mentally but I have before been able to discriminate I
wrote too soon after it came to my thought." It thus
appears that she was not always able to discriminate
between God's revelation and the suggestion of her mes-
meric devil *'M. A. M." In these disputes Mrs. Eddy
always had one argument that was unanswerable. Look-
ing her opponent directly in the eye she would slowly say,
"God has directed me in this matter. Have you any-
thing further to say?"
In the spring of 1889 Mrs. Eddy suddenly left Boston,
driven out as she said by malicious mesmerism. This
evil presence had filled and poisoned the whole city. Her
mail, her clothes, her house were saturated with it. The
very atmosphere had become so impregnated with it that
she said it choked her. The only relief for her was
"flight," escape anywhere to get away from Boston. The
city of culture that had once attracted her now repelled
her and sent her flying from it as for her very life.
9. RETIREMENT AND CLOSING YEARS
From Boston Mrs. Eddy went to Concord, N. H.,
where she lived in a beautiful home with surrounding
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 55
grounds known as Pleasant View, from which she could
look out over the hills among which lies the farm where
she spent her childhood. In this retirement she lived
nineteen years, but though withdrawn from public life
she yet kept her hand on her church and all her affairs
and even tightened her autocratic grip. Only four times
during these years did she visit Boston. She ceased to
teach and preach as long before she had ceased to give
treatment to the sick; and she published a notice that no
one must seek to consult her or write to her. Her followers
would go out from Boston on pilgrimages to Pleasant
View, where for a number of years she appeared to them
on the occasion of the June communion. But she with-
drew into ever closer seclusion and even published a
prohibition forbidding her followers to linger on the road
so as to see her as she went by in her carriage. Her life
grew increasingly isolated and lonely, and writing to her
son George Washington Glover in 1898 she said: *'Now
what of my circumstances .^^ I name first my home, which
of all places on earth is the one in which to find peace and
enjoyment. But my home is simply a house and a
beautiful landscape. There is not one in it that I love
as I love everybody. I have no congeniality with my
help inside of my house; there are no companions and
scarcely fit to be my help."
She was so closely guarded that her son came to believe
that his letters were not reaching her and that Calvin
Frye answered some of them. When he sent a letter to
her by express he was notified that Mrs Eddy could not
receive it except through her secretary Frye. Mr. Glover
then brought action against ten leading Christian Scien-
tists, as we have already related, when Mrs Eddy trans-
56 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
ferred her property to a trusteeship, and then the action
was withdrawn.
On Sunday, January 26, 1908, Mrs. Eddy was taken
on board a special train at Concord and removed to
Newton, Mass., where a fine mansion had been bought
and prepared for her. This removal was effected with
great secrecy and precaution and was an utter surprise to
her followers and the public. The reason for this final
change of residence is given by Miss Milmine as follows :
It is very probable that Mrs. Eddy left Concord for the same
reason that she left Boston years ago; because she felt that malicious
animal magnetism was becoming too strong for her there. The
action brought by her son in Concord the previous summer she
attributed entirely to the work of mesmerists who were supposed
to control her son's mind. Mrs. Eddy always believed that this
strange miasma of evil had a curious tendency to become localized;
that certain streets, mailboxes, telegraph ofl5ces, vehicles, could be
totally suborned by these invisible currents of hatred and ill-will that
had their source in the minds of her enemies and continually en-
circled her. She believed that in this way an entire neighborhood
could be made inimical to her, and it is quite possible that, after the
recent litigation in Concord, she felt that the place had become
saturated with mesmerism and that she would never again find
peace there. ^
Mrs. Eddy was now eighty-seven years of age, and her
highly nervous organization that had withstood the strain
and storms of so many years was visibly approaching the
end. Yet she still showed wonderful vitality and grip on
her affairs and at times the old fire would flash up in the
dying embers. Her death occurred on December 3, 1910.
A physician was called in near the end, and her attendants
said that for several days she had been *'in error." She
was buried at Newton, where a costly monument has been
1 History, p. 459.
LIFE OF MRS. MARY BAKER G. EDDY 57
reared over her grave. But her real monument is the
strange system of belief and practice she built up and the
strange book she wrote and the church that acknowledges
her as its founder. Whatever view may be taken of her
character and teaching and work, it must be admitted
that she was one of the most remarkable women of her
day.
CHAPTER IV
WHERE DID MRS. EDDY GET HER SYSTEM OF HEALING?
This is a vital question in the story of Mrs. Eddy's life
and the history of Christian Science. If the system is
based on a false claim of originality and has purloined its
ideas from another healer, it falls into the class of stolen
goods. It is true that the essential truth and worth of
the ideas of a system may be independent of their origin
and authorship, but a religion founded by a false prophet
cannot retain the respect of the world, and will not
endure.
1. MRS. EDDY'S CLAIMS
Mrs. Eddy makes very positive claims as to her own
discovery of Christian Science, but as usual she is at this
point her own most confusing and contradictory witness
against herself. At different times she fixes on different
dates for this discovery; and while the development of an
idea may pass through degrees of growth, yet her definite
dates do not carry this implication, especially as she says
in one of her letters, 'T discovered the art in a moment's
time." In a letter to the Boston Post of March 7, 1883,
she says: "We made our first experiments in mental
healing about 1853, when we were convinced that mind
had a science, which, if understood, would heal all disease."
But in the first edition of ^'Science and Health," 1875, she
says: "We made our first discovery that science mentally
58
WHERE DID SHE GET HER SYSTEM OF HEALING 59
applied would heal the sick, in 1864, and since then
have tested it on ourselves and hundreds of others and
never found it fail to prove the statement herein made
for it."
In later editions of "Science and Health," she fixes on
1866 as the date of the discovery, and this is the date
given in a more elaborate account in her autobiography
"Retrospection and Introspection" (1892), which is as
follows:
It was in Massachusetts, February, 1866, and after the death of
the magnetic doctor, Mr. P. P. Quimby, whom spiritualists would
associate therewith, but who was in no wise connected with this
event, that I discovered the science of Divine Metaphysical healing,
which I afterward named Christian Science. The discovery came
to pass in this way. During twenty years prior to my discovery I
had been trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause; and
in the latter part of 1866 I gained the scientific certainty that all
causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon. My
immediate recovery from the effects of an injury caused by an
accident, an injury neither medicine nor surgery could reach, was
the falling apple that led me to the discovery how to be well myself
and how to make others so. Even to the homeopathic physician
who attended me, and rejoiced in my recovery, I could not then
explain the modus of my relief. I could only assure him that the
Divine Spirit had wrought the miracle, a miracle which later I
found to be in perfect Scientific accord with divine law.i
She refers to this recovery in the first edition of "Science
and Health" and also in a letter written to Mr. W. W.
Wright, in which she says: "I have demonstrated upon
myself in an injury occasioned by a fall, that it did for
me what surgeons could not do. Dr. Gushing of this city
pronounced my injury incurable and that I could not
survive three days because of it, when on the third day I
rose from my bed and to the utter confusion of all I
1 Retrospection and Introspection, p. 24.
60 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
commenced my usual avocations and notwithstanding
misplacements, I regained the natural position and
functions of the body."
But two weeks after this miraculous recovery, which
she says occurred on the third day after her accident,
Mrs. Eddy wrote to Julius A. Dresser, a former student
of Quimby, as follows:
Two weeks ago I fell on the sidewalk, and struck my back on the
ice, and was taken up for dead, came to consciousness amid a storm
of vapors from cologne, chloroform, ether, camphor, etc., but to
find myself the helpless cripple I was before I saw Dr. Quimby.
The physician attending said I had taken the last step I ever should,
but in two days I got out of my bed alone and will walk; but yet
I confess I am frightened, and out of that nervous heat my friends
are forming, spite of me, the terrible spinal affection from which I
have suffered so long and hopelessly. . . Now can't you help me?
I believe you can. I write with this feeling: I think that I could
help another in my condition if they had not placed their intelligence
in matter. This I have not done, and yet I am slowly failing.
Won't you write to me if you will undertake for me if I can get you?
And Dr. Gushing, the physician in the case, in 1907
made a long aflfidavit, based on notes of the case written
at the time, giving an account of it in which he said:
I did not at any time declare, or believe, that there was no hope
for Mrs. Patterson's recovery, or that she was in a critical condition,
and did not at any time say, or believe, that she had but three or
any other limited number of days to live. Mrs. Patterson did not
suggest, or say, or pretend, or in any way whatever intimate, that
on the third, or any other day, of her said illness, she had miracu-
lously recovered or been healed, or that, discovering or perceiving
the truth of the power employed by Christ to heal the sick, she had,
by it, been restored to health. As I have stated, on the third and
subsequent days of her said illness, resulting from her said fall on
the ice, I attended Mrs. Patterson and gave her medicine; and on
the 10th day of the following August, I was again called to see her,
this time at the home of a Mrs. Clark, on Summer Street, in said
city of Lynn.
WHERE DID SHE GET HER SYSTEM OF HEALING 61
As Dr. Gushing attended Mrs. Eddy on tte third day
after her fall, when she says she experienced an "immediate
recovery" which astonished her physician, an alleged fact
which he utterly denies, and also attended her for at
least two days subsequent to this third day, and as she
herself wrote two weeks later to Julius A. Dresser that
she was "slowly failing" and made a frantic appeal to
him to help her, her claim to have discovered Christian
Science in 1866 in connection with a miraculous recovery
from a fall is discredited and disproved by her physician
and especially by her own subsequent testimony.
2. PHINEAS PARKHURST QUIMBY
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, as has been seen, was an
uneducated clock maker of Portland, Me., who practiced
mental healing. He was born in Lebanon, N. H., in
1802 and died at Belfast, Me., in 1866. He was a man of
Christian faith and fine character and sterling worth,
whose simple goodness and kindliness won the instinctive
confidence of all who came into contact with him, and
this faith in himself which he inspired was, no doubt, the
chief secret of his healing power. While uneducated, he
was yet not an ignorant man, but was a constant reader
of the Bible and even read some philosophical books.
About 1838 he became interested in the power of the mind
as exhibited in mesmerism, clairvoyance, and Scriptural
healing by laying on of hands. Charles Poyen, the
French mesmerist who has been mentioned before, was
then traveling around and lecturing in New England, and
Mr. Quimby heard him and was influenced by him. He
practiced his method of healing for a time, but soon
62 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
abandoned it and began to heal diseases by the silent
treatment, declaring *'Truth" to be the healer. Though
he said that "error is matter," yet he did not mean to deny
the reality of matter and was little interested in meta-
physics. "His explanations were concrete, and he saw
no reason for denying natural facts. "i He ceased to
practice mesmerism or hypnotism because he discovered
that *'any person or drug which could put the patient in
this attitude of mental receptivity and give his own mind
a chance to work upon the disease, would accomplish the
same result." He then gave up manipulating his patients
and declared the cure was purely mental. Finally he lost
all faith in the science of medicine and thought that
doctors were hypocrites. "Instead of gaining confidence
in the doctors, I was forced to the conclusion that their
science was false. . . . My theory exposes the hypocrisy
of those who undertake to cure in this way."^ Mr.
Quimby was a simple-minded man who found no difficulty
in thinking that all his own opinions were infallible
knowledge and that all other men's opinions were false.
In one of his circulars he described his method as
follows :
My practice is unlike all medical practice. . . I give no medicines
and make no outward applications, but simply sit by the patient,
tell liim what he thinks is his disease, and my explanation is the
cure. . . If I succeed in correcting his errors, I change the fluids
of his system, and establish the truth or health. The truth is the
cure. This mode of treatment applies to all cases. 3
1 Horatio W. Dresser, History of the Neic Thovght Movement, p.
120.
2 Julius A. Dresser, True History of Mental Healing, p. 17.
3 For extensive quotations from Mr. Quimby's manuscripts see
the True History of Mental Healing, by Julius A. Dresser who was a
WHERE DID SHE GET HER SYSTEM OF HEALING 63
Mr. Quimby divided man into two parts or elements,
"the spiritual power in man," and "the natural man," or
"animal matter or life." He uses the word "matter" for
the lower nature of the senses and also appears to mean
by it very much the same as we mean by the "subcon-
sciousness," but he never employs it in Mrs. Eddy's
sense of "nothingness," and of a delusion of "mortal
mind," a term he does not use. "My theory," he says,
"is founded on the fact that mind is matter; and, if you
will admit this for the sake of listening to my ideas, I
will give you my theory. . . All knowledge that is of
man is based on opinions. This I call this world of
[spiritual] matter. It embraces all that comes within the
so-called senses. Man's happiness and misery are in his
belief; but the wisdom of science is of God, and not of man.
Now to separate these two kingdoms is what I am trying
to do. . . Disease is the invention of man, and has no
identity in Wisdom." Disease is thus a wrong belief
rooted down in the subconscious life of man, and it is
cured by Truth or Wisdom which is the power of God
working in the soul.i Xhis is Quimby 's root idea which
Mrs. Eddy appropriated, only she added to it the idea of
the non reality of matter, which he never held, as well as
many other absurd notions.
patient of Mr. Quimby and then a teacher of his methods, and
who says, "All these writings I have read, being in the confidence
of George A. Quimby, the son, who holds them." His book, based
on personal intimate knowledge of the facts, gives convincing testi-
mony as to the way in which Mrs. Eddy appropriated Mr. Quimby's
principle and methods.
1 For an exposition of Mr. Quimby's theory, see H. W. Dresser's
History of the New Thought Movement, ch. II and III.
64 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
S. REV. WARREN F. EVANS. FIRST EXPOSITOR OF QUIMBY
Dr. Quimby soon began to attract not only patients
but also students and followers who took up his system
and began to teach and practice it for themselves. Among
these was the Rev. Warren F. Evans, a Swedenborgian
minister of Claremont, N. H., who came to Dr. Quimby
in poor health in 1863 and was healed. He was acquainted
with philosophical idealism and was able to grasp Dr.
Quimby's ideas and work them out for himself. As a
result of his study and experience he became the first
expositor of Dr. Quimby's theory, which he set forth in
six volumes, the first three of which, with their titles and
dates of publication, were the following: *'The Mental
Cure," 1869; "Mental Medicine," 1872; and **Soul and
Body," 1875. It will be noted that these three books
appeared before the first edition of Mrs. Eddy's * 'Science
and Health." A quotation from the second of these
volumes, "Mental Medicine," will indicate Mr. Evans'
general teaching:
Disease being in its root a wrong belief, change that belief and
we cure the disease. By faith we are thus made whole. There is a
law here the world will sometime understand and use in the cure of
the diseases that aflBict mankind. The late Dr. Quimby, one of the
successful healers of this or any age, embraced this view of the
nature of disease, and by a long succession of most remarkable
cures proved the truth of the theory and the efficiency of that
mode of treatment. Had he lived in a remote age or country, the
wonderful facts which occurred in his practice would have been
deemed either mythical or miraculous. He seemed to reproduce
the wonders of the Gospel history.^
It will be seen that Mr. Evans not only reproduces
Dr. Quimby's fundamental teaching but also expressly
1 For account of Rev. W. F. Evans and his teaching, see Dresser's
History of the New Thought Movement, ch. IV.
WHERE DID SHE GET HER SYSTEM OF HEALING 65
attributes it to him, in which respect he stands in wide
contrast with Mrs. Eddy. It is an important fact in
this history that Mrs. Eddy had some knowledge of Dr.
Evans' books, for *'as a direct rebuke to those who had
become interested in the writings of Dr. Evans, she issued
instructions to the members of the Christian Scientists'
Association that they should read no other works upon
mental healing than those written by herself, and she
printed in the Journal a set of rules to the effect that all
teachers of Christian Science should require that their
students read no literature upon the subject of mind
cure but her own." 2
4. MRS. EDDY'S RELATIONS WITH DR. QUIMBY
Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Patterson, was wandering
around with her peripatetic dental husband and was
trying various means of cure for her ill health, when she
heard of Dr. Quimby and went to him in Portland in
1862. She was so weak on her arrival that she had to
be helped up into the waiting room and so poor that he
personally obtained for her a room at a reduced rate.
After a stay of three weeks her spinal trouble left her and
she thought she was cured. But she obtained more than
healing from Dr. Quimby: she obtained from him some-
thing that she had hitherto lacked, an idea and a mission,
a purpose that would unify her discordant life and call
out her latent personality and power. She haunted Dr.
Quimby 's office, *'asking questions, reading manuscripts,
and observing his treatment of patients." The kindly
old man took an interest in her and said, "She's a devilish
bright woman."
2 Milmine, History, p. 349.
66 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Soon after her recovery she wrote a long letter to the
Portland Courier, of the date of November 7, 1862, in
which she pays a laudatory tribute to Dr. Quimby and
explains his mode of healing. In these early letters of
Mrs. Eddy's, she is discovered in the act of writing her
unassisted and unedited English, and from the opening
paragraph of this letter this specimen is given:
When the startled alchemist discovered, as he supposed, an
universal solvent, or the philosopher's stone, and the more daring
Archimedes invented a lever wherewithal to pry up the universe, I
cannot say that in either the principle obtained in nature or in art,
or that it worked well, having never tried it. But, when by a falling
apple, an immutable law was discovered, we gave it the crown of
science, which is incontrovertible and capable of demonstration;
hence that was wisdom and truth. When from the evidence of the
senses, my reason takes cognizance of truth, although it may appear
in quite a miraculous view, I must acknowledge that as science
which is truth uninvestigated.
In reading the following extract from her letter bearing
on Dr. Quimby's method of heahng, let the fact be kept
in mind that afterward she affirmed that he was a mes-
merist and used animal magnetism in his work:
Is it by animal magnetism that he heals the sick? Let us examine.
I have employed electro-magnetism and animal magnetism, and for
a brief interval have felt relief, from the equilibrium which I fancied
was restored to an exhausted system or by diffusion of concentrated
action. But in no instance did I get rid of a return of all my ail-
ments, because I had not been helped out of the error in which
opinions involved us. My operator believed in disease, independent
of the mind; hence I could not be wiser than my master. But now
I can see dimly at first, and only as trees walking, the great principle
which underlies Dr. Quimby's faith and works; and just in proportion
to my right perception of truth is my recovery. This truth which
he opposes to the error of giving intelligence to matter and placing
pain where it never placed itself, if received understandingly,
changes the currents of the system to their normal action; and the
mechanism of the body goes on undisturbed. That this is a science
WHERE DID SHE GET HER SYSTEM OF HEALING 67
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. At present I am too much in error to elucidate
the truth, and can touch only the keynote for the master hand to
wake to harmony. May it be in essays, instead of notes! say I.
After all, this is very spiritual doctrine; but the eternal years of God
are with it, and it must stand firm as the rock of ages. And to
many a poor sufferer may it be found, as by me, "the shadow of a
great rock in a weary land."^
This letter brought ridicule upon both Dr. Quimby
and herself, and a correspondent of the Portland Advertiser
exclaimed, *T. P. Quimby compared to Jesus Christ?"
Again Mrs. Eddy wrote to the Courier:
Noticing the paragraph in the Advertiser, commenting upon
some sentences of mine clipped from the Courier, relative to the
science of P. P. Quimby, concluding, "What next?" we would reply
in due deference to the courtesy with which they define their position.
P. P. Quimby stands upon the plane of wisdom with his truth.
Christ healed the sick, but not by jugglery or with drugs. As the
former speaks as never man before spake, and heals as never man
healed since Christ, is he not identified with truth,'* And is not
this the Christ which is in him.? We know that in wisdom is life,
"and the life was the light of man." P. P. Quimby rolls away the
stone from the sepulcher of error, and health is the resurrection. 2
Mrs. Patterson returned from Portland to Sanbornton
Bridge apparently in restored health, and "Quimby
became the great possession of her life." She talked of
him incessantly and wrote him many letters, containing
such statements as: *'I am to all who see me a living
wonder, and a living monument of your power. . . My
explanation of your curative principle surprises people,
1 Milmine, History, pp. 58, 59.
2 Ibid, p. 60.
68 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
especially those whose minds are all matter." A few
days later she writes asking him for "absent treatment,"
and to "please come to me and remove this pain."
In 1864 Mrs. Patterson again spent two or three months
in Portland. Dr. Quimby now gave her much of his time,
and Mrs. Sarah Crosby, a patient of Dr. Quimby with
whom Mrs. Patterson became intimate, says of her, "She
would work with Dr. Quimby all afternoon, and then she
would come home and sit up late at night writing down
what she had learned during the day." Again she left
Portland and wrote more letters to Dr. Quimby full of
gratitude and praise. "Who is wise but you. 5^ . . . Doctor,
I have a strong feeling of late that I might be perfect
after the command of science."
Mr. Quimby died on January 16, 1866, of an abdominal
tumor, and many mourned the good man's death. None
more than Mrs. Patterson, who wrote to Julius Dresser
a letter inclosing some lines of poetry on the death of
Dr. Quimby, the letter beginning: "I enclose some lines
of mine in memory of our much-loved friend, which
perhaps you will not think overwrought in meaning:
others must of course." The concluding lines of the poem
are: "Rest should reward him who hath made us whole,
seeking, though tremblers, where his footsteps trod."
What was Mrs. Patterson doing in the years 1864-1870.^
These were the "wander years" during which she went
from home to home, creating more or less trouble in almost
every one of them. She was teaching the Quimby
"science" of healing, using for this purpose a manuscript
which she said had been written by "Dr. P. P. Quimby"
and having her students copy it, while she guarded it
most jealously. There is an unbroken chain of witnesses
WHERE DID SHE GET HER SYSTEM OF HEALING 69
and affidavits and other evidences to prove this important
fact beyond a doubt.
She spent two years, 1868-1870, at the home of Mrs.
Sally Wentworth in Stoughton, Mass. Here she used
the Quimby manuscript in instructing Mrs. Wentworth,
who made a copy of it. Mrs. Wentworth's son, Horace T.
Wentworth, had his mother's copy in 1907, and in a long
affidavit, made in that year, he minutely describes it and
states:
I became acquainted with Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, now of
Concord, N. H,, and known as the Discoverer and Founder of
Christian Science, in the year 1868, when she was the wife of one
Daniel Patterson, with whom she was now living, and was known
by the name of a former husband, one George W. Glover, and
called herself Mrs. Mary M. Glover. . . Said Mrs. Glover, upon
coming to my mother's house, lent my mother her manuscript copy
of what she, Mrs. Glover, said were writings of said Quimby, and
permitted my mother to make a full manuscript copy thereof, and
said manuscript copy of the writings of said Quimby, in my mother's
handwriting, and with corrections and interlineations in the hand-
writing of Mrs. Glover, is now, and has been since my mother's
death, in my possession. On the outside, said copy is entitled
"Extracts from Doctor P. P. Quimby's Writings," and at the head
of the first page, on the inside, said copy is further entitled "The
Science of Man or the Principle Which Controls All Phenomena."
There is a preface of two pages with Mrs. Mary M. Glover's name
signed at the end. The extracts are in the form of fifteen questions
and answers and are labeled, "Questions by patients, Answers by
Dr. Quimby." Annexed hereto, marked "Exhibit A," is a full
and complete copy of my mother's said copy of Mrs. Glover's said
copy of Dr. Quimby's writings. Annexed hereto, marked "Exhibit
B" is a photograph of the first page of Mrs. Wentworth's manuscript
plainly showing the additions made in a handwriting not my mother's.
All of the said first page shown in Exhibit B is in my mother's
handwriting except the words "Wisdom Love &" added to the
beginning of the fifteenth line, the word "of" and the symbol "&"
added to the sixteenth line and the words "is in it" added to the
seventeenth line, none of which additions is in my mother's hand-
writing.
Mr. Wentworth in his affidavit proceeds to say that.
70 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
while he is not familiar with Mrs. Glover's writing,
* 'having compared these corrections with unquestionable
writing of said Mrs. Glover's, found with my mother's
papers, and seen them to be strikingly similar, I am con-
fidently of the opinion that they are the writing of the
only person interested in the correction of said Mrs.
Glover's preface to said Dr. Quimby's writings, to wit,
said Mrs. Mary M. Glover— Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy—
herself."
Miss Milmine gives a facsimile of the first page of this
manuscript with its corrections in a different handwriting
as described in Mr. Wentworth's affidavit. 1
Affidavits similar to that of Horace T. Wentworth
were made by Charles O. Wentworth, his brother, Mrs.
Arthur L. Holmes, his sister, and Mrs. Catherine I. Clapp,
his cousin, these being all the members of the Wentworth
family living at the time. Mrs. Clapp, when asked if
she had ever heard Mrs. Glover say that she learned her
system from Dr. Quimby, said: *'Yes, and I am not
likely to forget it. It is fixed in my memory by a very
reprehensible proceeding of my own. You see, Mrs.
Glover used to say this to everybody who came in. She
wasn't content with mentioning it once or twice that she
had learned it from Dr. Quimby, she repeated it so often
that we girls got dreadfully tired of hearing it." The
"reprehensible proceeding of her own" was that she used
to mock Mrs. Glover who "would fold her hands softly
in her lap, smile gently, nod her head slowly at almost
every word, and say in a sweet voice, *I learned this from
Dr. Quimby and he made me promise to teach it to at
least two persons before I die.' " There was one particular
1 History, p. 128.
WHERE DID SHE GET HER SYSTEM OF HEALING 71
passage in Mrs. Glover's instructions which Mrs. Clapp,
then a young girl, "used to scoff at and make fun of to
her intimates.'* It ran as follows:
The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural or necessary
than would be the process of taking a fish out of water every day
and covering it with dirt to make it thrive more vigorously thereafter
in its native element.
Years afterward, Mrs. Clapp picked up a copy of
"Science and Health," and opened it at this identical
passage which had so excited her girlish derision, i Much
other testimony and evidence are available to prove that
this manuscript that Mrs. Glover used in her teaching
during the years 1864-1870 was a manuscript or a copy
of a manuscript of P. P. Quimby's and embodied his
system of healing.
Finally we have the explicit proof given by Miss
Milmine as follows:
George A. Quimby of Belfast, Me., has lent the writer one of his
father's manuscripts, entitled, "Questions and Answers." This is
in the handwriting of Mr. Quimby's mother, the wife of Phineas P.
Quimby, and is dated, in Mrs. Quimby's handwriting, February,
1862 — nine months before Mrs. Eddy's first visit to Portland. For
twenty closely written pages, Quimby's manuscript, "Questions and
Answers," is word for word the same as Mrs. Glover's manuscript,
"The Science of Man."2
The proof has reached demonstration that Mrs. Eddy
had Quimby's manuscript and derived her teaching from
1 Peabody, Masquerade, pp. 87, 89. Mr. Peabody locates this
precious passage on page 41 of the 1898 edition of Science and Health,
but it is now found on page 413 of that changeable book.
2 History, pp. 128, 129.
72 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
him and attributed it to him. The contents of this
manuscript will be reserved until the next chapter.
It remains only to add that as late as 1871, after Mrs.
Eddy had settled in Lynn, she acknowledged that she
derived her "art" from Dr. Quimby. In a letter written
on March 7, 1871, to Mr. W. W. Wright, of Lynn, who
had asked her, *'Has this theory ever been advertised or
practiced before you introduced it, or by any other in-
dividual.''" she replied:
Never advertised, and practiced by only one individual who
healed me. Dr. Quimby of Portland, Me,, an old gentleman who had
made it a research for twenty-five years, starting from the stand-
point of magnetism thence going forward and leaving that behind.
I discovered the art in a moment's time, and he acknowledged it to
me; he died shortly after and since then, eight years I have been
founding and demonstrating the science. . , please preserve this,
and if you become my student call me to account for the truth of
what I have written. Respectfully, M. M. B. Glover.
Let it be noted that in this letter Mrs. Eddy acknowl-
edges that Dr. Quimby started *'from the standpoint
of magnetism thence going forward and leaving that
behind."
5. MRS. EDDY'S DENIAL OF DEPENDENCE ON QUIMBY
In the face of all this evidence and of her own written
and published acknowledgments of indebtedness to him,
will it be believed that Mrs. Eddy, after she launched
out on her public career as a mental healer and founder
of a religion, positively and repeatedly denied that she
had derived her ideas from P. P. Quimby, but affirmed that
he had derived his ideas from her? He had not taught
her, but she had taught him! Yet this is what she did
and, as usual, over her own signature.
WHERE DID SHE GET HER SYSTEM OF HEALING 73
When Mrs. Eddy turned against Dr. Quimby, she began
by representing that he was a mesmerist and magnetic
healer, although she herself had said that Dr. Quimby
had started by this method but had gone forward, "leaving
that behind.'* Julius A. Dresser, a student and follower
of Quimby, resented this misrepresentation of Quimby
and wrote a letter to this effect in the Boston Post of
February 24, 1883. Mrs. Eddy replied in a letter to the
same paper of March 7, 1883, in which she made this
barefaced statement:
We never were a student of Dr. Quimby's. . . Dr. Quimby
never had students, to our knowledge. He was a Humanitarian,
but a very unlearned man. He never published a work in his life;
was not a lecturer or teacher. He was somewhat of a remarkable
healer, and at the time we knew him he was known as a mesmerist.
We were one of his patients. He manipulated his patients, but
possibly back of his practice he may have had a theory in advance
of his method. . . We knew him about twenty years ago, and
aimed to help hirn. We saw he was looking in our direction, and
asked him to write his thoughts out. He did so, and then we
would take that copy to correct, and sometimes so transform it that
he would say it was our composition, which it virtually was; but we
always gave^ him back the copy and sometimes wrote his name on
the back of it.^
In * 'Science and Health," edition of 1884, Mrs. Eddy
says of Quimby :
The old gentleman to whom we have referred had some very
advanced views on healing, but he was not avowedly religious neither
scholarly. We interchanged thoughts on the subject of healing the
sick. I restored some patients of his he failed to heal, and left in
his possession some manuscripts of mine containing corrections of
his desultory pennings which I am imformed, at his decease, passed
into the hands of a patient of his, now residing in Scotland. He
died in 1865 and left no published works. The only manuscript
that we ever had of his, longer than to correct it, was one of perhaps
a dozen pages, most of which we composed.
1 Milmine, History, p. 96.
74 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
It is true that Mr. Quimby **left no published works"
but he was not "iUiterate," as Mrs. Eddy in another
statement declared, and he left manuscripts of "over
eight hundred pages, covering one hundred and twenty
subjects, written previous to March, 1862, more than six
months before Mrs. Eddy went to Dr. Quimby." In
her controversy with Mr. Julius A. Dresser, Mrs. Eddy
published the following remarkable challenge:
Mr. George A. Quimby, son of the late Phineas P. Quimby, over
his own signature and before witnesses, stated in 1883, that he had
in his possession at that time all the manuscripts that had been
written by his father. And I hereby declare that to expose the
falsehood of parties publicly intimating that I have appropriated
matter belonging to the aforesaid Quimby, I will pay the cost of
printing and publishing the first edition of those manuscripts with
the author's name. Provided, that I am allowed to examine said
manuscripts, and do find that they were his own compositions, and
not mine, that were left with him many years ago, or that they
have not since his death, in 1865, been stolen from my published
works. Also that I am given the right to bring out this one edition
under the copyright of the owner of said manuscripts, and all the
money accruing from the sale of said book shall be paid to said
owner. Some of the purported writings, quoted by Mr. D
were my own words as near as I can recollect them.
It is needless to say that such an offer was not accepted.
Mrs. Eddy would quickly have found that these alleged
manuscripts of Mr. Quimby were not *'his own com-
positions," but were her own, or had "been stolen" from
her own "published works. "i
1 The question is often asked. Why are not these Quimby manu-
scripts published so that the world may see their contents for itself?
On this point Horatio W. Dresser, Ph. D,, the son of Julius A. Dresser,
in his "History of the New Thought Movement," p. 338, says:
"For reasons best known to himself, Mr. George A. Quimby steadily
refused to publish the manuscripts during the life-time of Mrs. Eddy.
By previous arrangement with Mr. Quimby our family copies were
returned to him in 1893, and we were not permitted to quote any of
WHERE DID SHE GET HER SYSTEM OF HEALING 75
When Mrs. Eddy was confronted by Julius A. Dresser,
in a letter in the Boston Post, the same letter to which
reference has already been made, making public some of
the articles and letters which she had written acknowl-
edging her indebtedness to Dr. Quimby, she in her letter
to the same paper, March 7, 1883, made this remarkable
statement:
Did I write those articles purporting to be mine? I might have
written them twenty or thirty years ago, for I was under the mes-
meric treatment of Dr. Quimby from 1862 until his death in 1865.
He was illiterate and I knew nothing then of the Science of Mind-
healing, and I was as ignorant of mesmerism as Eve before she was
taught by the serpent. Mind Science was unknown to me; and my
head was so turned by animal magnetism and will-power, under
his treatment, that I might have written something as hopelessly
incorrect as the articles now published in the Dresser pamphlet. I
was not healed until after the death of Dr. Quimby; and then healing
came as the result of my discovery in 1866, of the Science of Mind-
healing, since named Christian Science.
When in 1887 Mrs. Eddy asked Rev. James Henry
Wiggin, her literary adviser and reviser, to answer the
charge brought against her on the basis of her pubhc
acknowledgments of her indebtedness to Quimby, he asked
her if she had written the letters to the Portland news-
papers, the poem on Quimby's death and other effusions.
the articles in full either in *The Philosophy of P. P. Quimby,'
1895, or in 'Health and the Inner Life,' 1896. Mr. Quimby died
without making any provision for the disposition of the manuscripts.
It remains for the historian to edit and publish these writings at
some future time. The historian has been personally acquainted
with all the patients and followers of P. P. Quimby who have had
the use of the manuscripts. Miss Milmine was allowed to reproduce
part of a page of one of them for her life of Mrs. Eddy published
in McClure's Magazine." In a personal letter from Dr. Dresser he
tells the author that he himself is the "historian" referred to. The
Dressers, father and son, who had personal access to and knowledge
of the Quimby manuscripts, had no doubt of Mrs. Eddy's indebted-
ness to them for her ideas.
76 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
When she admitted that she had, he said to her, "Then
there is nothing to say."
In a personal letter to a friend, Mr. Wiggin said:
What Mrs. Eddy has, as documents clearly prove, she got from
P. P. Quimby, of Portland, Me., whom she eulogized after death
as the great leader and her special teacher. . . She has tried to
answer this charge of the adoption of Quimby's ideas, and called
me in to her counsel about it; but her only answer (in print!) was
that if she said such things twenty years ago, she must have been
under the influence of Animal Magnetism.!
So ended and so stands the case of the relation of Mrs.
Eddy to P. P. Quimby. That she should have derived
her system, at least in idea and germ, from him was nothing
to her discredit and nothing unusual in the history of
ideas, which are rarely or never discovered as an absolute
originality but are always derived from or suggested by
or related to the work of other thinkers. Such derivation
is always proper and honorable, provided, of course, it is
acknowledged and not denied. Mrs. Eddy at first did
make this acknowledgment in the fullest and frankest
measure, but afterwards when she became established
in her public career as a healer and founder of a religion
she came to think that any acknowledgment of in-
debtedness to Mr. Quimby was a reduction on her own
standing and especially that it was fatal to her claim of
receiving her discovery by divine revelation; a claim
which she presently made; and therefore she disowned
Quimby, denied her own words, set up a claim to false
originality and backed it up with a deliberate untruth.
And of this indebtedness and this denial she is convicted
out of her own mouth.
1 Mil mine. History, pp. 102, 103.
CHAPTER V
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH"; THE MAKING OF THE BOOK
It is now time to consider "Science and Health," the
book which claims to be the inspired bible of Christian
Science. There will be given, first, some account of the
making of this remarkable work, and then a summary of
its contents.
1. CONTENTS OF THE QUIMBY MANUSCRIPT
It is in order at this point to give an outline of the
contents and teaching of the manuscript which Mrs. Eddy-
used in her instruction in 1864-1870 and which it has been
proved she derived from P. P. Quimby and during these
years constantly acknowledged as his. This manuscript,
which was lent to Miss Milmine by George A. Quimby,
Dr. Quimby's son, consisted of twenty closely written
pages and was entitled ^'Questions and Answers." Mrs.
Eddy headed the copy she used at the top with "Extracts
from Doctor P. P. Quimby 's Writings," and underneath
this with "The Science of Man." Quotations from this
manuscript are given by Miss Milmine, 1 Dr. Powell, 2
and Mr. Peabody,^ in their respective books. The
arrangement of these quotations with parallel quotations
from Mrs. Eddy's "Science and Health," here given, is
taken from Mr. Peabody, with the exception of several
quotations, which are from Dr. Powell.
1 History, pp. 129, 130.
2 Christian Science, pp. 48, 49.
3 Masquerade, pp. 92-94.
77
78 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
From Quimby's
"Science and Man."
Christian Science.^
Science of Health.
Matter has no intelligence.
If I understand how disease
originates in the mind and fully
believe it, why cannot I cure
myself?
Never get in a passion, but in
patience possess ye your soul,
and at length you weary out the
discord and produce harmony by
your Truth destroying error.
Then it is you get the case.
Now if you are not afraid and
argue down, then you can heal
the sick.
Error is sickness. Truth is
health.
In this science the names are
given; thus God is Wisdom.
This Wisdom, not an in-
dividuality but a principle, em-
braces every idea form, of which
the idea, man, is the highest,
hence the image of God, or the
Principle.
Understanding is God.
Truth is God.
Wisdom, Love, and Truth are
principle.
From Mrs. Eddy's
"Science and Health."
Christian Science.
Science and Health.
Matter cannot produce mind.
Disease being a belief, a latent
delusion of mortal mind, the sen-
sation would not appear if this
error was met and destroyed by
Truth.
When we come to have more
faith in the Truth of Being than
we have in error, more faith in
spirit than in matter, then no
material conditions can prevent
us from healing the sick and
destroying error through Truth.
Sickness is part of the error
which Truth casts out.
God is the principle of man;
and the principle of man re-
maining perfect, its idea or re-
flection — man — remains perfect.
Man was and is God's idea.
Man is the idea of divine
principle. What is God? Je-
hovah is not a person, God is
principle.
Understanding is a quality of
God.
Truth is God.
Adhere to its divine Principle,
and follow its behests, abiding
steadily in Wisdom, Love, and
Truth.
1 Miss Milmine gives a facsimile of a part of another manuscript
by Dr. Quimby in his own handwriting containing the words
"Christian Science." As this manuscript bears the date 1863, this
is incontestable proof that Mrs. Eddy did not originate this name,
as she says she did. See McClures Magazine, vol. XXVIII, p.
511, for this facsimile. The use of the word "science," however, m
this peculiar sense goes back of Quimby. It was so used by Charles
Poyen. See p. 19.
SCIENCE AND HEALTH"; MAKING OF THE BOOK 79
Error is matter. Matter is mortal error.
To give intelligence to matter The fundamental error of
is an error which is sickness. mortal man is the belief that
matter is intelligent.
Matter has no intelligence of Laws of matter are nothing
its own, and to believe intelli- more or less than a belief of
gence is in matter is the error intelligence and life in matter,
which produces pain and in- which is the procuring cause of
harmony of all sorts. all disease.
For matter is an error, there There is no life, truth, intelli-
being no substance, which is gence, or substance in matter.
Truth in a thing which changes
and is only that which belief
makes it.
The identity of teaching extending to the very words in
these two writings is obvious and undeniable. The key
words of Mrs. Eddy's book, *'science," *'truth/* "principle,"
"mind," "error," "matter," "belief," which she uses in a
peculiar sense as a kind of jargon or lingo, are all derived
from Quimby who used them in the same peculiar sense.
Such expressions as "Truth is God," "God is Principle,"
"Matter is Error," "There is no intelligence in matter,"
which Mrs. Eddy repeats thousands of times with weari-
some and infinite repetition in her book, are all taken
bodily from Quimby. He built his instructions and
practice around these same ideas and phrases and wrote
them indelibly into his manuscripts, where they stand to
this day published in facsimile and can be seen and read
of all men. The merest superficial acquaintance with
Mrs. Eddy's "Science and Health" shows that her book
is built up around the same ideas and words and phrases.
She repeats the same ideas, practices the same healing
art, speaks the same language. Mrs. Eddy was right and
was simply telling the truth when she kept telling her
students during 1864-1870, "I learned this from Dr.
Quimby."
80 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Thus the roots of Mrs. Eddy's teaching and book run
back into P. P. Quimby and through him and others
down into the subsoil of New England transcendentalism
and other *'isms" that grew so rank in that region. Of
course she elaborated these germinal ideas or at least
repeated them and spun them out into her system and
book. It cannot be claimed that she had no originality
and was a mere echo of other voices. She had a mind
and especially a will and purpose of her own, and she
wrought these out into her book and her church. But
the substance and core of her teaching were not her own,
but came from the humble and benevolent clock maker at
whose feet she obediently sat and then rose up at first to
praise him extravagantly and follow him loyally, and then
to deny and disown him and even to claim that he had
taken from her what she had purloined from him.
In the face of these proven facts she had the effrontery
to assert in the original first preface to * 'Science and
Health," "Not one of our printed works was ever copied
or abstracted from the published or from the unpublished
writings of anyone;" and she had the further boldness to
insert in her autobiography a chapter on *Tlagiarism'* in
which she denounces this thing and declares that it *'does
violence to the ethics of Christian Science"!
2. THE EDITIONS OF "SCIENCE AND HEALTH"
During the years from 1864 to 1870 in all the house-
holds where she stopped Mrs. Eddy was writing, writing,
and referring to her manuscripts as her *'Bible." As
early as 1866 when she was at Lynn she said she "was
writing a Bible, and was almost through Genesis." At
Mrs. Wentworth's at Stoughton, where she spent two
•'SCIENCE AND HEALTH": MAKING OF THE BOOK 81
years, 1868-1870, she "pointed affectionately to a pile of
notepaper tied up with a string, which lay on her desk, and
told Mrs. Clapp (Mrs. Wentworth's niece) that it was
her Bible, and that she had completed the book of Gene-
sis.
1
For at least eight years she had been at work on her
manuscript before she sought a pubhsher. It was while
she was with Mrs. Wentworth that she took the book to
a Boston printer, and when he demanded payment in
advance for publishing it she tried to borrow the money
from her, but the money was not forthcoming. "Had
Mrs. Glover," says Miss Milmine, "then been successful
in her search for a publisher, Christian Science in its
present form would never have existed; for at that time
she had not dreamed of calling her system anything but
Quimby's Science. "^
The book first saw the light in 1875, when she was at
work in Lynn, and two of her students, Miss Elizabeth
Newhall and George Barry, furnished the money, $1500,
to secure its publication, the expense of Mrs. Eddy's
many changes in the plates increasing the cost to $.^200.
In spite of her intense faith in her book, she was chary
about venturing her own money on it and saw that others
ran the risk of any loss while she would reap any gain.
The book contained 456 pages and sold at $2.50. The
first edition consisted of 1000 copies, but when the book
fell flat on the market the price was reduced to $1.00.
Copies were sent for review to the New England news-
papers, and to some notable institutions and people,
such as the University of Heidelberg and Thomas Carlyle.
1 Milmine, History, pp. 131, 132.
2 Ibid, p. 176.
82 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
But it received little notice other than flippant references
to its vagaries, and the *'ill-made, cheap-looking affair'*
seemed to drop into the waters of oblivion. One woman,
however, still had indomitable faith in its future, and her
faith in due time was justified.
By 1877 Mrs. Eddy was busily at work on a second
edition of her book, when it was hurried to the press on
account of her quarrel with her publisher, Daniel Spofford,
and it has already been noted how she turned into a
bitter personal attack upon him this edition which con-
sisted of an "odd little brown book," labeled Volume II,
although the first edition has not been labeled Volume lA
The third edition, which appeared in 1881, was also
turned into a personal polemic and attack on Richard
Kennedy. A new chapter appeared in this edition,
entitled "Demonology," which poured out all the vials
of her wrath against her former student and partner.
From this a characteristic quotation has been given. 2
Prosperity was now smiling upon Mrs. Eddy, and new
editions of *'Science and Health" came thick and fast.
The *'Key to the Scriptures" was added to the book in
1884. The book has now passed through about ^we
hundred editions. They were announced as new editions
up to near this point, but of late years this is no longer
done and only the year of publication is given. Of
course these "editions" are mostly simply additional
printings and are not properly editions, but in a sur-
prising number of them the book underwent revision and
sometimes radical change. For a number of years the
book was in a state of flux and its contents floated around
within the covers in the most astonishing way. Not
1 Page 44.
2 Page 44.
^'SCIENCE AND HEALTH": MAKING OF THE BOOK 83
only were there constant additions and subtractions,
but the order of the chapters was frequently changed.
On this point Dr. Powell writes :
No matter what editions you may chance to be comparing, there
is an unexpected instability of arrangement in a book which the
author claims is of the nature of "final revelation." Mrs. Eddy is
not content to let the sequence remain permanent. Of four editions
dated, respectively, 1881, 1888, 1898, and 1906, the chapter which
comes first in the first and second of the four editions comes fifth in
the third and sixth and fourth. The second chapter in the first and
second editions is third and eighth respectively in the third and
fourth. The third chapter in the first edition appears as the fifth
in the second, the second in the third, and the seventh in the fourth.
Chapter IV in the first edition is Chapter XII in the second and XIV
in the third and fourth editions. Chapter V in the first is IX in the
second, XII in the third and fourth. And the variation lasts
throughout. 1
While the chapters were thus being shuffled around
into new arrangements, changes were being introduced
in their paragraphs, and some of these are significant.
For example, in the 1903 edition on page 274 there is
this declaration: *'Until it is learned that generation
rests on no sexual basis, let marriage continue." But in
the 1909 edition this declaration is found on page 64 and
has been changed to read as follows: "Until it is learned
that God is the Father of all, marriage will continue.*'
In both cases it is implied that generation does not rest
on a sexual basis, but until this fact is conceded the first
version permits marriage to Christian Scientists and the
second version simply declares that marriage will continue:
the first version grants a permission which the second
version does not allow; but either way it reads the state-
ment is a subtle blow at the foundation of marriage and
brands it as a temporary delusion, which, should give
way to "a more spiritual adherence."
1 Christian Science, pp. 18, 19.
84 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
The sale of the book, of course, has been enormous and
it has proved probably the richest literary gold mine of
a century; and as every Christian Scientist is supposed
and sometimes commanded to purchase the latest issue,
the point of these many *'editions" is easily seen.
3. WHO WROTE THE BOOK?
Mark Twain refuses to believe that Mrs. Eddy unaided
wrote *'Science and Health." He devotes many pages
to a higher critical examination of her ideas and style
in her early and acknowledged writings to show that the
same hand could not have written the generally smooth
and intelligent English of her main book. To believe
this he says *'is more than difficult, it is impossible."
He continues:
Largely speaking, I have read acres of what purported to be Mrs
Eddy's writings, in the past two months. I cannot know, but I am
convinced, that the circumstantial evidence shows that her actual
share in the work of composing and phrasing these things was so
slight as to be inconsequential. Where she puts her literary foot
down, her trail across her paid polisher's page is as plain as the
elephant's in a Sunday-school procession. Her verbal output,
when left undoctored by her clerks, is quite unmistakable. It
always exhibits the strongly distinctive features observable in the
virgin passages from her pen already quoted by me:
Desert vacancy, as regards thought.
Self-complacency.
Sentimentality.
Affectations of scholarly learning.
Lust after eloquent and flowery expression.
Repetition of pet poetic picturesquenesses.
Confused and wandering statement.
Metaphor gone insane.
Meaningless words, used because they are pretty, or showy
or unusual.
Sorrowful attempts at the epigrammatic.
Destitution of originality. ^
1 Christian Science, pp. 130, 131.
'SCIENCE AND HEALTH"; MAKING OF THE BOOK 85
He concludes that *'it is not believable that the hand
that wrote those clumsy and affected sentences wrote the
smooth English of "Science and Health." Mark Twain
was right in his higher critical instinct and guess i that
Mrs. Eddy must have had *'a paid pohsher" and *'clerks"
to put her own lucubrations in shape, but it is the general
opinion that he does more than justice to the Enghsh of
*'Science and Health." That is bad enough in the later
editions of the book, but in the early editions it is Mrs.
Eddy's own thought and style beyond a doubt.
The author has not been able to obtain or even to see
a copy of the first edition of *'Science and Health,"
although he has applied for it to the Christian Science
publishers and headquarters, 2 but Miss Milmine gives
an extended quotation from it that bears the marks of
its being in Mrs. Eddy's own unaided style, a fine
specimen^ of which has already been given.
A portion of Miss Milmine's extract is the following:
The belief that fasting or feasting enables man to grow better,
morally or physically, is one of the fruits of "the tree of knowledge"
against which Wisdom warned man, and of which we had partaken
in sad experience; believing for many years we lived only by the
strictest adherence to dietetics and physiology. During this time we
also learned a dyspeptic is very far from the image and likeness of
God, from having "dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the
air, or beasts of the field;" therefore that God never made one;
while the Graham system, hygiene, physiology, materia medica, etc.,
did, and contrary to his commands. Then it was that we promised
God to spend our coming years for the sick and suffering; to unmask
this error of belief that matter rules man. Our cure for dyspepsia
1 Mark Twain wrote his book in 1902 and 1903 and therefore was
not acquainted with the later disclosures as to the part played by
the Rev. James Henry Wiggin as Mrs. Eddy's literary reviser.
2 "The first edition of Science and Health has been so far as possible
suppressed." H. W. Dresser, The New Thought Movement, p. 111.
3 Page 34.
86 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
was, to learn the science of being, and "eat what was set before us,
asking no question for conscience' sake; yea to consult matter less
and God more.''^
Miss Milmine also describes the first edition of "Science
and Health'* as follows:
Even after eight years of struggle with her copy, the book, as
printed in 1875, is hardly more than a tangle of words and theories*
faulty in grammar and construction, and singularly vague and contra-
dictory in its statements. Although the book is divided into
chapters, each having a title of its own, there is no corresponding
classification of the subject, and it is only by piecing together the
declarations found in the various chapters that one may make out
something of the theories which Mrs. Glover had been trying for so
long to express. 2
The conclusion is that Mrs. Eddy did write * 'Science
and Health*' as it appeared in its first and early editions.
4. ENTER: REVEREND JAMES HENRY WIGGIN. LITERARY REVISER
At this point there enters upon the scene Rev. James
Henry Wiggin who plays an important part in this story.
He is the *'paid polisher" whose hand Mark Twain dis-
cerned in Mrs. Eddy's book by an improvement in her
style, as Leverrier detected the presence of an unknown
planet by its influence on another planet.
Mr. Wiggin was a Unitarian minister, a graduate of the
Meadville (Pa.) Theological Seminary in the class of
1861, who had retired from the active ministry in 1875,
although for years he continued occasionally to occupy a
pulpit. He was a large man physically, who had a rich
sense of humor and enjoyed life. He was a lover of
music, an inveterate theatergoer, and had Shakspere on
1 History, p. 81.
2 Ibid, p. 178.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": MAKING OF THE BOOK 87
the end of his tongue so that he could furnish an apt
quotation from the poet to adorn any subject or occasion.
Edward Everett Hale and other distinguished literary
men were among his associates. He was a man of wide
reading and fine culture and was specially fitted for the
peculiar task to which he was called.
One day in August, 1885, Calvin Frye called on Mr.
Wiggin and introduced himself as the secretary of a lady
who had TVTitten a book and wished to engage him to
revise it. A few days later Mrs. Eddy herself appeared
and completed the engagement. Mr. Wiggin went to
work for her and continued to serve as her literary adviser
and reviser for four years. Mrs. Eddy placed in his
hands the bulky manuscript of a new edition of "Science
and Health" which she had prepared, and Mr. Wiggin
took it with him on his vacation for leisurely examination.
Such examination soon showed him that the revision the
book needed was practically a rewriting of it. "The
faulty spelling and punctuation could have been corrected
readily enough, as well as the incorrect historical refer-
ences and the misuse of words; but the whole work was
so involved, formless, and contradictory that Mr. Wiggin
put the manuscript away and thought no more about it
until he returned to Boston."
Upon his return from his vacation he intimated to
Mrs. Eddy his views about the book and his proposal as
to what should be done with it, and to his surprise she
willingly consented. During the autumn he worked upon
the task of virtually rewriting the book, she keeping a
close watch upon him to see that he did not change her
teaching and that he continued to use her technical words
in her peculiar sense. Miss Milmine gives several para-
88 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
graphs as they appeared in the 1884 edition and the
corresponding paragraphs as they appeared in the 1886
edition as revised by Mr. Wiggin, and the reader will at
once see the improvement in almost every sentence.
The following paragraph is from the 1884 edition:
What is man? Brains, heart, blood, or the entire human
structure? If he is one or all of the component parts of the body,
when you amputate a limb, you have taken away a portion of man,
and the surgeon destroys manhood, and worms are annihilators of
man. But losing a limb, or injuring structure, is sometimes the
quickener of manliness; and the unfortunate cripple presents more
nobility than the statuesque outline, whereby we find "a man's a
man, for a' that."
The same passage in the 1886 edition as revised by Mr.
Wiggin reads:
What is man? Brains, heart, blood, the material structure? If
he is but a material body, when you amputate a limb, you must take
away a portion of the man; the surgeon can destroy Kianhood, and
the worms annihilate it. But the loss of a limb or injury to a tissue,
is sometimes the quickener of manliness, and the unfortunate cripple
may present more of it than the statuesque athlete, teaching us, by
his very deprivations, that "a man's a man, for a' that."
Sometimes, however, his revision went deeper than
mere diction and cut into the form and substance of her
teaching, as in the following instance. The paragraph is
from Mrs. Eddy's own 1884 edition:
The glorious spiritual signification of the life and not death of
our Master — for he never died — was laying down all of earth to
instruct his enemies the way to heaven, showing in the most sublime
and unequivocal sense how heaven is obtained. The blood of Jesus
was not as much offered on the cross as before those closing scenes of
his earth mission. The spiritual meaning of blood is offering
sacrifice, and the efficacy of his life offering was greater than that
of his blood spilled upon the cross. It was the consecration of his
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": MAKING OF THE BOOK 89
whole being upon the altar of Love, a deathless offering to Spirit.
O, highest sense of human affections and higher spiritual conceptions
of our Infinite Father and Mother, show us what is Love!
The following is the same passage as rendered by Mr.
Wiggin in the 1886 edition:
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 in his veins as he went daily about his Father's business.
His spiritual flesh and blood were his Life; and they truly eat his
flesh and drink his blood, who partake of that Life. The spiritual
meaning of blood is sacrifice. The efficacy of Jesus' spirit-offering
was infinitely greater than can be expressed by our mortal sense of
human life. His mission was fulfilled. It reunited God and man by
his career. His offering was Love's deathless sacrifice; for in Jesus'
experience the human element was gloriously expanded and absorbed
into the divine.^
Mr. Wiggin had a still deeper hand in the reconstruction
of Mrs. Eddy's book. He actually supplied and was the
author of one of the chapters that appeared in the 1886
edition. He drew up for her the outline of a sermon
upon the "city that lieth foursquare," which she preached
in her pulpit on January 24, 1886, "with great success,
though the Journal, in reporting the occasion, says that
Rev. Mrs. Eddy laboured under some disadvantage, as
she had left her manuscript at home." Mr. Wiggin was
present in the audience and went up at the close of the
service to speak to her as she stood in the midst of her
admirers. When she saw him *'her eyes began to twinkle,
and, putting her hand to her lips, she shot him a stage
whisper: *How did it go.^' " Miss Milmine completes
the story of the new chapter as follows :
1 Milmine, History, pp. 329, 330.
90 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
When Mr. Wiggin persuaded her to omit the libelous portion of
the chapter on mesmerism from the 1886 edition of "Science and
Health" after the plates for the edition had been made, Mrs. Eddy,
at Mr. Wiggin's suggestion, cut this sermon to the required length
and by inserting it was able to send the book to press without
renumbering the remaining pages. The chapter was called "Way-
side Hints (Supplementary)," and Mrs. Eddy put her seal upon it
by inserting under the subject of "squareness " a tribute to her
deceased husband: "We need good square men everywhere. Such a
man was my late husband. Dr. Asa G. Eddy."i
The reader of "Science and Health" as it stands to-day,
however, will think that Mrs. Eddy's *'paid polisher'*
still left much work that might have been done in im-
proving that much-tinkered book. It is still characterized
by affectation and obscurity and ineptitude and infinite
repetition and especially by Mrs. Eddy's lingo or jargon
of words which she uses in her own peculiar sense, though
this lingo was also derived from Quimby and others of
her literary forbears. She sometimes uses words with as
ludicrous misapprehension of their real meaning as does
Mrs. Partington. For instance, she thinks the name of
the Assyrian god Sin is the same word as our word *'sin,"2
thinks "mysticism" means the same as "mystery,"^
frequently confuses "pantheism" with "materiaHty,"^
confuses "adulteration" with "adultery," and makes
many such mistakes that escaped the pen of her paid
polisher. Some of her etymologies and definitions in
her "Glossary" in "Science and Health" are fearfully
and wonderfully made. "Abel" means "Watchfulness,"
"Canaan" means "A sensuous belief," "Dan" means
"Animal magnetism," and "Gad" means "Science." We
1 History, p. 335.
2 Science and Health, p. 103.
3 Ibid, p. 80.
4 Ibid. p. 522.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": MAKING OF THE BOOK 91
had always thought very highly of Moses but in this
*' Glossary" we learn to our disappointment that "Moses"
means *'A corporeal mortal." This entrance in the
Glossary is specially puzzling: **IN. A term obsolete in
Science if used with reference to Spirit, Deity." Hebrew
etymology exercises little restraint upon Mrs. Eddy,
although at times she airily refers to the Hebrew as if
she knew all about it, forgetting that her knowledge of
"Greek, Latin, and Hebrew," which her brother taught
her when she was only nine years of age, "after" her
"discovery of Christian Science" "vanished like a dream."
A sense of humor would have saved Mrs. Eddy from
all this, but she did not have a drop of it in her whole
system. She takes all her pompous affectations of
learning and shallow ignorance and ridiculous blun-
ders and confused thinking and doggerel poetry and
solemn incomprehensibilities in dead earnest. ^ They are
all equally inspired and infallible to her. How did Mr.
Wiggin, with all his sense of humor, restrain himself
from loud laughter as his censor's pen passed these things?
Doubtless he did go as far as he could or was permitted
to go in cutting such things out, and as it was not his
book he had to let its author have her way at many
points which he would have quickly polished away.
Doctor Powell, who is himself a good literary writer
and critic, passes this judgment on this book:
The difficulty is not merely with the style, which though often
marred by absurdity, turgidity, and faulty diction, possesses a
certain lofty distinctiveness, a certain sonorous authoritativeness,
1 Robert Hugh Benson, an English Roman Catholic prelate,
says: "I am certain that Christian Science rises almost entirely from
a lack of the sense of humor." A Book of Essays, p. 18.
92 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
which a book that claims to be a revelation ought to have to com-
mand the interest of the undiscriminating. The difficulty is also
with the arrangement of the work. There is a woeful want of
sequence both in thought and word. The reader can begin anywhere
and stop anywhere without serious loss or gain. Mrs. Eddy in one
section states that certain of her sentences read backward mean as
much as when read forward, and many not of her persuasion will
readily agree with her. . . Mrs. Eddy has undoubtedly improved
greatly in her power to express herself on paper, since her literary
helper twenty years ago testified she was constantly confusing such
words as physics and physiology, gnostic and agnostic, and putting
him to his wits' end to save her "from making herself ridiculous and
flatly contradicting herself." But there is still some justification for
Mark Twain's sweeping judgment that Mrs. Eddy "so lacks in the
matter of literary precision that she can seldom put a thought into
words that express it lucidly to the reader and leave no doubts in his
mind as to whether he has rightly understood or not.l
This account of the relations of Mr. Wiggin with
Mrs. Eddy is closed with a brief reference to the sad fate
that finally overtook this good man. Like nearly all the
students and associates and helpers of Mrs. Eddy, with the
exception of Calvin A. Frye, he at length fell from her
grace into deep condemnation. The devil of *'M. A. M."
at last got him. Signs of the coming end began when
she charged him with a "most shocking flippancy in
notations" upon her proofs. He seems to have indulged
in some humorous marginal scribblings, and she could
not stand any humor or wit in him, as she could not
appreciate it in anybody else. In a letter to her publisher
in which she complains about the "flippancy" she says of
him: "When he returned the first proofs a belief (but
don't name this to anyone) prevented my examining them
as I should otherwise have done, and, to prevent delay,
the proof was sent to the printer." The "belief" referred
to was simply an attack of illness which prevented Mrs.
1 Christian Science, pp. 17-20.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": MAKING OF THE BOOK 93
Eddy from examining Mr. Wiggin's proofs. He not only
*'changed his own marginal references" but also "took
back the word *cannot' throughout the entire proofs,
which he had before insisted upon using thereby causing
another delay." Evidently her "paid polisher" was
getting too independent and flippant toward her book,
and this was a very grave offense in her sight. Three
months later (November, 1890) she again complained
about his proofs and says: "This is M. A. M. [Malicious
Animal Magnetism] and it governs Wiggin as it has done
once before to prevent the publishing of my work. . . I
will take the proof-reading out of Wiggin 's hands."
This sealed his doom and he drops out of this history.
In a letter to a college friend, from which a brief quotation
has been made, dated December 14, 1889, and published
by Miss Milmine in her "History," Mr. Wiggin gives his
private view of Christian Science and of Mrs. Eddy,
which Miss Milmine says is "an interesting criticism of
Christian Science" and "probably the most trenchant
and suggestive sketch of Mrs. Eddy that will ever be
written." He was then about through with Mrs. Eddy
and speaks confidentially but freely and unsparingly, yet
not unkindly. The reader will be interested in the
following extracts:
Christian Science, on its theological side, is an ignorant revival
of one form of ancient gnosticism, that Jesus is to be distinguished
from the Christ, and that his earthly appearance was phantasmal,
not real and fleshly. On its moral side, it involves what must follow
from the doctrine that reality is a dream, and that if a thing is right
in thought, why right it is, and sin is nonexistent, because God can
behold no evil. Not that Christian Science believers generally see
this, or practice evil, but the virus is within.
Religiously, Christian Science is a revolt from orthodoxy, but
unphilosophically conducted, endeavoring to ride two horses. Phys-
94 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
ically it leads people to trust all to nature, the great healer, and so
does some good. Great virtue in imagination! . . . Where there
is disease which time will not reach. Christian Science is useless.
As for the High Priestess of it, . . . She is — well I could tell
you, but not write. An awfully (I use the word advisedly) smart
woman, acute, shrewd, but not well read, nor in any way learned.
What she has, as documents clearly show, she got from P. P. Quimby
of Portland, Maine, whom she eulogized after death as the great
leader and her special teacher. . . She tried to answer the charge
of the adoption of Quimby's ideas, and called me in to counsel her
about it; but her only answer in (print!) was that if she said such
things twenty years ago, she must have been under the influence of
"animal magnetism," which is her devil. No church can get along
without a devil, you know. Much more I could say if you were
here.
One of Mrs. Eddy's followers went so far as to say that if she
saw Mrs. Eddy commit a crime she should believe her own sight at
fault, not Mrs. Eddy's conduct. An intelligent man told me in
reference to lies he knew about, that the wrong was in us. "Was
not Jesus accused of wrongdoing, yet guiltless.^"
Only experience can teach these fanatics, i. e., the real believers,
not the charlatans who go into it for money. . . As for the book,
if you have any edition since December, 1885, it had my super-
vision. Though now she is getting out an entirely new edition,
with which I had nothing to do and occasionally she has made
changes whereof I did not know. The chapter B told you of is
rather fanciful, though, to use Mrs. Eddy's language in her last note,
her "friends think it a gem." It is the one called "Wayside Hints,"
and was added after the work was not only in type, but cast, because
she wished to take out some twenty pages of diatribe on her dis-
senters. I do not think it will greatly edify you, the chapter. As
for clearness, many Christian Science people thought her early
editions much better, because they sounded more like Mrs. Eddy.
The truth is, she does not care to have her paragraphs clear, and
delights in so expressing herself that her words may have various
readings and meanings. Really, that is one of the tricks of her trade.
You know how sibyls have always been thus oracular, to "keep the
word of promise to the ear, and break it to the hope." . . . No,
Swedenborg, and all other such writers, are sealed books to her.
She cannot understand such utterances, and never could, but
dollars and cents she understands thoroughly. i
5. MRS. EDDY'S CLAIMS TO DIVINE INSPIRATION
The bottom of the alleged basis and origin of this book
has not yet been reached. A divinely accredited and
1 History, pp. 337-339.
^SCIENCE AND HEALTH": MAKING OF THE BOOK 95
well-equipped religion must have an inspired revelation
or Bible, and Mrs. Eddy did not overlook this point.
She nowhere acknowledged her indebtedness to Mr.
Quimby and Mr. Wiggin for their part in the production
of *'Science and Health," but she was voluble in her claims
that God helped her to write it, or rather that he wrote
it so that it was, as she called it, "God's book.'* She
began to hint at this claim as early as 1877 when, in a
letter to a student, she said: *'I know the crucifixion of
the one who presents Truth in its higher aspect will be
this time through a bigger error, through mortal mind
instead of its lower strata or matter, showing that the
idea given of God this time is higher, clearer, and more
permanent than before."^
In her autobiography we may read:
The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a
fresh universe — old to God, but new to his "little one."
And a little further on we read:
Even the Scriptures gave no direct interpretation of the scientific
basis for demonstrating the spiritual Principle of healing, until our
heavenly Father saw fit, through the "Key to the Scriptures," in
"Science and Health," to unlock this "mystery of religion. "2
This puts "Science and Health" with "Key to the
Scriptures " above the Bible as a later and more perfect
revelation, "higher, clearer, and more permanent," as
she herself says. One may read in this book such state-
ments as " when God impelled me," and " God has since
shown me."
1 Milmine, History, p. 73.
2 Retrospection and Introspection, pp. 27 and 37.
96 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Turning to "Science and Health" we read:
In the year 1866, I discovered the Science of Metaphysical
Healing, and named it Christian Science. God had been graciously
Btting me, during many years, for the reception of a final revelation
of the absolute Principle of Scientific Mind-healing. ^ No human
pen or tongue taught me the science contained in this book. . .
and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it.^
The advent of this understanding is what is meant by the descent
of the Holy Ghost — that influx of divine Science which so illumi-
nated the Pentecostal Day and is now repeating ancient history.
... In the words of St. John: "He shall give you another Com-
forter, that he may abide with you forever.'" This Comforter I
understand to be divine Science. 2
Writing in 1901 she said:
I should blush to write of "Science and Health," with "Key to the
Scriptures" as I have, were it of human origin and I, apart from God,
its author, but as I am only a scribe echoing the harmonies of
Heaven in divine metaphysics, I cannot be supermodest of the
Christian Science textbook.^
In every Christian Science church every sermon by
the rules of the church is preceded by the following
declaration :
The canonical writings, together with the word of our textbook
("Science and Health"), corroborating and explaining the Bible
texts in their spiritual import and application to all ages, past,
present and future, constitute a sermon undivorced from truth, un-
contaminated and unfettered by human hypotheses, and authorized
by Christ.
In "Miscellaneous Writings" she says:
The works I have written on Christian Science contain absolute
Truth, and my necessity was to tell it; therefore I did this even as a
surgeon who wounds to heal. I was a scribe under orders; and who
can refrain from transcribing what God indites, and ought not that
one take the cup, drink all of it, and give thanks?*
1 Science and Health, 1898 edition, pp. 550 ff.
2 Ibid, 1916 edition, pp. 43 and 55.
3 Peabody, Masquerade, p. 57.
4 Page 3.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": MAKING OF THE BOOK 97
Once more, to conclude these claims of inspiration
which might be further multipHed, in her organ, the
Christian Science Journal, of January, 1901, Mrs. Eddy-
says:
It was not myself . . . which dictated "Science and Health"
with "Key to the Scriptures." It was the divine power of Truth
and Love, infinitely above me.i
She thus boldly and unblushingly claims that her book
is not *'of human origin," but was "dictated" by "divine
Truth and Love," and revelation by "dictation" is the
extremest form of plenary verbal inspiration.
But this is not the limit. Something far more
painful is yet to come. Mrs. Eddy's followers are daring
enough, and she herself does not hesitate, to exalt her to
equality with Christ and crown her with deity. In
"Science and Health," 1898 edition, she says:
The impersonation of the Spiritual idea had a brief history in the
earthly life of our Master; but of his kingdom there shall be no end;
for Christ, God's idea, will eventually rule all nations and peoples —
imperatively, absolutely, finally — with Divine Science. This im-
maculate idea, represented first by man and last by woman, will
baptize with fire.^
In her autobiography she writes :
No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No
person can compass or fulfill the individual mission of Jesus of
Nazareth. No person can take the place of the author of "Science
and Health," the discoverer and founder of Christian Science.^
In the Christian Science Journal for April, 1889,
1 Mark Twain, Christian Science, p. 144.
2 Page 550. . _ ,
^Introspection and ^etrospectionj p. 95. - f -
98 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
which was then owned and pubHshed by Mrs. Eddy, an
article appeared which made an elaborate argument to
prove that she was the equal of Jesus. *'Now a word,"
said the writer, * 'about the horror many good people
have of our making the author of 'Science and Health*
equal with Jesus."l
In 1894 Mrs. Eddy wrote and published a "poem"
illustrated with a picture in which Jesus is represented
as seated on a stone holding the right hand of a woman,
who in her left hand holds a scroll bearing the inscription
''Christian Science," thus identifying the woman with
Mrs. Eddy herself. About the head of each figure there
is a halo, and on the opposite page, illustrated by the
picture, are the lines, "As in blessed Palestine's hour,
so in our age 'tis the same hand unfolds his Power and
writes the page." Mrs. Eddy not only wrote the "poem,"
but also claimed a share in making the illustrations,
"which," Mr. Peabody says, "her man Hanna called
'exquisite bits of art,' but which are, doubtless, the
vulgarest products of the art of bookmaking of many
years. "2 This performance called forth such an outcry
of protest and indignation, even from some of her followers,
that she withdrew the little book (which was sold for $3.00)
from circulation, with the remark, "Scientists sometimes
take things too seriously."
Mrs. Eddy early began to identify herself with the
"woman" in the book of Revelation. She quotes ch.
12 :1 and then says : "The Revelator saw also the spiritual
ideal as a woman clothed in light, a bride coming down
from heaven, wedded to the Lamb of Love. . . The
1 Peabody, Masquerade, p. 51.
2 Masquerade, pp. 51, 52.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": MAKING OF THE BOOK 99
woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man, the
spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence of
God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea."i
In time she began to think of herself as the incarnation
of the motherhood of God, and the idea that she should be
worshiped as the correlative and coequal of the Father
was not unwelcome to her mind. This seems to be the
purport and point of her audacity in rendering the opening
of The Lord's Prayer as *'Our Father-Mother God/*
In the nineties * 'Mother Mary" became a common desig-
nation of her by her followers. Everybody spoke of her
as "Mother." She sometimes signed herself ''Mother
Mary." The President of the National Christian Science
Association on one occasion said, * 'There is but one Moses,
one Jesus; and there is but one Mary. "2
This idea culminated in one of the by-laws of her
church, written by herself, which reads as follows:
The Title of Mother. In the year 1895 loyal Christian Scientists
had given the author of their textbook, the Founder of Christian
Science, the individual and endearing term of Mother. Therefore,
if a student of Christian Science shall apply this title, either to
herself or to others, except as the term for kinship according to the
flesh, it shall be regarded by the Church as an indication of dis-
respect for their pastor emeritus, and unfitness to be a member of
the mother church. ^
Thus was this woman deified by her followers and
herself, exalted to equality with and, indeed, to superiority
to, Christ and finally raised to equality with God himself,
and possibly she meant to join her name with his in the
adoration of our Father-Mother God!
1 Science and Health, pp. 560, 561.
2 Powell, Christian Science, pp. 150, 151.
^ In later editions of the Church Manual, Christian Scientists are
instructed to substitute "Leader" for "Mother."
100 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
There is, however, an interesting sequel to this matter
of Mrs. Eddy's use of the name "mother." After the
appearance of Mark Twain's sarcastic book in which he
punctures with his sharp pen many of the pretensions
of Mrs. Eddy she issued a statement in the press in which
she said :
In view of the circulation of certain criticisms from the pen of
Mark Twain, I submit the following statement: It is a fact, well
understood, that I begged the students who first gave me the en-
dearing apellative "Mother" not to name me thus. But, without
my consent, that word spread like wildfire. I still must think the
name is not applicable to me. I stand in relation to this century
as a Christian discoverer, founder, and leader. I regard self-
deification as blasphemous; I may be more loved, but I am less
lauded, pampered, provided for, and cheered than others before me
— and wherefore? Because Christian Science is not yet popular,
and I refuse adulation. , . I believe in but one incarnation, one
Mother Mary, and I know I am not that one, and never claimed to
be.
Mark Twain did not fail to see and seize his opportunity,
and he replies to her in a scintillating chapter in his book,
the opening sentences of which are: *T feel almost sure
that Mrs. Eddy's inspiration works are getting out of
repair. I think so because they made some errors in a
statement which she uttered through the press on the
17th of January." The following is an extract:
She still thinks the name of our Mother not applicable to her;
and she is also able to remember that it distressed her when it was
conferred upon her, and that she begged to have it suppressed. Her
memory is at fault here. If she will take her by-laws, and refer to
Section 1 of Article XXII, written with her own hand — she will find
that she has reserved that title to herself, and is so pleased with it
that she threatens with excommunication any sister Scientist who
shall call herself by it.
He also reproduces a telegram she sent on May 27,
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": MAKING OF THE BOOK 101
1890, to the National Christian Science Association
then in session in New York in reply to one from the
secretary of the association, who was **instructed to send
to our Mother greetings and words of affection from her
assembled children." Her response was: *'A11 hail!
He hath filled the hungry with good things and the sick
hath he not sent empty away. — Mother Mary."
*' Thus it stands proven," continues Mark Twain,
"and established that she is that Mary and isn't, and
thought she was and knows she wasn't. That much is
clear. She is also *The Mother,' by the election of 1895,
and did not want the title, and thinks it is not applicable
to her, and will excommunicate anyone that tries to take
it away from her. So that is clear." Mark Twain was
also distressed because Mrs. Eddy perverted the Scripture
text she used in her telegram (which reads, in Luke 1 :53,
*'and the rich hath he sent empty away") and marveled
that this perversion *'in that massed convention of trained
Christians created no astonishment, since it caused no
remark, and the business of the convention went tran-
quilly on, thereafter, as if nothing had happened. "^
It stands indelibly written in her own writings, however,
that she did make all these claims to divine inspiration and
equality with Jesus, if not with God, and did adopt and
use the name "Mother Mary," and forbade others to
use it under pain of excommunication, and her subsequent
denial of these claims is only one more instance of her
inveracity, proved out of her own mouth.
1 Mark Twain, Christian Science, pp. 331-342.
CHAPTER VI
•'SCIENCE AND HEALTH": THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOK
It is difficult to give a condensed summary of the
contents of *'Science and Health" because of the lack of
order and system in its arrangement and in its ideas.
The chapters themselves have several times been shifted
around in a different order, and they might be shuffled
again without any loss of logic. The very titles of the
chapters sometimes have little aptness as designations
of their contents. The order of the paragraphs in the
chapters also follows no inherent plan and progress and
frequently baffles the reader to find and follow any thread
of connection. There are only a few fundamental ideas
in the book, and these are endlessly iterated and reiterated
until one's sense of interest and attention is dulled into
drowsiness: reading the book is like listening to a player
on a violin who keeps sawing on one string and making
few variations on that. One really has to maintain a
firm grip on his attention to keep from falling into a stupor
while perusing these monotonous pages. The style is
trying enough because of its peculiar lingo and its frequent
obscurity, although there are passages of clear English
and here and there a purple patch of fine writing, some of
these patches, however, being affected and stilted to a
degree. Of course, also, there is much truth in the book,
even fundamental truth and wholesome teaching, wheat
in its chaff, grains of gold in its sand, and this will be
102
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH" : CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 103
brought out later. The present purpose, however, is
to seize the principal points in each chapter and illustrate
them with brief quotations. There is danger, it is true,
in making such quotations of tearing them out of their
context so as to pervert their meaning, but the author
will guard against this tendency and will endeavor
only to let Mrs. Eddy express her ideas in her own way.
1. PRAYER
The book starts abruptly in the middle of things
with seventeen pages of rambling remarks and paragraphs
on prayer, with little apparent continuity and progression.
The point most frequently mentioned and strongly em-
phasized is that prayer is a subjective state which is not
helped but hindered by audible expression and that its
value is purely its reflex and subjective influence. "Audi-
ble prayer is impressive; it gives momentary solemnity
and elevation to thought. But does it produce any
lasting benefit? Looking deeply into these things, we find
that *a zeal not according to knowledge' gives occasion
for reaction unfavorable to spiritual growth, sober resolve,
and wholesome perception of God*s requirements." The
reader is therefore told that *'lips must be silent and
materialism silent," and that "we must close the lips
and silence the materialistic senses." In accordance with
this teaching only silent prayer is engaged in at Christian
Science services, with the exception of the repetition of
The Lord's Prayer together with Mrs. Eddy's inter-
pretation of it.
It is expressly declared that "God is not influenced
by man," and that "prayer cannot change the Science
of being, but it tends to bring us into harmony with it."
104 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
The usual obsession as to the nonreahty of matter and
sin runs through the chapter. In praying "we must
deny sin and plead God's allness," and yet sin is also
constantly spoken of as a reality.
The chapter concludes with Mrs. Eddy's interpretation
which she says she understands *'to be the spiritual sense
of The Lord's Prayer." It is here given as it stands
in the 1916 edition of the book, but an entirely different
version of her interpretation appeared in earlier editions
of the same book.
Our Father which art in heaven.
Our Father- Mother God, all-harmonious.
Hallowed be thy name.
Adorable One.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy kingdom come: Thou art ever-present.
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, — God is omnip-
otent, supreme.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections.
And forgive lis our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And Love is reflected in love;
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil;
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us
from sin, disease, and death.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
for ever.
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all,
and All.
2. ATONEMENT AND EUCHARIST
This chapter extends to thirty-eight pages, but very
little of it relates either to the atonement or the Eucharist.
In reading these pages one soon gets the impression that
one chapter runs without change of subject into another
and that all are cut from the same cloth. The reader is
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 105
told at once that ''the atonement of Christ reconciles man
to God, not God to man; for the divine Principle of Christ
is God, and how can God propitiate himself?" The
chapter never gets beyond the subjective influence of the
atonement, or the moral influence theory of it. "The
atonement is a hard problem in theology, but its scientific
explanation is, that suffering is an error of sinful sense
which Truth destroys, and eventually both sin and
suffering will fall at the feet of everlasting love." The
atonement is indeed *'a hard problem in theology," but
no light is imparted in the statement that "suffering is an
error of sinful sense," when the reality of both "suffering"
and "sinful sense" is denied and these are declared to be
"nothing." "Divine Science reveals the necessity of
sufficient suffering, either before or after death, to quench
the love of sin. To remit the penalty due for sin, would
be for Truth to pardon error." It is puzzHng to know
how there can be a "necessity of sufficient suffering"
when "suffering" is "nothing"; and the reader may be
satisfied with the orthodoxy of the statement that "to
remit the penalty due for sin, would be for Truth to
pardon error" until one remembers that both "penalty"
and "sin" are "dreams" of "mortal mind." Mrs. Eddy
has the courage of her convictions when she declares that
"the universal belief in death is of no advantage," and
that "death will be found at length to be a mortal dream,
which comes in darkness and disappears with the light."
As soon as we quit believing in death, death itself will
cease.
The Eucharist which Christian Scientists observe is not
the Lord's Supper which Jesus instituted with his disciples
on the evening before his crucifixion, but is the "morning
106 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
meal" at which he was present with his disciples on the
shore of the Sea of Galilee after his resurrection. The
disciples, it will be recalled, had spent a night of fruitless
toil in fishing on the lake when Jesus appeared on the
shore and called to them to cast the net on the right side
of the boat, and then they drew the net up swollen full.
Here is Mrs. Eddy's account and interpretation of this
incident:
Convinced of the fruitlessness of their toil in the dark and wakened
by their Master's voice, they changed their methods, turned away
from material things, and cast their net on the right side. Dis-
cerning Christ. Truth, anew on the shore of time, they were enabled
to rise somewhat from mortal sensuousness, or the burial of mind in
matter, into newness of life as Spirit. This spiritual meeting with
our Lord in the dawn of the new light is the morning meal which
Christian Scientists commemorate.
This is a characteristic instance of the way in which
Mrs. Eddy handles Scripture. She frequently quotes it,
but often there is no remotest connection between her
* 'science" and her Scripture * 'proof." Out of any text
she extracts the most fanciful or fantastic meaning that
suits her purpose, or rather she blandly attributes such a
meaning to a text. The simple act of casting the net on
the right side of the boat is made to mean that the dis-
ciples * 'turned away from material things" and "were
enabled to rise somewhat from mortal sensuousness, or
the burial of mind in matter, into newness of life as
Spirit." According to this method of exegesis, anything
can mean anything and all is indeed a "dream," it may
be of "mortal mind," but certainly not of a rational mind.
The chapter concludes with another characteristic
'SCIENCE AND HEALTH" : CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 107
misuse and perversion of Scripture, as follows: *'In the
words of Saint John: *He shall give you another Com-
forter, that he may abide with you forever.' This Com-
forter I understand to be divine Science"!
3. MARRIAGE
This chapter contains fourteen pages, much of it having
no connection with its subject, but frequently slipping
into the obsession that *'we must not attribute more and
more intelligence to matter, but less and less, if we would
be wise and healthy." This notion that everybody,
except Christian Scientists, does "attribute intelligence
to matter" runs all through these pages and receives
endless repetition, whereas of course nobody, except an
occasional crass materialist, does anything of the kind.
This is only another instance of Mrs. Eddy's ignorance
of what she is talking about.
Many good sentiments are expressed in this chapter
as to the relation of husband and wife. "Kindred tastes,
natures, and aspirations are necessary to the formation
of a happy and permanent companionship." Divorce is
discouraged, and "mutual compromises will often maintain
a compact which otherwise might become unbearable."
"Both sexes should be loving, pure, tender, and strong."
"The entire education of children should be such as to
form habits of obedience to the moral and spiritual law,
with which the child can meet and master the belief in
so-called physical laws, a belief which breeds disease."
But again she is slipping into her obsession, which she
can hardly avoid for a single paragraph. Children are
to be deliberately taught that there is no such thing
108 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
as "physical laws," and this falsehood is to be crammed
into them in their earliest education. ^
Mrs. Eddy's peculiar view as to the marriage relation
appears in the very first paragraph of this chapter and
runs as a subtle undertone all through it. She begins by
quoting what Jesus said to John the Baptist in relation
to his own baptism: "Suffer it now: for thus it becometh
us to fulfil all righteousness." Her inference (and, as
usual, a false one) from this passage is: "Jesus' concessions
(in certain cases) to material methods were for the advance-
ment of spiritual good." The point of this inference is
that marriage is only a temporary arrangement to be
regarded only as long as we believe in "mortal mind" and
is to be cast aside as soon as we rise above this delusion.
"The human mind will at length demand a higher affec-
tion," and "there will ensue a fermentation over this as
over many other reforms." These views run through the
chapter, and they are specifically set forth in the following
paragraphs :
Marriage is the legal and moral provision for generation among
human kind. Until the spiritual creation is discerned intact, is
apprehended and understood, and his kingdom is come as in the
vision of the Apocalypse — where the corporeal sense of creation was
cast out, and its spiritual sense was revealed from heaven — marriage
will continue, subject to such moral regulations as will secure in-
creasing virtue. . . Until it is learned that God is the Father of all,
marriage will continue. . . Beholding the world's lack of Chris-
tianity and the powerlessness of vows to make home happy, the
human mind will at length demand a higher affection. There will
ensue a fermentation over this as over many other reforms, until we
get at last the clear straining of truth, and impurity and error are left
1 A pastor told the author that when visiting in a Christian Science
home he heard a little girl, who was suffering with a severe cold,
when asked how she was, gasp out with choking voice, "There is no
matter, God is love."
''SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 109
among the lees. The fermentation even of fluids is not pleasant.
An unsettled, transitional stage is never desirable on its own account.
Matrimony, which was once a fixed fact among us, must lose its
present slippery footing, and man must find permanence and peace
in a more spiritual adherence. . . Proportionately as human
generation ceases, the unbroken links of eternal, harmonious being
will be spiritually discerned.
These statements are vague and *'slippery," but their
meaning is reasonably clear. Marriage is a legal and moral
temporary provision, which must be tolerated for the
present because we have not yet learned that *'God is the
Father of all," and because of our *'lack of Christianity,"
but when we attain to this through Mrs. Eddy's * 'Science"
and know that she herself is the "woman" in the vision
of the Apocalypse,"! then *'the human mind will demand a
higher affection. . . Matrimony, which was once a fixed
fact among us, must lose its present slippery footing, and
man must find permanence and peace in a more spiritual
adherence." In a word, marriage must go! This "reform"
will be attended with "fermentation" and "fermentation
is not pleasant," but despite the trouble of getting rid of
it, marriage must go! It "was once a fixed fact among
us," but already it is growing fluid and will presently
evaporate into "a more spiritual adherence." It is to
be understood that all this does not refer to any future
spiritual world, but to the world that now is when freed
from "mortal mind" by "Christian Science." Marriage
will then be done with and people will form "a more
spiritual adherence."
It will not be difficult for some of the votaries of this
doctrine to believe that they already know that "God
is the Father of all" and that therefore they are ready to
1 See page 98.
110 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
discard this **once fixed fact among us" and form this
"more spiritual adherence." In fact, it is only a step
from the belief in this doctrine to the practice of free
love. Mrs. Eddy discouraged marriage among her follow-
ers, though she practiced it hberally herself, and in spite
of the fact that she gives some good advice on the subject
of marriage in this chapter, she yet lays the ax at the
very root of the tree.
4. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE VERSUS SPIRITUALISM
Of the one hundred and seventeen paragraphs in this
chapter only forty -eight can be held to refer even remotely
to spiritualism. The first paragraph assures the reader
that *'the testimony of the corporeal senses cannot inform
us what is real and what is delusive, but the revelations
of Christian Science unlock the treasures of Truth." The
main contention running through all these paragraphs is
the wearisome repetition of the obsession that "suffering,
sinning, dying beliefs are unreal."
In the fifth paragraph of the chapter Mrs. Eddy at-
tempts to indulge in a little reasoning to support her main
contention, something that seldom occurs in these pages
of pure dogmatic assertion. The paragraph runs as
follows :
Close your eyes, and you may dream that you see a flower — that
you touch and smell it. Thus you learn that the flower is a product
of the so-called mind, a formation of thought rather than of matter.
Close your eyes again, and you may see landscapes, men, and
women. Thus you learn that these also are images, which mortal
mind holds and evolves and which simulate mind, life, and intelli-
gence. From dreams also you learn that neither mortal mind nor
matter is the image or likeness of God, and that immortal Mind is
not matter.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 111
Thus Mrs. Eddy confuses and identifies images of the
imagination, or images that we "dream," with memory
images which are revived impressions made on the senses
by external objects, a radical distinction that can be
tested and proved and refuses to yield to Mrs. Eddy's
claim that all our ideas are wholly the product of "mortal
mind.'*
As to the subject of the chapter, Mrs. Eddy says, "I
never could believe in spiritualism," yet that she did
both believe in and practice it in her early years is es-
tablished by indisputable evidence. ^ Her reason for
rejecting spirit communications is that spirits could
not enter into relations with mortal minds, for this would
mix mind and matter, which are irreconcilable, being
"opposite dreams." "No correspondence nor communion
can exist between persons in such opposite dreams as
the belief of having died and left a material body and the
belief of still living in an organic, material body." The
condition of the dead is repeatedly spoken of in this
chapter as being also a "dream'* state. The very idea
of death is a dream. "When you can waken yourself
out of the belief that all must die, you can then exercise
Jesus* spiritual power to reproduce the presence of those
who have thought they have died — but not otherwise."
Here it appears that the dead are still laboring under a
delusion, they "have thought they have died."
In the midst of this chapter there are inserted five
"postulates'* which are equally the postulates of all the
chapters of this book and may be taken as the funda-
mentals of Christian Science. They are as follows:
1 Page 30.
112 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Certain erroneous postulates should be here considered in order
that the spiritual facts may be better apprehended.
The first erroneous postulate of belief is, that substance, life, and
intelligence are something apart from God. . , ,
The second erroneous postulate is, that man is both mental and
material. . , . , , •■, j j
The third erroneous postulate is, that mind is both evil and good;
whereas the real mind cannot be evil nor the medium of evil, for
mind is God. . . ,,. ,
The fourth erroneous postulate is, that matter is intelligent, and
that man has a material body which is part of himself. . .
The fifth erroneous postulate is, that matter holds in itself the
issues of life and death— that matter is not only capable of ex-
periencing pleasure and pain, but also capable of imparting these
sensations. From the illusions implied in this last postulate arises
the decomposition of mortal bodies in what is termed death.
Let it be noted that mind is God and that there are no
substance, life, and intelhgence apart from God, and this
fact is the fundamental pantheism of Christian Science.
We are frequently told that man is only an "idea" or a
^'reflection" of God and has no existence apart from God.
Let it also be noted that ^'pleasure" as well as "pain" is
an experience of "mortal mind" and is a delusion to be
got rid of. All knowledge derived through or suggested
by our senses is to become "extinct," and the perfect
state of Christian Science appears to be one of pure
passive unconsciousness in which the human soul is merged
in God as raindrops in the sea.
S. ANIMAL MAGNETISM UNMASKED
In this chapter Mrs. Eddy deals with her deepest
obsession, the evil power of one "mortal mind" over
another, which, developed into a veritable devil in her
household and got into her kitchen utensils and stopped
up her drain pipes and involved her in ever so many
quarrels and lawsuits and became the Satan of her religion.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH" : CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 113
The brief chapter of seven pages opens with a reference
to "Mesmerism in Germany in 1775," and mixed into it
is the usual proportion of matter that gets off from the
subject as announced in the title and reverts to the per-
petual obsession that *'in reality there is no mortal mind,
and consequently no transference of mortal thought and
will-power," which is a downright contradiction of the
teaching of the chapter that "mortal mind" is a "mur-
derer." "As named in Christian Science, animal magnet-
ism or hypnotism is the specific term for error, or mortal
mind." Here "animal magnetism" is identified with
"hypnotism" and both of these with "mortal mind."
These definitions are confusing. And anyhow, how can
there be any "animal magnetism" when there isn't any
"animal".'^ Sometimes one thinks one knows what
"mortal mind" is and then again one is given a jolt and
finds he is wrong. In the "Glossary" of this book "Mortal
Mind" is defined as "Nothing claiming to be something,"
and then follows a series of definitions extending to a dozen
lines in which it is said to be all sorts of things, chiefly
certain "beliefs." Now it turns out to be "hypnotism,"
which is defined by Webster as "a state resembling sleep."
But whatever it is or it is not, "mortal mind" is capable
of doing things, for we are asked: "Is it not clear that the
human mind must move the body to a wicked act?
Is not mortal mind the murderer.'^ The hands, without
mortal mind to direct them, could not commit murder."
It is not clear how all this can be done when both "the
hands" and "mortal mind" are "nothing claiming to be
something."
In this chapter Mrs. Eddy endeavors to make it out that
the courts should exercise jurisdiction over "mortal
114 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
mind." **To say that these tribunals have no juris-
diction over the carnal or mortal mind, would be to con-
tradict precedent and to admit that the power of human
law is restricted to matter, while mortal mind, evil,
which is the real outlaw, defies justice and is recommended
to mercy. . . Mortal mind, not matter, is the criminal
in every case." It will be recalled how she was implicated
in bringing suit against Daniel H. Spofford on the ground
that he had exercised the *'malicious animal magnetism"
of "mortal mind" against one of her students and thereby
she endeavored to revive the principle and spirit of trial
for witchcraft in Salem, Mass.l The judge dismissed
the case "with a smile," but if it had succeeded it would
have been a reversion to one of the most fearful delusions
that ever cursed the world.
6. SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, MEDICINE
This chapter extends to fifty-eight pages and is divided
into three sections with the three title words of the chapter
as subheads, but the divisions have little to do with the
substance of the thought, which runs on in the same
general stream of intermingled and confused ideas.
In this chapter there is a statement of "the fundamental
propositions of divine methaphysics," which Mrs. Eddy
says, *'are summarized in the four following, to me, self-
evident propositions. Even if reversed, these propositions
will be found to agree in statement and proof, showing
mathematically their exact relation to Truth. De Quin-
cey says that mathematics has not a foot to stand
1 Page 45.
••SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 115
upon which is not purely methaphysical." The four
propositions are as follows:
1. God is All-in-all.
2. God is good. Good is Mind.
3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter.
4. Life, God, omnipotent good, deny death, evil, sin, disease
Disease, sin, evil, death, deny good, omnipotent God, Life.
Much is made by Christian Scientists of this "reversion"
as a "proof" of these propositions. It is said tnat they
read backward. just as well as forward, but this is a mere
verbal device and claim and has no logical value. It
is one of those neat little rhetorical contrivances that
please childish minds. It may also be said that these
propositions are not the only sentences in this book that
may be read backward as well as forward.
As to the four self-evident propositions, they are dog-
matic assertions that appeal to those to whom they appeal.
The first one, "God is All-in-all," together with its re-
version, "All-in-all is God," is pantheism pure and simple.
The second proposition is not strictly reversible, for
"good" in the first form is an adjective or attribute, and
has to be turned into a noun or substance in the second
form. The fourth proposition uses the word "deny"
in the sense of "destroy" or "annihilate" "death, evil,
sin, disease," and in this sense the proposition, when
"reversed," is not true even according to Christian
Science, for surely death and sin do not destroy "om-
nipotent God."
In this chapter is given a more specific statement of
how Christian Science heals disease. It is denied in
this chapter and throughout the book that this system
116 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
heals by mental suggestion or Human will power or by any
form of faith cure. ''Human will-power is not science.
Human will belongs to the so-called material senses,
and its use is to be condemned. Willing the sick to
recover is not the metaphysical practice of Christian
Science, but is sheer animal magnetism." In the Preface
we may read: *'They [mental healers] regard the human
mind as a healing agent, whereas this mind is not a factor
in the principle of Christian Science." Healing is gen-
erally attributed to Mind, which word, when capitalized,
always means God. It is the mere knowledge of or
belief in this Mind that heals disease, and not any faith
or action of the human mind itself.
And yet the action of the human mind in healing is
frequently emphasized. The Christian Science practi-
tioner is told to "deny" disease, and the patient is urged to
do the same thing. Healing by "argument" is explicitly
explained on page 412. When a child falls on the carpet
and "thinks she has hurt her face," the mother is told to
say to it, "Oh, never mind! You're not hurt, so don't
think you are." On the same page (153) where this
precious advice is given, we are told: "The human mind
acts more powerfully to offset the discords of matter
and the ills of the flesh, in proportion as it puts less weight
into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the
spiritual scale." Mrs. Eddy in spite of her denials that
her system is one of faith cure frequently makes statements
and uses illustrations that imply the action of the human
mind and the faith cure principle in the healing of disease.
"It is related," she says, "that Sir Humphrey Davy
once apparently cured a case of paralysis simply by in-
troducing a thermometer into the patient's mouth.
^'SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 117
This lie did merely to ascertain the temperature of the
patient's body; but the sick man supposed this ceremony
was intended to heal him, and he recovered accordingly.
Such a fact illustrates our theories/' It does indeed,
and this method is the real principle and virtue of Christian
Science.
Mrs. Eddy constantly confuses subjective experiences
with objective causes. For example:
You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without
mind is not painful. The boil simply manifests, through inflam-
mation and swelling, a belief in pain, and this belief is called a boil.
Now administer mentally to your patient a high attenuation of
truth, and it will soon cure the boil. The fact that pain cannot
exist where there is no mortal mind to feel it is proof that this
so-called mind makes its own pain — that is, its own belief in pain.
It is true enough that pain cannot exist where there is
no mind to experience it, but there is an objective cause
for the pain, and that objective cause is the real boil. It
is just at this point that Mrs. Eddy misses and perverts
the position of philosophical idealism, as held by Berkeley,
and that her system goes to pieces on the rock of objective
reality.
7. PHYSIOLOGY
This chapter of thirty-six pages may be summarized
in one of its sentences: *'Mind has no affinity with matter,
and therefore Truth is able to cast out the ills of the flesh,"
a sentence that equally summarizes all these chapters.
The first sentence says that "Physiology is one of the
apples from *the tree of knowledge,' *' or forbidden fruit
which brought death into our world and all its woe. All
through the chapter anatomy, physiology, hygiene, the
118 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
laws of health, food, "flesh-brush, flannels, bath, diet,
exercise, and air," are excommunicated as the real "mortal
mind'* and the true cause of disease. The usual self-
contradictions and amazing assertions are plentiful.
"What is termed disease does not exist. It is neither
mind nor matter." This is mystifying, for over and over
again Mrs. Eddy says that disease is a form or delusion
of "mortal mind" and that "mortal mind" is "matter."
Now the follower of Christian Science is told that disease
is "neither mind nor matter." "Disease does not exist,"
and yet on the same page is the statement that "sickness
is a growth of error," and "what causes disease cannot
cure it." What has "no existence" is yet a "growth"
and something "causes" it.
Among the contradictions in this chapter is the usual
way of speaking of the natural sciences in one place as
real and in another place as having no existence.
"Through astronomy, natural history, chemistry, music,
mathematics, thought passes naturally from effect back
to cause," and yet "the so-called laws of matter are nothing
but false beliefs," and "treatises on anatomy, physiology,
and health, sustained by what is termed material law,
are the promoters of sickness and disease." On one page
"faith in drugs begets and fosters disease," and on another
page "mortal belief is all that enables a drug to cure mortal
ailments," which after all admits that a drug can cure.
Marvelous things are brought to light in this chapter.
"Our ancestors. . . were innocent as Adam, before he
ate the fruit of false knowledge, of the existence of lungs" —
they did not know they had any lungs and therefore they
really had none! We have them simply because we believe
we have them. The blacksmith's strong arm is not due
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 119
to his exercise of it, but to "the blacksmith's faith in
exercise." The hammer that he wields **is not increased
in size by exercise," "because nobody believes that mind
is producing such a result on the hammer." If the
blacksmith only believed it, his hammer would grow along
with his muscle! Even horses appear to be subject to
Christian Science principles, for "you can even educate a
healthy horse so far in physiology that he will take cold
without 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." This, however, is but the beginning of
wonders. Mrs. Eddy claimed that she "had caused an
apple tree to blossom in January," one of her followers
reported in the Christian Science Journal that her dog
had been bitten by a rattlesnake and she "was able to
demonstrate over the belief in four days. The dog is
now as well as ever," and another follower was able to
cure a sick horse by saying to it "in an audible voice, *You
are God's horse. You cannot overeat, have colic, or be
foundered.' At noon he was all right."i
It is not simply individual belief but the social behef
of mortal mind that produces disease and evil.
If a dose of poison is swallowed through mistake, and the patient
dies even though physician and patient are expecting favorable
results, does human belief, you ask, cause this death? Even so, and
as directly as if the poison had been intentionally taken. In such
cases a few persons believe the poison swallowed by the patient to 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. Consequently, the
result is controlled by the majority of opinions, not by the in-
finitesimal minority of opinions in the sick-chamber.
1 Milmine, History, pp. 186, 320, 372.
120 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
The general social mind is thus turned into a collective
demon creating disease and sowing the world with evil.
It appears from this that healing does not depend on
individual faith, even of Christian Scientists, but on a
majority vote of the community. It is hard to see how
Christian Science is ever to succeed if things are to go on
in this democratic way and even infidels according to this
faith are allowed to vote.
8. FOOTSTEPS OF TRUTH
This chapter opens with the statement that *'the best
sermon ever preached is Truth practiced and demonstrated
by the destruction of sin, sickness, and death," and our
feet are in a familiar path. We learn that *'to mortal
sense, sin and suffering are real,*' in spite of the ceaseless
iteration that they are "nonexistent," "fiction," "myths,"
"delusions," and "nothing." How what is nonexistent
and nothing can in any sense be "real" passes understand-
ing. At times we find a distinction between "mortal
mind" and "matter," and yet we are also told that
"matter" is "another name for mortal mind." Although
we are told as early as in the Preface of the book that
"the human mind as a healing agent" "is not a factor
in the principle of Christian Science," yet in this chapter
we are warned, "You must control evil thoughts in the
first instance, or they will control you in the second,"
and are assured, "If you believe in and practice wrong
knowingly, you can at once change your course and do
right"; we are also frequently bidden to "deny" evil.
The eternity of man, which is a principle of pantheism,
comes to the surface in this chapter. "Man in Science is
SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 121
neither young nor old. He has neither birth nor death."
In accordance with this teaching followers are admon-
ished, * '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 woman-
hood." Man is only an "idea" or a "reflection" of God
and has no existence apart from God.
9. CREATION
In the opening paragraph we read: "The mythical
human theories of creation, anciently classified as the
higher criticism, sprang from cultured scholars in Rome
and in Greece." This indicates that Mrs. Eddy's idea
of "the higher criticism" is peculiar, but she frequently
indulges in these slips of ignorance which her ofiicial
censor overlooked. Again the statement is made that
"the belief in a bodily soul and a material mind" "is
shallow pantheism," showing her misconception of pan-
theism. All the way through her book she thinks that
pantheism is the doctrine of "mind in matter."
In this chapter further light or obscurity is thrown on
Mrs. Eddy's view of the nature of "man" after he has
been stripped of "mortal mind." The "five corporeal
senses" are gone so that "man" no longer sees or hears
or feels either pain or pleasure. "We know no more of
man as the true divine image and likeness, than we know
of God." "Man is deathless, spiritual. He is above sin
or frailty. He does not cross the barriers of time into
the vast forever of Life, but he coexists with God and
the universe."
"The effect of mortal mind on health and happiness is
122 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
seen in'* the case of an aged actor "who hobbled every-
day to the theater, and sat aching in his chair till his cue
was spoken — a signal which made him as oblivious of
physical infirmity as if he had inhaled chloroform,
though he was in the full possession of his so-called senses."
This is a good illustration of the power of the mind over
the body, which is the stock in trade of Christian Science
and the principle it has capitalized, however this may be
denied.
"Spirit and its formations are the only realities of
being," we read. Philosophical idealism makes this same
assertion, only by "formations" it means the material
world. It is difficult to say what Mrs. Eddy means by
the word in this connection, only she cannot mean
"matter," for this is her one universal devil and father
of all evil. The material universe, which philosophical
idealism views as the ."formations" or activities of the
infinite Spirit, is in her system the one great falsity to
be detested and cast out of all thought and life. This
distinction marks the deep and impassable gulf between
Christian Science and philosophical idealism; the one
is a fundamental misunderstanding and perversion of
the other.
10. SCIENCE OF BEING
This chapter is the longest in the book, extending to
seventy-three pages, but it is only the same confusion
confounded. Mrs. Eddy does not use the technical term
"ontology" in this chapter or anywhere in her writings,
probably because she had not heard of it, for with her
love of big swelling words which she did not understand
it would surely have been a sweet morsel under her tongue.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 123
"Belief in a material basis, from which may be deduced
all rationality, is slowly yielding to the idea of a meta-
physical basis." The idea is familiar, after having read
it hundreds of times, but how from "a material basis,"
"may be deduced all rationality'* is a new perplexity.
Is "rationality" also one of the delusive exercises of
"mortal mind"? If so we may be pardoned for thinking
that this is one reason why it is so seldom employed in
this volume.
All through this book Mrs. Eddy uses familiar words in
a peculiar sense, constituting the jargon or slang of
Christian Science, although, of course, she inherited this
language from Quimby and others of her predecessors.
"Science" is one of these terms which is used in a sense
very different from its ordinary and accepted meaning.
The reader is told, "Deductions from material hypotheses
are not scientific. They differ from real Science because
thej^ are not based on divine law. Divine Science reverses
the false testimony of the senses, and thus tears away the
foundations of error." There is indeed "enmity," as
Mrs. Eddy says, between this kind of "Science" and the
science which all the world knows.
The usual self-contradictions stare us in the face on
every page. "Spirit is the only substance and conscious-
ness recognized by divine Science. The material senses
oppose this, but there are no material senses, for matter
has no mind." If there "are no material senses," how
can they "oppose" anything? That "matter has no
mind" is announced with all the appearance of a new
statement, though it has been asserted thousands of times
in this book and is found in one or another form no less
than sixteen times on this same page (278).
124 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Mrs. Eddy informs us that *'in the Saxon and twenty
other tongues *good' is the term for God," but this ety-
mology is like her other etymologies, a *'fiction" of her
"mortal mind." Long ago an American humorist said,
**It is better not to know so many things than to know so
much that ain't so."
Once in a while the reader is launched out on the deep of
natural science and is treated to some wonderful opinions.
Physicists who are striving day and night to find out
what electricity is should consult this book, where they
may read: "Electricity is the sharp surplus of materiality
which counterfeits the true essence of spirituality or
truth — the great difference being that electricity is not
intelligent, while spiritual truth is Mind." This is almost
as clear as the nature of electricity itself.
Mrs. Eddy hardly ever quotes or refers to Scripture
that she does not utterly pervert it to her own purpose,
putting on it a sense the Scripture writer never dreamed
of. Thus: "Jacob was alone, wrestling with error —
struggling with a mortal sense of life, substance, and in-
telligence as existent in matter with its false pleasures and
pains — when an angel, a message from Truth and Love,
appeared to him and smote the sinew, or strength, of his
error, till he saw its unreality; and Truth, being thereby
understood, gave him spiritual strength in this Peniel of
divine Science." This is a fair specimen of what Scripture
becomes in her hands.
"Matter is made up of supposititious mortal mind
force." "Matter" is a wonderfully elusive shadow in
Mrs. Eddy's teaching. "Mortal mind" is itself "nothing,"
and now we have a "supposititious" "nothing,'* or
* 'nothing" raised to the second degree of nothingness, or
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 125
a zero of zero. "If Soul could sin. Spirit, Soul, would be
flesh instead of Spirit. It is the belief of the flesh and of
material sense which sins." But we have been told a
thousand times that *'flesh," "matter," has no "intelli-
gence" and is "nothing," and here we have "material
sense" exercising "belief" so that it "sins."
Of a dead man she says: "The belief of that mortal man
that he must die occasioned his departure." If the poor
man had not believed he must die he would not have
died. Strange that all the devotees of this cult, including
Mrs. Eddy herself, who profess that belief in death is
nothing, yet die with such unfailing regularity and total
unanimity.
"The true idea of God . . . takes away all sin and the
delusion that there are other minds, and destroys mortal-
ity." That there are "other minds" is also a delusion
and thus one is landed in the pit of pantheism. "The
divine principle which saves and heals": "Principle" is
always treated as a neuter impersonal noun, and thus
Mrs. Eddy's very grammar is pantheistic.
"One should not tarry in the storm if the body is
freezing, nor should he remain in the devouring flames."
Why not since the body is nothing.? "Until one is able to
prevent bad results, he should avoid their occasion."
Christian Scientists do avoid freezing and flames along
with other people, though they do so at the expense of
their faith in their own doctrine.
This chapter concludes with thirty-two numbered
paragraphs which are laid down as the "platform" of
Christian Science. The first sentence of the first para-
graph reads, "God is infinite, the only Life, substance.
Spirit, or Soul, the only intelhgence of the universe, in-
126 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
eluding man." The pantheism of this principle is ap-
parent, and the same principle runs through all of these
paragraphs. The substance of the entire platform is ex-
pressed in the third paragraph: "The notion that both
evil and good are real is a delusion of material sense,
which Science annihilates.'* In the tenth paragraph we
have a statement of the distinction that Mrs. Eddy
makes between "Jesus" as a human person and "Christ"
as "the divine idea of God." "Jesus demonstrated
Christ; he proved that Christ is the divine idea of God —
the Holy Ghost, or Comforter, revealing the divine
Principle, Love, and leading into all truth." We have
already been told that "the Holy Ghost" or "Comforter"
is "Divine Science."
In paragraph twenty-five is this statement: "God is
individual and personal in a scientific sense, but not in
any anthropomorphic sense." Is this a denial of pan-
theism? It is not. What is meant by saying that God
is personal "in a scientific sense". f^ The word "scientific"
here means a "Christian scientific sense," and an "an-
thropomorphic sense" is the only sense in which we can
understand personality and ascribe it to God.
11. SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
Out of the mass of repetition in this chapter four ob-
jections to Christian Science are mentioned. The first
is: "It is objected to Christian Science that it claims God
as the only absolute Life and Soul, and man to be his
idea — that is, his image." The objection is that Christian
Science merges man in a pantheistic God. The answer
made is: "It should be added that this is claimed to rep-
resent the normal, healthful, and sinless condition of
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH:" CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 127
man in divine Science, and that this claim is made be-
cause the Scriptures say that God has created man in
his own image and after his hkeness. Is it sacrilegious
to assume that God's likeness is not found in matter, sin,
sickness, and death?" The answer confuses "idea" and
*'image." An *'idea'* of God is a state of his own con-
sciousness, and if man is "an idea of God'* then he is part
of God and we are landed in pantheism. The Scripture
doctrine that man is created "in the image of God" does
not make man a part of God but a distinct being and sepa-
rate personality. When Mrs. Eddy teaches that "man
is an idea of God" she is teaching pantheism and the
first objection is sustained.
The second objection is: "It is sometimes said, in criti-
cizing Christian Science, that the mind which contradicts
itself neither knows itself nor what it is saying. It is
indeed no small matter to know oneself; but in this
volume of mine there are no contradictory statements —
at least none which are apparent to those who understand
its propositions well enough to pass judgment upon them."
The answer is only a dogmatic denial of the objection
and does not remove the abounding self-contradictions
in this volume, and the objection stands.
The third objection is: "It is sometimes said that
Christian Science teaches the nothingness of sin, sickness,
and death, and then teaches how this nothingness is to
be saved and healed. The nothingness of nothing is
plain; but we need to understand that error is nothing,
and that its nothingness is not saved, but must be demon-
strated in order to prove the somethingness — yea, the
allness — of Truth. It is self-evident that we are harmoni-
ous only as we cease to manifest evil or the belief that we
128 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
suffer for the sins of others. DisbeHef in error destroys
error, and leads to the discernment of Truth. There are
no vacuums. How then can this demonstration be
'fraught with falsities painful to behold'?'* This is a
fine specimen of Christian Science lingo and logic. *'Error
is nothing," yet ''disbelief in error [destroys error,"
that is, "disbelief in nothing destroys nothing." The
absurdity of teaching "the nothingness of sickness,"
and then writing a book of seven hundred pages to explain
how to heal this nothingness is still "painful to behold,'*
and this objection still stands. What Mrs. Eddy really
means by "the nothingness of sickness" is that sickness
is a subjective state of mind and not an objective bodily
reality, but she never succeeds in expressing this idea.
She digged this pit for herself when she started out with
her initial blunder that "matter" is a "delusion" to be
"denied" and cast out of the mind. There is a sense in
which she believes in the existence of sickness and another
sense in which she does not, but she never makes the
distinction clear to her readers or to herself and therefore
she is constantly involving herself in confusion and con-
tradiction.
The fourth objection is: "It is said by one critic, that
to verify this wonderful philosophy Christian Science
declared that whatever is mortal or discordant has no
origin, existence, nor realness. Nothing really has Life
but God, who is infinite Life; hence all is Life, and death
has no dominion. This writer infers that if anything
needs to be doctored, it must be the one God, or Mind.
Had he stated his syllogism correctly, the conclusion
would be that there is nothing to be doctored." To see
Mrs. Eddy giving a lesson to anybody on stating a "syllo-
''SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 129
gism correctly" is amusing in the extreme. This fourth
objection is the same pantheistic objection as the first
one, and notwithstanding the lesson on syllogistic logic
it still stands.
12. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PRACTICE
The principle of Christian Science practice is summed
up in the statement: "The efficient remedy is to destroy
the patient's false belief by both silently and audibly
arguing the true facts in regard to harmonious being —
representing man as healthy instead of diseased, and
showing that it is impossible for matter to suffer, to feel
pain or heat, to be thirsty or sick. Destroy fear, and you
end fever." This is the principle of faith healing in all
its forms, however often Mrs. Eddy may claim that her
system is something different. The difficulty, of course,
if not the impossibility is to keep on saying you don't
*'feel pain" when you know you do. Fever "ends in a
belief called death," but "destroy the fear, and you end
the fever." "When the first symptoms of disease appear,
dispute the testimony of the material senses with divine
Science." "Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow
upon the thought. Dismiss it with an abiding conviction
that it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no
more the author of sickness than he is of sin."
Mrs. Eddy has a pronounced aversion to hygiene and
all its works. "If half the attention given to hygiene
were given to the study of Christian Science and to the
spiritualization of thought, this alone would usher in
the millennium. Constant bathing and rubbing to alter
the secretions or to remove unhealthy exhalations from
the cuticle receive a useful rebuke from Jesus' precept,
130 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
*Take no thought. . . for the body'. . . He who is ig-
norant of hygienic law, is more receptive of spiritual power
and of faith in one God, than is the devotee of supposed
hygienic law, who comes to teach the so-called ignorant
one." An ignorant immigrant or a savage covered with
filth and vermin *'is more receptive of spiritual power'*
than one who takes a bath and puts on clean linen at proper
intervals. Bathing a baby is *'no more natural or neces-
sary than would be the process of taking a fish out of water
every day and covering it with dirt to make it thrive
more vigorously thereafter in its native element"! Here
is a woman in this enlightened day, after the battle for obe-
dience to the laws of health as against the outrageous
and dreadful treatment of the body in the Dark Ages
has been won at the cost of centuries of struggle with
ignorance and superstition, who would throw overboard
anatomy, physiology, hygiene, pathology, materia medica,
and all the knowledge we have gained that has banished
pestilence and enabled us to heal and save thousands
of men and women and children, and plunge the world
back into the blackest night of savagery. * 'Realize 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." Look
on your suffering dear one, mother or wife or darling
child, however the beloved one may scream and writhe
in agony, with a stony heart and never move a hand,
for there is no suffering and only your eyes and ears
are telling you lies. What monsters of cold-blooded
insensibility and cruelty can such a doctrine make out
of human beings! In numerous published and in un-
numbered unpublished instances Christian Science be-
lievers and practitioners have refused to accept the evi-
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 131
dence of their senses and have stood stohdly by and let
die the sick who might have been saved. No wonder
that when these facts are known people stand aghast
with horror at such inhumanity and that the civil courts
interfere to prevent it as a barbarism.
*'Not understanding Christian Science the sick usually
have little faith in it till they feel its beneficent influence.
This shows that faith is not the healer in such cases. The
sick unconsciously argue for suffering, instead of against
it. They admit its reality, whereas they should deny
it." "They should deny it": What is this but exercising
faith in the system. The contention that faith on the
part of the sick plays no part in their healing is falsified
on many a page. "Always support their trust in the
power of Mind to sustain the body."
Because failure in surgical cases is too patent and public
and because of the law, they are exempt from Christian
Science treatment. "Until the advancing age admits the
efficacy and supremacy of Mind, it is better for Christian
Scientists to leave surgery and the adjustment of broken
bones and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, while
the mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental recon-
struction and to the prevention of inflammation. Chris-
tian Science is always the most skillful surgeon, but
surgery is the branch of its healing which will be the last
acknowledged." It is always the most skillful surgeon,
yet it is better to leave surgery to the surgeon. The logic
is lame, as the author has not "stated her syllogism
correctly," but the conclusion is sound.
From a precious passage in this chapter we learn that
everyone is crazy except the devotees of Christian Science.
"There is a universal insanity of so-called health, which
132 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
mistakes fable for fact throughout the entire round of the
material senses, but this general craze cannot, in a scientific
diagnosis, shield the individual case from the special name
of insanity. Those unfortunate people who are committed
to insane asylums are only so many distinctly defined in-
stances of the baneful effects of illusion on mortal minds
and bodies." If to be sane is to be in the same state of
mind with the author of this confused book, many of her
readers would prefer to be crazy. The reader is told
further that *'if the reader of this book observes a great stir
throughout his whole system, and certain moral and
physical symptoms seem aggravated, these indications
are favorable. Continue to read, and the book will
become the physician, allaying the tremor which Truth
often brings to error when destroying it.'* One does,
indeed, notice while reading this book that "certain moral
and physical symptoms seem aggravated," but they are
symptoms of increasing stupor and deep drowsiness mak-
ing it hard to keep from falling dead asleep.
13. TEACHING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Early in this chapter is encountered the fear of animal
magnetism which runs through it. "Also the teacher
must thoroughly fit his students to defend themselves
against sin, and to guard against the attacks of the would-
be mental assassin, who attempts to kill morally and
physically." *'A thorough perusal of the author's publi-
cations heals the sick. If patients sometimes seem worse
while reading this book, the change may arise either
from the alarm of the physician, or it may mark the crisis
of the disease. Perseverance in the perusal of the book
**SCIENCE AND HEALTH" : CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 133
has generally healed such cases/* The book is thus
treated as if it were charged with magic and had the virtue
of the fetish of a South Sea islander. There are curious
affinities between Christian Science and fetishism, the
worship of relics and even devil worship with its mental
assassination, and other forms of superstition. The
author confesses that he did * 'sometimes seem worse
while reading this book,** but in his case the trouble did
not "arise either from the alarm of the physician,** or
from "the crisis of the disease,*' but it arose from the
tangle of confusion and absurdity in the book itself.
Here and there one finds good things in this book. For
example: "If patients fail to experience the healing power
of Christian Science, and think they can be benefited by
certain ordinary physical methods of medical treatment,
then the mind physician should give up such cases, and
leave invalids free to resort to whatever other systems
they fancy will afford relief.** This is good advice, and
many of Christian Science patients have acted on it with
good results. One also reads: "Students are advised by
the author to be charitable and kind, not only towards
differing forms of religion and medicine, but to those who
hold these differing opinions.*' This also is good advice
for all people.
We are told that "it is anything but scientifically
Christian to think of aiding the divine Principle of healing
or of trying to sustain the human body until the divine
Mind is ready to take the case." Does not this mean or
imply that it is not in accordance with Christian Science
to be "trying to sustain the human body'* with food.^^
This is certainly the logic and sometimes is the express
teaching of this system, yet on turning the leaf one reads :
134 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
"I do not maintain that anyone can exist in the flesh
without food and raiment." These self-contradictions
abound and are inherent in the system.
Another inconsistency appears in the following: "Usually
to admit that you are sick, renders your case less curable,
while to recognize your sin, aids in destroying it." Since
both sickness and sin are equally unreal and "nothing,"
why should admitting the one and recognizing the other
have such opposite effects.?
"Our Master . . . never enjoined obedience to the laws
of nature." How absurd is such a statement! Time and
again he fed hungry people and when he raised the little
daughter of Jairus from the sleep of death "he commanded
that something should be given her to eat." Mrs. Eddy
would abolish the whole framework of the universe and
then she presumes to quote Jesus Christ as sustaining
her absurdity.
Obstetrics is a delicate and dangerous point with
Christian Scientists. "Teacher and student should also
be familiar with the obstetrics taught by this Science.
To attend properly the birth of the new child [did anyone
ever attend the birth of an "old" child.?], or divine idea,
you should detach mortal thought from its material con-
ceptions, that the birth will be natural and safe." This
kind of "obstetrics" was tried in the early history of
Christian Science with terrible results, but the law now
has something to say about such practice.
On the last page of this chapter one finds a grave relapse
from Christian Science orthodox belief and practice. "If
from an injury or from any cause, a Christian Scientist
were seized with a pain so violent that he could not treat
himself mentally — and the Scientist had failed to relieve
'SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 135
him — the sufferer could call a surgeon, who would give
him a hypodermic injection, then, when the belief in
pain was lulled, he could handle his own case mentally.
Thus it is that we *prove all things; [and] hold fast that
which is good."' It seems that this advice plainly admits
the * 'some thingness" instead of the "nothingness" of pain,
especially when it becomes *'so violent" that the Christian
Scientist is helpless before it. And is it not a rather
humiliating confession of having "failed" and an abject
groveling before "a surgeon" to run to him for help in such
an extremity.^ In this chapter Mrs. Eddy says that "it
should be granted that the author understands what she
is saying." One frequently doubts, while reading this
book, that she did, and it is certain that often nobody
else understands her; and it seems that she must have
been nodding when she made this admission and gave
this advice. If Christian Science "is always the most
skilful surgeon," why ever go back on it and run away from
it to such a "nothing" as "a hypodermic injection"? Tell
it not in Gath, publish it not in Boston that Christian
Science has apostatized from the faith and bowed the knee
to the god of matter and to the devil of medicine! Does
not this prove that Christian Science practice becomes
so impossible that even the high priestess of the cult
herself must abjure its orthodoxy and resort to the heresy
of medicine and matter .^^ And after this authorization
by Mrs. Eddy herself, are we not now all warranted in
resorting to "a hypodermic injection" and to *'a surgeon"
and to all the "ordinary physical methods of medical
treatment".? May we not now go further and obey all
"the laws of nature" ? May we not now not only eat food
and wear clothes, but wash our babies and even occasion-
136 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
ally take a bath and put on clean linen ourselves? Where
are we going to draw the line? If Mrs. Eddy and her
followers can resort to the "hypodermic" and the "sur-
geon" in the dry tree, what may not we do in the green
tree? The bars are down and we appear to be free to
roam and revel in the nothingness of matter.
14. RECAPITULATION
This chapter recapitulates the few ideas which have
already been said many hundreds of times in the book by
saying them over again many times more. It consists
of questions and answers, and two main threads run
through them all: pantheism and the "nothingness" of
matter and sickness and suffering and sin. It will not be
necessary to do more than give a few illustrations. The
whole chapter is saturated with pantheism. God is
Principle and "Principle" is always treated as an im-
personal noun, as of course it is. The fourth question is,
"What are spirits and souls?" The answer is : "To human
belief they are personalities constituted of mind and
matter, life and death, truth and error, good and evil;
but these contrasting pairs of terms represent contraries,
as Christian Science reveals, which neither dwell together
nor assimilate." Of course this very language contradicts
itself, for how can spirits be "personalities constituted"
of these "contraries" if they "neither dwell together nor
assimilate" ? Next one reads : "The term 'souls' or 'spirits'
is as improper as the term *gods.' Soul or Spirit signifies
deity and nothing else. There is no finite soul nor spirit.
Soul or Spirit means only one mind, and cannot be
rendered in the plural." This is Mrs. Eddy's constant
teaching that there is no separate human soul or spirit.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 137
but that the only soul is God and man is "an idea" of
God. Man is merged in God, and one is landed in the
pit of pantheism.
As for the nothingness of matter which runs through
this recapitulation, we need only adduce the familiar
statements that *'matter is mortal error," and that *'sin,
sickness, and death are to be classified as effects of error."
The last question in this chapter is, "Have Christian
Scientists any religious creed.?" The answer starts off,
"They have not, if by that term is meant doctrinal beliefs.
The following is a brief exposition of the important points,
or religious tenets, of Christian Science." Then follow
six "tenets," every one of which is a "doctrinal belief,"
and all taken together constitute a "religious creed,"
which it has just been denied that Christian Scientists
have. The first "tenet" is, "As adherents of Truth, we
take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide
to eternal life." But it is easily seen how Mrs. Eddy
perverts the Scripture to her own whimsical and often
absurd interpretation and purpose, and this fact nullifies
this first tenet. The other five tenets, which relate to
the "one supreme and infinite God," "forgiveness of sin,"
"Jesus' atonement," "the crucifixion of Jesus and his
resurrection," and prayer are all vitiated and under-
mined by the same absurd system of interpretation.
15. GENESIS
With this chapter begins the appendix to "Science and
Health," which is called *'Key to the Scriptures." This
was not in the early editions of the book, for at first Mrs.
Eddy had no thought of starting a rehgion, and the "Key
to the Scriptures" was an afterthought which was produced
138 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
and appended to the book in 1884, after she began to
dream of the day when "the church bells would ring out
her birthday."
If the reader of "Science and Health" constantly wonders
at the type and state of the mind that could have pro-
duced such a mass and mess of obscurity and absurdity,
literally denying the reality of the world and turning it
all into an illusion and delusion and also constantly
denying this denial, he will wonder still more at the
"Key to the Scriptures," which consists of the irrationality
and folly of "Science and Health" raised to the second
if not to the nth power. This amazing performance
would be truly considered incredible and impossible did
not the cold type stolidly and persistently stare one in
the face.
For one thing, while it proclaims itself a "Key to the
Scriptures," it consists of comments on only a few verses
of Scripture, about one hundred in all. These verses
consist of the first, second, third, and part of the fourth
chapters of Genesis, and a few verses from the tenth,
twelfth, and twenty-first chapters of Revelation. In
addition the Twenty-third Psalm is appended to the chap-
ter with Mrs. Eddy's interpretation and perversion of
it after the manner of her rendition of The Lord's Prayer.
It is out of such material as this that parallel interpre-
tations to every part of the Scripture are furnished to be
read along with the Scriptures in the Christian Science
services; but as parallel lines never meet, so these "par-
allels" not only do not meet but usually this "Key to the
Scriptures" has no more connection with the Scriptures
themselves than has a dog with the Dog Star.
It will be unnecessary to do more than give a few il-
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 139
lustrations of the manner in which Scripture is unlocked
by this "Key." The "exegesis" of the very first verse
of the Bible consists in denying its plain meaning. Genesis
1:1 reads: "In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth." The comment begins: "The infinite
has no beginning. This word ^beginning' is employed
to signify *the only' — that is, the eternal verity and unity
of God and man, including the universe. The creative
Principle — Life, Truth, and Love — is God. The universe
reflects God. There is but one creator and one creation.
Thiscreationconsistsof the unfolding of spiritual ideas. , .
and the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God."
The point of all this is to deny that there is any other
being than God, and thus pantheism lies at the root of
this interpretation of the first verse of the Bible, though
the verse itself and the whole Bible deny pantheism
from beginning to end.
The comment now runs along verse by verse, every
verse being turned into an utterly fanciful and false
"interpretation." When "God said. Let the waters under
the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and
let the dry land appear," the "interpretation" is that
"Spirit, Soul, gathers unformed thoughts into their
proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as
he opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the
purpose may appear."
A marvelous division of the Creation story in Genesis
is introduced at the sixth verse of the second chapter,
which reads, "But there went up a mist from the earth,
and watered the whole face of the ground." We are
then told: "The Science and truth of the divine creation
have been presented in the verses already considered.
140 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
and now the opposite error, a material view of creation,
is to be set forth. The second chapter of Genesis contains
a statement of this material view of God and the universe,
a statement which is the exact opposite of scientific truth
as before recorded. The history of error or matter, if veri-
table, would set aside the omnipotence of Spirit; but it
is the false history in contradistinction to the true."
Following this principle of interpretation, when it is
written that "Jehovah God formed man of the dust of
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life; and man became a Hving soul," Mrs. Eddy exclaims,
**Did the divine and infinite Principle become a finite
deity, that he should now be called Jehovah? Is this
addition to his creation real or unreal.'' Is it truth, or
is it a lie concerning man and God? It must be a lie,
for God presently curses the ground." A more false
and blasphemous "interpretation" of Scripture can no-
where be found. Let it not be forgotten or forgiven
that this woman, because it does not agree with her
theory, dared to write across the account of creation in
the second chapter of Genesis the impious statement,
*Tt must be a lie"!
Many remarkable things come to light in the closing
pages of this chapter. Mrs. Eddy here and there through
her book takes to discussing matters of science and delights
in using big scientific and philosophical words as though
she were learned and even an authority in these things,
and yet she invariably "gives herself away" so that it
is evident that she does not know what she is talking
about. A page or two are devoted to "embryology"
in which we learn some astounding things. We are told
that "Agassiz was able to see in the egg the earth's at-
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 141
mosphere, the gathering clouds, the moon and stars,
while the germinating speck of so-called embryonic life
seemed a small sun." Students of Darwin will be in-
terested in learning Mrs. Eddy's notion of Darwinism.
* 'Briefly, this is Darwin's theory — that Mind produces
its opposite, matter, and endues matter with power to
recreate the universe, including man." Professors of bi-
ology will please make note of this valuable summary.
One of the most astounding things in the book is this:
*'It is related that a father plunged his infant babe, only
a few hours old, into the water for several minutes, and
repeated this operation daily, until the child could re-
main under water twenty minutes, moving and playing
without harm, like a fish. Parents should remember this,
and learn how to develop their children properly on dry
land." The application does not seem to be quite ger-
mane, for obviously the logical lesson that should be drawn
from the alleged fact is that parents should learn how to
develop their cliildren properly under water. The real
point, however, that the illustration demonstrates is the
monumental credulity of Mrs. Eddy. As she can get
her credulous followers to believe any absurd thing that
she tells them, so there is nothing so absurd or impossible
that is too much for her own boundless gullibility.
16. THE APOCALYPSE
In this chapter the same principle of "interpretation"
is applied to about twenty verses picked out of the book
of Revelation. Mrs. Eddy has a special fondness for the
verses (ch. 12:1-6) in which is mentioned the "woman
arrayed with the sun," and we have already seen^ how
1 Page 98.
142 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
she early began to suggest the identity of herself with this
woman. *'The Revelator saw also the spiritual ideal as a
woman clothed in light. . . The woman in the Apoc-
alypse symbolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of
God; she illustrates the coincidence of God and man as
the divine Principle and divine idea." *'As Elias pre-
sented the idea of the fatherhood of God, which Jesus
afterwards manifested, so the Revelator completed this
figure with woman, typifying the spiritual idea of God's
motherhood." The strongly suggested analogy is that
as Jesus manifested the fatherhood of God, so the Reve-
lator completed the figure with woman, who was Mrs.
Eddy herself, "typifying the spiritual idea of God's
motherhood."
It is unnecessary to follow further the incredible vagaries
of this *'Key" to the Apocalypse. The chapter concludes
with the statement: *'The writer's present feeble sense of
Christian Science closes with John's Revelation as re-
corded by the great apostle, for his vision is the acme of
this Science as the Bible reveals it." Again "this Science"
and "the Bible" are classed together as divine revelations,
only, as we have learned, the "Science" is a later and
fuller revelation than the Bible.
17. GLOSSARY
This chapter purports to give "the metaphysical in-
terpretation of Bible terms, giving their spiritual sense,
which is also their original meaning." One hundred and
twenty-six words are thus defined, the "metaphysical
interpretation" consisting of a string of supposedly
synonomous words or phrases, in some instances extending
to a full page. A few choice specimens have already been
•'SCIENCE AND HEALTH:" CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 143
culled from its pages, l and only a few more need be adduced.
"Adam" is in a very bad way with Mrs. Eddy, for she
devotes a page to him in which she calls him all manner
of evil names. If he had been living at the time he would
have had a good case against her for libel, and any jury
would have awarded him heavy damages. The long
catalogue starts, * 'Error; a falsity; the belief in 'original
sin,' sickness, and death; evil; the opposite of good,"
and so on to the end of the page. In addition to all this
she made this astonishing discovery: *'Divide the name
Adam into two syllables, and it reads, *A dam,' or obstruc-
tion." The point of this remarkable etymology, which
Webster and all other lexicographers have strangely
overlooked, is that Adam was an obstruction to our
growth in spirituality. We wish to enter a protest against
this personal vilification of Adam and even dare to utter
a word in his defense. He has long had to bear a heavy
enough burden of odium in connection with the human
race without having this terrible catalogue of abusive
epithets unloaded on him. Eve has only six lines devoted
to her * 'metaphysical interpretation" as compared with
Adam's full page, yet she fares little better, for she is
''mortality; error; the belief that the human race originated
materially instead of spiritually — that man started first
from dust, second from a rib, and third from an egg."
Evidently Eve deserves our pity and charity. Mrs.
Eddy seems to have some spite against Jacob and his
sons, for Jacob himself is "a corporeal mortal embracing
duplicity, repentance, sensualism," while Benjamin is *'a
physical belief as to life, a false belief," Issachar is "a
corporeal belief, envy; hatred; self-will; lust," and poor
1 Pp. 90, 91.
144 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Dan is that dreadful demon, * 'Animal magnetism." One
often wonders what might be the * 'spiritual sense" of the
river Gihon, but now comes the information that it is
''the rights of woman acknowledged morally, civilly, and
socially." It will be admitted that the genius that gave
the river this name was gifted with long foresight and was
a remarkable prophet. "Matter," of course, is "another
name for mortal mind; illusion," and so on, ending with
"that which mortal mind sees, feels, hears, tastes, and
smells only in belief." "Mortal Mind" is a familiar
friend, "Nothing claiming to be something, error creating
other errors," and many other grave offenses, ending in
"sin; sickness; death." "Red Dragon" appropriately
means "animal magnetism." "Divine Science" is found
symbolized under many names, including "Dove," "Gad,"
"Elias," "New Jerusalem," and the rivers "Euphrates"
and "Hiddekel"!
All these "metaphysical interpretations" are seriously
given as the "original meaning" of these terms. This
egregious "Glossary" may be viewed as a literary curiosity
and monstrosity, or as a pitiful display of ignorant conceit,
or as a painful exhibition of sacrilegious trifling with
Scripture, or as a symptom of incipient egotistic insanity,
a kind of lexical madhouse; but it may be summed up by
saying that it is a conglomeration of arrant nonsense and
fatuous folly without a rival, so far as is known, in the
English or any other language. ^
1 We would find the nearest approach to this performance in the
"allegorizing" of some of the ancient Hebrew rabbis and the medieval
Cabalists. "The Cabalists were searching out the sacred inner
meaning of the Bible; they proceeded slowly, starting with *in the
beginning/ and stopping at every word, every letter, and found in
every word and every letter a mine of secrets." Viktor Rydberg,
The Magic of the Middle Ages, p. 144.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH" : CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 145
18. FRUITAGE
The final chapter of the book consists of eighty-four
letters, republished from The Christian Science Journal
and Christian Science Sentinel, giving the experiences *'of
people who have been reformed and healed through the
perusal or study of this book.*' The consideration of
such cures will be taken up in a later chapter.
However, for the present, the author wishes to point
out two strange features that are obvious to the most
casual non-Scientist reader of these letters; two self-
contradictions that are written all over them and woven
into every line of them.
The first is this: Since we have been told countless times
all the way through this book that disease is nothing and
nonexistent because *'Man is incapable of sickness," how
in the world does there come to be so much of it? And
why all this pretense and pother of curing it? Since
disease is only the imagination of *'mortal mind," which
is itself "nothing," it seems there is an awful fuss made
over getting rid of something that does not really exist,
or is only the fiction of a fiction. Having **denied" the
body and shed it as only a bad dream, why bother so
much about it? Since there really is no matter, how can
there be anything the matter with it? This puzzle con-
stantly stares us in the face as we read these letters
that are saturated and dripping with diseases that these
persons were *'incapable" of having.
And the second strange thing is stranger still and it is
this: The readers of this book and the writers of these
letters have been taught that the senses are utterly false
and not to be believed on any subject. They have been
assured that "the testimony of the corporeal senses cannot
146 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
inform us what is real and what is delusive," that "health
is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the
material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of
health," that "corporeal sense defrauds and lies," that
"the evidence of the senses is not to be accepted in the
case of sickness," and that "the so-called senses receive no
intimation of the earth's motions or of the science of
astronomy." If the senses cannot tell any truth about
such big and plain things as astronomy and the motions
of the heavenly bodies how much less can they be trusted
to tell anything about anatomy and the motions of our
organs? Yet the writers of these letters all appeal to
their senses, first, to show what diseases they did have,
and, second, to prove that they don't have them now and
never did have them. How did they know that they
had these broken arms and fibroid tumors and cataracts
in their eyes? They say that they saw these things, but
such testimony "is not to be accepted in the case of
sickness'* and is branded as fraudulent and "lies" in the
book. Having thrown the senses out of court as prevari-
cators, how can they now bring them back in again to
prove both their diseases and their cures?
The ways of the Christian Science mind are past
finding out. Yet the writers of these letters never seem
to be aware of these self-contradictions and absurdities.
It is only a step or a slip from idealism or spiritualism
into materialism, and these two contradictions illustrate
the fact that Mrs. Eddy and her followers, with all their
affirmation of "Mind" as the only reality and in spite of
all their denial of and aversion to "matter," are yet
deeply mired in materialism, and in all their teaching and
practice they are constantly struggling with this "too.
"SCIENCE AND HEALTH": CONTENTS OF THE BOOK 147
too solid flesh," which will not melt and vanish at their
bidding.
Some additional opinions of this book by other students
of it are here appended in conclusion to this chapter.
The author has already referred to and quoted from *'The
Interpretation of Life," by Gerhardt Mars, who strongly
supports Mrs. Eddy's claims, and yet he writes as follows:
The first reading of her chief work, "Science and Health with Key
to the Scriptures," leaves the impression, in spite of much that is
strikingly beautiful and true, that there is a prevailing tone of in-
coherence, contradiction, illogicality, and arbitrary, dictatorial
assertion, with no regard for evident fact either in the realm of
objective nature or history.
Robert Hugh Benson, a Roman Catholic dignitary,
wrote as follows:
It is impossible to describe the confusion of mind that falls upon
the student of "Science and Health". . . The quasiphilosophical
phraseology of the book, the abuse of terms, the employment of
ambiguous words at crucial points, the character of the exegesis,
the broken-backed paradoxes, the astonishing language, the egotism
— all these things and many more end by producing in the mind a
symptom resembling that which neuritis produces in the body,
namely a sense that an agonizing abnormality is somewhere about,
whether in the writings or in the reader is uncertain. ^
Stephen Paget, M. D., in his book *'The Faith and
Works of Christian Science," quotes the opinions of
several writers of which a brief extract follows:
Dr. Polk, Dean of the Medical Department, Cornell University:
Take "Science and Health," separate yourself from disturbing sur-
roundings, open its pages with a mind even somewhat prejudiced,
set yourself seriously to the task of comprehending its various
iterations and reiterations, its statements backward, its statements
forward, its statements sidewise, and every other wise, of its initial
1 The Dublin Review, July, 1908, reprinted in his Book of Essays.
148 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
proposition, throughout its 569 pages, and I know there are many of
you who, long before you had fathomed its depths, would find
yourself in a state of mental vacuity fit for the action of "suggestion."
Dean Hart, of the University of Denver: I have found that
"Science and Health" is the best mode of inducing the mesmeric
sleep I have ever experienced. The repetition of senseless sentences,
with constantly changing signification of words, whose new meanings
have to be gleaned from the context, produces a strange maze which
dazes the mind and produces a mesmeric condition.
Rev. P. C. Woolcott: What really happens when you attack these
tiresome monotonous pages, is this: you struggle at first to master
the diflaculties and get at the meaning. If you become convinced
that it is not worth the effort, you dismiss the matter from your
mind, and that is the end of it. But if you force yourself to the
task, and pore over the pages, you soon fall into a condition of
mental dizziness or vertigo. The reasoning faculties are benumbed,
your critical judgment is lulled to sleep, and suggestion dominates
the intellect.
M. Carta Sturge, *'after ten years' study of the book,"
says:
I have met with extraordinary difllculty to get a connected idea of
the contents of "Science and Health," owing to one of its most
striking characteristics, namely, its entire want of sequence, both in
thought and in expression. It abounds in contradictions, not only
to be found on the same page, the same paragraph, the same sentence,
but often between two words used consecutively. We have never
read a book which attempted to be a scientifically sound system
which is so full of glaring contradictions, and in which the conclusions
were so absolutely disconnected from the premises. Unfortunately
their rendering of truth has been given with such an entire want of
sense and logic that when read in the light of ordinary intelligence
it reads as entire nonsense, and a beautiful ideal and a great truth
has been rendered ridiculous, whilst the minds of Christians in
general have been shocked. ^
Such a consensus of opinions from competent judges,
which might be indefinitely extended, is strong evidence
as to the unreadableness and irrationality of this queer
book.
1 The Truth and Error of Christian Science, pp. viii, ix.
CHAPTER VII
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING
On the basis of the contents of "Science and Health"
as it has been summarized and as supplemented by the
other writings of the same author, we may now state
and examine the main points of Christian Science teaching.
1. ITS FUNDAMENTAL DENIALS
Christian Science is based, first on the denial of matter,
sickness, suffering, pleasure, sin, and death. These
denials expressed in the most unequivocal and positive
terms are found on almost every page of Mrs. Eddy's
writings and are repeated wearisomely an incredible
number of times. The author has estimated, on the basis
of the average number of reiterations on each page, that in
one or another form this denial occurs in * 'Science and
Health" at least three thousand times; and in all her
writings it may be asserted not less than ten thousand
times. One writer, giving his impression of this endless
repetition, says that Mrs. Eddy has made this denial
*'for the millionth time." It is her obsession and her
demon and it never leaves her for one moment.
(1) Denial of Matter. **Matter" in Christian Science
is another name for * 'mortal mind" and is declared to
be a "myth," a "delusion," and "nothing." This is
not the doctrine of philosophical idealism, as held by
Berkeley, Lotze, Paulsen, Bowne, Royce, and many other
149
150 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
thinkers from Plato down to our day. Mrs. Eddy her-
self says: * 'Those who formerly sneered at it as foolish
and eccentric now declare Bishop Berkeley, David Hume,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and certain German Philosophers,
or some unlearned mesmerist, to have been the real
originators of Mind Healing." She, however, disclaims
this origin and she is right in this. She proceeds: * 'Emer-
son's ethics are models of their kind; but even that good
man and genial philosopher partially lost his mental
faculties before his death, showing that he did not under-
stand the Science of Mind Healing as elaborated in my
'Science and Health*; nor did he pretend to do so.'* It
is certainly amusing to see Mrs. Eddy thus patronize
Emerson, and she is entirely correct when she says that
he did not "pretend" to understand her "Science."
Philosophical idealism holds to the objective reality of
matter as a divine idea and mode of activity, but it does
not at all declare it is "nonexistent" and "nothing."
Berkeley believed in the existence of the objective world
as much as anybody, only he conceived it as being mental
or spiritual in nature and having its source and seat in
the divine Mind. "I have never doubted," he says,
"that fire is hot and that ice is cold." Of him it has been
said: "No man ever delighted less to expatiate in the
regions of the abstract, the impalpable, the unknown.
His heart and soul clung with inseparable tenacity to
the concrete realities of the universe. "i But Christian
Science absolutely denies the existence of the objective
world except as a baseless delusion of "mortal mind,'*
which is itself another equally baseless delusion. It
1 Professor James F. Terrier, quoted in the article on Berkeley in
Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 151
abolishes the whole framework of nature and boldly de-
clares that "there are no vertebrata, mollusca, or radiata."
This contradicts the plain testimony of the senses and
the universal experience of mankind, falsifies the mental
faculties, and annihilates the material universe at a blow
and with a breath. How can Christian Scientists keep
up this denial of the objective world and endlessly repeat
this monstrous untruth? It shakes confidence in their
sincerity and sanity.
Mrs. Eddy evidently had in her mind a confused notion
of the psychological and philosophical distinction be-
tween subjective experience and objective reality, and
she probably meant to make matter a purely subjective
idea in the mind and deny it any extramental reality.
If she had clearly grasped this distinction and consist-
ently stuck to it she could have carried her scheme
through. 1 But unfortunately for her system she upset
it and dug a miry pit for herself by making this idea in
the mind an ^'illusion" and "delusion" of "mortal mind"
and then making "mortal mind" itself a "delusion,"
so that she left no reality for matter either out of the mind
or in it but reduced it to "nothingness," and thus she
made her whole system a delusion of a delusion and threw
it into confusion worse confounded. It was at this point
that she misunderstood and perverted philosophical
idealism, and it was this initial blunder that wrecked
her whole scheme and involved her in endless contra-
dictions.
(2) Denial of Sickness. There is no such thing as
rheumatism, hernia, tumor, insanity, epilepsy, cataract,
1 On this point see Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney's thoughtful little
book. The Integrity of Christian Science, pp. 13-16.
152 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
heart disease, cancer, tuberculosis, Bright's disease,
neurasthenia, diseased eyes, stomach trouble, dyspepsia,
deafness, diseased lungs, rupture, liver complaint, dropsy,
kidney disease, diseased bowels, eczema, catarrh, spinal
disease, asthma, yet these are the names of diseases
found in the headings of the letters on * 'Fruitage" in
"Science and Health," from which their writers claim to
have been cured. And yet these diseases are also de-
clared to be **delusions" and **nothing." To say in one
breath that they had these "delusions" and base the
proof of this fact on the evidence of their senses and then
in the next breath affirm, "nor can the material senses
bear reliable testimony on the subject of health," gives
no logical jolt or sense of contradiction to Christian
Scientists.
(3) Denial of Pain and Pleasure. Pain is constantly de-
clared to be a "delusion" of "mortal mind" and "nothing,"
and pleasure is consigned to the same "nothingness." It
is true that at times admission is made that pain and
pleasure exist as states of "mortal mind," but none the
less is the reality of these states denied, and those who
experience them are urged to "deny" them and refuse to
believe that they have them. The patient is told that
he has no pain, but only thinks that he has. The little
child, having injured itself, is told that it does not hurt,
and thus a falsehood is almost literally crammed down
its throat or forced into its consciousness. That we
should be told and asked to believe that we have no pain
when agony may be sweeping through the soul like flames
of fire, or that we are experiencing no pleasure when we
are eating delicious food or quenching intense thirst, or
are thrilled with the beauty of a poem or a symphony or
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 153
a sunset, or with the joy of love, is to try get us to con-
tradict our immediate consciousness and surest knowledge
and believe a lie, and is incredible except when viewed as
the delusion of an insane mind or wild fanatic.
(4) Denial of Sin. Deeper still in falsity is the Christian
Science denial of sin. This also is declared to be mere
"myth" and "nothing." It is said that *'man is incapable
of sin," for he is an "idea" or "reflection" of God and is
as sinless and impeccable as God himself. "To hold
yourself superior to sin," says this false prophetess, "is
true wisdom." This contradicts the individual conscience
of every normal person and the universal consciousness
and conscience of mankind. That "all have sinned, and
fall short of the glory of God" is not only the express
teaching of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, but it
is also written just as plainly in all the histories and
stamped upon all the races and classes and upon all the
human conduct and character of the world. "If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in us," "and we make" God "a liar." That any
man or woman, however blinded by bigotry or partisan
purpose, should stand up before the sorry spectacle of
this world, with all its vice and crime and wickedness and
woe, and declare that there is no sin and that man cannot
sin, passes belief; and yet Christian Scientists are doing
this incredible thing every time they read their textbook
and express confidence in the founder of their faith.
(5) Denial of Death. The Christian Science denial of
death may strike us as the extremest absurdity of all
the irrationalities of this cult, but Mrs. Eddy asserts it
calmly and boldly without once losing her composure or
moving a muscle of her face. If she had any sense of
154 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
humor we might think she was not meaning to be taken
too seriously, but she is always dead in earnest; and her
followers do not balk or blink at anything she says. It
is true that all her husbands and relatives and students
died in due order and she herself followed them in com-
mitting this act of mortal belief and delusion, but this
does not affect her followers. They still unflinchingly
say that death is a * 'mortal belief" and that if we were
only not so foolish as to believe it and were to *'deny" it
resolutely, there would be no great enemy to fear and no
death to die. But as long as Christian Scientists die so
regularly and so unanimously we may be permitted to
*'deny" their theory.!
(6) Moral Tendencies of These Denials. Nothing
enters more deeply into life than one's philosophy. How-
ever subtle and remote from practical affairs it may
seem, yet if it be planted as a real belief in the mind and
heart it will inevitably work its logical tendencies out into
life. "The most practical and important thing about a
man," says Mr. G. K. Chesterton, *'is still his view of the
universe. . . We think the question is not whether the
theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether, in the
long run, anything else affects them.'*
What is the practical tendency of these denials of
Christian Science? They first undermine the trust-
1 Some Christian Scientists actually hold that Mrs. Eddy did not
die. After her death the authorities of The Mother Church
published a selection of editorials from various newspapers, com-
menting on her death. Whereupon Mrs. Augusta E. Stetson, of
New York, wrote an indignant letter in which she said that such
admissions were contradictory and disloyal to the Christian Science
teachings and declared in italics, "Mary Baker Eddy never died."
See her book Give God the Glory, in which she repeatedly makes this
assertion.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 155
worthiness of the human mind as an organ of knowledge.
They turn the senses, pains, and pleasures into false
reports of a false world and thereby overthrow the most
familiar and necessary beliefs and turn the whole material
universe into a monstrous lie. Nothing in the objective
world is true as we see and experience it, and our very
souls are not persons but only reflected ideas of a principle
which is an impersonal pantheistic mind.
What effect will trying to believe this have on one*s
sense of truth and life.^ The logical result of it will be to
pervert one's intellectual conscience. When Christian
Scientists teach little children to say that they are not
hurt when their own consciousness asserts they are
suffering pain, what effect do they think such teaching
will have on children's sense of truth? And how can
Christian Scientists keep on stultifying their senses and
their most vivid experience of reality in suffering and sin,
and not blunt their conscience and blur the deepest and
sharpest distinctions between truth and error? There is
such a thing as people so saturating their souls with deceit
and subverting their very sense of truth that *'God sendeth
them a working of error, that they should believe a lie"
(II Thess. 2:11). Such a fundamental and pervasive
falsity as lies at the root of Christian Science must pervert
all the intellectual processes of the mind.
But the denial of matter and of sin cuts much deeper
into the moral tissues of life. It is antinomian in principle
and in fruit. This denial is a very ancient doctrine
and its consequences are well known in history. Among
the Gnostic sects of the early Christian centuries were the
Manichseans who held that the spiritual being of man was
unaffected by the action of matter, and their morals
156 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
were loose, and there were also the NIcolaltans (Rev.
2:6) who were antinomian libertines. If the flesh is
an illusion and sin is nothing the dividing line between
virtue and vice grows thin to the vanishing point, and it
is then easy to slip from the one into the other. If one
really holds to the theory of the nonreality of sin it will
not be difficult for his conscience to confuse the flesh and
the spirit and to lose all sense of difference between them;
and, indeed, there is no difference if *'Good is all, and all
is good." This doctrine has been a menace to the world
both outside and inside the Church in all ages. Let a
man once be obsessed with the belief that sin has no reality
and is a myth, and there is no sin, however sensual and
shocking, that he may not commit without any compunc-
tion of conscience or sense of guilt, for he can say, with
Browning's "Johannes Agricola in Meditation,"
I have God's warrant, could I blend
All hideous sins, as in a cup.
To drink the mingled venoms up;
Secure my nature will convert
The draught to blossoming gladness fast.
As to the followers of this cult, we doubt not that they
are generally people above reproach. But we are dealing
with the logical tendency of their faith, and their denial
of the reality of matter and of sin has an ancient history
and its record is not good. It has been prolific of evil
and it is still a menace to right thinking and good living.
2. THE PANTHEISM OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Mrs. Eddy repeatedly denies and her followers repeat
the denial that her system is pantheistic. But her denials
cannot save her from her self-contradictions on this as
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 157
on other points. She is laboring under a misunderstand-
ing of what pantheism is, owing to her ignorance of the
correct meaning of many terms which she uses and to
her lack of learning in general. She thinks that pantheism
is the theory that matter is intelligent, *'mind in matter,'*
as she says countless times. But of course this is not
pantheism, which is the doctrine of one infinite, eternal,
impersonal substance which is the totality of being. The
pantheistic God, therefore, has no consciousness and will
in itself, but only such consciousness as appears in men,
who are parts of the infinite substance or Absolute,
related to it as waves and spray and foam are related to
the sea, eternally thrown up out of it and falling back
into it. This one substance may be material or spiritual
in nature, and Mrs. Eddy's identification of pantheism
with "mind in matter" or with **corporeality" is an error.
Now Mrs. Eddy's teaching. is pantheistic in the true
sense of the term in spite of her denial. The evidence
of this runs through the entire web and woof of her writ-
ings. *'God is supreme: is Mind; is Principle, not person:
includes all and is reflected by all that is real and eternal;
is Spirit, and Spirit is infinite, is the only substance; is
the only life. Man was and is the idea of God; therefore
mind never can be in man." This language from one
of the earlier editions of "Science and Health" is as pure
pantheism as could be expressed in words. Her favorite
name for God is "Principle," which is a neuter noun
and which she always treats as an impersonal term, never
using the personal pronoun "who" but always the imper-
sonal pronoun "which" in relation to it. Her doctrine
of prayer is pantheistic, for she denies that prayer has
any effect on God but has only subjective influence on
158 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
us. "To address Deity as a Person impedes spiritual
progress and hides Truth.'* Her doctrine of the nature
of man is pantheistic, for she repeatedly declares that
man is an **idea" and ^'reflection'* of God and denies
that he has any existence separate and apart from God.
Her doctrine of sin is pantheistic, for she denies its reality.
Her fundamental principle that "God is all in all, and all in
all is God," this being her famous "reversible" statement
that reads as well backward as forward, is pantheism; in
fact this statement is a classical philosophical definition
of pantheism. It merges God and the world into one
being, which is the sum total of the universe in which
man has no enduring personality and is only a drop in
the infinite ocean and has no more freedom and respon-
sibility than a wave or the wind. Occidental pantheism,
whether it regards the one Substance of the totality of
being as materialistic or spiritualistic, does not deny the
reality of the objective world, whereas Oriental pantheism
resolves the objective world into deceitful appearance or
unreal illusion. It is obvious that Mrs. Eddy's pantheism,
with its denial of the reality of matter as being a mere
illusion, belongs to the Oriental type of pantheism, es-
pecially to that of India.
We have not only Mrs. Eddy's written teaching on
this point, but also the testimony of her students as to
her private and more explicit instruction. In the suit that
she brought against Charles Stanley, a student whom
she had dismissed from her class, for unpaid tuition,
Richard Kennedy testified:
I had nothing to do with the instructions — she told me that she
had expelled Mr. Stanley from the class — of his incompetency to
understand her science — that it was impossible to convince him of
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 159
the folly of his times — that his faith in a personal God and prayer
was such that she could not overcome it — She used the word "Baptist"
in connection with him because he was a Baptist — but it was the
same with all the other creeds. So long as they believed in a
personal God and the response to prayer, they could not progress in
the scientific religion — I performed the manipulation of Mr. Stanley
as follows: Mrs. Eddy requested me to rub Mr. Stanley's head and
to lay special stress upon the idea that there was no personal God,
while I was rubbing him. I never entirely gave up my belief in a
personal God, though my belief was pretty well shaken up.i
The moral tendency of pantheism is to dull conscience
and relax all sense of obligation and virtue, for it denies
sin and annuls freedom and responsibility and obliterates
all distinction between good and evil as being equally
determined and necessary; and whenever pantheism
saturates the thought and life of a people, as in India,
it leads to unspeakable moral degradation.
3. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND MARRIAGE
We have already seen that in ''Science and Health**
Mrs. Eddy sets forth her peculiar views on marriage in
unmistakable terms. Marriage is merely a temporary
arrangement to be regarded only as long as we believe in
"mortal mind.'* "The human mind will at length de-
mand a higher affection,'* and "there will ensue a fer-
mentation over this as over many other reforms." Her
various statements are sugar-coated with asseverations
that "in Christian Science the gospel of marriage is not
without the law, and the solemn vow of fidelity," but
these cannot sweeten her express teachings which contain
a deadly poison to the marriage problem. The author
supplements the dangerous views already quoted with
1 Milmine, History, p. 145.
160 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
even more explicit teaching as found in her "Miscellaneous
Writings'* as follows:
Until time matures human growth, marriage and progeny will
continue unprohibited in Christian Science. We look to future
generations for ability to comply with absolute Science, when
marriage shall be found to be man's oneness with God — the unity of
eternal Love. At present, more spiritual conception and education
of children will serve to illustrate the superiority of spiritual power
over sensuous, and usher in the dawn of God's creation, wherein
they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels.
To abolish marriage at this period, and maintain morality and
generation, would put ingenuity to ludicrous shifts; yet this is
possible in Science, although it is to-day problematic. The time
cometh, and now is, for spiritual and eternal existence to be recog-
nized and understood in Science. All is Mind. Human procreation,
birth, life, and death are subjective states of the human erring
mind; they are the phenomena of mortality, nothingness, that
illustrate mortal mind and body as one, and neither real and
eternal. 1
Let it not be overlooked that while it is admitted that
**to abolish marriage at this period" would result in
**ludicrous shifts," nevertheless it is declared without
qualification that "yet this is possible in Science," and
it is further declared that "the time cometh, and now
is" when this possibility should be "recognized and
understood in Science." What is this but teaching
that marriage might and ought to be "abolished" now
by those that recognize and understand it in Science?
Mrs. Eddy holds that "generation rests on no sexual
basis," and says: "The propagation of their species by
butterfly, bee, and moth, without the customary presence
of male companions, is a discovery corroborative of the
Science of Mind, because it shows that the origin and
continuance of these insects rests on Principle apart from
1 Miscellaneous Writings, p. 286.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 161
material conditions.'* Alleging that in the birth of Jesus
"the Science of being overshadowed the sense of the
Virgin mother, with a full recognition that Spirit is the
basis of being," she calls "His birth what everyone's
should be." She says that "I never knew more than one
individual who believed in agamogenesis; she was un-
married, a lovely character, was suffering from incipent
insanity, and a Christian Scientist cured her." "It is
well authenticated, however, that one of Mrs. Eddy's
disciples some years back took Mrs. Eddy's words at
face value and calmly announced to a wonder-struck
world the immaculate conception and birth of a son."l
The extremest and most offensive statement on the
subject of marriage was made by Mrs. Eddy at the dedi-
cation of her Boston church. Mr. Peabody gives the
following account of it:
The most impressive and conspicuous incident in Christian
Science history was the dedication in June, 1906, of the "Mother
Church" in Boston, a beautiful building that cost upwards of two
million dollars. In order to get her views regarding marriage before
the faithful, in the most impressive manner, Mrs. Eddy incorporated
them in her message which was read at the church dedication cere-
monies. She took the bit in her teeth, as it were, and notwith-
standing efforts to dissuade her or induce her to modify her state-
ment, insisted upon getting her views before her following in their
most extreme and obnoxious form, characterizing marriage as
"synonomous with legalized lust." It has been denied by Mrs.
Eddy's press agents that she gave utterance to this opinion of
marriage; but it will be found in her dedication message as published
in the Christian Science Sentinel for June, 1906, and the Christian
Science Journal for July, 1906.2
That any respectable man or woman should publicly
stigmatize the holy relation of marriage as "synonomous
1 Marsten, The Mask of Christian Science^ p. 133.
2 Masquerade, p. 165.
162 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
with legalized lust" is an offense against one of the most
sacred and vital institutions of the world.
In accordance with her teaching that * 'generation rests
on no sexual basis," Mrs. Eddy declares that there is no
hereditary transmission of traits from parents to children.
In the chapter on * 'Questions and Answers" in her "Mis-
cellaneous Writings" she asks, "Does Christian Science
set aside the law of transmission, parental desires, and
good or bad influences on the unborn child?" and answers:
Whatever is real is right and eternal; hence the immutable and
just law of Science, that God is good only, and can transmit to man
and the universe nothing evil, or unlike himself. For the innocent
babe to be born a lifelong sufferer because of his parents' mistakes
or sins, were sore injustice. Science sets aside man as a creator,
and unfolds the eternal harmonies of the only living and true
origin, God. According to the beliefs of the flesh, both good and
bad traits of the parents are transmitted to their helpless offspring,
and God is supposed to impart to man this fatal power. It is
cause for rejoicing that this belief is as false as it is remorseless, l
Yet in direct contradiction with this teaching she
aflSrms, in her textbook, parental propensities are inherited:
The offspring of heavenly minded parents must inherit more
intellect, better balanced minds, and sounder constitutions. If
some fortuitous circumstance places spiritual children in the arras
of gross parents, these beautiful children early droop and die, like
tropical flowers born amid Alpine snows. If perchance they live to
become parents, in their turn they may reproduce in their own
helpless little ones the grosser traits of their ancestors. What hope
of happiness, what noble ambition can inspire the child who inherits
propensities that must either be overcome or reduce him to a loath-
some wreck.
This is only one among many positive self-contradictions
that are found in these writings.
1 Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 71, 72.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 163
This teaching on the subject of marriage is not without
its practical effect among Christian Scientists. When
Mrs. Eddy asks, "Is marriage nearer right than cehbacy?**
and answers, "Human knowledge inculcates that it is,
while Science indicates that it is not," this cannot fail
to have some influence upon her devotees, and there
are painful facts bearing on this point. To quote from
Mr. Peabody:
Mrs. Eddy, having been married three or four times, now em-
phatically disapproves of marriage, and a marriage between Christian
Scientists is decidedly objectionable. There has never been a
marriage in the Christian Science church. There is no Christian
Science ceremony and no Christian Science official authorized to
perform a marriage. The marriage relation, as such, is regarded as
sensuous and impure, and the marriage of an official of the church
in any part of the country would mean instant loss of power and
influence together with his office and its emoluments. . . With
this objection to marriage goes also the objection to children, so
that the birth of children in Christian Science families is of rare
occurrence and is regarded as evidence of unspiritual living and is
decidedly discrediting. "Sensual and mortal beliefs, material
suppositions of life," Mrs. Eddy calls children. The effects of this
teaching are shown in the difference between Christian Science Sun-
day schools and Christian Sunday schools. The membership of the
Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian Sunday school is about the
same as their church membership; while in Christian Science Sunday
schools there is but one child for every five members. i
Dr. Powell also asks: "Why has not The Mother Church
in Boston, with its seating capacity of five thousand and
its resident membership doubtless much larger, made
provisions for a larger Sunday school than one of two
hundred and fifty members.'*" 2
1 Masquerade, pp. 163, 164.
2 Christian Science, p. 212. In the United States Census of 1906
the Christian Scientists reported 82,332 members and only 16,116
Sunday-school scholars. See H. K. Carroll's Religious Forces of the
United States, p. LVIII.
164 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
What is the effect of such teaching on domestic relations
in the home? The author here quotes from Dr. L. P.
Powell, who is one of the most thoroughly informed and
most impartial writers on the whole subject of Christian
Science as he made a wide investigation of it and is al-
ways quick to Fee and acknowledge the good that is in it.
In immediate connection with the testimony which follows
he says: *T know that some families have been blessed by
the conversion of their members to Christian Science.
I know that a new conception of the dignity and spiritual
value of self-control has been lodged in many a mind.
I know that many a husband has been reclaimed from
dissipation, many a wife from frivolity, by the call of the
spiritual which in spite of all its errors does echo from
'Science and Health,'" One who writes in this spirit
can be trusted when he testifies as follows:
I could give instances — for I have made inquiries far and wide —
in which families that have for long years known only happiness and
concord have suddenly become the prey of discord and division, in
which the love of husbands for wives and fathers for children has
dissolved into an unfortunate aloofness, in which wives have ceased,
except in name, to live as wives, and mothers have come to think of
children as millstones round their necks, in which daughters have
ceased to be daughters except before the world, and sisters have
separated for all time from sisters who declined to go with them into
Christian Science, in which lovers have broken their engagement
and friends have given up their lifelong friendship for no reason
save a difference in the point of view concerning what is nothing
after all except a problem in pure metaphysics. ^
The doctrine that marriage is "synonomous with
legalized lust'* and that in this world "the human mind will
at length demand a higher affection" and "man must
1 Christian Science, pp. 204, 205.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 165
find permanence and peace in a more spiritual adherence"
may at first sight seem to lend itself to purity and be a
reenforcement in the battle of the spirit against the flesh.
But flesh and spirit lie close together and it is but a slip
from the one into the other. Human experience bears
abundant witness that all theories of "perfection" and
"entire sanctification" are attended with the danger of
lapse into sensuality. "Wherefore let him that thinketh
he standeth take heed lest he fall." The early Christian
churches were plagued and scandalized with various
Gnostic sects that proclaimed the "nothingness" of matter
and of sin and then practiced the grossest immorality.
The Christian Science doctrine of marriage has in it
this poisonous germ. People that believe that the mar-
riage relation should be displaced by "a higher affection"
and "a more spiritual adherence" will not find it difficult
to believe that they are so far advanced in "Science"
that they can make the substitution. In plain truth,
"a more spiritual adherence" may easily slip into free love.
Mrs. Josephine Curtis Woodbury, who was once a
leader in the Christian Science movement and "emerged,"
to use her own words, "from the toils after many years
of close association with the head of the new church,"
referring to marriage in her article in the Arena for May,
1899, says: "One may well hesitate to touch on this
delicate topic in print, yet only thus can the immoral
possibilities and the utter lack of divine inspiration in
'Christian Science' be shown."
The author closes the study of the Christian Science
doctrine of marriage by quoting the view of Dr. Francis
E. Marsten, a careful and conscientious student of the
system :
166 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Call the flesh an "illusion" if you please, call the life of earth a
dream life, all its most sacred relations only phantoms and shadows,
educate the young into the belief that sin is nothing, and when
the moving pictures of the sensuous life enter with the lusts of the
carnal nature, it will be nothing strange if the dream of the Nico-
laitans of the first century is -dreamed over again in this twentieth
century. These doctrines touching on marriage promulgated by
the "Mother" are so subtle and insidious that they constitute a
formidable menace to social well-being. They strike not at a
human, but at a divine institution. i
4. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES
Christian Science, though it started only as a method
of mind healing, rapidly developed into a religion with a
church and a creed and an elaborate system of theology.
It is also professedly a form of the Christian religion,
and, indeed, it proclaims itself to be a later and completer
and even the final and perfect form. It apparently ac-
cepts the Bible and Christ and God after the Christian
manner, and an uncritical reader of the textbook and
bible of this new religion in his unsophisticated innocence
might think that it is only another if not improved form
of Christianity, only one Christian denomination more.
Do not Christian Scientists read the Bible and pray in
their churches? And is it not, then, sectarian narrowness
and bigotry on the part of Christian churches that they
do not recognize Christian Science churches as being
of the same faith?
But there is abundant reason for the fact that Christian
churches do not recognize Christian Science churches
as being in any true sense Christian. This is not at all
an attitude and spirit of bigotry and uncharity, but is
only an honest recognition of a plain fact. Mrs. Eddy
herself repudiates the historical form of Christianity as
^ The Mask of Christian Science, p. 130.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 167
utterly bound up with "mortal mind" and therefore
false, and she and her church will have no part or lot
with it. Christians and Christian Scientists cannot
walk together because they do not agree in any distinct-
ively Christian doctrine. The whole Christian system is
accepted by these two parties in fundamentally different
senses that are utterly exclusive of each other. In a word,
Christian Science drives a dislocating plowshare through
the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and leaves it a
different book in every word and idea. It is not simply a
variant form of historic Christianity, but it is another
and antagonistic religion as far removed from Christianity
as is Buddhism, with which, indeed, it has close affinities.
Christian Science really denies every Christian fact and
perverts and falsifies every Christian doctrine, in the
sense in which these facts and doctrines have universally
been and still are understood by the Church catholic
and the Christian world. This has already been seen
in detail, and the author will now only briefly recapitulate
its teaching on these fundamental doctrines.
(1) Its doctrine of God is pantheism, for it denies the
personality of God, declaring "God is not person" but
"God is Principle," a name as impersonal, to use Mrs.
Eddy's own analogy, as "the principle of mathematics,"
merging God with the totality of being or the universe,
and rendering him inaccessible to prayer; and thus God
is lost in a pantheistic world and religion is cut up by the
roots.
There is usually an element of truth lurking behind Mrs.
Eddy's confused statements, and the truth in her oft-
repeated assertion that "God is infinite, the only Life,
Substance, Spirit, or Soul, the only intelligence in the
168 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
universe, including man," Is that God is the only absolute
One who has existence in himself. But he has also created
the universe and finite spirits, who have relative being
dependent on him; yet they are separate from him and
are not to be included or merged in him.
(2) Its doctrine of creation is pantheistic. It rep-
resents the whole creation as being simply an unfolding
of God. *'This creation consists of the unfolding of
spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced
in the infinite Mind and forever reflected. These ideas
range from infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest
ideas are the sons and daughters of God." Man is the
*'idea" and "reflection" of God, and he *'is incapable of
sin."
How, then, did "matter" arise in this purely divine
universe and how did "mortal mind" originate in man
who is an idea of God? We are asked to believe that
the second chapter of Genesis "contains a statement
of this material view of God and the universe;" and this
statement "Is a lie"! "There went up a mist from the
earth," and this mist is the origin of "matter" and of
"mortal mind." But even granting this dogmatic as-
sumption, how did the "mist" originate in a world that was
simply the "unfolding of spiritual ideas," or of God.? Mrs.
Eddy tells us that matter, sickness, suffering, sin, and
death are all "delusions" that arise out of "mortal mind":
but how did "mortal mind" arise, especially in a world
in which "God is all" and "all is good"? "Where the
spirit of God is, and there is no place where God is not,
evil becomes nothing." Then how in such a world or
rather in such a God did "mortal mind" get started?
Mrs. Eddy does not tell us. Here Is an unplumbed
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 169
mystery in her system of interpretation on which she
throws no Hght and of which she does not appear to be
aware. She cannot fall back upon the Scriptural doctrine
that "God made man upright; but they have sought out
many inventions" (Eccl. 7:29), for in her scheme man in
his pristine purity was an idea of God "incapable of sin."
How original man ever got this dreadful thing she calls
"mortal mind" and just what its relation to man is, are
insoluble puzzles in her system that must be left in the
same heap with her other self-contradictions.
(3) Its doctrine of man is also pantheistic, for it
reduces man to an idea or reflection of God and denies
that man has any personality and existence apart from
God. Though Mrs. Eddy denies that she is a pantheist,
because she ignorantly confuses pantheism with "a belief
in the intelligence of matter," yet she is just as certainly
a thoroughgoing pantheist as Spinoza himself.
(4) Its doctrine of Christ is a strange dualism, unheard
of in all the heresies of Church history, according to which
Jesus is "the highest human corporeal concept of the
divine idea," apparently meaning God, incarnated in
"mortal mind," and Christ is "the divine manifestation
of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate
error." Such a "concept" leads us to suspect that she
has taken away our Lord and we know not where to look
for him.
(5) Its doctrine of the Holy Spirit is grotesque and
abhorrent, for it identifies the Holy Spirit with "Divine
Science."
(6) Its doctrine of matter, sickness, suffering, sin,
and death is an utter denial of the reality of these things
except as pure delusions or false beliefs of "mortal mind"
170 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
which is itself a false state of belief, and thereby it falsifies
our senses and our most primary intuitions and surest
forms of knowledge and blows the universe into nothing-
ness with a single breath of denial. Such a monstrous
absurdity is contradicted not only by all our philosophy,
science, psychology, and ethics, but also by the express
and implied teachings of the Bible from the first verse
to the last. On this theory sin is only a bad dream and
all we need do to get rid of it is to stab ourselves broad
awake. This doctrine of the nothingness of matter
and of sin is of ancient Gnostic lineage and it has lost
none of its antinomian tendency. It is allied to the pan-
theistic doctrine of illusion that saturates the Orient and
is so productive of immorality. This denial of the very
possibility of sin logically sweeps away all barriers against
the flesh and opens the gates for sensuality to flood the
soul. If Christian Scientists do not give way to this
tendency it is because they are better than their
doctrine.
(7) Its doctrine of prayer reduces prayer to a state
of silent meditation which cannot affect God but only
influences man. "God is not influenced by man." Such
a prayer is only a soliloquy and becomes impossible after
the secret of its true nature is once discovered. One
cannot really pray to "Principle" any more than to "the
principle of mathematics," or to the precession of the
equinoxes.
(8) Its doctrine of the atonement is a purely moral
influence theory, declaring that "the atonement of Christ
reconciles man to God, not God to man." Such an
atonement makes no real provision for the divine for-
giveness of sin, and there appears to be no such forgiveness
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 171
in Christian Science, for "to remit the penalty due for
sin, would be for Truth to pardon error." "Sin is not
forgiven; we cannot escape its penalty. . . Suffering
for sin is all that destroys it." Even in The Lord's
Prayer the petition, "Forgive us our debts," is bleached
into the colorless sentiment, "Love is reflected in love."
And so there is no real gospel in Christian Science, no
good news of an atoning Saviour and a forgiving Father.
(9) Its doctrine of ordinances rejects baptism and
wounds and insults the Founder of Christianity by setting
aside the Last Supper which he instituted with his dis-
ciples and commanded all his followers, "This do in remem-
brance of me," the most precious ordinance of the Chris-
tian Church, and presumes to substitute for it the cele-
bration of the "morning breakfast" at which Jesus was
present with his disciples on the shore of Galilee. But
even this parody of a "Communion Service" was dis-
continued by Mrs. Eddy in her Mother Church in Boston
in 1908. It was, indeed, an ordinance better honored
in the breach than in the observance.
(10) Its doctrine of marriage discredits this union
as a temporary condescension to an infirmity of "mortal
mind," which is really to be gotten rid of as soon as
possible as being "synonomous with legalized lust" and
to be replaced by those who are versed in "Science" with
"a higher affection" and "a more spiritual adherence";
a doctrine which is logically subversive of the holy
relation of marriage and tends to moral laxity.
(11) Its doctrine of the Bible is that it is to be in-
preted in "a metaphysical sense" according to which
everything means something wholly different from what
the words naturally mean and from what the entire
172 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Christian world has always believed and ever will believe
they do mean, and which turns all the sense and sanity
of the book into absurdities as false and grotesque as
the absiu-dities of Christian Science itself.
(12) Its doctrine of healing is that mind, meaning
the mind of God, destroys disease as a mere illusion
or nothing. This is a form of mind cure which will be
considered in a later chapter.
(13) Its doctrine of eschatology. *'Eschatology" is
another word we have not found in Mrs. Eddy's writings,
and if she had lighted on it, it would surely have been
another sonorous polysyllable in her vocabulary as de-
lectable to her as **the blessed word Mesopotamia" was
to Mrs. Partington. But though she knows not the word
yet she has the thing, and her eschatology is as peculiar
and pantheistic as the rest of her scheme. As regards
this world, she looks forward to a time when marriage
will be superseded by *'a more spiritual adherence,"
when children will be produced without sexual union,
and when death itself will cease to act as a fatal delusion
of mortal mind.
As regards the other world or final state, Mrs. Eddy
says that the corporeal senses and all sense knowledge
and pleasure and pain will vanish along with the bad
dream of the body and the spirit will survive as an idea
of God, having no personality or existence apart from
God. What sort of existence this would be we cannot
tell, but it would appear that it cannot have any con-
sciousness and certainly no personality. All things will
dissolve into their original Principle, the clouds and mist
and raindrops will go back into the eternal sea out of
which they came, pantheism will have its perfect work
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEACHING 173
and end, or rather it will keep up its eternal round of
impersonal and fatalistic change.
Such is the way Christian Science perverts Christian
doctrines and gives us for bread a stone, and for fish a
serpent. Probably few people outside of the Christian
Science churches know what a destructive and absurd
system of doctrine it is, innocently thinking it is only a
harmless vagary; and it must be the fact that many people
in the Christian Science churches are but little better
informed as to the true teaching of the system, not having
read for themselves or really understood their obscure and
mystifying textbook.
This is the cult that is called "Christian Science,"
the * 'so-called Christian Science" which Professor G. T.
Ladd brands as "an almost equally grotesque mixtm'e
of crude pantheism, misunderstood psychological and
philosophical truths, and truly Christian beliefs and
conceptions."! If all the vocabularies of all languages
had been ransacked for a name, two more inappropriate
words could not have been found to be applied to this
system; and it is a pity and scandal that two of the most
significant and noblest words in the English tongue should
have been prostituted to the ignoble use of naming this
false religion and scientific monstrosity. As Voltaire said
of the "Holy Roman Empire" that it was not an empire
and was not Roman and was not holy, so must it be said
of Christian Science that it is not science and it is not
Christian.
1 Philosophy of Religion, vol. I, p. 167.
CHAPTER Vni
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH
When Mrs. Eddy began to teach her system of mind
cure she had no thought of founding a reUgion and a
church. The title of her book "Science and Health"
shows this, the addition "With Key to the Scriptures"
being an afterthought which was added in 1884, several
years after she began to dream of the day when the" church
bells would ring in her honor. She not only had no
thought of a church, but she expressly declared against
such an institution.
It is true, however, that she began to organize her work
at an early date, for she was farseeing enough to know
that it could not grow and last unless it had an organized
form.
1. FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST SCIENTIST
In June, 1875, eight of Mrs. Eddy's students met
together under the name of "the Christian Scientists"
and subscribed money to have her address them each
Sunday, and in July of the next year they formed "The
Christian Scientists' Association." These loose associa-
tions, however, did not meet the needs of Mrs. Eddy and
her students. Her followers were practically all from
Christian churches, and they found the air of a mere
metaphysical association too thin and cold to supply
their emotional and religious demands. Mrs. Eddy, who
174
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 175
was always an opportunist and was quick to see and
adapt herself to new situations, responded with alacrity
to the call of the hour. In fact, this turn of affairs gave
her a new idea and one that dominated her whole after
life.
In 1879 she founded her first church organization,
naming it 'The Church of Christ, Scientist," a charter
being applied for on August 6 of that year. All these
proceedings were conducted secretly so as not to come to
the knowledge of the * 'mesmerists" Spofford and Kennedy,
even care being taken to select a notary before whom the
papers could be signed who could be vouched for by one
of the members as having no affiliation with these danger-
ous people. 1 The purpose of the corporation was stated
to be "to carry on and transact the business necessary to
the worship of God," Boston was named as the place where
the church was to be located, and there were twenty-six
charter members.
For sixteen months the church had no regular place
of meeting and services were held in the homes of various
members in Lynn and Boston. The minutes of the
meetings show that attendance at these early services
was very small, sometimes falling as low as four or five.
The service consisted of silent prayer or Mrs. Eddy's
interpretation of The Lord's Prayer and readings from
"Science and Health" and from the Scriptures. Mrs.
Eddy usually delivered an address, her subject frequently
being "mesmerism." The record for September 5, 1880,
reads as follows :
1 The facts as to the founding of the Christian Science Church are
mostly taken from Milmine, History, ch. XIV, and from Mrs.
Eddy's "Historical Sketch" found in the Manual of the Mother
Church,
176 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Meeting opened by Mrs. Damon in the usual way. Mrs. M. B. G.
Eddy, having completed her summer vacation, was present and
delivered a discourse on Mesmerism. Whole number in attendance,
twenty-two.
The record shows that the subject on the following
Sunday was again "Mesmerism." On December 12,
1880, the Christian Scientists began to hold their services
in Hawthorne Hall on Park Street, Boston, and the follow-
ing passage from Miss Milmine's * 'History" gives an in-
teresting picture of these meetings:
Mrs. Eddy usually preached and conducted the services, though
occasionally one of her students took her place, and now and again
a minister of some other denomination was invited to occupy the
pulpit. In spite of the fact that she was always effective on the
rostrum, Mrs. Eddy seemed to dread these Sunday services. The
necessity for wearing glasses embarrassed her. When she sometimes
wore glasses in her own home, she apologized for doing so, explaining
that it was a habit she often rose above, but that at times the
mesmerists were too strong for her. She believed that the mes-
merists set to work upon her before the hour of the weekly services,
and on Sunday morning her faithful students were sometimes called
to her house to treat her against Kennedy, Spofford, and Arens,
until she took the train for Boston.
After her formal removal from Lynn to Boston in 1882,
"she constantly learned from her new associates, even to
the extent of resolutely breaking herself of certain un-
grammatical habits of speech — no mean achievement for
a woman above sixty." It certainly is an astonishing
fact that this woman who had passed her sixtieth birthday
and was yet utterly unknown outside of a little circle in
and around Boston and was generally regarded with
pitying amusement or contempt as a visionary with a
queer obsession, afterwards became and now is one of
the most widely known women in the world and to-day
is the religious leader of a considerable body of people.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 177
Mrs. Eddy became "pastor" of her church in 1881.
"When others preached," writes Mrs. Josephine C.
Woodbury, who was once one of her closest associates,
"she occasionally attended the church whereof she was
nominally pastor, and took some part in the service. Once
she held a baptismal service without water, though her
memory failed her in repeating the formula prepared by
herself; and sometimes there was a communion service,
without water or wine. Most Sundays, however, she
worshiped God in the privacy of her own home. If wonder
was expressed at her absence, the adoring disciples re-
plied, *How could she, the divinely inspired, bear to hear
ordinary preaching.' *'i
The place of meeting of the Christian Science Church
was removed from Hawthorne Hall to Chickering Hall
and finally to its permanent location on Falmouth Street
in the fashionable Back Bay district. The purchase of
this location was itself a complicated and curious trans-
action in which Mrs. Eddy played a characteristic part,
finally getting the lot entirely into her own hands by
what she herself called "a circuitous, novel way" and
giving her absolute control of the church property. 2 On
this lot was built the original "Mother Church," a gray
granite structure seating 1100, which was dedicated on
January 6, 1895. Eleven years later in 1906 there was
dedicated the splendid marble church called the "Annex"
which seats 5000, the whole property costing more than
$2,000,000. The twenty-six charter members of 1879 had
grown by 1894 to 2978 as reported at the second annual
1 The Arena, May 1899, pp. 564, 565.
2 The full story of this affair is told by Miss Milmine, History, pp.
399-406.
178 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
business meeting held in that year. Money to build the
original "Mother Church" with its imposing "Annex"
had flowed into the treasury in copious streams and the
Christian Science Church was at the high tide of pros-
perity.
2. DISSENSIONS IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH
The course of Church history never did run smooth, and
Christian Science has had its full share. Dissensions
among the followers of Mrs. Eddy began early. Her
peculiar temperament, jealous and irritable, dictatorial
and intolerant, left small room for other personalities of
any individuality and independence and no room for
opinions different from hers. We have already seen
how she became involved in quarrels and lawsuits with
student after student in her early years in Lynn, and this
unhappy disposition and fate plagued her to the end.
Many of her most prominent and efficient followers and
workers withdrew from her fellowship and church, some
of them going off to start rival healing movements.
Christian Science has given birth to a surprising number of
sects or "denominations." "Disgruntled Christian Scien-
tists," says Miss Milmine, "usually went off and started
a church of their own, and there were by this time (1896)
almost as many ^reformed' varieties of Christian Science
as there were dissenters. Mrs. Gestefield taught one
kind in Chicago, Mrs. Crosse another kind in Boston,
Frank Mason another in Brooklyn, Captain Sabin was
soon to teach another in Washington, while nearly all
the students who had quarreled with Mrs. Eddy or broken
away from her were teaching or practicing some variety
of mind cure."
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 179
The first serious dissension in Mrs. Eddy's church and
withdrawal from it occurred in 1881 when eight prominent
members signed the following statement:
We, the undersigned, while we acknowledge and appreciate the
understanding of Truth imparted to us by our Teacher, Mrs. Mary
B. G. Eddy, led by Divine Intelligence to perceive with sorrow that
departure from the straight and narrow road (which alone leads to
growth of Christlike virtues) made manifest by frequent ebullitions
of temper, love of money, and the appearance of hypocrisy, cannot
longer submit to such Leadership; therefore, without aught of
hatred, revenge or petty spite in our hearts, from a sense of duty
alone, to her, the Cause, and ourselves, do most respectfully with-
draw our names from the Christian Science Association and Church
of Christ (Scientist).
S. DURANT,
MARGARET J. DUNSHEE,
DORCAS B. RAWSON,
ELIZABETH G. STUART.
JANE L. STRAW,
ANNA B. NEWMAN,
JAMES C. HOWARD,
MIRANDA M. RICE.
21st October, 1881.
These resignations came to Mrs. Eddy as a complete
surprise, and no wonder she was filled with indignation,
for it must have shocked *'the Discoverer and Founder**
of this new faith to find herself charged with heresy, bad
temper, the love of money, and hypocrisy. But she
quickly recovered her poise and, instead of accepting the
eight resignations, notified the resigning members that
they were liable to expulsion and summoned them to ap-
pear at a church meeting. They refused to appear, but at
the meeting two more members, including the secretary of
the church, resigned, stating that they *'could no longer
entertain the subject of Mesmerism which had lately
been made uppermost in the meetings and in Mrs. Eddy's
180 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
talks." Mrs. Eddy was left with scarcely a dozen students
in Lynn, and this first schism was a blow to her church
in that city from which it has not recovered to this day.
The secession of 1881 was followed by a more serious
division in 1888. Trouble had been brewing for several
years over a variety of causes. Some of Mrs. Eddy's
students were disillusionized, including Mrs. Sarah Crosse,
editor of the Journal. The chief trouble, however,
arose over a notorious case in obstetrics. One of her
students, Mrs. Abbey H. Corner, had attended her own
daughter in childbirth, and both mother and child had
died. The case aroused wide indignation, action was
brought against Mrs. Corner, and then Mrs. Eddy com-
pletely repudiated her own student, though the Christian
Scientists' Association stood by Mrs. Corner and paid
her attorney out of its treasury. A stormy meeting of
the association followed and thirty-two members resigned
from it. However, they found themselves confronted
and blocked by one of Mrs. Eddy's by-laws, which read:
Resolved, That everyone who wishes to withdraw without reason
shall be considered to have broken his oath.
Resolved, That breaking the Christian Scientists' oath is im-
morality.
Members had already been expelled for this "immoral-
ity." The dissenting faction got hold of the books of
the association and refused to surrender them until Mrs.
Eddy signed the letters of dismissal as president of the
association. The withdrawal of these thirty-two from
less than two hundred members again seriously weakened
Mrs. Eddy's church. But she always quickly rallied
after these losses and smoothed over the secession of
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 181
1888 by writing in the Journal of September in that year:
"The late much ado about nothing arose solely from mental
malicious practice, and the audible falsehood designed to
stir up strife between brethren, for the purpose of placing
Christian Science in the hands of aspirants for place and
power." But she was always expert at keeping beyond
the reach of the law and it was at this juncture that she
secured the service of Dr. E. J. Foster as "assistant in
obstetrics," and announced in the Journal: "Doctor
Foster will teach the anatomy and surgery of obstetrics,
and I, its metaphysics. The combination of his knowledge
of Christian Science with his anatomical skill, renders
him a desirable teacher in this department of my college.
In twenty years' practice he has not had a single case of
mortality at childbirth."
Whenever anyone, especially a woman, became promi-
nent in the Christian Science Church and appeared to
be looming up as a rival of its "Discoverer and Founder,"
this exalted personage soon found a way of removing her.
One of her students who was overtaken by this unhappy
fate was Mrs. Josephine Curtis Woodbury, who had been
associated with Mrs. Eddy as one of her foremost teachers
and healers since 1879. She it was who gave birth to a
son in 1890, as the result, as her followers believed, of an
"immaculate conception," the possibility of which had
been taught by Mrs. Eddy herself. The child was named
"The prince of peace" and was often called "Little
Immanuel." By the time of its birth, however, strained
relations had arisen between the two women, and Mrs.
Eddy promptly branded it "an imp of Satan." Mrs.
Woodbury had imagination and was a woman of much
greater culture than Mrs. Eddy and was able to give to
182 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Christian Science "an emotional coloring which was very
distasteful to Mrs. Eddy herself." She had preached and
lectured east and west and had conducted a school of
her own in Boston, and all this was viewed with jealousy
by Mrs. Eddy, and she soon found a way of excluding
and then excommunicating her dangerous rival. Mrs.
Woodbury now renounced Christian Science and all its
works and especially its "Discoverer and Founder" in
an article in the Arena of May, 1899, in which she says,
"the writer has emerged from the toils after many years
of close association with the head of the new church."
Mrs. Eddy promptly retaliated the next month in her
annual message to the Mother Church in which she used
language which disclosed what fountains of rage and
bitterness were hidden in the heart of her whom Christian
Scientists are fond of characterizing as "a sweet-spirited
and gentle woman." Mrs. Woodbury's husband died
almost immediately after the appearance of her article
in the Arena, and this fact turns some of Mrs. Eddy's
words into daggers. "In language," says Mr. Peabody,
"seldom or never before equaled for cruelty and brutality,
Mrs. Eddy assailed Mrs. Woodbury. Pretending, herself,
to be *the woman arrayed with the sun,' spoken of in the
book of Revelation, Mrs. Eddy denounced Mrs. Woodbury
as the Babylonish woman there referred to." We give
only a few sentences from this address which was read
from the pulpit of the Mother Church in June, 1899:
The doom of the Babylonish woman referred to in Revelation is
being fulfilled. This woman, drunken with the blood of the saints
and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, drunk of the wine of her
fornication, would enter even the church and retaining the heart of
the harlot and the purpose of the destroying angel. . . poison such
as drink of the living water. . . Double unto double, according to
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 183
her work: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. For
she saith in her heart I am no widow. . . Therefore shall her plague
come in one day, death, mourning and famine: for strong is the Lord
who judgeth her. That which the revelator saw in spiritual vision
will be accomplished. The Babylonish woman is fallen; and who
shall mourn over the widowhood of lust, of her that hath become
the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit and the
cage of every unclean bird.^
Christian Scientists would be glad to forget and es-
pecially to have the public forget this odious language,
but it was published in the Christian Science Sentinel
where it can be read to this day.
As Christian Science churches were founded in other
cities than Boston they began to acquire influence and their
pastors became leaders and attained prominence. Mrs.
Augusta E. Stetson was pastor of a specially strong church
in New York, Mrs. Ewing was pastor of such a church
in Chicago, Mrs. Leonard in Brooklyn, Mrs. WilHams in
Buffalo, Mrs. Norcross in Denver, and Mrs. Steward in
Toronto. Mrs. Eddy began to scent danger of rivalry
and of the possible beginning of differing creeds and cults
and budding denominations in these churches, and she
took prompt and effective measures to cut short any
such tendencies. In the Journal of April, 1895, she an-
nounced without warning that there were to be no more
pastors or preachers^ but instead a First and a Second
Reader and that the Sunday sermon was to consist only
of extracts from the Bible and from *'Science and Health.'*
Her first arrangement was that the First Reader would
read from the Bible and then the Second Reader would
follow with the selection from her own book, but she
soon reversed this order, and now it is the Second Reader
1 Masquerade, pp. 10-14.
184 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
that reads from the Bible and the First Reader that reads
from ^'Science and Health." This order emptied at one
fell swoop every Christan Science pulpit of its pastor.
*'In 1895 I ordained the Bible and ^Science and Health'
with *Key to the Scriptures,' as the Pastor, on this
planet, of all the churches of the Christian Science de-
nomination." "Did anyone expect such a revelation,
such a new departure would be given?" humbly wrote
one of the deposed pastors in the August Journal. **No,
not in the way it came. . . Such disclosures are too
high for us to perceive. To One alone did the message
come." Mrs. Eddy thus made it certain that there would
be no successor to herself as *Tastor" of The Mother
Church and no more **pastors" anywhere in the Christian
Science churches, for she had made the Bible and her
own book "the Pastor on this planet" for all time.
The order to retire from the pulpit as pastor fell with
special hardship on Mrs. Stetson in New York. She
also, like Mrs. Woodbury, was a woman of finer fiber and
broader culture than Mrs. Eddy, and she had built up a
flourishing and influential church in the metropolis. She
had, however, become altogether too conspicuous and was
filling too large a place in the public eye. It was also
being rumored that she was in training to succeed Mrs.
Eddy as the head and leader of Christian Science, and
this in itself was a mortal sin. She bowed to the decree
to retire from the pulpit of her own church and wrote a
letter to Mrs. Eddy, addressed to "My precious Leader,"
in which she protested her loyalty in nauseating terms,
which yet made the impression that she was protesting al-
together too much. She had announced the plan of build-
ing a new and magnificent church on the fashionable
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 185
Riverside Drive in New York which was to "rival in
beauty of architecture any other rehgious structure in
America." Such a project looked too much like a rival
to the two million dollar Mother Church in Boston, and
Mrs. Eddy promptly put her foot on it. It was announced
in her church organ that Mrs. Eddy was not pleased "with
what purport to be plans of First Church of Christ Scientist
of New York City, for she learned of this proposed rival to
The Mother Church for the first time, in the daily press."
The editorial further stated that "three leading facts
remain immortal in the history of Christian Science,"
namely:
1. This Science is already established, and it has the support of
all true Christian Scientists throughout the world.
2. Any competition or any rivalry in Christian Science is abnormal,
and will expose and explode itself.
3. Any attempt at rivalry or superiority in Christian Science is
unchristian; therefore it is unscientific. The great Teacher said:
"As ye would that men should do to you, do ye."
But still Mrs. Stetson loomed large in New York, and
Mrs. Eddy could endure no rival priestess and altar
anywhere. At length the New York leader was summoned
to appear before the directors of The Mother Church in
Boston where she was subjected to a kind of court-martial
trial. She was found guilty of the following charges as
summarized by Miss Milmine:
"Erroneous teaching of Christian Science; the exercise of undue
influence over her students, which tended to hinder their moral and
spiritual growth; turning the attention of her students to herself
away from divine principle; teaching and practicing contrary to
'Science and Health;* and finally, that 'Mrs. Stetson attempts to
control and injure persons by mental means, this being utterly
contrary to the teachings of Christian Science.' " She was officially
deprived of her rank as a healer and as a teacher and forbidden to
186 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
teach or practice Christian Science and "placed on a three years'
probation, at the conclusion of which, if her conduct has been ex-
emplary and if she has met Mrs. Eddy's requirements as to loyalty,
she may, if Mrs. Eddy sees fit, again be permitted to teach and
practice."
The dictator's despotic hand is plainly visible in these
terms. Mrs. Eddy's personal will determined everything.
The same autocratic condemnation also fell upon sixteen
practitioners and eight of the nine trustees of the First
Church of New York who were supporters of Mrs. Stetson.
The outcome of this celebrated case was that Mrs. Stetson
was expelled from The Mother Church in Boston, but
she still claims to be loyal to Mrs. Eddy's teachings
and is conducting the "New York City Christian Science
Institute."!
The lawsuits that swarmed around Mrs. Eddy in her
life have pursued and plagued her church since her death.
When she transferred her large property to trustees she
sowed the seed of a new crop of lawsuits. Both the
directors and the trustees of The Mother Church have
had internal dissensions. In 1919 the directors removed
one of their number, who then appealed to the court
for reinstatement and the decision was in his favor. A
clash arose between the two boards. The directors
claimed authority over the trustees, removed one of their
number on the ground that he had "allowed a sense of
self-interest to interfere with the interests of Christian
1 A full history of this case is given in Vital Issues in Christian
Science, a large volume issued by Mrs. Stetson in 1914. Charges of
"animal magnetism" and other malicious practices fly back and
forth between Boston and New York, and the volume throws
interesting light into the medieval beliefs and autocratic star chamber
proceedings and warring factions and inside troubles of Christian
Science.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 187
Science," and also endeavored to interfere with the control
of the trustees over the publishing house of the church.
In March, 1919, the trustees brought suit to have the
directors restrained from interfering with their conduct
of the Pubhshing Society's affairs. The trustees con-
tended that the directors' power was Hmited and that
they had no right to remove any member of the Board
of Trustees. The decision of the court was rendered
in December, 1919, and it estabhshed the contention
of the trustees that they are in no way subordinate to
the directors and that the directors have no legal power
to control or remove members of the Board of Trustees.
The case was then referred by the court to a master, and
on March 6, 1920, he rendered his decision confirming
the decision of the court.
This litigation over millions of dollars of trust funds
and involving the supreme power of control in the church,
accompanied with much bitter personal animosity, has
rocked the Christian Science organization from top to
bottom. It caused dissension and disruption in the
Seventh Church of Christ, Scientist, in New York. At
a meeting of this church on February 22, 1920, the follow-
ing resolutions were adopted *
This is a very crucial moment in the growth of our beloved cause
and also in that of the Seventh Church. Disloyalty to the Manual
of the Mother Church and to the Directors of The Mother Church
seems rampant throughout the field. This disloyalty has tried to
gain a footing in the Seventh Church. Loyalty to a disloyal student
of Christian Science is considered disloyalty in itself.
The resolutions then demanded that no persons in the
church be permitted to hold office who refused to declare
publicly in favor of the directors and against the trustees
188 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
in the Boston lawsuit. The First Reader of the church
refused to sign this declaration and was then removed
from his office, and he and about one third of the con-
gregation, who also refused to sign the resolutions, went
off and formed another church.
The case in Boston still goes to the Supreme Court of
the State, further lawsuits are threatened in New York,
and the end is not yet.
3. ORGANIZATION OF THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH
The first organization of the ''Church of Christ, Scien-
tist," which was effected in 1879, continued until 1890,
when Mrs. Eddy abolished it by one fell decree. The
members continued to meet and hold services as before,
but there were no more business meetings. The reason
given in the Journal for this revolutionary and arbitrary
action was that *'the bonds of the church were thrown away
so that its members might assemble themselves together
to 'provoke one another to good works' in the bond only
of love." As usual, however, there was method in Mrs.
Eddy's apparent madness, and it was seen in due time
that she was playing a deep game by which she was plan-
ning to get the church in its whole organization and
property completely in her own hands so that there
would be no more rebellions and rivals in it. It was dur-
ing this interval of disorganization that she obtained
possession, in her "circuitous, novel way," of the lot on
Falmouth Street and then conveyed it to her own self-
chosen directors in a deed which provides that "Whenever
said directors shall determine that it is inexpedient to
maintain preaching, reading, or speaking in said church
in accordance with the terms of this deed, they are author-
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 189
ized to reconvey forthwith said lot of land with the building
thereon, to Mary Baker G. Eddy, her heirs and assigns
forever, by a proper deed of conveyance." She thus
secured an unbreakable grip on this property, which with
its costly building is worth more than $2,000,000 and to
which she contributed only $5000.
This notable deed bears the date of September 1, 1892.
The ground was now cleared for a new organization
of her church, and on September 23, 1892, three weeks
and one day after the date of the deed, the church was
reorganized. Mrs. Eddy herself appointed the officers
and also twelve * 'charter members," who had the power
of admitting new members by ballot, a device by which
she was able to keep out of the new church such members
of the old organization as did not suit her. The new
organization now became The Mother Church and head
of all other Christian Science churches throughout the
world, which are branches of it, many of the members
of the branch churches also being members of The Mother
Church in Boston. The twelve "charter members" with
certain others became * 'First Members," and these by a
by-law adopted March 17, 1903, became * 'Executive
Members," and these disappeared by the repeal of this
by-law on July 8, 1908.1
The Mother Church is governed by the * 'Manual of
The Mother Church, By Mary Baker Eddy," which
contains "the Church Tenets, Rules, and By-Laws, as
prepared by Mrs. Eddy," and is published by the Chris-
tian Science Publishing Society and is now in its eighty-
ninth edition. This little book of 139 pages is almost
as important in the history and doings of Christian
^Manual, p. 18.
190 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Science as **Science and Health" itself. It is really the
hub of the whole organization out of which run spokes
to every point on the circumference. It is a master-
piece of despotic origination and control out of which
every trace of democracy and initiative and individuality
has been carefully erased. In nothing has Mrs. Eddy
shown her dominating and domineering spirit and her
deep-rooted suspicion and jealousy of rivalry and re-
bellion and disloyalty and her cunning in guarding every
point and keeping everything in her own hands and in
the hands of *'her heirs and assigns forever" as in this
little book. Her hand has written or dictated every line
of it and every line bears the impress of her authorship
and design. It was a growth, and she was able to meet
every emergency with a new "rule" or "by-law" that
put some enemy out of business or secured some personal
end. No kaiser or Russian czar ever wielded such ar-
bitrary power as she clothed herself with as with a purple
robe in this "Manual" and ruthlessly exercised. Bismarck
would have envied the genius that conceived it. Machia-
velli would have marveled at it as a masterpiece. The
pope himself is a pale specter as compared with Mrs.
Eddy and has no such ecclesiastical authority as is em-
bodied in this little book. Yet Christian Scientists in
democratic America meekly submit to it and have "no
more voice in the management of the church than has
the audience in the management of a theater." l
1 Mark Twain devotes a considerable part of his book Christian
Science to a sarcastic exposition and ridicule of this Manual. "In
1895, she wrote a little primer, a little body of autocratic laws,
called the Manual of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and put
those laws in force, in permanence. Her government is all there;
all in that deceptively innocent-looking little book, that cunning
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 191
The preface to the book is a quotation from a letter of
Mrs. Eddy's in "Miscellaneous Writings" and is as
follows :
The Rules and By-Laws in the Manual of The First Church of
Christ, Scientist, Boston, originated not in solemn conclave as in
ancient sanhedrin. They were not arbitrary opinions nor dictatorial
demands, such as one person might impose on another. They were
impelled by a power not one's own, were written at different dates,
and as the occasion required. They sprang from necessity, the
logic of events — from the immediate demand for them as a help that
must be supplied to maintain the dignity and defense of our Cause;
hence their simple, scientific basis, and detail so requisite to demon-
strate genuine Christian Science, and which will do for the race
what absolute doctrines destined for future generations might not
accomplish.
This preface bears all the marks of Mrs. Eddy's fine
hand — the mock modesty (''not arbitrary opinions nor
dictatorial demands"), the claim of divine inspiration
("impelled by a power not one's own"), and the bland
assumption of legislating "for the race." But in spite
of this denial these rules are emphatically "arbitrary
opinions" and "dictatorial demands," and there was
never a truer word said than the admission that these
"Rules and By-Laws" "were written at different times,
and as the occasion required"; and "the occasion required"
very often and in connection with the most trivial
point or incident, especially when the occasion touched
Mrs. Eddy herself in the slightest way. When she found
that her rival in New York, Mrs. Stetson, was still teach-
ing in her church, it was quickly written in ArticleXXIII
that "Teachers and practitioners of Christian Science
little devilish book, that slumbering little brown volcano, with hell
in its bowels. In that book she planned out her system, and classi-
fied and defined its purposes." Pp. 343-344.
192 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
shall not have their offices or rooms in the branch churches,
in the reading rooms, nor in rooms connected therewith,'*
and Mrs. Stetson at once retired with her classes to her
own home. When she found that she was being annoyed
by people loitering around her house and along the road
in the hope of seeing her she stopped the impertinence
by what is rather strangely called "The Golden Rule"
and which declares: *'A member of The Mother Church
shall not haunt Mrs. Eddy's drive when she goes out,
continually stroll by her house, or make a summer resort
near her for such purpose." When Mark Twain ridiculed
her assumption of the title * 'Mother," she changed Article
XXII in an astounding manner. This article originally
read:
The Title Mother. In the year 1895 loyal Christian Scientists
had given to the author of their textbook, the Founder of Christian
Science, the individual, endearing term of Mother. Therefore, if a
student of Christian Science shall apply this title, either to herself
or to others, except as the term for kinship according to the flesh, it
shall be regarded by the Church as an indication of disrespect for
their Pastor-Emeritus, and unfitness to be a member of The Mother
Church.
After Mark Twain's ridicule of this particular bit of
conceit and silliness, the article was changed to read as
it now stands:
The Title of Mother Changed. In the year eighteen hundred and
ninety-five, loyal Christian Scientists had given to the author of
their textbook, the Founder of Christian Science, the individual,
endearing term of Mother. At first Mrs. Eddy objected to being
called thus, but afterward consented on the ground that this appel-
lative in the Church meant nothing more than a tender term such as
sister or brother. In the year nineteen hundred and three and after,
owing to the public misunderstanding of this name, it is the duty of
Christian Scientists to drop this word "mother" and to substitute
"Leader," already used in our periodicals.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 193
The contradictory statements in these two forms of
this article need no comment. The name *'Leader,"
however, having been appropriated by Mrs. Eddy, in-
stantly became sacred and restricted to her, and any
other member "shall not be called Leader by members
of this Church."
Nothing is too trivial to escape Mrs. Eddy's eye and hand
and every slightest detail is fixed in this * 'Manual." For
example. Article XXIII designates the title of The Mother
Church as *'The First Church of Christ, Scientist," and
then adds: *'but the article *The* must not be used before
titles of branch churches, nor written on applications
for membership in naming such churches." And thus
*'that imperial word THE," says Mark Twain, *'lifts
The Mother Church away up in the sky" along with
*'the Milky Way, the Bible, the Earth, the Equator, the
Devil. . . and by clamor of edict and By-Law Mrs.
Eddy gives personal notice to all branch Scientist Churches
on this planet to leave that THE alone." As another
instance of meticulous supervision of trivial details, **The
Mother Church shall not. . . enter into a business
transaction with a Christian Scientist in the employ of
Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, without first consulting her on
said subject and adhering strictly to her advice thereon."
Extraordinary care is taken to guard the sovereignty
and dignity and feelings of Mrs. Eddy, and her simple
word is enough to convict a member of an offense. Article
XI, on "Complaints," has 13 sections, and they are
mostly concerned with Mrs. Eddy. To quote from this
Article as follows:
Any member who shall unjustly aggrieve or vilify the Pastor
Emeritus or another member, or who does not live in Christian
194 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
fellowship with this Church, shall either withdraw from the Church
or be excommunicated. . . If a member of this church shall,
mentally or otherwise, persist in working against the interests of
another member, or the interests of our Pastor Emeritus and the
accomplishment of what she understands is advantageous to this
Church and to the Cause of Christian Science, or shall influence
others thus to act, upon her complaint or the complaint of a member
for her or for himself, it shall be the duty of the Board of Directors
immediately to call a meeting, and drop forever the name of the
member guilty of this offense from the roll of Church membership.
. . If a member of this Church were to treat the author of our
textbook disrespectfully and cruelly, upon her complaint that
member should be excommunicated. If a member, without her
having requested the information, shall trouble her on subjects
unnecessarily and without her consent, it shall be considered an
offense. . . If the author of "Science and Health" shall bear
witness to the offense of malpractice, it shall be considered a sufficient
evidence thereof. . . If a member of The Mother Church publishes,
or causes to be published, an article that is false or unjust, hence
injurious, to Christian Science or to its Leader, and if, upon com-
plaint by another member, the Board of Directors finds that the
offense has been committed, the offender shall be suspended for not
less than three years from his or her office in this Church and from
Church membership. . . If a member of this Church, either by
word or work, represents falsely to or of the Leader and Pastor
Emeritus, said member shall be immediately disciplined, and a
second similar offense shall remove his or her name from member-
ship of The Mother Church. . . A member of The Mother Church
and a branch church of Christ, Scientists, shall not report nor send
notices to The Mother Church, or to the Pastor Emeritus, of errors
of the members of their local church; but they shall strive to over-
come these errors. 1
It will be seen from these personal rules relating to
Mrs. Eddy, and these instances might be multiplied,
how dangerous it was in her lifetime to be a member of
the Christian Science Church. A single word from her
1 It is of this "Pastor Emeritus," whose "personality" is so
sedulously guarded and extravagantly exalted all through this
Manual, that an ofl5cial Christian Science publication says: "No
human being in modern times was farther removed from a desire to
perpetuate a sense of personality than Mary Baker Eddy, the Dis-
coverer and Founder of Christian Science." The Christian Science
Quarterly, February, 1920.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 195
could send any member into outer darkness. And her
despotic power was rendered infinitely more dangerous
by reason of the fact that she claimed she could read the
minds of people and infallibly discern their very thoughts
and motives. "I possess," she declared, *'a spiritual
sense of what the malicious mental practitioner is mentally
arguing which cannot be deceived; I discern in the human
mind thoughts, motives, and purposes; and neither
mental arguments nor psychic power can affect this
spiritual insight."^ What priestly inquisitor or pope ever
had such power as this? It was by the swift stroke of
this sharp sword that the heads of Kennedy and Spofford
and Mrs. Woodbury and Mrs. Stetson and many other
members and leaders metaphorically fell into her basket.
With this fateful Manual in hand, let us look into the
government and administration of the Christian Science
Church. Article I, Section 1, says: "The Church officers
shall consist of the Pastor Emeritus, a Board of Directors,
a President, a Clerk, a Treasurer, and two Readers."
How are all these officers elected.? "The Christian Science
Board of Directors shall consist of five members. They
shall fill a vacancy occurring on that Board after the
candidate is approved by the Pastor Emeritus. A ma-
jority vote or the request of Mrs. Eddy shall dismiss
a member. Members shall neither report the discussion
of this Board, nor those with Mrs. Eddy." Did Bismarck
or any pope or secret conclave ever dream of anything
like that.f^ She makes the board, fills vacancies, and by
a mere request can dismiss any member of it! This
Board of Directors is the highest governing body of the
church, and Mrs. Eddy holds it right in her hand. It
1 Christian Science History, by Mary B. G. Eddy, p. 16.
196 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
dare not do one thing displeasing to her, for she can dismiss
the whole body with a single stroke of her pen and start
all over again with a new board of her own appointment.
Now that she is gone, we suppose this board fills its
vacancies without being subject to any veto power,
but as long as she had a breath in her body it had no
independent will and power whatever.
Now let us see what this Board of Directors can do,
always subject to the approval and control of Mrs. Eddy.
The Church, as we have seen in Article I, Section 1, has
officers consisting of a President, Clerk, Treasurer, and
two Readers. How are they elected? "The President
shall be elected, subject to the approval of the Pastor
Emeritus, by the Board of Directors." The clerk and
the treasurer are elected *'at the annual meeting held
for this purpose, by a unanimous vote of the Christian
Science Board of Directors and the consent of the Pastor
Emeritus in her own handwriting." Mrs. Eddy always
had a special care for financial matters and therefore
the election of the treasurer must not only have her
consent, but this consent must be given in writing and
"in her own handwriting" at that. It will be recalled
that Article XXI forbids The Mother Church to "enter
into any business transaction with a Christian Scientist
in the employ of Rev. Mary Baker Eddy without first
consulting her on said subject and adhering strictly to
her advice." She was a masterly financier and took no
chances with any treasurer or business transaction.
The Board of Directors has a Finance Committee
consisting of three members who "shall be appointed
annually by the Christian Science Board of Directors
and with the consent of the Pastor Emeritus"; and it
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 197
also has a Committee oti Business of three members,
* Vho shall transact promptly and efficiently such business
as Mrs. Eddy, the Directors, or the Committee on Pub-
lication shall commit to it," and before being elected to
this committee the names of the candidates "shall be
presented to Mrs. Eddy for her written approval."
The two readers are important officers in the Christian
Science Church. How are they elected? * 'Every third
year Readers shall be elected in The Mother Church
by the Board of Directors, which shall inform the Pastor
Emeritus of the names of the candidates before they are
elected; and if she objects, said candidates shall not be
chosen."
But how are readers and officers in branch churches
controlled? This "Manual" of rules is only for The
Mother Church, and branch churches are forbidden to
adopt or even copy it. "Each Church of Christ, Scientist,
shall have its own form of government." It is amusing
to read that "In Christian Science each branch church
shall be distinctly democratic in its government, and no
individual, and no other church shall interfere with its
affairs," after every trace and tincture of democracy has
been wiped and washed out of this "Manual." The
branch churches, however, with their readers are not out
of the control of The Mother Church and the omnipresent
and omnipotent "Pastor Emeritus"; for it takes at least
sixteen members to organize a branch church, "four of
whom are members of The Mother Church," and every
reader in a branch church must be a member of The
Mother Church, and this provision puts all these members
and readers in Mrs. Eddy's power; for by Article XI
"upon her complaint" the Board of Directors must "drop
198 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
forever" any member who works against *'what she under-
stands is advantageous to this Church and to the Cause of
Christian Science." By this long arm Mrs. Eddy could
reach across the continent and around the world and
remove any reader in any branch church.
This provision by which the branch churches must have
members and readers who are also members of The Mother
Church is the centralizing agency and long and powerful
arm and hand by which the branch churches are kept under
control of the directors and pastor emeritus. This su-
preme and sacrosanct sovereignty of The Mother Church is
the reason why no branch church can use the article
"The" in its title. "In its relation to other Christian
Science churches, in its By-Laws and self-government. The
Mother Church stands alone; it occupies a position that
no other church can fill. Then for a branch church to
assume such a position would be disastrous to Christian
Science. Therefore, no Church of Christ, Scientist,
shall be considered loyal that has branch churches or
adopts The Mother Church's form of government, except
in such cases as are specially allowed and named in this
Manual." These special "cases" are the apron strings
by which the branch churches are kept closely tied to
and under the control of *'The Mother Church."
In addition to the Board of Directors, there is a "Board
of Trustees," whose appointment is "subject to the ap-
proval of the Pastor Emeritus," who "hold and manage
the property conveyed" in Mrs. Eddy's Deed of Trust
of 1898, "and conduct the business of 'The Christian
Science Publishing Society' on a strictly Christian basis,
for the promotion of the interests of Christian Science."
"The Christian Science Board of Directors shall have
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 199
the power to declare vacancies in said trusteeship, for
such reasons as to the Board may seem expedient," only
as to any vacancy *'the Pastor Emeritus reserves the
right to fill the same by appointment." This relation be-
tween the two boards has resulted in the lawsuit between
them, which is threatening to disrupt the Christian Science
organization to which reference has already been made.i
Mrs. Eddy has taken the utmost precaution and pains
to control, not only the literature of her church, but
even what her followers shall buy and read and even
what bookstores they shall patronize. Article VIII
enjoins: "A member of this Church shall neither buy,
sell, nor circulate Christian Science literature which is
not correct in its statement of the divine Principle and
rules and the demonstration of Christian Science. . . A
departure from the spirit or letter of this By-law involves
schisms in our Church and the possible loss, for a time,
of Christian Science. . . A member of this Church
shall not patronize a publishing house or bookstore that
has for sale obnoxious books." This is a rigid censorship
over what Christian Scientists shall buy and read and even
what bookstores they shall enter that surpasses that of
the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" or of any other
religious censorship in the world. Mrs. Josephine C.
Woodbury, one of her associates for many years, says
that Mrs. Eddy *'bids her followers abjure books, papers,
magazines, or anything literary except the Bible and her
own book."2 This reveals the fear she had of modern
1 Pp. 186 —188.
2 Arena for May, 1899. For a still more zealous "war against
heresy" that was "carried on too zealously at last," see Milmine,
History, p. 362. "The Journal also instructed Mrs. Eddy's loyal
students to burn all forbidden literature."
200 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
learning and light, and this fear was well-grounded, for
our whole system of education from the kindergarten
to the university and all our science and Hterature and
all the libraries in the world are in direct contradiction
to her teaching. Christian Science tries as far as possible
to keep its followers immune from the world's literature
and to supply them with its own literature, even to a daily
newspaper.
All the editors and managers of the Publishing Society
are elected *'by a unanimous vote, and the consent of the
Pastor Emeritus given in her own handwriting." This
strangle hold of her own consent on the control of her
Publishing Society is drawn still tighter so as to include
in her grip the humblest janitor or office boy in Article
XXV, which provides: "A person who is not accepted by
the Pastor Emeritus as suitable, shall in no manner be
connected with publishing her books, nor with editing
or publishing The Christian Science Journal, Christian
Science Sentinel, Der Herold der Christian Science, nor
with The Christian Science Publishing Society."
There is *'a Board of Education, under the auspices of
Mary Baker Eddy, President of the Massachusetts
Metaphysical College, consisting of three members, a
president, vice-president, and teacher of Christian Science.
Obstetrics will not be taught." The enforcement of the
law following disastrous cases of malpractice put this
last provision in this Manual. "The teacher shall be
elected every third year," "subject to the approval
of the Pastor Emeritus."
There is further "a Board of Lectureship, the members
of which shall be elected, . . subject to the approval
of the Pastor Emeritus." Until 1898 any Christian
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 201
Scientist could give public lectures on Christian Science,
but this privilege and duty was then restricted to lecturers
duly appointed with Mrs. Eddy's approval. "It is the
duty of the Board of Lectureship to include in each lecture
a true and just reply to public topics condemning Christian
Science, and to bear testimony to the facts pertaining to
the life of the Pastor Emeritus. Each member shall
mail to the clerk of this church copies of his lectures
before delivering them." These lecturers are able men,
gifted and trained in the art of rhetoric and elocution,
and are paid very large salaries, but it will be noticed
that they are not trusted to say a word without submitting
it to the clerk of The Mother Church who is under Mrs.
Eddy's eye and control. The writer has listened to these
lecturers with much interest and no little amusement as
he has heard them smoothing over the absurd and ab-
horrent things in Christian Science with discreet silence
and plausible speech and especially as they bore "testi-
mony to the facts pertaining to the life of the Pastor
Emeritus," when their "facts" were so carefully selected
and subjectively colored and there are so many undoubted
facts to which they did not bear testimony. If Article
XXXI of their Manual is enforced, no newspaper reporter
or war correspondent was ever more carefully and ruth-
lessly censored than are these lecturers.
There is a Committee on Publication "which shall
consist of one loyal Christian Scientist who lives in Boston,
and he shall be manager of the Committees on Publication
throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britian
and Ireland. He shall be elected annually by a unan-
imous vote of the Christian Science Board of Directors
and the consent of the Pastor Emeritus." "It shall
202 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
be the duty of the Committee on Publication to correct
in a Christian manner impositions on the pubHc in regard
to Christian Science, injustices done Mrs. Eddy or mem-
bers of this Church by the daily press." Arrangements
are made for appointing a similar Committee on Pub-
lication in each State, Mrs. Eddy having the right to name
the candidate for the office. "Or if she shall send a special
request to any Committee on Publication, the request
shall be carried out according to her direction." Prac-
tically every newspaper and periodical is kept under the
surveillance of this Committee, and when an article
reflecting on Christian Science, especially if it contains
* 'injustices done Mrs. Eddy," appears in a paper, the
editor of it quickly receives a reply or a visit from the
^'Committee" and is pestered to "correct" the "im-
position." The author has had a large experience in
this matter.
Although the election of each officer, trustee, president,
clerk, treasurer, reader, editor, lecturer, manager, and
employee is subject to the consent of Mrs. Eddy in the
proper article, yet to make assurance doubly sure there
is a blanket provision in Article XXII, Section 3, which
declares that *Tt shall be the duty of the officers of this
Church" and of the editors and members of various
boards "promptly to comply with any written order,
signed by Mary Baker Eddy, which applies to their
official functions. Disobedience to this By-Law shall
be sufficient cause for removal of the offending member
from office." Any vacancy thus caused "shall be supplied
by a majority vote of the Christian Science Board of
Directors, and the candidate shall be subject to the
approval of Mary Baker Eddy." Thus a Damocles
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 203
sword, "suspended by a single hair," hangs over the head
of every officer, editor, member of the Committees on
PubUcation, trustee of the Pubhshing Society, or of
the Board of Education of the Christian Science Church,
and at the signal of the pastor emeritus the hair is severed.
All of these provisions, depending on the personal consent
*'in her own handwriting" of Mrs. Eddy, ended, of course,
with her life. The supreme authority of the Christian
Science Church now rests in or between the two Boards
of Directors and of Trustees, and they are now fighting
out the question of which is supreme between themselves.
The members of The Mother Church have no voice
in its affairs. "The regular meetings of The Mother
Church shall be held annually, on Monday following
the first Sunday of June. No other than its officers are
required to be present. These assemblies shall be for
listening to the reports of Treasurer, Clerk, and Com-
mittees, and general reports from the field." The business
of the meeting appears to be confined to '^listening."
The clerk can call a special meeting, but he must inform
the directors and pastor emeritus of its purpose and
have their consent before calling it.
It is not easy to become a member of The Mother
Church. A complicated process of application and in-
dorsement must be passed through, and the blanks to
be filled out look like an application for life insurance.
There is only one way of getting in, but there are thirteen
ways of getting out by excommunication.
One of the strictest requirements in the Manual relates
to announcing the name and author of ''Science and
Health" in the Christian Science service. Like some
other important points, it is repeated several times and
204 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
appears near the beginning, the middle, and the end of
the book. Article I enjoins that "The Readers of 'Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures' before commencing
to read from this book, shall distinctly announce the full
title of the book and give the author's name. Such
announcement shall be made but once during each lesson."
This requirement is extended to all of Mrs. Eddy's books
and reasons given for it in Article XV as follows: *'To
pour into the ears of listeners the sacred revelations of
Christian Science indiscriminately, or without character-
izing their origin and thus distinguishing them from the
writings of authors who think at random on this subject,
is to lose some weight in the scale of right thinking.
Therefore it is the duty of every member of this Church,
when publicly reading or quoting from the books or poems
of our Pastor Emeritus, first to announce the name of
the author. Members shall also instruct their pupils to
adopt the aforenamed method for the benefit of the
Cause." The mass of confused and muddy stuff in
"Science and Health," which we have already waded
through, is thus characterized as "sacred revelations";
and for Mrs. Eddy to speak with an air of lofty condescen-
sion of "the writings of authors who think at random"
and of losing "some weight in the right scale of thinking,"
is a delicious instance of her utter lack, not only of a
proper literary and logical sense, but also of a sense of
humor.
Prayer m the Christian Science service is limited to
silent prayer and The Lord's Prayer with Mrs. Eddy's
interpretation, but in Article VII we read this peculiar pro-
vision: "The prayers in Christian Science churches shall
be offered for the congregations collectively and ex-
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 205
clusively." Does this mean that Christian Scientists
pray only for those found in Christian Science congre-
gations?
Sunday-school scholars shall not "remain in the Sunday
school of any Church of Christ, Scientist, after reaching
the age of twenty," and they "shall be taught the Scrip-
tures, and they shall be instructed according to their under-
standing or ability to grasp the simpler meanings of the
divine Principle that they are taught." "The instruction
given by the children's teachers must not deviate from
the absolute Christian Science contained in their text-
book." This means that children are taught perverted
and often absurd interpretations of Scripture from Genesis
to Revelation.
Abundant warnings against mental malpractice and
heresy are scattered through the Manual. "It shall be
the duty of every member of this Church to defend
himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion."
"Members will not intentionally or knowKngly mentally
malpractice." "If a member of this Church shall depart
from the Tenets . . . the offender's case shall be tried
and said member exonerated, put on probation, or ex-
communicated." The Board of Directors, no other
persons being present, "has power to disciphne, place on
probation, remove from membership, or to excommunicate
members of The Mother Church." As we have already
noted, there are thirteen offenses which may be punished
with excommunication, some of them very trivial, such
as annoying Mrs. Eddy.
A peculiar provision that probably arose out of ex-
perience is that "If the Clerk of this Church shall receive
a communication from the Pastor Emeritus which he
206 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
does not fully understand, he shall inform her of this
fact before presenting it to the Church and obtain a clear
understanding of the matter — then act in accordance
therewith." E at a meeting of the church doubt or
disagreement arises "as to the signification of the communi-
cations of the Pastor Emeritus to them, before action is
taken it shall be the duty of the Clerk to report to her
the vexed question and to await her explanation thereof.'*
No doubt many a *Vexed question*' had to be referred
back to her for elucidation.
Another peculiar provision is that "Christian Scientists
shall not report for publication the number of members
of The Mother Church, nor that of branch churches.
According to the Scripture they shall turn away from
personality and numbering the people.** They shall
turn away from every "personality" except one, and that
pervades this book from cover to cover. In accordance
with this same provision as to undue emphasis upon
"personality" is the provision that "As a rule there should
be no receptions nor festivities after a lecture on Christian
Science." Every care seems to be taken that no "per-
sonality" shall ever loom up into conspicuous comparison
with the pastor emeritus.
Article XXXV, the last article in this precious book, is
devoted exclusively to the Manual and fastens it on The
Mother Church without the possibility of amendment
forever. Section 1 states that "It stands alone, uniquely
adapted to form the budding thought and hedge it about
with divine Love. This Manual shall not be revised
without the written consent of its author." Section 2
says that the members of the Board of Directors, Com-
mittee on Bible Lessons, and Board of Trustees "shall
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 207
each keep a copy of the Seventy-third Edition and of
subsequent editions of the Church Manual." And
Section 3 and the last word in the book declares that
"No Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet
or By-Law amended or annulled, without the written
consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of our text-
book, 'Science and Health'." Now that she is gone,
there is no power on earth that can give this * 'written
consent," and these by-laws stand unchangeable and
inviolate to the end of time, or to the end of The Mother
Church. She affected to believe that she was legis-
lating "for the race," and left no room for any son or
daughter of Adam to tamper with her work. Not even
an angel from heaven could change a syllable of it. This
is the "dead hand" raised to the highest power, and it
can never be relaxed. Boston culture may breed skepti-
cism and doubt of the finality of some of these "Tenets,"
emergencies may arise in some far distant year that
would call for revision of some of these "By-Laws,"
Boards of Directors and Trustees may grow angry and
furious with these iron-bound fetters, the right of private
judgment and the spirit of American democracy might
be born in the minds and souls of the members and officers
of this Church and rebel fiercely against these bonds,
but all their doubts and difficulties would beat against"
the fixed and final prison bars of this Manual in vain.
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ.
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
This is the way the matter stands as left by Mrs. Eddy.
We have little doubt that since her death the officers
208 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
of this church do find some tolerable way of meeting
emergencies and getting along. But in so far as they
disregard any syllable of the Manual they defy her author-
ity; and their organization is still a highly centralized,
self -perpetuating, despotic autocracy and secret conclave
from which the members of the church are absolutely
excluded and against the injustices of which they have
not the slightest redress.
What is the practical working of this autocratic system .^^
Does the American spirit of democracy and justice never
arise in Christian Scientists and rebel against it? It
certainly does. There is much evidence and many cases
to show that the system is attended with a great deal
of unrest and strife and bitterness, at times breaking into
open defiance and rebellion, to be promptly followed by
excommunication. The various early secessions from
Mrs. Eddy sprang from this spirit of revolt against her
autocracy. The celebrated case of Mrs. Stetson in New
York throws a fierce searchlight into the working of the
system, and she herself uttered this warning:
Adherents to the scientific conception of Christian Truth, as rep-
resented in branch churches throughout the world, should be made
aware of the peril which we are persuaded has come to the Cause
through the overriding of spiritual freedom by ecclesiastical self-
assertion tending to stamp out a conviction of Truth as enduring
as the consciousness of man's oneness with God.l
A more recent case of this kind occurred in the First
Church of Christ, Scientist, of St. Louis, of which Mr.
and Mrs. Leon Greenbaum were members and officers.
They revolted against the despotism of the Manual as
1 Viial Issues in Christian Science, p. 3,
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 209
administered by The Mother Church in Boston and quickly
had their names removed from its roll and from member-
ship in the St. Louis church. Mr. Greenbaum wrote to
the Boston authorities: "The despotic interpretation and
appUcation of the Church Manual ... is the invisible
root cause of the fratricidal strife in The Mother Church
and its offspring (the branch churches) here and else-
where." The whole case is set forth in Mr. Greenbaum's
book and he affirms that the same trouble is causing
strife "elsewhere."!
We must not, however, attach much significance to
these dissensions as a means of undermining Christian
Science, for all churches have been subject to strife and
division. The Christian Science Church has more to
fear from the peaceful penetration of the light and logic
of truth as it gently and imperceptibly permeates its
members. The blow of a hammer can shatter ice into
a thousand pieces, but every piece is still ice. Only
sunshine can melt it into sweet water.
4. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH SERVICE
Did the reader ever attend a Christian Science church
service .f^ The author would not recommend it as a regular
and permanent means of grace, but he has attended such
services in pursuance of this study. He did not go in
any spirit of disrespect, much less of ridicule, for he
would not in such a spirit enter a Mohammedan mosque
or a Chinese pagoda. He doubts not that God is in a
Christian Science service, for he is in all places and has
some blessing for every sincere worshipper. Christian or
1 Follow Christ.
210 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
pagan, however mistaken and blinded such worshipper
may be.
On entering a Christian Science church one is quickly
impressed with the air of quietness and reverence in the
place. The people enter noiselessly and sit in silence,
and late comers, entering while some exercise is going
on, are shown to a rear seat until there is a proper place
in the service for them to go forward. The Christian
Scientists emphasize the value of silence and meditation
and practice these exercises more than most other people.
At their headquarters in each city they have a "Silent
Room" where anyone can enter and sit in silence and read
Christian Science literature or engage in meditation. We
are in danger of losing these fine means of grace in this
noisy, hurrying age, and the followers of this faith set
us a good example in this respect. The congregation
in a Christian Science church appears to be composed
of well-to-do people, and it is known that nearly all
of them have come out of the orthodox churches, for
Christian Science wins few converts out of what is known
as *'the world." Some of these members from orthodox
churches, however, having made trial of Christian Science,
have returned to their former faith and fellowship.
The "Order of Service," consisting of fourteen exercises,
was arranged by Mrs. Eddy herself and is part of the
inviolable legacy she left in the Manual. This order
with its readings for each Sunday is binding on The
Mother Church and all branch churches the world around,
and the service held in the morning is exactly repeated in
the evening. There is a very similar order for the Wednes-
day evening meeting and also for the Sunday school, and
there is a slightly different order for Thanksgiving Day
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 211
and another for the "communion services in the branch
churches," the communion service having been abohshed
by Mrs. Eddy in The Mother Church. The ordinance
of communion itself, if such it may be called, consists
merely in kneeling "in silent communion," "concluded
by the audible repetition of The Lord's Prayer."
The references to the readings from the Scriptures
and "Science and Health" are selected for three months
and published in The Christian Science Quarterly. These
selections constitute the sermon for the services and must
be used in all Christian Science churches.
The first order of exercise is the singing of a hymn,
the singing being accompanied by an organ and led by a
soloist who is usually a good singer. Christian Scientists
as a class are people of sensitive nerves if not of esthetic
sensibilities, and everything about their church buildings
and services is artistic and "done decently and in order,"
except the literary style of the readings from "Science
and Health" and the "poetry" of some of their hymns.
The Christian Scientists are wealthy, and whatever
money can buy they can have; but there are some things
money cannot buy.
The Christian Science hymn book is a literary curiosity.
The classical psalms and hymns of Christianity, in their
lofty aspiration and nobility of thought and beauty of
literary expression, are one of its most precious fruits and
proofs, and any religion can be judged by its hymns.
Tried by this test. Christian Science fares badly. It has
few hymns of its own production, and these fall painfully
below the level of Christian hymns. In the Christian
Science hymn book there are five hymns by Mrs. Eddy,
but their quality is poor, both in poverty of thought and
£12 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
commonplace, unpoetic expression. Dr. T. G. Moulton
characterizes these hymns as "the dreariest doggerel
sung to noble tunes. "^ The tunes, of course, are ap-
propriated along with the hymns, for Christian Science
appears to be as barren of musical genius as of literary
taste.
Having few of its own. Christian Science has boldly
laid hands on many of our classical hymns, prostituting
them to a sense and use which their authors would have
abhorred. It is unjust to the memory of Watts and
Wesley and Whittier, Toplady and Newman and other
honored hymn writers, to drag them into the company of
Mrs. Eddy and force them unwittingly to serve at her
strange altar.
It is admitted in the Preface to this book that these
hymns do not properly express Christian Science ideas,
which, of course, they were never meant to and cannot
honestly be made to do, and so they are put through a
process of adaptation, which is often a surgical operation
of sad mutilation and sometimes of grotesque perversion.
The hymns are also usually abridged to two or three or
at the most to four or five verses, and this abbreviation
is not altogether a fault as it helps to shorten the service.
In fact, brevity is a virtue of the whole service, for
Christian Scientists are always sensitive to their own
comfort and are careful to avoid fatigue, although, of
course, there is no such thing and it is only a form of the
"nothingness" of "mortal mind."
As an example of the way in which Christian Scientists
tamper with our Christian hymns we give Toplady's
*'Ilock of Ages" as it appears in their hymn book:
1 An Exposure of Christian Science, p. 17.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 213
Rock of Ages, Truth, Divine,
Be Thy strength forever mine;
Let me rest secure in Thee,
Safe above life's raging sea.
Rock of Truth, our fortress strong.
Refuge from the shafts of wrong.
When from foes of sense I flee.
Let me hide myself in Thee.
Truth of Christ, asylum sure.
On this rock we are secure;
Cure is there for every ill.
Peace is there our life to fill.
This is only a parody and a very poor one at that
on one of the noblest hymns in the English, language,
and everyone with any poetic sense must feel the outrage
it commits. We devoutly wish that the Christian Scien-
tists would keep their hands off our Christian hymns
and prayers and write their own.
The second order of the service is **Reading a Scriptural
Selection," which is read by the First Reader.
The third order is * 'Silent Prayer, followed by the audible
repetition of The Lord's Prayer with its spiritual inter-
pretation." No audible prayer is offered in the service,
with the exception noted, for Mrs. Eddy condemned
such prayer, as has already been seen, and, indeed, cut
up the real roots of all prayer by declaring that *'God is
not influenced by man." We would suppose that silent
prayer is subject to the same limitation.
The readers alternately render the petitions of the
prayer and its interpretation. The Manual provides that
these readers shall be *'a man and a woman" and they are
to be "exemplary Christians and good English scholars."
The author does not know about their English scholar-
ship and can only hope that it is better than that of
214 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Mrs. Eddy herself, but he can testify that as many of
them as he has heard are good readers, rendering the text
with admirable voice and modulation, distinctness and
purity of tone, so that their reading is beautiful elo-
cution; and in this fine art they are models for all
preachers and readers.
The Second Reader, who is the woman, reads each
petition of The Lord's Prayer, and then the First Reader
reads *'its spiritual interpretation." Formerly this order
of the readers was the reverse, but Mrs. Eddy changed
it to the present order and thereby seems to have indicated
her estimate of the relative values or importance of the
two forms. The Manual says that "It shall be the duty
of the First Reader to conduct the principal part of the
Sunday services." This "spiritual interpretation," has
already been given l which at first had a very different
form, but like Mrs. Eddy's book was subject to any degree
of change and finally was given its present shape. Of
all the offenses of "the Founder" and the followers of
Christian Science this is the worst, unless it be her travesty
of a "communion service." It perverts the prayer at
every point and is an exegetical and literary outrage which
justly excites the indignation of Christians the world
over. That this illiterate and uncultivated and morbidly
egotistical and madly presumptuous woman should dare
to lay her vandal hands on these simple and noble words
that fell from the lips of our Lord and that in their lofty
devotion and literary beauty are one of the most sacred and
precious treasures of the world in every land and language
is a shame that Christian Scientists should blush to rec-
ognize and honor in their services.
1 P. 104.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 215
The fifth order is another hymn, and then follows
"Announcing necessary notices." The emphasis falls
on the word "necessary'* in this notice, for the Manual
orders that tlie readers "shall make no remarks explanatory
of the Lesson sermon at any time, but they shall read all
notices and remarks that may be printed in the Christian
Science Quarterly." Mrs. Eddy was always extraordinarily
watchful and suspicious of every word spoken or written
by anybody except herself. Hence outside of the local
notices expressed in the fewest words there is not a word
said in a Christian Science service except what has been
dictated and printed for the readers. If one of them were
to offer a word of extempore prayer or of comment on the
"Lesson sermon," it would shock the congregation as
an unheard-of, forbidden, and scandalous thing. It is
remarkable to what extent Mrs. Eddy, being dead, yet
speaks.
The sixth order is a "solo." "The solo singer," says
the Manual "shall not neglect to sing any special hymn
selected by the Board of Directors." "The Board of
Directors" is, or was, Mrs. Eddy.
The seventh order is "Reading the explanatory note
on first leaf of quarterly." This note reads as follows:
Friends. — The Bible and the Christian Science textbook are our
only preachers. We shall now read Scriptural texts, and their cor-
relative passages from our denominational textbook — these comprise
our sermon. The canonical writings, together with the word of our
textbook, corroborating and explaining the Bible texts in their
spiritual import and application to all ages, past, present, and
future, constitute a sermon undivorced from truth, uncontaminated
and unfettered by human hypotheses, and divinely authorized.
The eighth order is * 'Announcing the subject of the
Lesson-Sermon, and reading the Golden Text."
216 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
The ninth order is "Reading the Scriptural selection,
entitled *Responsive Reading,' alternately by the First
Reader and the congregation.*' This responsive reading
is printed in the quarterly.
The tenth order is "Reading the Lesson-Sermon.
(After the Second Reader reads the Bible references of
the first Section of the Lesson, the First R^eader makes
the following announcement: *As announced in the ex-
planatory note, I shall now read correlative passages from
the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with
Key to the Scriptures," by Mary Baker Eddy.')"
The lesson sermon for January 4, 1920, consisted of
six groups of selections, arranged in parallel columns,
the Bible references on the left side and the references to
"Science and Health" on the right side of the page. One
or two of these selections will illustrate the appositeness
of the "correlative passages." One Scripture reference
is II Sam. 23:1-4, which reads as follows:
Now these are the last words of David.
David the son of Jesse saith,
And the man who was raised on high saith.
The anointed of the God of Jacob,
And the sweet psalmist of Israel:
The spirit of Jehovah spake by me.
And his word was upon my tongue.
The God of Israel said.
The Rock of Israel spake to me:
One that ruleth over men righteously.
That ruleth in the fear of God,
He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun
riseth,
A morning without clouds.
When the tender grass springeth out of the earth.
Through clear shining after rain.
The "correlative passage" set over against this is
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 217
"Science and Health," p. 469, lines 13-21, which reads
as follows:
Mind is God. The exterminator of error is the great truth that
God, good, is the only Mind, and that the supposititious opposite of
infinite Mind — called devil or evil — is not Mind, is not Truth, but
error, without intelligence or reality. There can be but one Mind,
because there is but one God; and if mortals claimed no other Mind
and accepted no other, sin would be unknown. We can have but
one Mind, if that one is infinite. We bury the sense of infinitude,
when we admit that, although God is infinite, evil has a place in
this infinity, for evil can have no place, where all space is filled with
God.
A Scripture passage from the New Testament is Acts
17:24-27, which reads as follows:
The God that made the world and all things therein, he, being
Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands,
as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life,
and breath, and all things; and he made of one every nation of men
to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their ap-
pointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should
seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he
is not far from each one of us.
The "correlative passage" from "Science and Health"
is p. 542, beginning with line 29 and is as follows:
The sinful misconception of Life as something less than God,
having no truth to support it, falls back upon itself. This error,
after reaching the climax of suffering, yields to Truth and returns
to dust; but it is only mortal man and not the real man, who dies.
The image of Spirit cannot be effaced, since it is the idea of Truth
and changes not, but becomes more beautifully apparent at error's
demise.
These are the kind of "correlative passages" which are
indicated in the forty pages of this quarterly for the first
three months of the year 1920. Has the reader detected
the slightest connection between the Scripture passages
218 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
and the "correlative passages" that give their "spiritual
import and application to all ages, past, present, and
future"? Would not selections from a Patent Office
Report or from "Mother Goose" have as much relation
to these verses of Scripture as these "correlative passages"?
Does it not show a woeful lack of logical sense and literary
taste and is it not sacrilegious to put such confused and
inane thought and tawdry rhetoric as these selections
from Mrs. Eddy's book in comparison with these noble
and beautiful passages of Scripture ? One can only wonder
at the education and culture of the people who week after
week sit and listen to this "Lesson-Sermon."
The eleventh order is a "collection." This collection
is for their own support, as the Christian Scientists do
not maintain hospitals or schools or carry on any charitable
or philanthropic work.l It would not be logical for them
to do anything that would recognize disease or poverty
or any physical condition as a reality. The cry of the
poor and the suffering does not reach them for their cure
for these things is to deny and forget them.
The twelfth order is a hymn, and then while the people
are standing follows the thirteenth order which is "Reading
*The scientific statement of being,' and the correlative
Scripture according to I John 3:1-3." This "scientific
statement of being" is the following:
There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.
All is infinite Mind, and its infinite manifestation, for God is all
in all. Spirit is immortal Truth, matter is mortal error. Spirit is
real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God,
and man is His image and likeness; hence man is spiritual and not
material.
1 "The Christian Science Benevolent Association," for the benefit
of its own members was opened by The Mother Church in Boston
in October, 1919.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 219
During the whole service one idea and utterance is
being constantly dingdonged into the ear, in one or another
form: "There is no matter," "matter is nothing," "all
is Mind." It becomes as monotonous to the ear and as
deadening to the interest of the mind as the continual
sawing on one string of a violin or as the constant dropping
of water. After all this iteration and reiteration for
possibly the hundredth time comes this final "scientific
statement of being" in which the eternal assertion that
"matter is mortal error" is emphasized one more time,
or rather half a dozen times more. The last order is
"Pronouncing the Benediction," which consists of a verse
of Scripture.
Then, with the echo ringing in our ears that "matter
is mortal error" we escape into God's out of doors and
rejoice with exceeding joy that we are back again in the
world of reality with its green grass and blue sky and
singing birds and shining sun and healthful food and drink
and work and rest, of the faces of our friends and the play
of children, in God's world of common sense.
5. WHAT IS THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH?
When one sees the large and costly churches Christian
Scientists have erected in many of our cities, the im-
pression is received that they are a large and wealthy
body; and it would be a mistake to think that they are a
feeble folk, although few of the influential people of a city
are found among them. When we endeavor, however, to
find out their real number, we are blocked. The author
personally applied to a high Christian Science ofl&cial for the
facts on this point and was told that they were not giving
out such information and that he himself did not know.
220 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
In the federal census of 1890 the Christian Scientists
reported 221 churches and 8724 members, an average of
40 members to each church. In the census of 1906, the
next census that gathered statistics of the churches, they
reported 82,332 members and 16,116 Sunday-school
scholars.! This is an astonishing rate of growth, being
tenfold or 1000 per cent in 16 years. This was the fruitful
springtime and youthful heyday of Christian Science.
But after the census report of 1906 something happened.
Up to and including this census the Christian Scientists
made their reports along with all other churches, but
after the 1906 census they stopped making such reports
and have ever since refused to make any, or give out any
information as to their numbers. Mrs. Eddy wrote
this sudden and peculiar change of policy into her Manual
in Article VIII, Section 28, which reads as follows :
Numbering the People. Section 28. Christian Scientists shall
not report for publication the number of the members of The Mother
Church, nor that of the branch churches. According to Scripture
they shall turn away from personality and numbering the people.
Why was this by-law adopted and why does not the
Christian Science Church give out its statistics like other
churches? The reason given is that Christian Scientists
"according to Scripture shall turn away from personality
and numbering the people," but this sounds insincere.
Why, then, did they give out statistics up to 1906.? Was
not this "personality" and "numbering the people"?
Mrs. Eddy was not averse to "personality" when it was
her own personality, and she appears to have taken satis-
1 These figures are taken from Dr. H. K. Carroll's Religious
Forces of the United States, revised edition of 1912. He does not
give the number of Christian Science churches for 1906,
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH 221
faction in "numbering the people" as long as her people
were increasing. This change of policy creates the
suspicion that the rapid rate of increase that was so
marked up to 1906 soon thereafter began to slow down
and approach a standstill, and that it was this fact that
stopped the publication of "numbering the people." Dr.
Carroll, who is our highest authority on religious statistics,
in a personal communication to the author gives it as his
opinion that decrease in growth was the real reason for this
change, and they refused to make a report to the federal
religious census of 1916.
But though Christian Scientists will not tell, yet there
is a way of making a fairly accurate estimate of their
numbers. They do officially publish in the Journal one
important basis of calculation and that is a complete list of
all their churches and societies in the world. The author
has made a careful count of these lists in two issues of the
Journal sixteen months apart. In the issue of August,
1918, there is a total of 1576 organizations, 1386 in the
United States and 190 in foreign countries. Of these
organizations in the United States 789 are churches and
597 are societies, a society being a group not yet incor-
porated into a church. Of the organizations in foreign
countries 89 are churches and 101 are societies. In the
issue of December, 1919, there is a total of 1702 organi-
zations, 1504 in the United States and 198 in foreign
countries. In the United States there are 840 churches
and 664 societies, and in foreign countries there are 122
churches and 76 societies. During the sixteen months
between these two issues the total number of organizations
increased eight per cent, the churches in the United States
increased six and one-half per cent, and the societies
222 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
eleven per cent. This is a tremendous falling off in the
rate of increase from the 1000 per cent increase between
the censuses of 1890 and 1906. If this rate had been
maintained during the 16 months the increase would have
been 83 instead of 8 per cent. AVe are well aware that
the growth of a body slows down as it grows older and
larger, but this falling off is ominously large and rapid.
On the basis of the number of churches and societies
can we estimate the present membership of the Christian
Science church.'^ What is the average membership of the
962 churches in the world .^^ Of course some of them have
a large membership running up toward a thousand.
The Mother Church, according to the secretary's report
in June, 1907, had 43,876, but many of these were also
members of the branch churches. Many Christian
Science churches are very small; many of them do not
have church buildings, but meet in halls or other rented
places. We would think that an average membership of
100 each would not be far wrong, and this would yield
96,200 members. There are also 740 societies, and as
these are mostly small unincorporated, groups of people
we would suppose they do not average above 25 members
each, and this would give 18,500 members: a total for the
world of 114,700 Christian Scientists. If this number is
seriously wrong, only the Christian Science officials are
to blame for it. Let them come out with their statistics
as other churches do. "He that doeth the truth cometh
to the light."
Such competent judges as Dr. H. K. Carroll and Dr.
Horatio W. Dresser think that Christian Science has
about reached its flood and that its tide will soon
turn.
CHAPTER IX
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES
Christian Science was at first purely a method of mental
healing, as was indicated in the title of Mrs. Eddy's book
"Science and Health" before she turned her system into
a religion and added to her book the "Key to the Scrip-
tures." Mental healing is still the stronghold of Christian
Science, and we shall now examine this part of its claim
and work. Our general attitude toward this feature of
Mrs. Eddy's system is not that of wholesale denial but
rather that of discrimination and explanation.
1. MIND HEALING IN GENERAL
The practical interaction of the soul and the body is
one of the most familiar experiences of life. The soul
expresses itself through the body. The mind utters its
thought through language, feature, and movement. Joy
wreathes the face in smiles, grief drenches it with tears,
modesty dyes it with a crimson blush, and fear blanches
it white.
All the emotions of the heart paint themselves on the
face. The will moves every voluntary muscle and nerve to
do its work, and the unconscious mind pervades and
animates the whole organism. The soul pours through the
body, as the sap circulates in the tree and exudes in every
leaf and blossom, and thus manifests its whole inner life.
Not only the tongue speaks, but the eye is eloquent,
223
224 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
the flushed face is charged with meaning, and every
feature blabs. So, also, the body acts upon the soul,
exciting in it sensation and thought, stirring up its feelings,
moving its will, causing it to leap with joy or cry out in
pain, and thus flooding it with stimulating influences.
Knowing how the soul and body are thus closely connected
as causes or signs of each other's condition, from the state
of the one we can infallibly infer the state of the other.
From seeing the face we can tell the state of the soul,
and from the state of the soul we can describe the features
of the face. It is true that the ultimate nature of the
relation of the soul and the body is unknown to us and
is one of the unsolved problems and deepest mysteries
of philosophy. 1 We may not know where the psychical
leaves off and the physiological and the physical begin,
or whether they are of diverse or of the same fundamental
nature. But we do know that they powerfully affect each
other. The mind under a great stroke of sorrow may
whiten the hair and blast and wither the body in a single
night, and a flood of great joy may revive and rejuvenate
it, so that the body seems like wax in the flame of the
mind. The *'stigmata" of the saints, in which the mind
burnt right through the body, are supported by weighty
evidence.2 *Tt is quite impossible," says a high authority.
Dr. Albert Moll, "to assign any limit to the influence of the
mind upon the body, which is probably much more potent
and far-reaching than we are usually prepared to admit. "^
1 For a discussion of this problem, see the author's The World a
Spiritual System; an Outline of Metaphysics, pp. 116, 117, 226-233.
See also H. R. Marshall's Mind and Conduct, pp. 215-230.
2 See Carpenter's Mental Physiology, p. 689.
3 Quoted by R. H. Hutton in his Aspects of Religious and Scientific
Thought, p. 161.
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 225
The mind thus masters matter, melts down its "too,
too solid flesh," so to speak, and casts it in its own
mold.
The mind in some degree controls the body by its
voluntary will as is the case in all our speech and behavior;
and the voluntary will can go further and raise or depress
the spirits, affect the action of the heart, and exert a
pronounced influence over the general condition and health
of the body. But the far greater and deeper control of
the mind over the body is exercised by the subconscious
mind, the unconscious deep in the soul which appears to
be the greater and even vastly the greater part of its life.
It is this ^'underground" region of the soul, which may be
compared to the basement and cellar of a great building,
in which are stored all our past thoughts and actions
and out of which ancestral and racial instincts and per-
sonal habits and memories and impulses emerge into our
conscious life; and it is this unconscious mind that acts
through the sympathetic nervous system to operate and
control the organic activities of the body. This sub-
consciousness is reached in hypnotism and by other forms
and means of suggestion, and can thus be turned to exer-
cise its influence and control over the body so as to affect
its health in both causing and curing disease.
The action of the mind on the body in connection with
health and disease has been known and used from ancient
times. In Proverbs, ch. 17:22 we read, "A cheerful
heart is a good medicine." Celsus, a Roman medical
writer of the first century, a.d., wrote, *Tt is the mark of
a skilled practitioner to sit awhile by the bedside with a
blithe countenance." And Cassiodorus, of the sixth
century, wrote, *'To give joy to the sick is natural healing;
226 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
for once make your patient cheerful, and his cure is
accomplished."
In modern times this agency in curing disease has come
into wide use. An extensive literature has already grown
up and is rapidly increasing in this field. Dr. A. T.
Schofield, an English medical authority, has published
seven or eight volumes on the subject, of which the one
entitled *'The Force of Mind; or, The Mental Factor in
Medicine," is one of the best for lay readers. It is packed
with facts and quotations from medical authorities and
gives a list of more than a hundred books and articles on
the subject. These authorities maintain that functional
diseases can be cured or helped by mental means, and some
of them admit that at least some organic diseases can be
helped or cured by the same means. The two kinds of
diseases run into each other so that no sharp line of dis-
tinction can be drawn between them. Dr. Schofield
quotes the English medical authority, Dr. Daniel Hack
Tuke, as saying that "mental therapeutics without hypno-
tism can cure toothache, sciatica, painful joints, rheuma-
tism, gout, pleuro-dynia, colic, epilepsy, whooping cough,
contracted Kmbs, paralysis, headaches, neuralgias, con-
stipation, asthma, warts, scurvy, dropsy, intermittent
fever, alcoholism, typhoid fever, and avert impending
death." Other authorities, such as Dr. Weir Mitchell and
Dr. Woods Hutchinson, regard such statements as ex-
aggerations, but they all admit that the mind has a wide
field and is a great power as a curative agent. At the
least it is admitted that the depressed condition of
the mind may lower the vitality and resisting power of the
body to the point where it falls a prey to diseases of all
kinds.
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 227
It is not asserted that the mind can cure disease by a
sheer act of will, though it can often do much and some-
times work wonders in this way, but that the general
state and action of the mind furnish the conditions in
which disease may disappear and health be restored.
Hypnotic suggestion, by which suggestions counter-
acting disease are planted in the subconscious mind, plays
an important part in the theory and practice of some
mental healers; and however it may be got into the mind,
the suggestion of health is undoubtedly a powerful antidote
to disease. Since the mind under an overwhelming
belief or emotion may strike right through the body as
though it were a physical force, whitening the hair,
raising blisters, causing blood to exude through the skin
at particular points, there is no limit we may set to what it
may do in resisting disease or even in killing its germs.
No doubt excessive claims have been made, especially by
faith healers and quacks, for the curative power of the
mind in disease, but that it is a vital factor in the matter
is emphasized by medical authorities and is receiving
increased attention in all quarters.
This power of the mind over the body is the root of all
the various forms of mind healing and is the secret and
stock in trade of numerous quacks that play on the
credulity of people. Dr. Schofield enumerates eight
kinds of mental healing as follows :
1. There is the prayer and faith cure at Lourdes; wnich is based
upon the faith in God and the Virgin, perhaps mostly on the latter.
2. Relic cures of all sorts ; where the basis is faith in the holy emblems,
seen or touched. 3. Evangelical faith cures; based upon external
divine power. 4. Mind cures; effected by the realization of the
power of mind over matter, or by the conscious effect of the mind
of the healer on the patient. 5. Christian Science cures; based on
228 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
the unreality of disease, and the direction of the mind to the Divine.
6. Spiritualistic cures; effected by faith in departed spirits. 7.
Mesmeric cures; effected by a supposed fluid or magnetic influence
passing from healer to patient. 8. Direct faith healing; effected by
faith healers, in whom the patient has confidence and who heal on
the spot.^
The stories told of the manifold and marvelous cures
effected by this general means are well known, and many
are the healers and healing resorts that can show a re-
markable collection of crutches and other paraphernalia
that have been left behind by those who were healed.
John Alexander Dowie, once prominent as a faith healer
in Chicago, had a large hall of which the walls were lined
with such mementos and proofs of his healing power.
That many of these cures are genuine is an undoubted
fact, admitted by medical authorities themselves. The
fact that many of them are also spurious does not touch
the reality of the genuine ones.
Physicians, it need not be said, understand this principle
of healing and use it in their practice. The faith they
inspire in their patients by their medicines and perhaps
even more by their personality and reputation is a vital
factor in their healing power. Many a physician by his
contagious optimism begets a like spirit in his patient
that has its effect in quickening the vital energies of the
whole body. It is also well known that physicians give
medicines, such as **bread pills,*' which they know will
have no other virtue than the power of arousing the
faith and hope of the patient.
It makes no difference what is the nature of the means
by which such faith is excited, if it produces the faith it
will do the work. On this account the fetish of the savage
1 The Force of Mind, p. 202.
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 229
and all the absurd arts and means of faith healers are
effective. The following example is from George Barton
Cutten's * 'Psychological Phenomena of Christianity*':
Let me refer to a monthly publication called Unity. The copy
which I have in hand is that for February, 1906. One of the leaves
of this publication is of red paper, and in addition to elaborate in-
structions for its use given by the editor, the sheet has printed on
it the following: "This sheet has been treated by the Society of
Silent Unity, after the manner mentioned in Acts 19: 11, 12. Dis-
ease will depart from those who repeat silently, while holding this in
hand, the words printed thereon." In addition to these instructions
we find these words: "Affirmation for Strength and Power. February
20th to March 20th. (Held Daily at 12 M.) The Strength and
Power of Divine Mind are now established in the Midst of Me; and
shall go no more out. Affirmation for Prosperity. (Held Daily at
12 M.) The Riches of the Lord-Christ are poured out upon Me,
and I am supplied with every good Thing." Near the end of the
publication are some testimonials to the value of such suggestions.
I choose three of them. "While holding the Red Leaf between my
hands it caused vibrations through my whole system, and rheumatic
pains that I was troubled with disappeared as if by magic — M.
T. R." "Your Red Sheet of November, I used in treatment of my
sister for appendicitis, and also for myself for sore throat. With
the December one I treated myself for sore throat and bronchitis,
with wonderful results in both and in all cases. — L. V. D." "Your
treatments for prosperity have done us so much good, and we are
feeling more prosperous, which will open the way to our receiving
more. Since our treatments our chickens have laid better, the food
goes further, and our whole living seems easier. — A. M. L." It is
to be expected that so long as the chickens and people respond so
readily to the most naive and crass forms of suggestion, there will
always be found those willing to give the suggestions consideration.^
It will be recalled that Mrs. Eddy says in * 'Science and
Health" that persons have been healed while reading
this book. "The perusal of the author's publications
heals sickness constantly." The thing is credible; the
sheet does not always need to be red.
While the power of the mind over the body in the
healing of disease is freely admitted and used by medical
1 Pp. 220,221.
230 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
authorities, yet they restrict it within more or less definite
Umits. The distinction between functional and organic
diseases, while more popular than scientific, yet is of
practical use, and it is within the former field that mind
healing does its best if not its only work. "Potent as is
the influence of mind on body," says Sir William Osier,
"and many as are the miracle-like cures which may be
worked, all are in functional disorders, and we know only
too well that nowadays the prayer of faith neither sets a
broken thigh or checks an epidemic of typhoid fever. "i
Dr. Schofield says that "with the exception of mental and
functional nerve diseases, the part the mental factor plays
is exceedingly small, and often very obscure and ill de-
fined," though "it may be a predisposing cause, and
exciting cause, an aggravating or a modifying accompani-
ment; it may act as a poison, or therapeutically as a
medicine. "2 When alleged cases of the healing of organic
diseases by mental means are investigated, they are
nearly always if not invariably found to be not based on
fact; either the diagnosis was not correct or the cure was
not effected.^
Among functional diseases also the failures to cure by
mental means far outnumber the successful cases. As
usual in such matters, the "hits" are remembered and
exploited and the "misses" are forgotten. John Alexander
Dowie in his newspaper, "Leaves of Healing," declared,
"I pray and lay my hands on seventy thousand people in
a year," yet in the two and a half years immediately
1 Quoted by B. B. Warfield in Counterfeit Miracle^, p. 229.
2 The Force of Mind, p. 69.
3 The story of a typical celebrated case of this kind, involving the
immediate healing of a broken bone, is told by Dr. J. M. Buckley
in his Faith Healing, pp. 54, 55.
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 231
preceding the date of this statement he reports only-
seven hundred cures, which is only one success in every
two hundred and fifty trials. ^ Such meager results
would ruin the reputation of any regular physician.
2. HAVE MIRACULOUS CURES CEASED?
At this point we are confronted with the question. Have
the miraculous cures of the Bible, especially of Jesus,
ceased? Christian Scientists and many other faith healers
give an emphatic negative to this question, and declare
that they are doing just what Jesus did and commanded
his disciples to do. Mrs. Eddy is especially bold in
flinging this challenge in the face of her opponents and
she frequently quotes and appeals to the promise: "And
these signs shall accompany them that believe; in my
name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with
new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they
drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they
shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.'*
But unfortunately for this contention this passage is
found in the spurious appendix to the Gospel of Mark
and, being no part of the canonical gospel, cannot be
quoted in support of this doctrine.
Several other passages are adduced in behalf of this
claim. "And he cast out the spirits with a word, and
healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself
took our infirmities, and bare our diseases** (Matt.
8:16, 17). This passage refers only to the healing works
of Jesus and contains no promise that the same power
would be extended to his disciples through the ages.
1 B. B. Warfield, in Counterfeit Miracles, p. 196.
232 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
The same principle applies to the power of healing com-
mitted by Jesus to the Twelve (Luke 9:1) and to the
Seventy (Luke 10:9) as he was commissioning them and
sending them forth: they were given such power as his
oflScial apostles and not to all believers through all time.
*'Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me,
the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works
than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father'*
(John 14:12, 13). The context shows that Jesus was
specially speaking at this time of his spiritual works in
manifesting the Father, and no one thinks that he meant
to extend to every believer miraculous power to still
stormy seas and raise the dead. "These 'greater works'
were the spiritual effects accomplished by the disciples,
especially the great novel fact of conversion" (The
Expositor's Greek Testament). "Is any among you
sick? let him call for the elders of the church; and let
them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of
the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save him that is
sick, and the Lord shall raise him up" (James 5:14, 15).
In this passage the use of the medical means employed in
that day is commanded, and this makes it an unfortunate
Scripture to be appealed to by those who reject the use
of such means. No passage can be quoted that shows
that strictly miraculous powers were to be extended
beyond Jesus and his apostles who used them as signs of
divine authority. The use of medical means is sanctioned
all the way through the Scriptures. The Bible is a
common-sense book that builds on the broad base of
universal natural law and human experience, and it
cannot be enlisted in the service of irrational ways of
dealing with disease, or with anything else.
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 233
Christians of almost all schools believe in prayer for
the sick and that God can and does answer such prayer
in accordance with his wisdom, but they also believe
that he works through means, including medical skill.
God is in all the processes of nature and of human art,
and no one is more ready to acknowledge this than the
Christian physician. *'In the healing of every disease of
whatever kind," says Dr. Henry H. Goddard, "we cannot
be too deeply impressed with the Lord's part of the
work. He is the Operator. We are the cooperators.
More and more am I impressed that every patient of
mine who has ever risen up from his sick bed on to his
feet again has done so by the divine power. Not I, but
the Lord, has cured him." But such divine part in healing,
however supernatural it may be, is not to be confused with
a miracle in the Scripture sense of a sign wrought to
certify the deity of our Lord and the authority of his
apostles. 1
3. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES
Christian Science is one form of mind cure. Mrs.
Eddy was anxious to make the impression that her
system had no connection or affinity with the various
forms of faith healing. **They regard the human mind
as a healing agent," she says in the Preface to "Science
and Health," "whereas this mind is not a factor in the
Principle of Christian Science." Her theory is that dis-
ease and matter and all forms of "mortal mind" are
1 This subject is fully discussed in Benjamin B. Warfield's Counter-
feit Miracles. He quotes with approval a writer in the Edinburgh
Review; "In point of interpretation, the history of Protestantism is
a uniform disclaimer of any promise in the Scriptures that miraculous
powers should be continued in the Church."
234 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
"nothingness," and that the understanding of truth
destroys these delusions. She distinguishes between
mind-cure and Mind-cure, capitaHzed Mind in her
vocabulary being the infinite Mind which is the "allness'*
that includes all things, the knowledge of which leaves
no room for the "nothingness" of matter and disease.
Nevertheless, there is no escaping the fact that her
system is a form of mind cure, for she urges the patient
to "deny" disease and all the delusions of "mortal mind,"
and thereby adopts and uses the fundamental principle
of all forms of mental healing. The only difference
between her system and other systems and the distinctive
feature of her theory is the bad and absurd philosophy
that she adopted as the cause and explanation of her
method of healing; but this false philosophy has little or
no necessary connection with the concrete working of
her method.
Chapter XVIII in "Science and Health," entitled
"Fruitage," consists of eighty-four letters giving accounts
of alleged cases of healing by Christian Science, which
are presented in illustration and proof of the system. It
is open to anyone to inspect these cases and endeavor
to form some judgment of them. Each one has a heading
giving the name of the disease that has been cured and
is signed with the initials and address of the writer al-
though the addresses are useless for purposes of investi-
gation when only the initials of the writers' names are
given. The list looks impressive as one glances through
it and notes that every case is reported as cured and that
almost every kind of disease is found in it. In the head-
ings there appear such announcements as "Rheumatism
Healed," "xistigmatism and Hernia Healed," "Substance
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 235
of Lungs Restored," "Fibroid Tumor Healed in a Few
Days," *Tnsanity and Epilepsy Healed," "A Case of
Mental Surgery," these being the titles of the first six
letters.
The writer does not doubt that many of these persons
were healed, or that they got well of whatever ailments
they had. The cures of Christian Science are as numerous
and real as those of other forms of mental healing, and
no one disputes this fact. We also admit that these
writers were sincere and honest in the accounts they
gave of their diseases and their cures as they under-
stood them. But the real question is whether these
accounts are correct, and not whether their authors
thought they were so.
On closer examination of the letters our suspicion
is aroused when we note that no instance of failure is
included in these eighty -four cases. What does this mean ?
Does it mean that there are no failures whatever with
Christian Science healers, or that these cases were win-
nowed out of a larger number from which the failures
were omitted? Or does it mean that only those who think
they are healed write such testimonies, and others that
failed to receive such healing are not heard from? Our
doubts as to the trustworthiness of these testimonies are
further strengthened by the fact that without exception
they were written by nonmedical persons who had no
technical knowledge of the diseases and symptoms and
cures which they undertake to describe. Not one of
them is written by a physician, or is accompanied with
the certificate of a physician. Space here permits only
several typical extracts from them, as they are usually long
and contain much irrelevant matter.
236 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
One correspondent writes: *'For seventeen years I
had suffered with indigestion and gastritis in the worst
form, often being overcome from a seeming pressure
against the heart. I had asthma for four years, also had
worn glasses for four years. It seemed to me that I had
swallowed every known medicine to relieve my indigestion,
but they only gave temporary benefit. I purchased a
copy of *Science and Health,' and simply from the reading
of that grand book was completely healed of all physical
ailments in two weeks' time." Another writes: **I
pursued the study [of Christian Science] carefully and
thoroughly, and I have had abundant reason since to be
glad that I did, for through this study, and the resulting
understanding of my relation to God, I was healed of a
disease with which I had been afflicted since childhood
and for which there was no known remedy." And another
writes: "Through reading *Science and Health' and the
illumination which followed, I was healed of ulceration
of the stomach and kindred troubles, a restless sense of
existence, agnosticism, etc."
Now when one considers how difficult it often is to
diagnose disease and how often even experienced physi-
cians make mistakes in this part of their art and how easy
it is for one suffering with any bodily disturbance to
imagine that he has almost any disease, the value of these
testimonies as to diseases cured becomes very small.
Even when some of these persons say that one or more
physicians told them they had these diseases and "gave
them up," such testimony, without necessarily being
dishonest, is untrustworthy, because it is easy to misunder-
stand or misreport these physicians and we would like
to know what they really did say. In very many instances
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 237
such alleged reports of physicians have been run down
and have been proved to be incorrect.
Over against these testimonies of Christian Scientists
who claim they were healed of almost all ailments, in-
cluding organic diseases and surgical cases, we can put
the proved facts as to many notable cases that were total
failures and the testimony of eminent medical authorities.
As to notorious cases of failure and disaster and death,
they have been recorded in such numbers and with such
proofs as must stagger the faith of even the most devoted
and credulous Christian Scientists.!
It is not to be forgotten that Mrs. Eddy herself dropped
out of her therapeutics surgery, obstetrics, and infectious
diseases. "Until the advancing age admits the efficacy
and supremacy of Mind, it is better for Christian Scientists
to leave surgery and the adjustment of broken bones
and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, while the
mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental recon-
struction and to the prevention of inflammation." "Ob-
stetrics is not Science, and will not be taught." "Mrs.
Eddy advises, until the public thought becomes better
acquainted with Christian Science, that Christian Sci-
entists decline to doctor infectious or contagious diseases. "2
She further wrote: "Christian Scientists should be in-
fluenced by their own judgment in taking a case of
malignant disease, they should consider well their ability
to cope with the case — and not overlook the fact that
there are those lying in wait to catch them in their sayings;
1 For such cases see Milmine's History, pp. 324-326, 354-356;
Peabody's Masquerade, pp. 103-120; The New Church Review, 1908>
vol. XV, p. 419; Paget's Faith and Works of Christian Science, pp.
130-190.
2 The Christian Science Journal, December, 1902.
238 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
neither should they forget that in their practice, whether
successful or not, they are not specially protected by law."
It was because the hand of the law was laid on Christian
Science practitioners that these admonitions and limi-
tations were imposed upon them ; and they were embodied
in a by-law that *'if a member of this church has a patient
that he does not heal, and whose case he cannot lawfully
diagnose, he may consult with an M. D. on the anatomy
involved." These three classes of cases from which the
practitioners of this faith are warned away, surgery,
obstetrics, and infectious and contagious diseases, cut
a wide swath through the field of the disease healing art
and are a tremendous limitation upon the power and the
claims of Christian Science. In the presence of these
admitted limitations, what becomes of Mrs. Eddy's claim
that "Christian Science is always the most skillful sur-
geon," and her boast in the Preface of "Science and
Health," that "thousands of well-authenticated cases of
healing" "have proved the worth of her teachings,"
"cases" which "for the most part have been abandoned
as hopeless by regular medical attendants".^ A "regular
medical attendant" who was a general practitioner and
would not touch a case of surgery, obstetrics, or infectious
or contagious disease would be a curiosity in his profes-
sion and would not have much to do.
Time and again Mrs. Eddy and other Christian Scien-
tists have been challenged to submit cases of their healing
to medical inspection, but no such challenge has been
accepted. Luther T. Townsend, professor of theology
in Boston University, submitted this proposition to Mrs.
Eddy: "If you or the president of your college, or your
entire college of doctors, will put into place a real case of
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 239
hip or ankle dislocation, without resorting to the ordinary
manipulation or without touching it, I will give you one
thousand dollars. Or if you or your president, or your
entire college, will give sight to one of the inmates of the
South Boston Asylum for the Blind, that sightless person
having been born blind, I will give you two thousand
dollars." The following reply to this appeared in the
Christian Science Journal: *'Will the gentleman accept
my thanks due to his generosity, for if I should accept
his bid he would lose his money. Why, because I per-
formed more difficult tasks fifteen years ago. At present
I am in another department of Christian work, where
*there shall no sign be given them,' for they shall be in-
structed in the principles of Christian Science that fur-
nishes its own proof."
Richard C. Cabot, M. D., professor in the Harvard
Medical School, in McClure's Magazine for August, 1908,
had an article entitled *'One Hundred Christian Science
Cures." The cases he examined were gathered out of
The Christian Science Journal, and he gives evidence to
prove that the accounts of the cases had been "doctored"
by the editor of the Journal or by some other Christian
Science authority, and the same editing is evident in
many of the cases reported by Christian Science officials,
including those in the chapter on * 'Fruitage" in * 'Science
and Health." Of these one hundred cases Dr. Cabot
found that seventy-two were "functional," seven were
"cases of what appears to be organic," eleven were "cases
very difficult to class," and ten were "cases regarding
which no reasonable conjecture can be made." His
conclusions with respect to them were, "first, that most
Christian Science cures are probably genuine; but, sec-
240 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
ondly, they are not cures of organic disease.'* "I have never
found,'* he says, *'one in which there was any good evidence
that cancer, consumption, or any other organic disease
had been arrested or banished." He had ''followed up"
many alleged cures of such diseases, but "the diagnosis
was never based upon any proper evidence." He further
says: "Of the classical methods of psychotherapeutics,
namely, explanation, education, psychoanalysis, en-
couragement, suggestion, rest-cure and work-cure, the
Christian Scientists use chiefly suggestion, education, and
work-cure, though each of these methods is colored and
shaped by the peculiar doctrines of the sect.**
One of the most extensive, thoroughgoing, authoritative,
and convincing investigations of the cures of Christian
Science was made by Stephen Paget, M. D., an eminent
English medical authority, and the results were published
in his book entitled "The Faith and Works of Christian
Science,** 1909. He took "two hundred consecutive
Testimonies of Healing, from her weekly journal, the
Christian Science Sentinel,*' and published them in his
book, filling twenty-nine pages. He adds footnotes to
some of the cases, pointing out their ambiguities and telling
us that he wrote to some of the patients and in no instance
did he receive a satisfactory answer. He then passes
judgment on these two hundred cases, but space here
permits only a few of his statements:
The vast majority of these testimonies are not worth the paper
on which they are printed. . . These are not testimonies, but
testimonials; every advertisement of a new quack medicine publishes
the like of them. . . What is the good of proclaiming that Christian
Science heals diseases which get well of themselves? Time heals
them. Here is a girl with a cold in her head: she is healed "tlirough
the realization of the omnipresence of Love." Was there ever such
an insult offered to the name of Love? . . . Let us apply a fair and
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 241
mild test to these two hundred cases. Let us show them to any
doctor; and let us ask him what he thinks of them. He will laugh at
them: he will say, "What is the good of such cases? Why don't
they report them properly? Why don't they give details? What
do they mean by spinal trouble, and all the other troubles?"
Dr. Paget gives an account of the alleged cure of a
case of leprosy; he wrote to the patient and he shows
that there is no good ground for believing that he ever
had this disease. He gives the experience of and quotes
from a number of eminent medical authorities, including
Dr. John B. Huber, Professor in Fordham University
Medical School, New York, William A. Purrington, Uni-
versity Lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence, New York,
Henry H. Goddard, Lecturer on Psychology of Mental
Defectives, New York University, Dr. Albert Moll, of
Berlin, and Dr. R. C. Cabot, of Boston. The followmg
is a quotation from Mr. Purrington:
In the record of deaths resulting from the treatment of Christian
Scientists, Faith Curers, Peculiar People, et id genus omne, a large
proportion are those of neglected children suffering from acute in-
flammation of the lungs, diphtheria, pneumonia, and like complaints.
One horrible and typical case in Brooklyn was brought to public
notice by an undertaker called in by a Faith Curer to bury the
latter's child, six years of age, dead from diphtheria. Two other
children, one about eight, the other less than two years old, were
found suffering from the same disease. The father explained his
failure to call in medical aid by saying he did not believe in doctors,
since he believed in Christ.^
Dr. Paget gives a quotation from Dr. J. M. Buckley*s
"very careful paper in the North American Review,
July, 1901," which is as follows:
1 For the legal case against Christian Science, see Mr. Purrington's
book Christian Science; An Exposition.
242 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
The failures of Christian Science are innumerable. Twenty years
ago I collected vital statistics of various communistic institutions
which refuse medical aid, and compared them with the tables of life
insurance companies; and on the basis of the results of the corn-
parison, I predicted that, should Christian Science at any time begin
to spread rapidly, or should antimedicine, faith-healing institutions
be largely increased, the number of deaths would attract attention,
and public indignation be excited by failures to heal maladies which
ordinarily yield to medical or surgical treatment. This prediction
is now being fulfilled every day. Many who have been vainly
treated by Christian Scientists are now dead. None of their
failures is mentioned by the healers, and few of the Jiving victims,
who are usually silenced by shame. One I met in an insane asylum,
muttering all day long, "God can never be sick."
Dr. Paget collected and printed in his book sixty-eight
cases of alleged cures by Christian Scientists which were
shown to be unfounded and worse by physicians who
sent them to Dr. Paget for the book. He says of these
cases: "They display (1) the great liking which Christian
Science has for the very worst sort of *surgical cases';
(2) the cruelty or brutality which naturally goes with her
terror of pain and of death; (3) the element of madness
which is in her faith; (4) the vanity or self-conceit which
approves and adopts a bastard philosophy, not merely
for its own sake, but for the sake of opposition to au-
thority." The twenty-eight pages filled with these cases
are verily terrible reading and give one a sense of the
appalling suffering and brutality and death that result
from this system. There is space for only two reports
which come from American physicians. The first one is
as follows:
I am sending you the following two cases where the patients were
treated by Christian Science, and were worse, and died after the
treatment; and the third case, one of "miraculous conception."
The first was a man in middle life, who had a mild attack of nephritis,
and was told by a Christian Science healer to eat and drink as he
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 243
pleased, and to go ahead with his business, for "he only thought he
was sick." He soon developed uraemic convulsions, and died. The
second was a man with a small epithelioma of tongue, who was told
by a Christian Scientist that it didn't amount to anything, and
that their treatment would soon make it disappear. He died of its
ravages while receiving treatment from them. The third case
which came to my knowledge, was one of conception, and the delivery
of a child at term, in a Christian Scientist, who declared she con-
ceived by thought, as taught in their creed, and that no man entered
into the case.
The other case is from a Boston physician and is as
follows:
Boston is a hotbed of Christian Science, and we see a great many
patients who are treated by those who practice it. I have seen a
patient dying of strangulated hernia, who had been treated from
first to last by Christian Science until the period of operability had
passed. I have seen one or two patients dying of hemorrhage who
had been treated by Christian Science. I should say I had seen
about a hundred cases, in which the only chance for cure had been
lost through Christian Science treatment.
Dr. Paget sums up his investigations of this system
thus:
These short notes, put here as I got them, give but a faint sense
of the ill working of Christian Science. It would be easy to collect
hundreds more. Of course, to see the full iniquity of these cases,
the reader should be a doctor. But everybody, doctor or not, can
feel the cruelty, born of fear of pain, in some of these Scientists —
the downright madness threatening not a few of them, and the
appalling self-will. They bully dying women, and let babies die in
pain; let cases of paralysis tumble about and hurt themselves; rob
the epileptic of their bromide, the syphilitic of their iodide, the
angina cases of their amy] nitrite, the heart cases of their digitalis;
let appendicitis go on to septic peritonitis, gastric ulcer to perforation
of the stomach, nephritis to uraemic convulsions, and strangulated
hernia to the miserere met of gangrene; watch, day after day, while
a man or a woman bleeds to death; compel them who should be
kept still to take exercise; and withhold from all cases of cancer all
hope of cure. To these works of the Devil they bring their one gift,
willful and complete ignorance; and their "nursing" would be a
farce, if it were not a tragedy. Such is the way of Christian Science,
244 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
face to face, as she loves to be, with bad cases of organic disease. . .
In a rage. Common-sense cries, "For God's sake leave the children
alone. It doesn't matter with grown-up people; they can believe
what they like about Good and Evil, and germs, and things. But
the children; they take their children to these services. Why can't
they leave the children out of it?" . . . The corner stone of her
church is not Jesus Christ but her own vanity. She is cruel to
babies and young children; she is worse than close-fisted over her
money; she despises Christianity, and is at open war with experience
and common sense. . . We examine her testimonials, and find them
worthless. We are told that she is Christ come again, and we can
see that she is not. We listen to her philosophical talk, and observe
that she is illiterate, and ignorant of the rudiments of logic. We
admit, and are glad, that she has enabled thousands of nervous
persons to leave off worrying, and has cured many "functional
disorders;" but she has done that, not by revelation, but by sug-
gestion. The healed, whom she incessantly advertises, are but few,
compared with them that are whole, . . and a thousand brave and
quiet lives, the unnamed legion of good non-Scientists. They bear,
not deny, pain; they confess, not confuse, the reality of sin; they
face, not outface, death.
The author could add from personal knowledge cases of
thefailureof Christian Science treatment, especially one sad
case ending in death, but it is better to rest the matter on
the authoritative judgment of medical men; and such
adverse judgments could be multiplied indefinitely.
"By their fruits ye shall know them." By this prag-
matic test the "fruitage" of Christian Science in all cases
of surgery and organic disease and in many other cases is
proved false and injurious, and sometimes it needlessly
and cruelly insures death. It already has to carry a
load of infamy that should condemn it beyond recovery
of any public confidence and respect. The law has laid
its hand on it and restricted it in some degree, but it is
still a dangerous delusion. That an illiterate woman,
utterly ignorant of the most elementary scientific knowl-
edge of the human body and its treatment in disease,
should have been able to overthrow, for many people.
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 245
the first principles of medical science, which is the growth
of centuries, and get them to trust and practice this
false and disastrous theory, is one of the marvels of our
day, almost shaking our faith in human rationality; but
it is partially explained by the fact that in no other
field are people more easily deluded and led astray by
impostors and quacks than in medicine. In their eager
desire for cure and health they will wildly catch at any
straw floating on the stream in which they are struggling.
All this is said while acknowledging that Christian
Science as a system of mind cure does succeed in giving
relief in many cases of a functional kind. People of a
nervous temperament with all kinds of functional de-
rangement gravitate to it by an affinity that is not wholly
mistaken, and by the change wrought in their minds do
experience temporary relief and often permanent benefit.
Let full credit be given to it for such work, which it
accomplishes in common with and by the same general
means as other forms of mind healing. But when it sets
itself up as a system of curing all disease and makes
claims of such "fruitage" as is given us in *'Science and
Health" and is constantly being published in the Christian
Science Journal, it is a delusion and menace whose falsity
and evil works must be exposed.
4. THE MERCENARY ASPECT OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Mrs. Eddy early developed a keen instinct for money
and turned her religion and church into a business concern
which in thorough organization and masterly management
and in extraordinary success and huge profits rivaled some
of our great corporations. She is the only founder of a
religion known to history who deliberately set about
246 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
making money from her cult. She was a prophet out for
profit. Jesus in sending out his twelve disciples said
unto them: "And as ye go, preach, saying. The kingdom
of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, cast out demons: freely ye received,
freely give. Get you no gold, nor silver, nor brass in
your purses; no wallet for your journey, neither two
coats, nor shoes, nor staff : for the laborer is worthy of his
food" (Matt. 10:7-10). They were to charge no price
for their healing and to take nothing for the grace of
God. But Mrs. Eddy charged for everything and took
all she could get, "supposing that godliness is a way of
gain" (I Tim. 6:5). When Simon the sorcerer wanted to
buy of Peter the gift of the Holy Spirit that he might
make money out of it, the apostle pronounced a grave
judgment upon him, declaring that he was still "in the
gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity" (Acts
8:18-24); but Mrs. Eddy stood in no fear of any such
retribution. Isaiah cried out, "Ho, every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no
money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and
milk without money and without price" (ch. 55 :l); but
Christian Science healing comes high, and whoever
would receive it must come liberally supplied with money.
The freeness of the grace of God is proclaimed all the way
through the Scriptures and is one of its glories, but who-
ever would partake of the promised blessing of Mrs. Eddy's
gospel must pay for it and pay well. After struggling
through years of bitter poverty in which at times she ate
the bread of charity, this remarkable woman, who at
fifty years of age was unknown and was literally a home-
less wanderer, suddenly began to wield a golden scepter
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 247
and turned out to be a veritable wizard of finance. She
rapidly rose to affluence and died a millionaire, several
times over.
As usual with her, she based her money-making scheme
on an alleged divine revelation, which she announced in
the following terms:
When God impelled me to set a price on Christian Science mind
healing, I could think of no financial equivalent for the 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 lessons at my college; a startling sum for tuition 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. God has since shown me in multitudinous ways the
wisdom of this decision.^
It is really pathetic to observe the shrinking modesty
with which she recoiled from the idea of fixing a price of
three hundred dollars for twelve lessons running through
only three weeks, and the extreme difficulty with which
she brought herself to consent to it, though she was
acting under a divine compulsion and was led by a strange
Providence to do it; yet she confesses, somewhat incon-
sistently, that she could not think of any price that would
be a financial equivalent for the knowledge she imparted
of divine healing. Yet after all this hesitation as though
it went hard with her conscience to charge such *'a startling
sum" for only twelve lessons, she presently reduced the
number of lessons from twelve to seven without reducing
the price of the course, thereby increasing the price from
the * 'startling sum" of twenty-five to the still more
* 'startling sum" of forty-three dollars a lesson. In ex-
^ Retrospection and Introspection.
248 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
planatlon of this she pubHshed the following notice in the
Christian Science Journal for December, 1888:
Having reached a place in teaching where my students in Christian
Science are taught more during seven lessons in the primary class
than they were formerly in twelve, and taught all that is profitable
at one time, hereafter the primary class will include seven lessons
only. As this number of lessons is of more value than twice this
number in times past, no change is made in the price of tuition, three
hundred dollars. Mary Baker Eddy.
When she began teaching, however, she had a different
scale of prices as set forth in the following contract:
We, the undersigned, do hereby agree, in consideration of in-
structions and manuscripts received from Mrs. Mary B. Glover, to
pay her $100 in advance, and ten per cent annually on the income
that we receive from practicing or teaching the same. We also do
hereby agree to pay said Mary B. Glover $1000 in case we do not
practice or teach the science she has taught us.i
Under this contract she not only got her fee for teaching
her * 'science," but also reaped a royalty from the fees of
her students. She was thus sowing seed from which she
could reap a perpetual harvest, and her fine financial
hand was in evidence in this arrangement. She also
bound her students to pay her a large sum whether they
did or did not practice or teach her science. Whatever
was done or not done she had everything to gain and
nothing to lose.
Mrs. Eddy's "Metaphysical College," which was in
no proper sense a "college" at all but was really a bogus
institution of the rankest quackery, was a strictly family
affair, for its whole "faculty" consisted of Mrs. Eddy,
1 Peabody, Masquerade, p. 123.
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 249
her third husband, Asa Gilbert Eddy, and her adopted
son, J. Foster Eddy, so that its entire proceeds practically
flowed into her coffers. Mrs. Eddy says that * 'during
seven years some four thousand students were taught by
me in this college." Four thousand students at three
hundred dollars apiece would yield one million two hundred
thousand dollars! One would think that a family of three
with an annual income of one hundred and seventy thou-
sand dollars could lay by something for a rainy day, and
Mrs. Eddy did. She took some charity students so that
some reduction would need to be made, but there never
was very much charity in her transactions. It went
hard with a student that did not pay the tuition, for a
lawsuit was frequently brought to compel payment,
which suits she lost in every instance, the judge in one
case deciding that she had not rendered any useful service
for the fee.l
Mrs. Eddy struck a still richer vein of ore in her book
"Science and Health," of which, after the earlier editions,
she herself was the publisher. This book was sold for
three dollars in the cheapest binding and on up to six
dollars for more expensive bindings. Mr. Peabody thinks
the book could be manufactured in those days in large
quantities for fifty cents a copy, yielding a five hundred
per cent profit on the cheapest edition; and Mark Twain,
who was himself a publisher with an unfortunate ex-
perience in the business says: *T am obliged to doubt that
the three-dollar *Science and Health' costs Mrs. Eddy
above fifteen cents, or that the six-dollar copy costs her
1 Mr. F. W. Peabody, of the Boston bar, says that he has examined
the court record in two of these cases. See his Masquerade, pp. 123.
124.
250 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
above eighty cents. I feel quite sure that the average
profit to her on these books, above cost of manufacture, is
all of seven hundred per cent." Our respect for Mrs.
Eddy's financial ability is rising. She made money where
Mark Twain lost it!
How many copies did she sell? The book, we have
seen, passed through nearly ^ve hundred editions before
the publisher stopped numbering them. We are not told
how many copies were published in each edition, but the
total must have mounted up into hundreds of thousands.
Where did Mrs. Eddy find a market for such an enormous
output of a religious book? In her students and in the
membership of her church, every one of whom was ex-
pected and induced by notices and commands whose
meaning could not be evaded to purchase a copy of this
"textbook" of the faith that was of equal rank and au-
thority with the Bible. In the Christian Science Journal
for March, 1897, appeared this remarkable notice:
Christian Scientists in the United States and Canada are hereby-
enjoined not to teach a student of Christian Science for one year,
commencing on March 14, 1897. "Miscellaneous Writings" is cal-
culated to prepare the minds of all true thinkers to understand the
Christian Science textbook more correctly than a student can.
The Bible, "Science and Health with Key to the Scripture," and my
other published works, are the only proper instructors for this hour.
It shall be the duty of all Christian Scientists to circulate and to
sell as many of these books as they can. If a member of The First
Church of Christ, Scientist, shall fail to obey this injunction, it will
render him liable to lose his membership in this church. Mary
Baker G. Eddy.
Can the like of that notice be found in all the religious
literature of the world. Christian and pagan? This
prophet actually stopped the teaching of her faith for
one year in order to reap a larger profit from the increased
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 251
forced sale of her books during this period! She now
included her "other pubhshed works" along with her
textbook in this order and required every member of her
church to circulate and sell as many of these books as
possible, the penalty of failing to do this being excom-
munication from the church! What other prophet or
priest ever did such a thing as this?
But we have not reached the end of this business, and
the worst is yet to come. There was a reason why so many
editions of ^'Science and Health" should issue from the
press. We have seen how the book was always under-
going change, being in a fluid condition. These changes
were often trivial, but Christian Scientists were always
given to understand that they should have the latest
edition! Does the reader not see what this meant?
It meant that every new edition put all the previous
editions out of date, and loyal Christian Scientists had
to get the latest edition of this bible to have the latest
inspired word on the subject of their salvation. A bible
that constantly needs revising, even though it be inspired,
at least has the advantage of always being able to com-
mand a large market among the faithful for each new
revision.
An astonishing instance of how this scheme was worked
occurred when this notice appeared in February, 1908:
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 con-
sider the information there given to be of great importance at this
stage of the workings of animal magnetism, and it will greatly aid
the students in their individual experiences. Mary Baker G. Eddy.
Mr. Peabody tells us that at the time this appeared
252 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Senator Chandler happened to be with him in Boston,
as they were engaged together as counsel in the litigation
then pending in connection with Mrs. Eddy's competency
to manage her affairs. The senator was anxious to see
this edition as he "was particularly interested in keeping
tabs on Mrs. Eddy's mental attitude toward so-called
*animal magnetism.'" Mr. Peabody went out and ob-
tained a copy of the new edition and on opening it at
the page and line found the * 'information" that was of
such "great importance" and "would greatly aid the
students." "It was just two lines," says Mr. Peabody,
"inserted in a blank space at the end of a chapter and
necessitated the change of no other plate of a single page
in the book." This is what they saw: "Christian Scien-
tists, be a law to yourselves, that mental malpractice
can harm you neither when asleep nor when awake."
Whereupon Senator Chandler exclaimed : "What a swindle!
Do you suppose anyone can be of so little intelligence,
who buys that book in consequence of Mrs. Eddy's
notice and reads this paragraph, that he does not feel,
as we feel, that he has been swindled?" And this is Mr.
Peabody 's comment: "Only this and nothing more. It
is senseless, and yet it cost many thousands of Christian
Scientists from three to six dollars apiece to find out,
if they could find anything out, that the Vevelator' had
sold them 'a gold brick.' And even since the edition of
February, 1908, another edition, with only one line added,
has been foisted upon the faithful."^
In the words of Colonel Sellers, with such a book,
"There's millions in it!"
In addition to these main streams of revenue derived
^ Masquerade, pp. 136-138.
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 253
from her college and her book, Mrs. Eddy drained off the
funds of her followers in various subsidiary tributary
streams that helped to swell her flood of gold. She
appeared to be always busy in finding means of making
money and was fertile in cunning schemes and devices
to this end. She took to publishing in the Journal lists
of her Christmas presents, giving the names and addresses
of the donors, thus flattering their pride to find themselves
the recipients of such distinguished mention and honor
and suggesting to others that they should do likewise and
shine with the same glory. These lists grew with the
years in length and variety of gifts, and the *'List of
Individual Offerings" in the Journal for 1889 mentions
thirty-seven articles, consisting of gold-embroidered,
hand-painted, eider-down pillows, pictures, perfumery,
books, a barometer, and so on, concluding with **two
fat Kentucky turkeys," and "hosts of bouquets and
Christmas cards."
She grew bold enough in time to solicit such gifts, and
four days before Christmas in 1889 there appeared in
the Christian Science Sentinel this *'Card":
Beloved: I ask this favor of all Christian Scientists. Do not give
me on, before, or after the forthcoming holidays, aught material
except three tea jackets. All may contribute to these. One learns
to value material things only as one needs them, and the costliest
things are those that one needs least. Among my present needs ma-
terial are these three jackets. Two of darkish heavy silk, the shade
appropriate to white hair. The third of heavy satin, lighter shades
but sufficiently sombre. Nos. 1 and 2 to be common-sense jackets,
for Mother to work in, and not overtrimmed by any means. No. 3
for best, such as she can aflford for her drawing room. Mary Baker
Eddy.
As this request for three tea jackets with particular
directions as to material and color and style appeared on
254 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
December 21, Mr. Peabody maintains that she very well
knew that practically all presents intended for her were
already mailed, and this was a shrewd device for getting
the tea jackets extra. Apparently it was not the literal
tea jackets she wanted, but the money to buy them, as
she stated that *'A11 may contribute to these.'* If "all'*
really did this, she must have received no mean sum of
money by this device.! Of course it is amusing to find
Mrs. Eddy saying that *'One learns to value material
things only as one needs them," but how could she say
this when her whole philosophy was that material things
had no value and were all delusions of "mortal mind" and
the very imps of her devil, "malicious animal mag-
netism"? The truth is that she had a very real and keen
sense of the value of such material things as she wanted,
especially money. Matter in the form of gold was one
demon of "mortal mind" that she never tried to exorcise.
She never claimed that money was a "nonentity" that
was to be "denied" as a "delusion": that would have
ruined her business.
Perhaps the climax of these catchpenny devices or side
lines of her trade was the famous "Christian Science
Spoon" or "Mother Spoon" that she foisted upon her
followers. This was an ordinary silver spoon with Mrs.
Eddy's likeness embossed upon it, together with a
picture of Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy's signature, and the
motto, "Not Matter but Mind Satisfies." It was sold
to the faithful for $5 . 00, which would net her a profit of
several hundred per cent. It was introduced to them
1 For Mr. Peabody's full account of this very peculiar request,
see his Masquerade, pp. 140—143.
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 255
with this announcement and command, which appeared
in the Journal for February, 1890:
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 Scientists shall
not ask to be informed what this motto is, but each Scientist shall
[here the request passes to a commandl 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 G. Eddy.
The above-named spoons are sold by the Christian Science
Souvenir Company, Concord, N. H., and will soon be on sale at the
Christian Science reading rooms throughout the country.
Again we wonder at the mercenary spirit and effrontery
of this thing. Christian Scientists must not let their
curiosity get the better of them so far as to ask what
this remarkable motto is and thereby get the information
free of charge and deprive * 'Mother" of her rightful
profit, but each one **shair' buy his own spoon, and not
one only, but, if he **can afford it," at least a dozen, so
that the whole family and their guests may read each one
for himself this precious bit of inspired wisdom, which
apparently exhales its divine virtue only when it is read
from the silver spoon itself. If "every person on earth"
had hastened to buy this article it would have had a
market immensely beyond that of the magic book and
there would literally have been "millions in it." Did
Christian Scientists swallow this spoon? They did!
And yet they affect surprise and are offended when we
wonder at their gullibility.
There were still smaller catchpenny devices. "Christian
Science emblems," Miss Milmine tells us, "and Mrs.
Eddy's 'favorite flower* were made into cuff -buttons, rings,
brooches, watches, and pendants, varying in price from
256 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
$325 to $2 . 50." Mrs. Eddy's picture was also exploited,
and a copyrighted photograph was introduced and recom-
mended to her followers in a notice which appeared in
the Journal for May, 1899, and which read:
It is with pleasure I certify that after months of incessant toil
and at great expense Mr. Henry P. Moore, and Mr. J. C. Derby of
Concord, N. H., have brought out a likeness of me far superior to the
one they offered for sale last November. The portrait they have
now perfected I cordially endorse. Also I declare their sole right to
the making and exclusive sale of the duplicates of said portrait. I
simply ask that those who love me purchase this portrait. Mary
Baker Eddy.
"This portrait," says Miss Milmine, "is known as the
'authorized' photograph of Mrs. Eddy. It was sold for
years as a genuine photograph of Mrs Eddy, but it is
admitted now at Christian Science salesrooms that this
picture is a composite." Even her photograph was
faked.
How did Mrs. Eddy spend her large income? Nobody
outside of her inner circle seems to know. She contri-
buted to few if any charities, and she gave very little to
her own church or propaganda. She always got others
to furnish the money to publish her book in its early
editions and to build her church, and in general she made
her enterprises pay their own way and then yield her a
large profit. She was not known as being generous and
was generally regarded as being parsimonious and close-
fisted. She knew how to drive sharp bargains to get
money, and then she knew how to keep it. She gave her
son, George W. Eddy, considerable help at different times,
and when litigation was brought in her last days she
settled on him a modest competence. Shrewd in getting
MIND HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CURES 257
and miserly in spending, she hoarded her money and
died leaving a large fortune estimated at over two millions
of dollars, which now appears to be a bone of contention
and a disrupting power in her church. A lawsuit was a
fitting part of her legacy, perpetuating in her death what
pursued her, or rather what she pursued, in her life.
Two millions of dollars derived from teaching a religion
and selling a religious book and various personal me-
mentos! No small achievement that for a woman who at
fifty years of age was unknown outside of a narrow circle
in which she was an unwelcome object of charity and who
was burdened with infirmities and was a nervous wreck.
Along with her other peculiar powers this remarkable
woman had a streak of financial genius. She could turn
her esoteric stock in trade into gold with a magic that
might well excite the envy of many a Wall Street magnate
or great business promoter. But, somehow, making
money and founding a religion do not seem to go well
together. There is an incongruity here that jars upon our
sense of the fitness of things. All the great founders of
religion were poor men, and the One who was above all
had not where to lay his head. Mrs. Eddy will not be
remembered for the money she made, much less for the
way she made it, if she is remembered at all.
The mercenary spirit still clings to Christian Science.
The spirit of its founder did not pass from her church
when she went out of the world, for it is bred in its bone
and pulses in its blood. It is the only religion we know
that is deliberately a system of making money. It has
its thousands of practitioners in its churches whose
business it is to heal people for pay; they are really business
agents of this cult, financially interested in promoting it.
258 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
and in a large degree it is this money-making spirit and
side of Christian Science that keeps it afloat and alive;
its ''science'* would soon sink it. We do not mean to
imply that these practitioners are conscious quacks who
are simply playing on the credulity of people and are in
the business merely for the money that is in it. We
doubt not that Christian Science believers and prac-
titioners are sincere and conscientious as a class. But
none the less they have no proper medical knowledge and
skill, and when they venture outside of certain nervous
ailments and offer general treatment to the sick, they are
dangerous quacks and a menace to any community.
And they know how to charge, too, according to general
belief and experience. The author gained personal insight
into their methods in an instance in which one of them
fastened herself on a family of means and bled them of a
large sum of money, which they paid to get rid of her.
Wealthy patients pay dearly for their treatment. It is
not to be believed that a system of "science and health"
that is based on such ignorance and animated by such a
mercenary spirit can last.
CHAPTER X
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
There are reasons for the rise and rapid spread of
Christian Science. No movement is grounded in pure
irrationaHty, and every religion can give some show of
reason for its faith. We shall briefly indicate some of the
reasons that have given and still give Christian Science
its impetus and prestige.
1. THE APPEAL OF HEALTH
Health is the primary basis of human activity and
happiness, and all the world is in search of it. Disease in
myriad forms sows the very air with its seeds and impairs
the vitality and strength of such multitudes and so
burdens them with weakness and suffering that the quest
for some means of relief and cure is eager and intense
and often pathetic and distressing. The victims of ill
health and disease, especially those that have tried many
means and systems of cure only to be repeatedly and
bitterly disappointed, grow desperate and are willing to
try any remedy that promises relief, however it may be
branded in official medical circles as a quack nostrum.
Disease in general and particularly functional disorders
and depressing nervous ailments are the congenial soil in
which all forms of mind cures and all kinds of quackery
find rich nourishment and grow rank.
Christian Science promises this cure in a quick and easy
259
THE TRUtH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
way, and hence its great attraction to those in ill health
and its special affinity for those of a nervous temperament.
That it does afford genuine relief and even permanent cure
in many such cases has been fully admitted in this study;
and its work is so far good and is the principal attraction
and reason why so many have accepted it and are profuse
in its praise.
As was to be expected and could have been predicted,
it flourishes most prolifically in regions where nervous
disorders prevail as the consequence of climate and as
the concomitants of social conditions of wealth and luxury
and the high tension of city life. This has been pointed
out and strikingly illustrated by Woodbridge Riley, Pro-
fessor of Philosophy in Vassar College, in his work on
* 'American Thought from Puritanism to Pragmatism."
The author here quotes one or two paragraphs as follows :
For an explanation [of the spread of Christian Science] we must
have recourse to the comparison of statistics of the sect with con-
ditions in various parts of the country. The statistics are to be
found in the last federal census; the conditions are suggested by an
interesting, but as yet unpublished map designating the absolute
number of Christian Scientists in the land. A first glance at the
map shoAvs this threefold distribution of the sect: the East, the
Middle West, the Far West. By States this means Massachusetts
and New York; Illinois and Missouri; Colorado and California.
This confirms the official statement that the influence is strong over
comparatively limited areas in the United States. In this threefold
distribution the pathological factor is primarily in evidence, for the
centers of influence are large cities, with their concomitant nervous
disorders, and the health resorts of the mountains and the coast,
where it is natural that groups of invalids and semi-invalids should
welcome any new therapeutic agency. . . Christian Science has
spread largely along the fortieth degree of latitude — the richest pay
streak of our civilization. From their personal appearance and
from the showiness of their churches, the followers of the "scientific
mental therapeutics" are manifestly prosperous. Yet with this
very physical prosperity there goes a spiritual change. As in the
case of those primitive Christian Scientists, the followers of Plotinus
Avho centered in the rich cities of Alexandria and Rome, so these
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 261
modern Neo-Platonists tend to revolt against overprosperity. With
a plethora of wealth they incline to asceticism, and long for a breath
of the upper air of mysticism. In a word, too much of the material
has brought a desire for the immaterial. ^
This distribution of Christian Science is borne out by
the fact that while the Christian churches have only
forty per cent of their membership in cities of 25,000
and over, the Christian Science churches have over
eighty-two per cent of their membership in such cities and
are only exceeded by the Jews who have eighty-eight
per cent in cities. Another fact bearing on the same
point is that while the average female membership in
all denominations is fifty-seven per cent, in Christian
Science churches it rises to over seventy-two per cent,
the highest of all the churches.
The list of churches published in the Christian Science
Journal for December, 1919, also shows that these churches
are congested along the fortieth degree of latitude. The
churches in Massachusetts fill two and one-half columns,
in Illinois four, and in California nearly six columns,
being more numerous in the latter State, especially in
the southern part of it, than in any other on account of
the attraction of its climate to invalids and retired people
of wealth. But when we pass north and south of this
line these churches thin out. Minnesota has one column,
Kentucky has one half and Louisiana only one sixth of
a column. Christian Science has also made little headway
in Canada, the whole country having less than two
columns.
This church feeds on ill health, which of course is not
to its discredit. The promise of relief is its chief allure-
^ Pages 44, 45.
262 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
ment, and in so far as it fulfills the hopes it creates it
is to be commended. But it has been shown that its
results fall far short of its promises, and that it puts
forth claims that are false and offers remedies that are
dangerous and sometimes disastrous. It publishes and
exploits its real or imaginary successes but hides its
failures, and its victims do not care to make public their
experience and retire into silence.
2. THE APPEAL OF COMFORT
A second appeal of Christian Science is its promise of
comfort. People that live in conditions of primitive
civilization where life is a battle with nature and hardship,
danger and daring, are far less sensitive to discomfort
and pain than those that are cradled and nursed in the
multiplying artificial conveniences and luxuries of our
upholstered modern world. Savages seem to be almost
insensible to pain, whereas highly cultured, daintily
coddled souls may be impatient of the slightest irritation
and annoyance. Most of us bear pain badly.
Christian Science is characterized by this unwillingness
to suffer pain. Mrs. Eddy could not stand any discom-
fort and generally had to have any number of people
waiting on her. Her father nursed her in his arms after
she was grown; a special cradle was made for her and her
second husband rocked her as though she were a baby,
taking the cradle along with her at their marriage; the
people that took her into their homes in her wander
years had to pamper her, and in her later years her faithful
ones had to protect her from every annoyance, flatter
her inordinate vanity, minister to her fastidious tem-
perament and tastes and gratify her every whim. This
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 263
spirit in no small degree passed into Christian Science
and in some measure characterizes it to this day. Its
constant aim and effort is to avoid and *'deny" any discom-
fort and to swathe the soul, the *'body" having been
"denied," in the softness of undisturbed serenity. It has
an aversion to all the ills of life, disease and poverty
and sacrifice, because these things are unpleasant. There
is no heroism in its ideas and aims, little of the soldier
spirit of accepting the trials and hardships of life in the
pursuit of high ideals, no adventuring upon the sea of
duty though it be swept by storms, no noble enthusiasm
that triumphs over perils and pains and glories in them as
Paul did; there is no cross to its crown, none of the sub-
lime heroism of Jesus, "who for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising shame."
Christian Science may promise and does give a kind of
comfort, but it is an ignoble kind. It finds its own comfort
by forgetting the discomfort of others. It is largely
oblivious of the sufferings of the world because it does
not believe in the reality of any suffering and thinks
that such delusion is a personal fault. It has no social
gospel and no form of social service. It is terribly signifi-
cant and a damning indictment of Christian Science
that it has no hospitals and general philanthropies be-
cause it does not believe in them. It seems monstrous
that in our modern world with its ever-increasing note of
altruism a set of people should wrap themselves in comfort
and nurse their own souls in ease and deaden their ears
and hush their very houses of worship to all the cries of
poverty! and social distress in the world. Having denied
^ "Poverty is a belief of material lack or material limitation."
T. W. Wilby, What Is Christian Science? p. 163.
264 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
the reality of the material world, it has retired into an
unreal and self-contained world of its own. Its comfort
is self-centered and selfish.
Frank Podmore, a not unsympathathetic student of
Christian Science, throws a searchlight into the heart
of this aspect of the system in the following quotation:
The religion of Christian Science oils the wheels of the domestic
machinery, smooths out business troubles, releases fear, promotes
happiness. But it is entirely egoistic in expression. . . For
Christian Scientists there is no recognized service of their fellows,
beyond the force of their example. . . There are no charities or
institutions of any kind for social service in connection with Christian
Science churches. . . Poverty and sin, like sickness, are illusions,
errors of "mortal mind," and cannot be alleviated by material
methods. If a man is sick, he does not need drugs; if poor, he has
no need of money; if suffering, of material help or even sympathy.
For the cure in all cases must be sought within. The New Religion,
then, is without the enthusiasm of Humanity. It is, in fact, M'ithout
enthusiasm of any kind. We shall look in vain here for spiritual
rapture, for ecstatic contemplation of the divine. There is no place
here for any of the passions which are associated with Christianity,
nor, indeed, for any exalted emotion. There can be no remorse
where there is no sin; compassion, when the suffering is unreal, can
only be mischievous; friendship, as we shall see later, is a snare,
and the love of man and woman a hindrance to true spirituality.
There is no mystery about this final revelation, and there is no room,
therefore, for wonder and awe. Here are no "long-drawn aisles
and fretted vaults"; the Scientist's outlook on the spiritual world
is as plain and bare as the walls of his temple, shining white under
the abundant radiance of the electric lamps, i
Christian Science in its ethics is a form of hedonism.
Having * 'denied" the body, it nevertheless gives much of
its time and thought to this same fictitious body, soothing
it into comfort and keeping it in a pleasant condition.
After all their talk against it, the followers of this cult
appear to be more concerned with the flesh than with the
spirit. It is a shallow gospel that goes little deeper than
1 Mesmerism and Christian Science, p. 282.
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 2Q5
the very body they affect to disown. Christian Scientists
make much of their cheerfulness, exploiting it as though
they had got rid of all worry and were cheerful
above other people, but we know from personal ex-
perience that their cheerfulness is sometimes affected,
kept up as an outer appearance in spite of their inner
state, proclaiming themselves to be perfectly well and
comfortable when they are obviously in pain and are ill
and weak to the point of exhaustion. So their comfort
is sometimes artificial and false, and at its best it is often
a smug self-complacency which we would think would
satiate and nauseate a healthy virile soul. Such was the
reaction of the man who, when asked why he had left
Christian Science, declared that he "got tired of being so
monotonously happy.**
This shallow hedonistic philosophy will not stand the
test of logic and of experience. This world is not a play-
ground and life is not a picnic. Comfort is not the con-
science of the soul. Happiness is not the chief end of
man. While pleasure is a motive that enters widely into
our aims and activities, yet it is not the supreme ideal and
pursuit that fundamentally governs our Hves. Duty is a
star that holds the human soul to its course when pleasure
falls as a meteor out of the sky. In fact, when we do
seek comfort as our immediate aim we are likely to miss
it and meet with disappointment. No people are so apt
to be discontented and miserable as those who make the
pursuit of pleasure the chief business of life. The way
to get pleasure is to forget it. Pleasure is the music
that floats off the harp of life when it is kept in tune and
properly played, and it is our business to attend to the
harp and let the music come of itself; and its music will
266 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
not all be pure harmony and sweet melody, it will not
always soothe us with pleasant songs, for the harp of
life sometimes yields minor chords and is swept with
storms of agony.
God is not simply nursing us in comfort in this world.
He is not merely rocking babies, but making men. The
world is made of sterner stuff and life is confronted with
greater and graver issues than health and comfort.
Health is not holiness. Plato and Socrates, Isaiah and
Paul, Luther and Lincoln never thought of comfort, and
the Son of God was made perfect through suffering and
came to the very culmination and climax of his glory on
the cross.
8. THE APPEAL OF IDEALISM
Christian Science, as we have seen, is a form of idealism.
It is an ignorant and spurious form, as it declares that
matter is a baseless delusion which is to be rooted out of
the mind, whereas philosophical idealism does not deny
the reality of matter but aflSrms its true nature and
existence as a form and manifestation of mind. Mrs.
Eddy appears to have fallen into this mistake as to the
nature of matter according to idealistic philosophy through
pure misunderstanding or ignorance of the subject. And
her position on this point was a needless defiance of
common sense, for her system would have worked better
without this notion, and in fact it was this initial absurdity
that involved her in most of her contradictions and
hopeless confusions. A straight-out system of idealism
or of pantheism can be consistently carried through, but
her system, that was based on the nonreality of matter
and yet had to deal with matter at every point, was
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 267
vitiated by an inner self-contradiction and absurdity that
was bound to wreck it.
But few of the followers of Mrs. Eddy know, any more
than she did, what philosophical idealism is and that her
conception and system of philosophy is ignorant and
absurd. Yet idealism, however false it may be in form,
makes a strong and fascinating appeal to the human
mind. It seems to discard the flesh and appeal to the
spirit, and this strikes a responsive chord in the soul and
wakes up its noblest music. It is true that Christian
Science is inconsistent in that it affects to deny and
despise the flesh and yet in practice it is keen enough in
its appreciation and pursuit of the comforts and satis-
factions of the body and of all material things, especially
money. But the human mind has an immense capacity
for inconsistency, whatever its philosophical or religious
creed, though it is evident that Christian Scientists have
much more than their proper share of this aptitude. But
with all its inconsistencies and impossibilities. Christian
Science strikes the high note of idealism, and this appeals
to this age, if only in reaction to its materialism. This is
one of its attractions and virtues and must be set down to
its credit, though it must also be corrected.
Professor Riley has also noticed this attraction of
Christian Science. On this point he says:
Christian Science as immaterialism has had, as a prepared soil
the previous American idealism. If a mental isothermal line could
be drawn for such a phenomenon, it would begin in Massachusetts,
stretch to that historic projection of New England— the Western
Reserve — and continue on with the latter's prolongation into
Illinois. This, it would likewise be noted, was the path of Puritan-
ism; westward the course of Calvinism took its way, and on this
same path, seeking his audiences among those of New England stock,
268 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Emerson brought to the winners of the West the message that "the
spiritual principle should be suffered to demonstrate itself to the
end."^
We have already dug into the subsoil of Christian
Science, and have found that the system still carries
with it some of the varied and strange forms of idealism
out of which it grew.
4. THE APPEAL OF LIBERAL REVOLT
Christian Science has in no small degree profited by
revolt against conventionalized religion toward liberal
thinking. Orthodox religion is ever in danger of crystal-
Hzing into rigid lifeless forms, or of going to seed and drying
up into empty husks that have little nourishment and repel
some minds so that they revolt from it. We have
noted the fact that nearly all Christian Scientists have
come out of the rnembership or out of the training
of the orthodox churches, and in some degree they
have been carried away by this centrifugal tendency.
They simply lost interest in the old churches and were
ready to be caught by some wind of doctrine that
promised a fresh breeze and breath of air. Mere novelty
has in it an attraction and charm for superficial people
that have no deep convictions and fixed principles.
Again to quote Professor Riley :
The new gospel of mental medicine is also a system of philosophy.
"Hopelessly original," as Mrs. Eddy calls it, the system appeals to
those who are inclined to novelties. Tired of the dry doctrines of
the churches, to most beginners in speculation, unacquainted with
the history of the schools. Christian Science has all the air of dis-
covery. Now such persons, who have, at least, the merit of thinking
1 American Thought from Puritanism to Pragmatism, p. 46.
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 269
for themselves, are found chiefly in cities, and the acknowledged
preponderance of urban over rural adherents is explained by a
third factor, that of freethinking or a liberal attitude toward the
unconventional. In the little town it is notoriously difficult to
break from the dogma of the local churches; it does not approve of
changes in ecclesiastical caste. Freethinking is therefore a potent
factor in the spread of Christian Science. The map of distribution
by States discloses this. Connecticut and New Jersey, with con-
servative colleges like Yale and Princeton, are far below the average
of their liberal neighbors. It is not so in Massachusetts, that
hotbed of heresies; not in Illinois, with its mixture of foreign faiths;
nor in Colorado, early home of woman suffrage; nor lastly in Cali-
fornia, pervaded with esoteric Buddhism and the doctrine of Maya —
of the world of sense as shadow of illusion.!
Though Christian Science is a pretentious and fallacious
system of philosophy that has no standing or respect
in the schools, yet this very aspect of it has been an at-
traction for a certain type of unschooled and superficial
minds. The vague mystic ideas, the strange doctrines,
the claim and appearance of being a new **revelation,"
the peculiar catchwords and phrases of its jargon, and
especially the great swelling, sonorous polysyllables, even
such uncouth words as *'allness" and "somethingness,"
and the rolling, reverberating sentences have a kind of
hypnotic effect, fascinating and attracting minds not given
to careful attention and reflective thought, as bright
electric lights attract swarms of summer flies and moths.
It is a fashionable thing in some quarters to be philo-
sophical and up-to-date in ''new thought'* and use affected
speech, and the high-flown language and esoteric parlance
of this cult have supplied some people with "a long-felt
want." This is the kind of thing that is liked by those
that like this kind of thing.
1 American Thought, p. 45.
270 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
6. THE APPEAL OF RELIGION
The strongest attraction of Christian Science, next to
that of health, is that of rehgion. Man is incorrigibly
religious and his soul will ever crave satisfaction for this
deep need and cry; and if it cannot find, or if it turns
away from, the true bread it will feed on husks. Christian
Science is a religion, and this fact has given it entrance
into many lives. Its very name is artfully contrived to
make a popular appeal. The word "Christian" is in-
tended to declare that it is a form of Christianity, and
it makes a great show of honoring Christ and the Bible.
Many if not most Christian Scientists and the public
in general suppose that it is only another form of the Chris-
tian religion as one denomination differs from another in
some unessential if not unimportant variation. Why,
then, are not its followers Christians, and why not join the
Christian Science church as well as any other church ? The
fact that it is a pantheistic religion that cuts up true faith
and worship by the roots, that it flatly contradicts Christ
and Scripture and boldly brands the Bible when it differs
from itself as a *'lie,"i that it perverts all Scriptural
and Christian words to utterly different meanings and
uses, that it subverts the whole Christian system, is
either unknown or unrealized by Christian Scientists, or
else, if they do understand this, they accept the system
in all its anti-Christian teaching and spirit.
The name **science" is another attractive w^ord, for
what can be more trustworthy and honorable and authori-
tative in this scientific age than *'science"? The fact
that the word "science" in this system, like the word
^ "It must be a lie": Science and Health in its comment on Gen
2:7.
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 271
"Christian," is used in a peculiar sense and is only one
of the characteristic terms of Christian Science jargon,
a sense that is utterly contradictory to and subversive
of the whole system of true science, is again either un-
known to Christain Scientists or else they accept it in
its absurdity.
Mrs. Eddy used these two words, "Christian" and
"science," as floats to buoy up her system, or as wings
to enable it to fly, or as a bait to conceal the true nature
of her mixture of pantheism and spurious idealism and
false science so as to lure and catch unsuspecting followers,
and in this she was exceedingly clever and succeeded
beyond her utmost dreams. Yet in spite of all this
falsity and absurdity Christian Science does appeal to
the religious nature of the soul and affords it some satis-
faction. We do not deny that, as in some degree it does
restore people to health, so in some measure it does
satisfy the religious yearning of the heart. God can get
some divine light to a sincere soul even through the
dense dark medium of an idol, and can get considerable
light through the twilight of pagan faiths into humble
souls. We do not and dare not restrict his grace and
exclude it from any form or profession of worship. We
wish to Christian Scientists all the blessing they can
receive from their faith. But we must judge it by the
standard of truth and Scripture, and so judged we cannot
but believe that at many points the light that is in it
is darkness.
The strongest appeal in the religious theory of Christian
Science is its doctrine of the "allness" of God, which,
excluding its pantheistic implications, in a measure
corresponds with the philosophical and Christian doctrine
272 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
of the immanence of God. The orthodox view of God
has sometimes made the impression of a distant absentee
deity, remote from human affairs and especially from
our personal needs, as he sits on some far-off throne and
rules over the great transcendent laws and activities of
the universe. Such a God is too inaccessible for us to
feel his presence, and the very thought of such a vague
and shadowy being may give us a chill and leave us
cold. Mrs. Eddy teaches the "allness" of God, the one
and only Being that includes us all and in whom we live;
and his very presence excludes evil and fills us with good.
This brings God near and makes him warm, wraps us
around with his Spirit and makes him all in all in our
thoughts and lives. There is a great truth and immense
help and attraction in this view of God, and, next to the
appeal of health, it is the chief value and asset of Christian
Science.
This is simply the Scriptural and Christian doctrine
that in God "we live, and move, and have our being,"
which we shall emphasize later. Unfortunately, however,
Christian Science as usual perverts this truth into pan-
theism that fuses man with God, obliterating all real
distinction between them, and effaces the personality
of God, degrading him to "Principle," and then God,
in any religious sense and value, is gone, and both God
and man are merged and lost in the vast dark abyss of
impersonal fate. In the world of religion there is no
harder stone and no more poisonous serpent than this view.
Christian Science thus has a fivefold appeal and attrac-
tion of health, comfort, idealism, novelty, and religion,
and these are the grounds of its popularity and success.
We have admitted the element of truth in each of these.
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 273
but also shown how this system has perverted them into
dangerous error, though it has sugar-coated them so as
to conceal their poison and deceive the ill-informed and
unwary.
6. THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Prophesying is perilous. Mark Twain tried his hand
at the business on Christian Science, and he fared badly.
Though he belabored Mrs. Eddy and all her works so
savagely and sarcastically, yet her cult had a kind of
fascination for him and he returned to it again and again
in writing the articles that make up his book. He was
under a spell or obsession as to Christian Science and
thought it was destined to become one of the great re-
ligions of the world. Writing in 1899 he prophesied as
follows :
It is a reasonably safe guess that in America in 1920 there will be
ten million Christian Scientists, and three millions in Great Britian;
that these figures will be trebled in 1930; that in America in 1920
the Christian Scientists will be a political force, in 1930 politically
formidable, and in 1940 the governing power of the Republic — to
remain that, permanently. And I think it a reasonable guess that
the Trust (which is already in our day pretty brusque in its ways)
will then be the most insolent and unscrupulous and tyrannical
politico-religious master that has dominated a people since the
palmy days of the Inquisition. ^
This prophecy, that seemed extremely extravagant
and even open to ridicule when it was made, has utterly
failed. Instead of there being thirteen millions of Christian
Scientists in this year of 1920, there is probably not the
one-hundredth part of this number, and, as we have seen,
the flood is apparently at or near its high-water mark
1 Christian Science, p. 72.
274 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
and may be on the point of subsiding. What Mark
Twain says about the Trust being autocratic is true
enough, as we have also seen, but no one has any fear of
its dominating the government and mastering the world.
Such autocracy contains within itself the seeds of revolt
and of its own dissolution, and this process appears to
be now going on.
A significant fact in the history of Christian Science
is that the system early began to break up into divisive
groups and sects and has already been prolific in an as-
tonishing number of them. It is so lacking in the co-
herency and binding unity of rationality and attracts to
itself so many peculiar people of aberrant minds and
emotional temperaments and erratic individuahties, it
contains so many seeds of internal disharmony and dis-
solution, that it is sure to develop its own dissent and
disruption. The terrible tyranny of Mrs. Eddy served
to hold it together against all rebellion in her lifetime and
still acts as a suppressive and unifying influence, but it
could not wholly prevent revolt and secession in her day
and is likely to grow less effective in the future as her
personality recedes and others come forward.
Mr. Horatio W. Dresser, in his recent "History of the
New Thought Movement," 1919, gives an account of
many of these divisive movements. Speaking of "Science
and Health," he writes as follows:
If we are to see any purpose at all in the publication of that book,
we may venture to say that it had value in arousing people out of
their materialism. The results of the past forty years apparently
justify this statement, for to those of us who have known former
Christian Scientists as they came one by one out of their radical
into more reasonable views it has been plain that something like
"Science and Health" was needed to set matters in motion. The
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 275
first reaction was against the "revelator" and the claims made in
behalf of a supposed "revelation." The second was against the
theory contained in "Science and Health," which had served for
the time to provoke thought. Just as the earlier readers of Mrs.
Eddy's book took fundamental exception to it, so increasing numbers
have departed from her organization to set up for themselves,
meanwhile keeping such ideas as had proved of value. In due
time the last Christian Scientist will probably take leave in the
same way. In retrospect people will then wonder why such a
reaction did not occur long before. i
The author has already given an account of the schisms
of 1881 and of 1888, and of the secession of Mrs. Wood-
bury and of Mrs. Stetson. 2 Mrs. Stetson, after her ex-
pulsion from the Christian Science church by Mrs. Eddy
as an increasingly dangerous rival, set up an establish-
ment in her own home in New York, where she is still
carrying on a system of mental healing.
Out of Christian Science has now come the very thing
that Mrs. Eddy feared and took every precaution and
desperate means to prevent, namely, division and rival
sects. It was to stop the very possibility of this that she
made her textbook *'the Pastor over The Mother Church"
"on this planet,'* without the possibility of change until
the end of time, and would not allow her readers to say a
word of their own in the church service, or any officer,
lecturer, or member to write or speak on the subject of
Christian Science except as such statements were sub-
mitted to and approved by her own board in Boston.
She also tried, as we have seen, very rigidly to control and
restrict the books she permitted her followers to read.
Nevertheless, in spite of all such precautions and re-
strictions, out of the bosom of Christian Science have
1 Pages 127, 128.
2 Chapter VIII, Section 2.
^76 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
issued sect after sect that are now practically rival
denominations.
Among these new forms and organizations of mental
healing are bodies that call themselves "Reformed Chris-
tian Science," which was founded in 1912, "Divine
Science," and "Science of Being." But their number and
names are legion, and space would not permit even a
catalogue of their names. These separated bodies
generally revolt against the absurdities and crudities of
Mrs. Eddy, especially her claim to divine inspiration and
revelation, her theory of the nonreality of matter, her
pantheism, and her other ignorant and nonsensical notions.
Mr. Dresser quotes Mr. F. L. Rawson, of London, "whose
teaching is almost identical with Christian Science without
the claims ordinarily made in behalf of Mrs. Eddy," as
saying:
To-day there are many millions of mental workers, containing
some fifty or sixty schools. Only four or five of these work on the
basis that Jesus did, namely, by turning in thought to God. The
remainder work in the same way as the sorcerers and witches of the
past and the black magic workers and hypnotists to-day, namely,
with the human mind. This means that they use one or other of
the five different forms of hypnotism, all of which are more or less
harmful, not only to the patient, but to the practitioner. ^
Many of these movements have been led by individuals
who became possessed of and obsessed with some peculiar
idea or strange notion and founded a society or started a
magazine to propagate it; and many of these mind healers
went off into "theosophy," "Babism," and all the wild
and weird dreams of Hindu pantheism and Oriental
"thought." Of course many of these strange cults were
1 History, p. 265.
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 277
short-lived and were dead almost before they were born,
strangled by their own absurdity, but they help to swell
the number of these variations and splinters of Christian
Science. These movements and societies have sprung up
most thickly along the track that Christian Science
followed, the fortieth degree of latitude, "the richest
pay streak of our civilization," running from Massachu-
setts through Illinois and Colorado to California, through
the regions of wealth and luxury and leisure, of cities and
high-tension living, of nervous affections and health
resorts, and they have been most prolific in "California
the natural home of New Thought." An astonishing
number of ephemeral magazines were born to live their
little lives in propagation of these new ideas, bearing such
titles as The Metaphysical Magazine, Practical Ideals,
Mind, Unity, The Revealer, The Healer, The Truth
Seeker, Eternal Progress, Power, Harmony, and Im-
mortality. *'0f the sixty or more miscellaneous publi-
cations," says Mr. Dresser, "standing for various phases
of the movement only a very few remain. Meanwhile,
some of the leading publications, such as Unity, Nautilus,
and Master Mind, have grown in circulation and have
taken the place of dozens of magazines which once ex-
isted."!
All these movements have sprung up in some degree as
rivals of Christian Science and have grown at its expense.
They have occupied the same soil and fed upon the same
sustenance and drawn nourishment and strength away
from it. Christian Science is being checked and devi-
talized if not devoured by its own children. Protes-
tantism against it has broken out in its own bosom in
1 History, pp. 315, 316.
278 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
many forms and reforms, and revolt may yet prove its
ruin. Disintegration is at work.
Besides all this opposition springing up within itself.
Christian Science is encountering increasing criticism from
without. At first and for many years it attracted little
attention and was practically let alone as only another
harmless vagary by a visionary dreamer that would soon
pass away if left to itself. Serious people did not take it
seriously. But when it did not wither and die but grew
vigorously and multiplied prolifically and spread widely,
observers and students of it began to "sit up and take
notice." Metaphysicians and psychologists, ministers and
physicians and lawyers, professors and newspaper reporters
and magazine writers set about the work of investigating it
and writing articles and books in which they exposed its
real origin and doctrines and practices. These revelations
were startling to the general public and were surprising if
not disillusionizing news even to many Christian Scien-
tists. This literature against the system has accumu-
lated and is still growing. It is based on facts that are
the result of patient and honest and thorough investi-
gation, conducted in a purely scientific spirit, and it is
backed up with documents, photographs, facsimiles,
affidavits, and the testimony of many witnesses who had
personal knowledge of the matter.
It is difficult to think that Christian Science can per-
manently withstand all this light and logic. Truth gets
the better of error in the long run. Irrationality in time
chokes and strangles itself. The more error and absurdity
which any theory tries to carry, the more certainly will
it break down and go to pieces. Christian Science is
surely so burdened with absurdities that it cannot per-
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 279
manently stand up. It may last a long time, but its
doom will overtake it. It cannot fool even all Christian
Scientists all the time. Even now the light of truth and
common sense is slowly penetrating it.l
Mrs. Eddy took every precaution to guard her followers
from this opposition both from within and from without.
She tried to inoculate them so thoroughly with her own
ideas and to protect them so rigidly from external con-
tagion that they would be immune from all danger of in-
fection. No such censorship as she established and en-
forced was ever enacted and maintained by any despotism
political or ecclesiastical. But such prohibition cannot be
made effectual in this day of the press. Books and other
literature are multiplying all the while, and are everywhere
sowing the seeds of destruction to this system. All
science and psychology, as well as true religion and sound
morals, are against it. This knowledge is ever spreading
silently and multitudinously as snowflakes fall out of the
sky. It is sown in the very air. No one can arrest
the spread of this knowledge any more than he can stop
the wind or saber the sunlight to pieces. Some of this
light cannot be prevented from penetrating the minds of
Mrs. Eddy's followers and even from filtering through
the windows of Christian Science churches. The marble
walls of The Mother Church itself may not be wholly
opaque! Heresy has broken out time and again in the
very bosom of this church, and it may do so again in a
more destructive form. Christian Scientists still have
^ In a personal letter to the author from Horatio W. Dresser, he
states that as a result of the Boston lawsuit he finds some of the
leaders of Christian Science inquiring into the facts of the origin
and history and teaching of the system in a way that is significant.
280 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
eyes and ears in spite of their denial of them as mere
mortal delusions, and they would have to shut them and
stop them to escape this pervasive and insinuating knowl-
edge. They cannot keep it from their children and make
sure of the next generation; in fact, the next generation
is pretty sure to revolt against the whole system. Every
Christian Science church has its lapsed members, many
have turned back from it who have seen the light and let
their common sense rule them once more. Many who
once turned from Christ to Christian Science have dis-
covered how false it is to his teaching and spirit and that
it has no right to his name.
How long this system will last, no one knows, but the
author feels confident that in time, it may be a long time,
it will wither away. It cannot live in the world of our
modern science and philosophy. It is at war not only
with the Christian Church but equally with the common
school and college and university. If it is right, then all
our scientific knowledge is wrong; but if our orthodox
science is going to stay, then Christian Science must go.
These two are not agreed but are diametrically and hope-
lessly opposed to each other, and they cannot walk to-
gether or live in the same house or breathe the same air.
Horatio W. Dresser, who has known Christian Science
intimately from its early history and knows its present
status as few other students know it, says of Mrs. Eddy
that * 'increasing numbers have departed from her organi-
zation'' and that *'in due time the last Christian Scientist
will probably take leave in the same way. In retrospect
people will then wonder why such reaction did not occur
long before."
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 281
7. SOME RECENT MIND-HEALING MOVEMENTS
Among the many mind-healing movements that have
spHt off from Christian Science or have sprung up in
its wake two are worthy of special mention. These are
not forms of or secessions from Christian Science in origin,
but they are of affiliated nature.
(1) The first of these is the movement known as
*'New Thought." The name lends itself to ironic criticism
if not ridicule as being neither "new" nor "thought,"
and the infelicity of the title has been felt and acknowl-
edged by some of the leaders of this school, but it is
a survival out of a number of competitors such a-s "Higher
Thought" and "Advanced Thought."
The movement dates back to Quimby and thus sprung
from a common source with Christian Science, though
it has none of the philosophic vagaries and absurdities
of Mrs. Eddy's cult. Rev. W. F. Evans taught some of
its ideas, and other leaders of the school were at times
more or less closely associated with Christian Science,
but the movement in time swung clear of the latter
system and has no relations with it. The first writer
to use the capitalized phrase "New Thought" was Dr.
W. F. Holcombe in 1889. In 1895 Mr. C. B. Patterson
published a volume entitled "What Is the New Thought?"
Henry Wood has been a prolific author on the subject,
his "Symphony of Life" appearing in 1901, and Ralph
Waldo Trine has been another voluminous writer, his
well-known "In Tune with the Infinite" appearing in
1898.
The most prominent leader and teacher, however, of
New Thought is Horatio W. Dresser, Ph. D., who is the
author of many books on the subject and whose recent
THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
"History of the New Thought Movement" is the fullest
and most authoritative account of this school. This
volume shows how widespread is this movement, what
are its leading ideas, how various are its manifestations,
and how abundant is its literature. The fundamental
idea of New Thought is the primary reality and supremacy
of the inner spiritual life as dominant over the outer
life of the body and the world. As to mind healing the
system emphasizes the power of the mind over the body
and uses suggestion, autosuggestion, and affirmation as
the means of intensifying the recuperative energies of
the body and eradicating disease. It has no part nor lot
with Christian Science in denying the reality of matter
and of sin and suffering and is in sympathy with Chris-
tianity.
The author asked Dr. Dresser to give a brief account of
the teaching of this movement and he has contributed to
this volume the following statement :
WHAT THE NEW THOUGHT STANDS FOR
The New Thought is a practical philosophy of the inner life in
relation to health, happiness, social welfare, and success. Man as a
spiritual being is living an essentially spiritual life, for the sake
of the soul. His life proceeds from within outward, and makes for
harmony, health, freedom, efficiency, service. He needs to realize
the spiritual truth of his being, that he may rise above all ills and
all obstacles into fullness of power. Every resource he could ask
for is at hand, in the omnipresent divine wisdom. Every individual
can learn to draw upon divine resources. The special methods of
the New Thought grow out of this central spiritual principle. Much
stress is put upon inner or spiritual concentration and inner control,
because each of us needs to become still to learn how to be affirmative,
optimistic. Suggestion or affirmation is employed to banish ills and
errors and establish spiritual truth in their place. Silent or mental
treatment is employed to overcome disease and secure freedom and
success. The New Thought then is not a substitute for Christianity,
but an inspired return to the original teaching and practice of the
gospels. It is not opposed to the churches, but aims to make religion
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 283
immediately serviceable and practical. It is not hostile to science
but wishes to spiritualize all facts and laws. It encourages each
man to begin wherever he is, however conditioned, whatever he may-
find to occupy his hands; and to learn the great spiritual lessons
taught by this present experience.
It will be noted that Dr. Dresser affirms the New
Thought is not a substitute for Christianity but a return
to the gospels, and other writers of this school are quoted
to the same effect in his ''History." **The clear province
of the New Thought school of writers and teachers is not
the abrogation of any Christian principles, but rather to
give a better interpretation to those principles, consonant
with truth, righteousness and health." Yet New Thought
is affiliated with * 'Liberal Christianity" and has small
affinity or sympathy with orthodox doctrines. It denies
or at least greatly minimizes original sin and affirms the
the natural divinity of man and aims at arousing and
raising his inner resources to their highest power. It is
not a doctrine and system of divine redemption but of
human self-realization.
The New Thought movement finds expression in several
magazines as well as in a large literature, and it has
become organized in many local associations, usually
called New Thought "centers" or "churches," in the
National New Thought Alliance and in the International
New Thought Congress. It flourishes chiefly in the
"richest pay streak of our civilization" that follows the
fortieth degree of latitude from Massachusetts to Cali-
fornia.
(2) The Emmanuel Church Movement was inaugurated
in 1906 in Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston by
its rector, Dr. Elwood Worcester, and several associ-
ates, especially Dr. Samuel McComb and Isador H.
284 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Coriat, M. D.^ The object of the movement was and is
to meet Christian Science on its own ground and restore
to the Christian Church the healing ministry which
Christianity practiced in the first three Christian centuries.
The movement, so far from disowning or disparaging the
place of medicine and the physician in the treatment of
disease, employs these agencies and does not at all attempt
to treat all disease independently of them or by moral
means alone; but it also emphasizes the part the mind
plays in the healing of the body and utilizes them in its
church clinics
In answer to a request for a brief statement of his
theory and practice Dr. Worcester sent the following:
We have gone so far in our denial of the soul as a factor of health
and disease that our treatment of the sick has become almost
entirely material from which we try to exclude religion altogether.
If we look no further than the success of the treatment and the
recovery of the patient, this is a great mistake. William James said:
"I regard as one of the most certain facts of medicine that prayer is
beneficial to the sick." The two parts of human nature cannot be
separated so rudely without great harm to both patient and physician.
In every form of disease the moral condition of the patient counts
for much, as is proved by the fact that defeated armies always
suffer more from wounds and illness than victorious armies, while in
almost all forms of psychical and nervous disturbance, physical
treatment, apart from ensuing wholesome conditions of life, counts
for little and psychical and spiritual treatment alone can be counted
on for results. As Emmanuel has done more than any other Church
in Christendom to follow the example of the early Church in a manner
consistent with the science and culture of our times, I feel privileged
to speak freely on this subject.
1 These three men were the joint authors of their well-known book
entitled Religion and Medicine: The Moral Control of Nervous Dis'
orders^ 1908, which is still one of the most important contributions
to this subject. The same authors and two other associates have
since brought out jointly or singly the following books which belong
to the literature of this school: Abnormal Psychology, What Is
Psychoanalysis? The Christian Religion as a Healing Power, The
Living Word, The Re-making of a Man, and Religious Aspects of
Scientific Healing.
THE APPEAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 285
Our work has been going on steadily for nearly fourteen years.
During this time a great procession of people have passed through
our church, coming from all Christian bodies, including a good
many Roman Catholics and also a good many Jews. We have
done this work at the cost of a good deal of time and effort without
any charge, though we have expected persons of means to contribute
to the work in order that we might be free to extend it to the poor,
and to provide them with methods of treatment which are frequently
costly, such as the care of specialists, sojourns in hospitals, sanatoria,
etc., the payment of oculists, dentists, etc. In short our work is
based on common sense. For many years we maintained a depart-
ment for the treatment of victims of alcohol and morphine and
other habit-forming drugs, but since prohibition has become a fact
our services are much less frequently called on for this type of case.
Our work has grown slowly and is represented in several other
cities by good and worthy men. We have confined our work to
the field of the neuroses and psychoses as this is the field in which
all forms of psychotherapy are to be regarded as independent
remedial agencies, but we have frequently cooperated with physicians
and surgeons in bringing relief to their patients in facilitating their
recovery, helping them to an improved moral and spiritual condition.
No exception can be taken to this work from either a
medical or a religious point of view, and it sets a worthy-
example for more service of this kind in all our churches.
It should be remembered, however, that our churches are
doing this work in a large way through hospitals and other
public and private remedial agencies that are so generally
supported by the churches and that are predominately
Christian institutions and are virtually extensions of the
Christian Church. Religion and medicine, that once were
united in one person and institution, are now divided and
distributed among specialists, and yet both the minister
and the physician remain Christian and are doing the
work of Christianity. Dr. Worcester himself recognizes
and emphasizes this fact in one of his sermons as follows :
It cannot be said that Christians in modern times have neglected
the care of the sick. In this country and in every progressive
country throughout Christendom splendid free hospitals have been
286 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
erected, well supplied with devoted nurses and furnished with
every equipment for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Young
physicians frequent these hospitals as part of their medical education.
Great and famous physicians and surgeons serve in them, without
compensation and with a most unselfish expenditure of time and
effort.
There were no such institutions for the treatment of
disease in ancient times or in the early Christian
centuries, and we may venture to assert that Christianity
through these and other institutions as well as through
its direct ministry of helpfulness and cheer is doing im-
mensely more for the sick and the poor in our day than it
did or could do in its early history. Yet there is a call
that the churches should give more attention and service
to this field of human need, and Emmanuel Church has
made an important contribution to this problem.!
1 For a "Review of the Emmanuel Movement," giving "Points
in Favor of the Emmanuel Movement," and "Points Against the
Emmanuel Movement," see E. E. Weaver, Mind and Health, pp.
291-310.
CHAPTER XI
OLD TRUTHS NEWLY EMPHASIZED
We should always learn from the opposition. It may-
be protesting against some error in our position which
we should correct, or emphasizing some aspect of truth
which we have obscured or lost. As there is always a soul
of good in things evil, so is there always some truth in
error which gives it its vitality and growth and which we
should see and seize and use. A movement, however
wrong it may seem or be, always has some ground of
justification, otherwise it could not move or even stand
up. Rebellions are usually reactions against wrong which
they are trying to set right. Reforms are restorations.
Reformations are re-formations. We sometimes must go
backward in order to go forward. When we have lost old
truths we should recover them and make them new. We
should not be in the least ashamed or reluctant to rec-
ognize and accept any truth in the possession of an op-
ponent which we do not have, but should be quick and
glad to adopt and proclaim it.
Christian Science must have large elements of truth
or it would never have attained its present standing and
wide acceptance, and we have been conceding this fact
all the way through this study. There are *'lost truths"
in our Christianity which we need to recover and restore
to their full force and fruitfulness. The old truths we
are about to emphasize have not been wholly lost, but
287
288 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
they have in some degree fallen into the background and
are not receiving their due emphasis, and Christian Science
has seized and claimed them as its peculiar principles
and then capitalized them as its popular and powerful
assets. But they really belong to orthodox Christianity
and always have belonged to it in their true form and force,
though at times they have been obscured in the con-
sciousness of orthodox Christians. They are set forth
in the Bible all the way through it, and we should cultivate
and exemplify them in their fullest degree and finest
fruitage.
What are some of these old truths that should be
newly emphasized?
1. THE SUPREMACY OF THE SPIRITUAL
Materialism is one of the greatest dangers of our life
to-day. We do not refer to philosophical materialism,
such as the crass doctrines of Buchner and Haeckel, for
these are now so generally discredited in the world of
thought that there is scarcely any so poor as to do them
reverence. But practice may linger long after the theory
of it is gone, and the practical materialism of the bodily
life still persists and waxes lusty. The undue emphasis
and value put upon business and bread, wages and profits,
wealth and leisure and luxury, fashion and pleasure,
position and power, whet up our bodily instincts and
appetites to their keenest edge and make them fierce and
aggressive. Probably more thought and effort are now
given to the upkeep and comfort of the body than ever
before. Life with many is a mad craving and search for
pleasure, a constant itching for a new thrill. Multitudes
would turn life into a picnic and moving-picture show
OLD TRUTHS NEWLY EMPHASIZED 289
with no higher thought than sensuous excitement. The
soul is thus being drowned in a sea of sensations and the
spirit sunk in the flesh.
The materiahstic hfe has been greatly intensified by
our modern science and marvelous machines which have
had the effect of enormously extending and multiplying
and refining our physical powers. The human body has
outgrown the human soul, and from one point of view
this is what is the matter with the world to-day. We
are now armed with contrivances and powers by which
we stride across continents and seas, take to the air on
wings, prowl around, like terrible sharks, under the ocean,
flash our thoughts and the very tones of our voice along
telegraphic and telephonic wires and shoot them on wire-
less waves through the ether around the globe. Our
great guns and high explosives have extended the reach
of our arms to sixty or seventy miles and multiplied the
punch of the human fist a million times. Our poisonous
gases enable us to emit a deadly breath over wide areas
that blasts every living thing. The human body has
thus become, so to speak, a huge armored steel tank
that goes lumbering along spitting fire and a leaden hail
of death and trampling everything under its juggernaut
wheels, with a little soul rattling around in it. Our science,
like Frankenstein, has created a frightful monster which
is now getting beyond our control and is crushing us in
its steel arms. Steam and electricity, oil and gas, physics
and chemistry are now our nimble servants and are making
us masters of the earth and sea and sky.
This overdeveloped human body also has an enormous
appetite for wealth and pleasure and power. It is insati-
able in its greed and is consuming everything in its way.
290 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
It is whipping up our life into a hot pursuit and passion
for wealth, sowing our industrial order with competition
and injustice and strife, corrupting our politics, turning
our social life into a mad whirl of pleasure and under-
mining our morals. It has just devastated the world like
a fearful monster breathing out fire and slaughter in a
great war. It still threatens to upset the world and wreck
our very civilization as it strides over ancient landmarks
of law and order, right and duty, and crushes all things
under its iron hoofs.
Science and industry have also multiplied the comforts
and luxuries of life so that they have wrapped the body
in a swathe of softness which breeds effeminacy in the
soul. Our fathers labored to conquer their hard con-
ditions of life and bequeathed to us easy conditions that
are now conquering us. They struggled in the bitter
battle with scarcity which yet disciplined them in plain
living and high thinking, but now we must struggle with
the corrupting materialism of abundance which debilitates
our nerves, relaxes our vigor and virtue, multiplies our
temptations, and weakens our wills. They wrestled
against flesh and blood, but we must wrestle with spiritual
hosts of wickedness and with vast doubts of which they
never dreamed.
This development of the human body was inevitable
and has in it as great power for good as for evil, but the
development of the soul has not kept pace with it and
has fallen under its power. Our character and conscience
are not equal to the control of our iron muscles and steel
nerves throbbing with electricity. The material is mas-
tering and smothering the spiritual, and we must now
reverse this relation and put spirit on top, conscience
OLD TRUTHS NEWLY EMPHASIZED 291
in control. All these material forces and powerful ma-
chines are splendid agencies of good when they are sub-
ordinated to the spirit.
The cure for and safeguard against this dangerous
materialism is the recovery and emphasis of the spiritual.
The soul is the primary and supreme reality and value
of life, of which the body is only the shell and servant.
The body is a good slave when kept in subjection, but a
terrible master when it gains the ascendancy. Matter
in some degree, controls the mind, but in an indefinitely
greater degree mind masters matter. Biology is more
and more coming to the conclusion that mind is the
architectonic principle that builds the organism of the
body. The brain does not secrete mind, but mind carves
the brain. We have seen how at times the mind may be
kindled into such intensity that it will burn right through
the body and melt and mold it to its purpose. The
philosophy of idealism asserts this supremacy of the
spiritual, and we should translate this true idealism into
life and conduct.
The call of the age and of the hour is for a revalua-
tion of our goods, a replacing of the emphasis of life.
A truth that we need to have stamped on all our
standards and burnt into our consciousness and conscience
is, "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of
the things which he possesseth." We need to transfer the
standard of value and the emphasis of life from the
outer to the inner, from outer wealth to inner worth,
from outer position to inner disposition, from the
flesh to the spirit. Peace and power have their true
throne and scepter in the soul and not in the world.
The soul should have large and rich inner resources
^92 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
that are its real treasure and satisfaction, joy and
happiness, so that it will carry its own comfort around
with it and be independent of external circumstances
and vicissitudes. It should have within itself a well
of water springing up in a pure stream of life that has
its source deeper than the world and is careless of its
changing weather. The soul should be kindled into
such a glow of thought and aspiration that it will shine
through the flesh and transform and transfigure it. We
should be so saturated with the spirit that it will purify
and refine our vision, and then we shall see the whole
world steeped in its splendor. "It is the transcendental
or mystical sense, the sense of the Infinite, Idealism, call
it what you will, that gives to life its glory and dignity.
It gives an added sense of beauty to the world in which
we live; it tends to deepen our spiritual experience; it
makes us an instrument of good to our fellow men; above
all it gives us peace for which the whole world is seeking."^
By all the means of grace and education and by all
the resolute strivings of the will we should arouse and
inspire ourselves to "walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit." Thus shall we recover the idealism which
Christian Science to some extent has capitalized and re-
store it to its real place and interpret it in its true meaning
and develop it into its full power and fruitage.
2. THE GOSPEL OF HEALTH
"Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit.?" Then the proper care of "our brother the body,"
as Saint Francis called it, is a part of our Christianity.
The body is the physical basis of our life, even of our
1 Oscar Kuhns, The Sense of the Infinite, p. 261.
OLD TRUTHS NEWLY EMPHASIZED 293
highest and finest spiritual life. "A man cannot be a
saint," it has been said, "a poet, or a lover unless he has
recently had something to eat." Soul and body are
closely interwoven into a vital unity and mutually and
profoundly affect each other. Religion therefore has
always been deeply interested in the health of the body,
and, in fact, religion and medicine orginally were united
in one science and art. A surprisingly large part of the
ministry of Jesus had to do with the healing or the feeding
of the body, twenty-six out of his thirty-three miracles
being of this nature. "Gifts of healings" were possessed
by the early Christians, and the exercise of this power
was a prominent feature in the Christian life of the Apos-
tolic Church.
At times theories and practices have prevailed that
viewed the body as a hindrance to religion — not as "the
brother" but as the "ass" of the soul — to be subjected
to all manner of ascetic deprivations and even abuse.
But we have swung back to saner views and are rather in
danger of going to the opposite extreme. "Health" and
"wholeness" and "holiness" are only three variant
spellings of the same word, and this fact indicates that
these three things have close common roots and relations.
"A sane mind in a sound body" is a true ideal. Sickness
has some connection with sin, either directly by reason of
personal violation of the laws of health, or indirectly
through heredity or contagion, or bad sanitary and social
conditions and racial history. Pains are penalties, and
often this fact stares and stabs us in the face, though at
other times the connection may be hidden under one or
several generations; even every bitter tear drop has in it
some sediment or tincture of sin. And yet also "pain is
294 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
friendly," as Henry Wood said, meaning that it is a
friendly warning or a means to greater good. Even the
deadly microbe is a divine messenger for us to resist with
the protective armor of vigorous health or to master and
thereby rise to higher dominion, for "He hath made every
thing beautiful in its time." We are challenged to meet
all the germs and forms of disease, not by "denying"
them, but by recognizing their reality and penetrating
into their condition and cause and overcoming them by
the divinely appointed means. It is therefore a religious
and Christian duty to get rid of illness and have that
wholeness of body that is health arid contributes to the
holiness of the soul.
In fulfilling this duty there are appropriate and neces-
sary means to be used. Primary and fundamental among
these is obedience to the laws of health: the proper use of
food and exercise, work and play, rest and recreation, sleep
and fresh air and sunshine. These means also include
medical science and art, for medicine is just as natural
and necessary for disease as food is for health. In fact,
medicine is a special kind of food which meets certain
abnormal needs of the body as ordinary food meets its
normal needs. Quinine and calomel are as truly products
of nature and good gifts of God and as certainly have
their uses for the body as wheat and rice and strawberries.
The body in health is like a watch in good order: it then
needs only regular winding or renewal of its energy,
which corresponds with normal food for and care of the
body. But when the watch has a broken spring or is
otherwise out of order it requires the watchmaker, who
corresponds with the physician and surgeon. The
physician, then, is as divinely appointed to mmister to
OLD TRUTHS NEWLY EMPHASIZED 295
the body in sickness as is the clergyman to minister to
the soul in its sin. The two offices, which were once
united in the same person, are now separated and each
assigned to a specialist, but they both have a divine
mission and we are to use the services of both in the
restoration of the body and the soul from sickness and
sin.
The duty of health includes as a vital means the influ-
ence of the mind on thh body. Mind healing, as has all
along been admitted and seen, is a powerful curative agent.
We should therefore have faith in the physician and in the
means he uses for our recovery from disease; and we
should especially strive to arouse and exercise a hopeful
spirit and masterful will that will react on the body and
help to drive out disease and generate health. The
practice of cheerfulness and hope stimulates the curative
and healthful forces of the body and raises the level and
increases the volume of its vitality. *'A cheerful heart
is a good medicine" (Pro v. 17:22).
The gospel of health, in common with the gospel of
holiness, includes prayer and faith in God. God is
sovereign in the material as in the spiritual world and
can answer prayer for recovery from disease and restora-
tion to health as certainly as he can atiswer any other
prayer. We do not say that he will do this by a miracle,
but he can do it by the use of means, including the physi-
cian's skill and medicines, and by his immediate control
of the laws of nature without violating them. If man
can in some degree control and cure disease, cannot God
do the same in an infinitely more effective and perfect
way? We do not need to understand just how God
answers prayer in the case of disease, but this kind of
296 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
prayer puts no undue or special strain on our faith, and
we should unhesitatingly exercise it in childlike con-
fidence. It does not follow, of course, that God will
answer every such prayer by restoring the sick, for he
may have wisely and kindly appointed otherwise. But
we have a religious and rational right to appeal to him in
sickness, and then leave the result with him.l
We cannot here go into the question of how and how
far the Church can undertake faith healing methods. We
sympathize with the Emmanuel Movement of Dr. Wor-
cester, but think such methods should be carefully
guarded. It is not well for the minister to undertake
work that lies beyond his field and special training, and
he should know better than to intrude into the sphere of
skilled medical art. Yet the Church can and should
emphasize the duty of being well and can help to enforce
the use of the means to this end and especially of right
living and of the holiness that is so vitally connected with
health. Churches are also now employing physicians and
nurses as part of their ministry, especially among the poor.
It is the special ofiice of the Church to enjoin and
practice faith and prayer in connection with disease and
to raise all life into harmony with God. Religion is
sanitation of the body as well as sanctification of the soul,
1 The Report of the English "Clerical and Medical Committee on
Spiritual Healing" made in April, 1914, the committee consisting of
ten eminent clergymen and ten eminent medical authorities, says
that they "desire to express their belief in the efficacy of prayer,"
and that "they consider that spiritual ministration should be recog-
nized equally with medical ministration as carrying God's blessing
to the sick," and they add, "Too often it has been forgotten that
health, bodily and mental, is capable of being influenced for good
by spiritual means." P. 15.
OLD TRUTHS NEWLY EMPHASIZED 297
and by fulfilling its duty more efficiently in this field the
Christian Church will render another form of service
which rightly belongs to it, but which Christian Science
has sought to appropriate as though it were its own
peculiar possession. "And the God of peace himself
sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and
body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Thess. 5:23).
S. THE DUTY OF CHEERFULNESS
To be saved is not to be sad. Some doctrines and prac-
tices of religion have given the impression that it is.
Asceticism reduced the body to the lowest terms in order
to raise the soul to the highest power. And there is some
truth in this theory. The body should always be kept
in subordination to the soul, and it may be well at times
to subject it to special discipline. Puritanism seemed to
think that there was something divine in discomfort.
Pleasure in all its forms and degrees was thought to be
dangerous, and the only way to be safe was to be miserable.
A heatless church in winter was supposed to be a means
of grace. The Sabbath especially was made a day
of restriction and harshness. Worldly activities and
thoughts were banned, and the day was given over to
religious exercises. To laugh or play was held to be a
desecration of the sacred day, and sometimes the im-
pression was given that even to smile was a sin. Re-
ligion is rightly associated with reverence, but simply to
look solemn is not to be sanctified. A long-faced visage
is no proof of piety. John Foster long ago exposed this
species of sanctimonious cant in his celebrated essay
298 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
"On Some Causes by which Evangelical Religion had been
rendered unacceptable to Men of Cultivated Taste."
When we open the Bible we do not find this ascetic,
somber, depressing religion, but the religion of cheerful-
ness. "Serve the Lord with gladness" is a voice that
rings through the Old Testament, and the New Testament
is equally a book of joy. Joy was the first note in the
angel's song at Bethlehem, and the very word "gospel"
means "good news." Of Jesus himself it is said that he
was "anointed . . . with the oil of gladness above thy
fellows," that is, he was the gladdest man and most
jubilant optimist that ever lived. Paul, writing farewell
words to the Philippians and summing up and empha-
sizing his most important message, says: "Finally, my
brethren, rejoice in the Lord." Then a little later he
says: "Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say. Re-
joice," thus iterating and reiterating this injunction and
giving it a threefold repetition and emphasis. Joy is the
very message and music of salvation. If we believe in
God we shall have abiding confidence and hope and cheer
in all conditions and in the darkest hour. God is not a
God of gloom, but of sunshine and blue sky, flower blos-
som and bird song. If we catch the light of his face it
will make our faces shine. A truly sanctified soul is the
sweetest soul, full of peace and happiness.
Cheerfulness can be cultivated. At this point the power
of the mind over the body is again manifested, and the
mastery of the will over the states of the soul and over
its circumstances asserts itself. By simply looking sad
we can feel sad and make others feel sad and can even
make ourselves cry and shed copious tears. But by
willing to be cheerful and putting on a pleasant smile,
OLD TRUTHS NEWLY EMPHASIZED 299
the heart can be quickened, gloom can be dissipated,
and lively spirits will diffuse themselves through the whole
soul and body. The practice of cheerfulness will in time
beget a cheerful disposition and wreathe the face In smiles.
Character carves the countenance. Our very face has
been molded by all our thinking and feeling and *'is the
result," says Victor Hugo, "of a multitude of mysterious
excavations." The face of Moses shone when he came
down from communion with God on Sinai, and Jesus was
transfigured on the mount when his divine glory was
unloosed and permitted to stream through his flesh and
steep it in splendor. In a weaker degree we may be
molded and stamped by oiu* habitual thoughts and moods
until the inner peace and hope and cheer transfigure and
shine through the face.
A soin*, grumbling, morbid, miserable Christian is a
self-contradiction. Piety has no affinity with pessimism.
The way to get rid of such an evil spirit is to forget it.
It can be banished by an act of will and by being busy in
doing good. Work crowds out worry. Let us learn to
see the bright side of things and cherish a cheerful spirit.
Much of this morbid depression is due to a self-contained,
selfish life. When we shut ourselves up within our own
hearts we grow stagnant like a foul pool; but when we
send our life outward in streams upon other lives like a
fountain we keep pure and sweet. Let us sink the roots
and springs of our life deep into God and live in his fellow-
ship, and his blessedness will become our gladness. **Why
art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou dis-
quieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet
praise him. Who is the health of my countenance and my
God" (Ps. 42:11).
300 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Christian Scientists make a point of ''denying" worry
and being cheerful. Many have doubts whether they
succeed in acquiring this grace better than other people,
and personal experience with them has not removed these
misgivings. But they have no monopoly of this grace or
special means of acquiring it, and the deepest secret and
source of peace and cheerfulness is not in "denying" any
of the realities of the world, but is faith in God in Christ.
As we enter more fully into fellowship with him, his Spirit
flows into us and fills us with his peace, and then we have
a rational reason for and an unfailing spring of blessedness.
"And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the
which also ye were called in one body ; and be ye thankful"
(Col. 3:15).
4. THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD
There is a certain fascination about pantheism, and its
charm appears to be due to the fact that it brings God
near to us. A distant or absent God is fatal to human
interest in him and to real religion as it puts him beyond
our pale and reduces him to a cold proposition. But
pantheism brings him near and immerses us in his im-
mediate presence and warm life. The fatality of pan-
theism, however, is that it brings God too near and merges
man and God in one common impersonal abyss and fate,
and this last state is worse than the first.
The truth and attraction of pantheism are found in
Christian theism in their full force and value without any
such fatal defect or excess. The Bible brings God very
near to us and yet not too near. It declares that God is
not far from any one of us but is nigh us, even in our heart,
so that we do not need to ascend into heaven or descend
OLD TRUTHS NEWLY EMPHASIZED 301
into hell or fly to the uttermost part of the earth to find
him. Jehovah God created man in his own image and
breathed into him his own divine breath. God is spirit
and man is spirit, and thus they are of the same funda-
mental nature and have deep common faculties and
affinities which are the ground of their fellowship and of
all religion. The divine immanence and the whole system
of idealism is expressed in Paul's profound saying, *'In
him we live, and move, and have om' being." The
Scriptures are pervaded with the doctrine of the divine
immanence which makes the creation a visible mani-
festation of his presence.
**God is here" was a saying of Henry Wood, and it is a
truly Christian saying. The practice of the presence of
God means that we cherish and realize a sense of his
presence in all things. The conception of nature as an
enormous mass of matter and mighty machine interposes
an opaque obstruction between God and us, but the
Hebrew conception of nature as the immediate presence
and will of God brings him near. Then the "stormy
wind" is his **will," and the heavens a dome of many-
colored glass through which his glory streams. *'Earth's
crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire
with God." From this point of view we see the world
saturated with God and we breathe his breath. The laws
of nature are the laws of God's own life which we share
as it pours through us. We then feel in nature a presence
that disturbs us with a joy and have a sense
Of something far more deeply interfused.
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns.
And the round ocean and the living air
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
302 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Not only Wordsworth, the poet of nature, but all the
great poets and prophets and mystics have had this
sense of the Infinite that immerses the human spirit in
God, puts a *'new splendor on the grass," brings heaven
near, and "makes all the earth enchanted ground."
Providence is the presence of the immanent God in all
things working out the divine plan and purpose. Prayer
makes his presence more vital and vivid as it brings us
into conscious personal communion with him and admits
us into the secret place of the Most High, where we are
still before him and are calmed into peace and receive
suggestions of his will and come forth strong and brave
to do and dare in his service.
This divine immanence or rnutual indwelling comes to
its most intimate and finest expression in the relation of
Christ and Christians. Christ gave the very formula of
such mutual immanence in his prayer, "As thou, Father,
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us.'*
"Abide in me, and I in you." Paul elaborated the doctrine
that Christ is in Christians, and Christians in Christ. "It
is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me." More
and more we learn to do all things as in his presence and
for his sake, so that whether we eat or drink, buy or sell,
pray or play, we do all for the glory of God. While not
always conscious of his presence, yet we grow into a dis-
position and habit of mind and heart that enable us to do
his will as by an act of conscious obedience and fellow-
ship. This divine immanence is the truth which Christian
Science has exploited under the crude idea and name of
the "allness of God," but which is of the very substance
and heart of Christian faith.
In proportion as we realize this divine immanence shall
OLD TRUTHS NEWLY EMPHASIZED 303
we see the world ablaze with God and be able to live in
the light of his face. We shall then know that all things
are the expression of his wisdom and will and are
working together for our good. Our life will merge in
his life in fellowship and obedience, love and joy. The
flesh will melt into the spirit, and we shall live in the
spirit. The world will dissolve into the splendor of God,
and in his light we shall see light. As Dante expresses it,
we shall live "where God immediate rules."
The supremacy of the spiritual, the gospel of health,
the duty of cheerfulness, and the practice of the presence
of God are four principles that Christian Science has
emphasized and in a degree capitalized and popularized,
and in so doing it has rendered the world and the Christian
Church a good service, in spite of the absurd philosophy
and perverted Scripture which it has associated with
them. It is these truths and not its errors that have
given the system its vitality and growth. The Christian
Church has not lost but it has in a measure obscured these
truths so that they have not stood out as conspicuously
and as helpfully in its teaching and practice as they
should. Not a few people in our churches have more or
less consciously felt this lack and have gone to where
they thought they could find these satisfactions and
where in a measure they have found them. This is why
thousands have left our Christian churches and why on
many an avenue their costly and generally well-filled
Christian Science edifices stare us in the face. Those
churches must be meeting some need which we have
failed to satisfy. We should profit by our failure and set
about restoring these truths to their full force and fruit-
fulness. It is useless for us to berate or ridicule or even
304 THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
expose the fallacy and falsity of Christian Science unless
we can ourselves do the work that it is doing. There is
little hope of winning back the followers of this faith by
mere logic, however convincing to us it may be, but if we
can fully meet the needs that they are satisfying with
their poor bread, then the fallacy and folly of their system
will in time cause it to wither. These truths and satis-
factions are inherent in the very substance of Christian
faith where they are found in their rationality and purity
unmixed with the error of Mrs. Eddy's cult. We have let
Christian Science grow at the expense of the Christian
Church because we have not done justice to these truths,
and it has been able to give the impression that they are
its peculiar possession and power. They have belonged
from the beginning to Christian doctrine and living, and
the church must show this and give them their rightful
and full place and power in its teaching and life.
The author's task is done. He has endeavored to tell
the truth about Christian Science in a fair and not un-
kindly spirit, setting down naught in prejudice and
affirming nothing that is not written in the records and
backed up with trustworthy evidence. He would not
rob anyone of any genuine comfort that may be derived
from this faith, but the truth should be told though it
may evoke indignant criticism or give temporary pain.
And the truth in time will prevail and bring forth the
peaceable fruits of righteousness. He has laid bare the
nature of this system and uncovered its foundations, and
its origin and history and doctrines and doings do not
commend it. As a form of religion it is not worthy of
OLD TRUTHS NEWLY EMPHASIZED 305
acceptation, and we do not believe it can last. We turn
from it with relief to escape from its unreality and ab-
surdity to Him who is the Way, and the Truth, and the
Life. These little human schemes of salvation that have
swarmed along the path of the Christian centuries all
have their brief day, but he is the same yesterday, to-day,
and forever. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but his
words shall not pass away, and not one jot or tittle of his
truth shall fail.
INDEX
Alcott, A. Bronson, 16.
Arens, Edward J., 46, 176.
Asceticism, 297.
Atonement, Mrs. Eddy's doc-
trine of, 104, 105, 170, 171.
Babism, 276.
Bageley, Miss Sarah, 34.
Baker, Abigail, mother of Mary,
22.
Baker, Albert, brother of Mary,
24, 25, 30.
Baker, Mark, father of Mary.
22, 24, 27, 28, 30.
Baker, Mary, see Eddy, Mrs.
Mary Baker.
Barry, George W., 41, 81.
Benson, Robert Hugh, quoted,
91, 147.
Berkeley, 15, 117, 150.
Bible, The, see Scripture.
Body, and soul, relations of,
223ff, 289ff, 298.
Bowne, B. P., 147.
Brown, Lucretia L., 45.
Browning, quoted, 156.
Biichner, Friedrich, 288.
Buckley, Dr. J. M., 230, quoted,
241, 242.
Cabot, Dr. Richard C, quoted,
239, 241.
Carlyle, 81.
Carpenter, W. B., 224.
Carroll, H. K., quoted, 163,
220, 221, 222.
Cassiodorus, 225.
Celsus, Roman medical au-
thority, 225.
Chandler, Senator, quoted, 252.
Channing, W. E., 15.
Cheerfulness, duty of, 297ff.
Cheny, Russell, 28.
Chesterton, G. K., quoted, 154.
Children, Christian Science treat-
ment of, 107. 108, 152, 155,
205, 241, 244.
Christ, Jesus, Mrs, Eddy's doc-
trine of, 126, 169; his teaching
as to miraculous cures, 23 Iff;
as an optimist, 298; indwell-
ing in Christians, 302; the
final Truth and Way, 305.
Christianity, relation of Chris-
tian Science to, 166ff; 270,
271, 280.
Church, The Christian Science,
founding of, 174ff; dissensions
in, 178flf; dissensions in The
Mother Church, 186ff; or-
ganization of, 188ff; despotism
of the Manual of, 189ff,
branch churches, how or-
ganized and controlled, 197ff;
worship in, 209ff ; membership
of, 219ff.
Clapp, Mrs. Catherine O., 70,
71; 81.
Clarke, James Freeman, 15.
Coriat, Dr. I. H., his connection
with the Emmanuel Church
Movement, 284.
Corner, Mrs. Abbey H., student
of Mrs. Eddy, 180.
Craft, Hiram, 33.
Craft, Mrs. Mary, 33.
Crosby, Mrs. Sarah, 68.
Crosse, Mrs. Sarah, editor of
the Christian Science Journal,
180.
Cures, Miraculous, have they
ceased? 231ff.
Gushing, Dr. Alvin M., 59-61.
Cutten, George Barton, quoted,
229.
Dante, quoted, 303.
307
308
INDEX
Darwinism, Mrs. Eddy's sum-
mary of, 141.
Davis, Andrew Jackson, 18.
Death, Mrs. Eddy's doctrine of,
111, 125, 153, 154.
Disease, Mrs. Eddy's theory of
healing, 115ff, 120, 132, 234;
true healing of, 232, 294.
Dowie, John Alexander, 228,
230.
Dresser, Horatio W., quoted,
62, 63, 74, 75, 222, £74, 275,
277, 279-280; leader of "New
Thought" movement, 281ff.
Dresser, Julius A., his book on
Christian Science, 13, 60, 61;
his relation to Quimby, 62,
63; 73-75.
Eastman, Dr. C. J., 29-50.
Eddy, Asa Gilbert, third hus-
band of Mrs. Eddy, marriage
to Mrs. Glover, 39; death of,
48 49* 249.
Eddy, Dr. E. J. Foster, Mrs.
Eddy's adopted son, 52, 53,
181, 249.
Eddy, George W., Mrs. Eddy's
son, 28-30, 256.
Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker G.,
her books, 6-9; authorizes
Miss Wilbur's Life, 9, 10;
relation to Berkeley, 15; life
of, 22-57; birth and parentage,
22; childhood experiences and
schooling, 21-27; her hys-
terical attacks, 23, 26, 27;
marriage to G. W. Glover,
27, 28; relations with her son,
28-30; as a medium, 30, 31;
marriage to Daniel Patterson,
second husband, 31; divorced
from Dr. Patterson, 32; visits
Quimby, 32; begins practice
of healing, 33; wander years,
32-36; at work in Lynn, 36-
47; writes "Science and
Health," 37; removes to
Boston, 37; glimpse into her
classroom, 38; marriage to
Asa Gilbert Eddy, third hus-
band, 39; her obsession as to
"M. A. M.", 42-47; organizes
her church and Metaphysical
College, 47; life and work in
Boston, 47ff; relations with
Calvin A. Frye, 50, 51; adopts
Dr. E. J. Foster as her son,
52, 53; leaves Boston, 54; re-
tirement and closing years,
54ff; her death, 56; her claims
as to her discovery of
Christian Science, 58ff; her
visits to Quimby, 65ff; her
tributes to Quimby, 66, 67;
proof that she derived her
teaching from Quimby, 68ff;
her denial of such dependence,
72ff; the Quimby manuscript
she used, 77ff; employs Rev.
James Henry Wiggin as her
literary reviser, 86ff; claims
to divine inspiration, 94ff ; her
doctrine of prayer, 103, 104;
her "interpretation" of The
Lord's Prayer, 104; her doc-
trine of atonement and the
Eucharist, 104-106; her doc-
trine of marriage, 107ff, 159ff,
171; her denial of matter, 112,
120, 124, 127, 149ff, 168ff;
her doctrine of spiritualism,
llOff; of death. 111, 125, 153,
154; her pantheism, 112, 115,
121, 125ff, 136ff, 156ff, 166ff;
her theory of "mortal mind,'*
112ff, 120, 134, 150ff, 168ff;
her theory and fear of "animal
magnetism," 42, 51, 52, 112ff,
175ff, 205; her theory of
medicine, 114flF; of physiology,
1 17ff ; of man, 120ff ; her answer
to objections to Christian
Science, 126ff ; her teaching as
to obstetrics, 134; her bound-
less credulity, 141; identifies
herself with the "woman"
INDEX
309
in Revelation, 141, 142; her
teaching, 149ff; relation of
her teaching to Christian
doctrines, 166ff; her eschatol-
ogy, 172; the founding of her
church, 174ff; her troubles in
her church, 178ff; her quarrel
with Mrs. Woodbury, 181ff;
with Mrs. ^ Stetson, 183ff;
her dictatorial control of her
church, 193fi"; her censorship
of literature, 199ff; her church
service, 209ff; her "Fruitage"
of healing, 233ff; her merce-
nary spirit, 245ff; her bogus
"Metaphysical College," 248,
249; her catchpenny devices,
252ff; her unwillingness to
suffer pain and fastidious
desire for comfort, 2G2; her
fear of divisions in her church,
275; rival sects of her system,
276ff; elements of truth in
her system, 287ff.
Edwards. Jonathan, 15,
Emerson, 15, 16, 150.
Emmanuel Church Movement,
283ff; 296.
Eschatology, Mrs. Eddy's, 172.
Etymologies, Mrs. Eddy's, 25,
90, 91, 124.
Eucharist, The, Mrs. Eddy's
doctrine of, 105, 106, 171.
Evans, Warren F., 18; his teach-
ing and relation to Quimby,
64ff; 281.
Faith Cure, Mrs. Eddy's denial
of, 1 15ff ; yet her own principle,
129, 234; kinds of, 227ff.
Ferrier, Professor James F.,
quoted, 150.
Fetishism, affinity of Christian
Science with, 133.
Foster, John, 297.
Fox sisters, 20.
Frothingham, O. B., 15.
Frye, Calvin A., relations with
Mrs. Eddy, 59-61; 87.
Glover, G. W., Mrs. Eddy's
first husband, 27, 28.
Gnostics, 155, 165.
God, the practice of the presence
of, 300ff; the immanence of,
301ff; see Pantheism.
Goddard, Dr. Henry H., on
efficacy of prayer in disease,
233, 241.
Gray, Judge Horace, 45.
Greenbaum, Mr. and Mrs. Leon,
their revolt against Christian
Science despotism, 208, 209.
Haeckel, Ernest, 288.
Hale, Edward Everett, 87.
Harris, Thomas Lake, 18, 19.
Hart, Dean of University of
Denver, quoted, 148.
Healing, Mrs. Eddy's theory of,
115ff, 120, 129ff; faith healing
her principle, 131; mind heal-
ing in general, 223ff; kinds
of, 227, 228; miraculous, has
it ceased? 231ff; cases of
Christian Science healing ex-
amined, 233ff; proper means
of, 294.
Health, the gospel of, 292ff;
duty of, 295ff.
Holcombe W. F., "New
Thought" writer, 281.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 16.
Huber, Dr. John B., 241.
Hugo, Victor, quoted, 299.
Human Life, journal, 9.
Hume, David, 149.
Hutchinson, Dr. Woods, 226.
Hutton, R. H., 224.
Hygiene, Mrs. Eddy's rejection
of, 118, 129.
Hymns, Christian Science, 21 Iff;
Parody on "Rock of Ages,"
213.
Idealism, philosophical, ex-
plained, 14; Mrs. Eddy's mis-
understanding of, 122, 149-
151, 266ff; true, 291, 292.
Immanence, The divine, 300ff.
310
INDEX
James, William, on the eflBcacy
of prayer, 284.
Joy, the Bible a book of, 298.
Kennedy, Richard, meets Mrs.
Eddy, 36, becomes her part-
ner, 36, 37: falls under her
condemnation, 43, 44; testi-
mony as to Mrs. Eddy's
pantheism, 158, 159; 175,
176; 195.
Kuhns, Oscar, quoted, 292.
Ladd, Professor G. T., quoted,
173.
Lea, Charles Herman, his book
on Christian Science, 12.
Longfellow, 16.
Lotze, Hermann, 149.
McClure's Magazine, 8, 9.
McComb, Rev. Dr. Samuel,
his connection with the Em-
manuel Church Movement,
283, 284.
Magnetism, Animal, 19, 27;
"M. A. M." 42ff; in Boston,
51, 52; Mrs. Eddy's doctrine
of, 112ff; 175ff; 205.
Man, Mrs. Eddy's doctrine of,
112, 120, 121, 158, 169.
Manichaeans, 155.
Marriage, Mrs. Eddy's doctrine
of, 107ff, 159ff, 171.
Mars, Gerhardt C, his book
on Christian Science, 11;
quoted, 147.
Marshall, H. R., 224.
Marsten, Francis E., quoted,
162, 165, 166.
Materialism, Mrs. Eddy mired
in, 146; practical, 288ff.
Matter, Mrs. Eddy's theory of,
112, 120, 124, 127, 149ff,
168ff.
Medicine, Christian Science
theory of, 114ff; use of Scrip-
tural, 232; natural and nec-
essary, 294.
Mesmerism. 19, 113, 175, 176,
179. See Magnetism.
Metaphysics, Mrs. Eddy's, 114fl.
Milmine, Georgine, her Life of
Mrs. Eddy, 8, 9; quoted 20,
24, 26, 27, 34, 45, 50, 52, 5Q,
77, 81, 85, 86, 89, 90, 93, 159,
176, 177, 178, 185, 186, 199,
237, 255, 256.
Mind, "Mortal," Mrs. Eddy's
doctrine of, 112, 120, 124,
150ff, 168ff,
Mitchell, Dr. Weir, 226.
Moll, Dr. Albert, quoted, 224;
241.
Mormonism, affinity with Chris-
tian Science, 19.
Moulton, Dr. T. G., quoted, 212.
Newhall, Mrs. Armenius, 33.
Newhall, Miss Elizabeth, 81.
Newman, John Henry, 212.
"New Thought," 281ff.
Nicolaitans, 156, 166.
Nixon, W. G., 53, 54.
Noyes, Dr. Rufus K., 48, 49.
Osier, Sir William, quoted, 230.
Paget, Stephen, his book on
Christian Science, 12; quoted,
147, 237; his examination of
Christian Science cures, 240ff .
Pain, Mrs. Eddy's theory of,
112, 152; use of, 293, 294.
Pantheism, Mrs. Eddy's, 112,
115, 121, 125ff, 136ff, 139,
156ff, 166ff, 172, 272, 300.
Parker, Theodore, 15.
Patterson, C. B., "New
Thought" writer, 281.
Patterson, Dr. Daniel, Mrs.
Eddy's second husband, 31,
32.
Patton, Francis L., his judg-
ment of Mark Twain's "Chris-
tian Science," 12, 13.
Paulsen, Friedrich, 149.
Peabody, Frederick W., his
book on Christian Science,
12; 46; quoted, 48, 49; on
relations of Mrs. Eddy and
Calvin A. Frye, 51; 77, 98;
INDEX
311
quoted, 161, 163, 182, 183,
237, 248, 249, 251, 252, 254.
Physiology, Mrs. Eddy's theory
of, 117ff.
Plato, 149.
Pleasure, Mrs. Eddy's theory of,
112. 152, 153; hedonistic pur-
suit of, 265, 288. ^
Podmore, Frank, his book on
Christian Science, 13; quoted,
264.
Polk, Dean W. M., quoted, 147.
Powell, Lyman P., his book on
Christian Science, 9; quoted,
15, 46; 77, 83, 91, 92, 163, 164.
Poyen, Charles, mesmerist, 19,
20, 27, 61, 78.
Prayer, Mrs. Eddy's doctrine
of, 103, 104; her "inter-
pretation" of The Lord's
Prayer, 104; her doctrine of
prayer pantheistic, 157, 158,
170, 204, 205, 213; Mrs.
Eddy's travesty of The Lord's
Prayer, 214; efficacy of prayer
in curing disease, 233, 284,
295ff, 302.
Principle, Mrs. Eddy's use of,
see Pantheism.
Providence, 302.
Purrington, William A., quoted,
241.
Quimby, George A., son of
P. P., 74.
Quimby, Phineas Parkhurst,
reader of the Bible and
Berkeley, 15; interested in
mesmerism, 20; his life and
teaching, 61ff; relations with
Mrs. Eddy, 65fF; his death,
68; his manuscript used by
Mrs. Eddy, 77ff.
Rawson, F. L., quoted, 276.
Riley, Professor Woodbridge,
on the geographical distri-
bution of Christian Science,
260-262; quoted, 267ff.
Royce, Josiah, 149.
Rydberg, Viktor, quoted, 43,
144.
Sanborn, Dyer H., 24, 25.
Sanborn, Mahala, 28.
Schofield, Dr. A. T., 226; quoted,
227, 228, 230.
"Science and Health," making
of the book, 77ff; editions of,
80ff; Mark Twain's critical
examination of, 84flF; who
wrote the book? 84ff; claims
as to its divine inspiration,
94ff; contents of the book,
102ff; its lack of order and
its endless reiteration, 102ff;
claim that reading it will cure,
132, 133, 229, 236; opinions
of the book, 147ff; repetitions
in, 149; its use in Christian
Science church service, 216ff;
profit on the book, 249fF; a
purpose it may have fulfilled,
274.
Science, Christian, truth and
error in, 4-6; literature of,
6-13; the subsoil of, 14-21;
a spurious form of idealism,
15, 122, 149ff, 266ff; affinity
with Shakerism, 17, 18; with
Mormonism, 19; Mrs. Eddy's
claims as to its discovery,
58ff; her statement of its
fundamental propositions,
114ff; its pantheism, 125
136fl', 156ff, 166ff ; Mrs. Eddy's
answer to objections to, 126ff,
its cruelty to the sick and
suffering, 130ff, 243ff; affinity
with fetishism and devil wor-
ship, 133; its teaching, 149ff;
its perversion of Christian
doctrines, 166ff; the incon-
gruity of its name, 173; its
church service, 209ff ; its cures,
233ff; its mercenary spirit,
245ff; its appeal of health,
259ff ; ^ of comfort _ 262ff ; its
hedonism, 264ff; its appeal
312
INDEX
of idealism, 26Cff ; its appeal of
liberal revolt, 270ff; its re-
ligious appeal, 270ff ; the
future of, 273ff; divisions and
rival sects in, 275ff; growing
opposition to, 278ff; its war
against Scripture, science and
common sense, 280; elements
of truth in, 287ff.
Scripture, Mrs. Eddy's use of,
106, 107, 124, 137ff, 171ff.
216ff.
Senses, The, Christian Science
view of, 145, 146, 155, 172.
Shakerism, affinity of Christian
Science with, 17, 18.
Sin, Mrs. Eddy's doctrine of,
104, 134, 153, 155ff, 158, 169ff.
Smith, Rev. Charles M., 54.
Smith, Joseph, founder of Mor-
monism, 19.
Soul, and body, relations of,
223ff, 239ff, 298.
Spirit, Holy, Mrs. Eddy's doc-
trine of, 107, 126, 169.
Spiritualism, 20; Mrs. Eddy's
belief in and practice of, 30,
31; her doctrine of, 110, 111.
Spofford, Daniel H., student of
Mrs. Eddy, 38, 39;condemned
by Mrs. Eddy, 44, 45, 46;
114, 175, 176, 195.
Stanley, Charles, student of
Mrs. Eddy, 158, 159.
Stetson, Mrs. Augusta E., 154;
her rival church in New York
and expulsion from TheMother
Church, 183ff; 191, 192, 195;
quoted, 208; her own system
of healing, 275.
Sturge, Miss M. Carta, quoted,
148.
Suggestion, Hypnotic, 227.
Surgery, Christian Scientists not
to attempt it, 131.
Testament, Expositor's Greek,
quoted, 232.
Tilton, Mrs. Abby, sister of
Mrs. Eddy, 35, 36.
Toplady, Augustus, 212.
Townsend, Luther T., his chal-
lenge to Mrs. Eddy, 238, 239.
Transcendentalism, in New Eng-
land, 15-17.
Trine, Ralph Waldo, "New
Thought" writer, 281.
Truth in Christian Science,
259ff, 287ff; summary of, 303.
Tuke, Dr. D. H., 226.
Twain, Mark, his book on
Christian Science, 12; his
critical examination of
"Science and Health", 84ff;
on Mrs. Eddy's use of the
name "Mother Mary," lOOff;
his characterization of the
Manual of The Mother
Church, 190, 191, 192, 193;
on Mrs. Eddy's profits, 249,
250; on the future of Christian
Science, 273ff.
Unitarianism, 15.
Voltaire, quoted, 172.
Walcott, Mrs. Julia, 33.
Warfield, Dr. B. B., 230, 231;
on counterfeit miracles, 233.
Watts, Isaac, 212.
Weaver, E. E., on the Emmanuel
Church Movement, 286.
Webster, Captain, 33.
Wentworth, Charles O., 70.
Wentworth, Horace, 34; his
affidavit as to Mrs. Eddy,
69-70.
Wentworth Mrs. Sally, 34, 69,
81.
Wesley, Charles, 212.
Wheeler, Mrs. James, 33.
White, Andrew D., quoted, 46.
Whittier, 212.
Wiggin, Rev. James Henry, his
testimony as to Mrs. Eddy's
dependence on Quimby, 75,
76; Mrs. Eddy's literary re-
INDEX
313
viser, 86ff; dismissed by Mrs.
Eddy, 92, 93; his opinion of
Christian Science, 93, 94.
Wilbur. Sybil, her Life of Mrs.
Eddy, 9-11; quoted, 47.
Wilby, Thomas W., his book on
Christian Science, 12; quoted,
263.
Wood, Henry, "New Thought"
writer, 281; quoted, 294, 301.
Woodbury, Mrs. Josephine, C,
quoted, 165, 177; her separa-
tion from Mrs. Eddy, ISlff;
195, 199.
Woolcott, Rev. P. C, quoted,
148.
Worcester, Rev. Dr. Elwood,
his account of the Emmanuel
Church Movement, 283ff, 296.
Wordsworth, quoted, 301.
Worship, Christian Science,
209ff.
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