Lynn, February 15, 1866.Mr. Dresser:"Sir,—I enclose some lines of mine in memory of our much loved friend, which perhapsyouwill not think overwrought in meaning:othersmust, of course."I am constantly wishing thatyouwouldstep forward into the place he has vacated. I believe you would do a vast amount of good, and are more capable of occupying his place than any other I know of."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 bedalone, andwillwalk; 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'tyouhelp me? I believe you can. I write this 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 me if you will undertake for me if I can get to you?..."Respectfully,"Mary M. Patterson."
Lynn, February 15, 1866.
Mr. Dresser:
"Sir,—I enclose some lines of mine in memory of our much loved friend, which perhapsyouwill not think overwrought in meaning:othersmust, of course.
"I am constantly wishing thatyouwouldstep forward into the place he has vacated. I believe you would do a vast amount of good, and are more capable of occupying his place than any other I know of.
"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 bedalone, andwillwalk; 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'tyouhelp me? I believe you can. I write this 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 me if you will undertake for me if I can get to you?...
"Respectfully,"Mary M. Patterson."
The poem by the lady destined to become Mrs. Eddy, author ofScience and Health, was published by her, with her name attached, under the caption of
"Lineson the death of Dr. P. P. Quimby,who healed with the Truth that Christ taught, in contradistinction to all Isms.""Did sackcloth clothe the sun, and day grow night,All matter mourn the hour with dewy eyes,When Truth, receding from our mortal sight,Had paid to error her last sacrifice?"Can we forget the power that gave us life?Shall we forget the wisdom of its way?Then ask me not amid this mortal strife—This keenest pang of animated clay—"To mourn him less: to mourn him more were just,If to his memory 'twere a tribute givenFor every solemn, sacred, earnest trustDelivered to us ere he rose to heaven—"Heaven but the happiness of that calm soul,Growing in stature to the throne of God.Rest should reward him who hath made us whole,Seeking, tho' tremblers, where his footsteps trod."Mary M. Patterson.
"Lineson the death of Dr. P. P. Quimby,who healed with the Truth that Christ taught, in contradistinction to all Isms."
"Did sackcloth clothe the sun, and day grow night,All matter mourn the hour with dewy eyes,When Truth, receding from our mortal sight,Had paid to error her last sacrifice?"Can we forget the power that gave us life?Shall we forget the wisdom of its way?Then ask me not amid this mortal strife—This keenest pang of animated clay—"To mourn him less: to mourn him more were just,If to his memory 'twere a tribute givenFor every solemn, sacred, earnest trustDelivered to us ere he rose to heaven—"Heaven but the happiness of that calm soul,Growing in stature to the throne of God.Rest should reward him who hath made us whole,Seeking, tho' tremblers, where his footsteps trod."Mary M. Patterson.
The complete identity of Mrs. Mary M. Patterson with Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy hasbeen fully established by the highest Christian-Science authority in the world—Mrs. Eddy herself. In a letter dated March 7th, 1883, addressed to the BostonPost, she said:
"In 1862 my name was Patterson, my husband, Dr. Patterson, a distinguished dentist. After our marriage I was confined to my bed with a severe illness, and seldom left bed or room for seven years, when I was taken to Dr. Quimby and partially restored. I returned home, hoping once more to make that home happy, but only returned to a new agony to find that my husband had eloped with a married woman from one of the wealthy families of that city, leaving no trace save his last letter to us, wherein he wrote: 'I hope some time to be worthy of so good a wife.' I have a bill of divorce from him...."
In her letter to the BostonPostMrs. Eddy made some other interesting assertions. She said:[15]
"We never were a student of Dr. Quimby. Dr. Quimby never had students to our knowledge. 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."
"We never were a student of Dr. Quimby. Dr. Quimby never had students to our knowledge. 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."
What an astonishing look these statements by Mrs. Eddy in 1883 have, when compared with the statements of Mrs. Mary M. Patterson from 1862 to 1866. Let us see.—
Statement of 1883."At the time we knew him [Dr. Quimby], he was known as a mesmerist."Statement of 1866."Dr. Quimby healed with the truth that Christ taught, in contradistinction to all Isms.""Rest should reward him who hath made us whole,seeking, tho' tremblers, where his footsteps trod."
Statement of 1883.
"At the time we knew him [Dr. Quimby], he was known as a mesmerist."
Statement of 1866.
"Dr. Quimby healed with the truth that Christ taught, in contradistinction to all Isms."
"Rest should reward him who hath made us whole,seeking, tho' tremblers, where his footsteps trod."
On March 7th, 1883, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy made, in the Boston Post.
This Statement."We had laid the foundation of mental healing long before we ever saw Dr. Quimby.... 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 diseases."
This Statement.
"We had laid the foundation of mental healing long before we ever saw Dr. Quimby.... 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 diseases."
In October, 1862, the same lady, through the PortlandCourier, made
This Statement."I can see,dimly at first and 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 tothe error of giving intelligence to matter, changes the currents of the system. The truth which he establishes in the patient cures him. This is a science capable of demonstration to those who reason upon the process."
This Statement.
"I can see,dimly at first and 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 tothe error of giving intelligence to matter, changes the currents of the system. The truth which he establishes in the patient cures him. This is a science capable of demonstration to those who reason upon the process."
Then, in the PortlandAdvertiser, came Mrs. Eddy's extraordinary comparison of Dr. Quimby's words and deeds with those of Christ, and
This Statement."P. P. Quimby rolls away the stone from the sepulcher of error, and health is the resurrection."
This Statement.
"P. P. Quimby rolls away the stone from the sepulcher of error, and health is the resurrection."
On the publication of Julius A. Dresser'sTrue History of Mental Science—to which reference has been made in our previous chapter—Mrs. Eddy was greatly exercised over it. In herChristian Science Journalfor June, 1887, she devoted the leading article, under her own name, to the Dresser pamphlet.
This little thing was a calm statement of facts, proved as they were given. From the facts, Dr. Quimby's theory was drawn, and Mr. Dresser frankly recounted what the general reader would consider Dr. Quimby's foibles and prejudices, as well as his doctrines and gifts. The pamphlet contained Mrs. Mary M. Patterson's opinion of Dr. Quimby in 1862, and her poem of 1866. It agreed with what was then the substance of her own assertions, by summarizing Dr. Quimby "as the first person of this age who penetrated the depths of truth so far as to discover and bring forth a true science of life, and openly apply it to the healing of the sick."
But, in criticising Mr. Dresser's quiet monograph, the amiable "Mother of Christian Science," proclaimed that Mr. Dresser had "let loose the dogs of war."; had unleashed a "petpoodle," alternately "to bark and whine" at her "heels"; and she identified the "pet poodle" with a certain "sucking litterateur," who had renounced allegiance to her.[16]But when her preliminary high-tide had ebbed a little, her pen dropped this:
"Did I write those articles in Mr. Dresser's pamphlet, purporting to be mine? I might have written them, twenty or thirty years ago, for I was under the mesmeric treatment of Dr. Quimby from 1862 until his death, in 1865. He was illiterate, and knew nothing then of the science of Mind-healing; and I was as ignorant of mesmerism as Eve before she was tempted by the serpent."
Those Patterson-Eddy "articles," then—no possible mendacity being adequate to their extinction—have been grudgingly and angrily admitted by their author to be genuine. But she would ignore them on the ground of"mesmerism." Her "head," she says, "was so turned by Animal Magnetism and will power" under Dr. Quimby's treatment, that she "might have written something as hopelessly incorrect" as the articles referred to.
ButwasMrs. Mary M. Patterson under "mesmeric treatment," ordidMrs. Mary Patterson Eddy ever reallybelieveshe was under such treatment, when with Dr. Quimby? And was she then a truly "ignorant Eve," without a fig-leaf of knowledge pertaining to mesmerism? In 1862 she thoughtnot, and we have seen that, in writing her first newspaper letter on Dr. Quimby, she turned her thought into these words:
"Ihave employed electro-magnetism and animal magnetism, and for a brief period I have felt relief ... but in no instance did I get rid of a return of all my ailments,because I had not been helped out of the error in which opinions involve us. My operator believed in disease independent of mind; hence I could not be wiser than my teacher."
Mrs. Patterson continued her letter by saying what has already been quoted in full—that Dr. Quimby cured her by "a great principle"of "science," through which he established "the truth" in "the patient"—a truth which he opposed to the error of giving intelligence to matter, and placing pain where it never placed itself.
In Mrs. Eddy's magazine article of June, 1887, she went so far as to say of Dr. Quimby,
"His healing was neverconsideredorcalledanything but Mesmerism."
Well, Mrs. Mary M. Patterson, from 1862 to 1866, both "considered" and "called" the Doctor's healing something wholly different from mesmerism; and, saying it was done "by the truth which Christ taught," she considered and called it something "in contradistinction toallIsms."
Meanwhile, for more than three years of Mrs. Eddy's close acquaintance with Dr. Quimby, all his advertisements, even, told her, what she then fluently repeated, that he cured disease by implantingtruthin the human mind, in place oferror—"the truth being the cure." In other words, everything around her proclaimed that Dr. Quimby's cures were performed wholly by Mind-healing.
Mrs. Eddy's reversal of herself has been soagile and exhaustive since her comparisons of Dr. Quimby with our Lord Jesus Christ, that she has latterly preferred to speak of the good old doctor, who taught and healed her, as "unlearned"—a "mesmerist" who cured a patient by "rubbing" her—an "illiterate" man who said that he was only "John" while she was "Jesus," and whose "scribblings" she, to a considerable extent, wrote herself. From all this it must be adduced that Mrs. Eddy, in her Patterson days, went to Dr. Quimby to be cured of disease, but taught him to do it.
It is true, as we have noted, that Dr. Quimby was not an educated man, in the sense of the schools. It would have been impossible for him to write like Mrs. Eddy. When, for instance, she excogitated that first letter of Mrs. Patterson's to the PortlandCourier, she opened it in this way:
"When our Shakespeare decided that there were more things in this world 'than were dreamed of in your philosophy,' I cannot say of a verity that he had a foreknowledge of P. P. Quimby. And when the school Platonic anatomized the soul and divided it into halves, to be united by elementary attractions, andheathen philosophers averred that old Chaos in sullen silence brooded o'er the earth until her inimitable form was hatched from the egg of night, I would not at present decide whether the fallacy was found in their premises or conclusions, never having dated my existence before the flood."
No: P. P. Quimby, even if aided by all the freshmen and sophomores that ever lived, could never have risen into the state of gorgeous, ponderous culture evinced in the foregoing power-house and epitome of all learning. Besides, when that incomparable paragraph was erected, Mrs. Eddy was young—not yet fifty years of age. At sixty, her literarystylehad lost something of its dazzle; but, inmatter, all her work, especially her world-renowned book,Science and Health, compares beautifully with her grand production of 1862.
P. P. Quimby was a plain man of great natural genius. When he wrote—generally in great haste—he paid little attention to capital letters, punctuation, orformof any kind; but his manuscripts were carefully revised, under his own direction, by his two faithful friends, the Ware sisters, or by his son, Mr. George A.Quimby. Mrs. Mary M. Patterson borrowed and read some occasional jotting—that was all. In the possession of Mr. George A. Quimby are eight hundred pages of his father's writings, prepared before Dr. Quimby had the honor of knowing that Mrs. Patterson (to be Eddy) was on the face of the earth. These writings contain the substance of all his thoughts.
The knowledge that such writings exist has much disturbed Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy. On the 21st of May, 1887, she published, through a Boston newspaper, an offer to print the Quimby manuscripts, at her own expense,providedshe should "firstbe allowed to examine said manuscripts," and to see that "they were his own compositions," nothers, whichshe"had left with him many years ago."
Now Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, author ofScience and Health, filled with "immortal mind" and the only "divine science" ever "demonstrated," is of course an honest woman. Many delightful innocents of all sizes would take her word for anything she promised. There is not a single member of her Church-Scientist who is not sure that her little hatchetis infinitely cleaner and brighter than George Washington's. Still, the possessors of the Quimby manuscripts, not yet having teetered themselves above all "earthly wisdom," would rather not trust her with their property.
A few years ago, the eldest of Dr. Quimby's two devoted friends, the Ware sisters, passed away. With the younger sister she left the following statement, in the form of an affidavit, which is here printed with permission:
"I, Emma G. Ware, of Portland, Maine, in the United States of America, do hereby declare that I knew personally the late Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and that I and my sister, Mrs. Mackay (formerly Sarah E. Ware), were his patients while he resided in Portland, between the years 1859 and 1865, and that we both owe our restored health to his treatment or mode of teaching. I have learned that attempts are being made to deprive him of the credit of being the first to introduce the method of healing through the mind (or, more correctly, of applying moral philosophy to the cure of diseases), and I make this declaration out of regard to him, in order that the credit to which he is entitled may not, without protest, be assumedby others. I know that while Mr. Quimby resided in Portland he wrote out his ideas on Mental Science: he was not a scholarly man, and on that account copies of his writings were made by my sister, myself, and by Mr. Quimby's son, George A. Quimby. These copies were read over to Mr. Quimby, and such corrections made as he thought fit. They are now in the possession of Mr. George A. Quimby, who resides in Belfast, Maine, and my sister and I have also copies of a number of them. Beyond these, there are no other copies of his writings, if I except a few fugitive pieces which he gave away while he resided in Portland. The mode of reasoning pursued by Mr. Quimby is not new, but its application to disease as a remedy has not, so far as I am aware, been previously made in modern times. His teaching may be thus summarized: that all diseases, whether mental or physical, are caused by an error in reasoning, and that correcting the error will remove the cause, and restore the sufferer to health."
A GREAT "METAPHYSICAL" NOVEL.
As shown by our last chapter, Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Eddy, whatever divine attributes may have perched upon her, has been endowed with some very human qualities. But in one gift she has been strangely lacking—a good memory. For, in spite of her association with Dr. P. P. Quimby, his renovation of her broken system, and all the mellifluous prose and poetry she devoted to him in his day, the fruitful "mother," "discoverer," and "founder" of "Christian Science," when she came to set up her new religion, entirely forgot that her old friend, Quimby, was the real suggestion of her whole Shekinah. She not only failed to mention the fact, but she has been so miraculously forgetful, ever since, as to repudiate her own record of it, and to attempt the obliteration of it from sacred and profane history.
Mother Eddy's lack of memory, however,has had its plenary compensation. Her imagination has more than made up for it. The surcharge of this illimitable faculty has enabled her to produce one of the greatest works of fiction ever conceived on earth, or possible to any other planet. This arch-angelic romance, dimly and very distantly founded on fact, bears the esoteric title ofRetrospection and Introspection. It is not in the usual form of a novel, but was evaporated by Mrs. Eddy as her corporal and spiritual biography, after she had dropped Dr. Quimby from her powers of research, and had built up her grand theological and financial industry, "Christian Science." From an attentive reading of this personally conducted and authorized volume, we know the light in which the hallowed lady wishes to appear, and we know a good deal more if we read between the lines.
At eight years of age—if we can only credit true piety hitched up with lost memory—a heaven-selected little girl, Mary Baker, "repeatedly heard a voice," calling her "distinctly by name, three times in an ascending scale." At first she thought it was a human voice; but in due season—for the call came manytimes—she, her mother and her cousin, Mehitable Huntoon, learned better. Then her mother read to her the Hebrew story of little Samuel, and advised her to respond to the voice, saying, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." Finally the chosen virgin took this advice, whereupon the voice "came no more" to her "materialsenses." Its mission had been fulfilled.
Such is the opening legend told to the marines of the Church Scientist, in that juicy book,Retrospection and Introspection.[17]
Still, in these days of "Spiritual manifestations," the numerous believers in messages from "the summer land" would account, in a quite simple way, for the voices calling little Hebrew Samuel and little New-England Mary. But not so Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. "Am I a believer in Spiritualism?" she asks. "I believe in no ism.... As I understand it Spiritualism is the antipode of Christian Science."[18]
Ah, it was no voice of common, finite spirit, that came to the high and mighty founder ofan "absolutely scientific religion." So there is but one conclusion she gives us to draw:the voice was directly the voice of God. The Infinite and Omniscient, the All-in-All, spake to the girl of nine years, as a miraculous call to her divine work. At that time, she tells us, her father thought her "brain" was "too large for her body."[19]The old gentleman was doubtless right. It looks, too, as if the brain of his blessed daughter, with the entire head containing it, has been rapidly enlarging ever since.
From the metaphysical adventures of Saint Mary Baker, as told in herRetrospection and Introspection,[20]we find that when twelve years old she was admitted to the "Orthodox Church" of New England, though she declined to accept the doctrine of predestination—a doctrine which so troubled her that a doctor was called, who pronounced her "stricken with fever." It is told of Martin Luther that when a theological student once came to him half-crazy over the same doctrine, the doughty reformer ordered him to go and get "welldrunk." In the case of Robert Ingersoll, his soul could only find relief from the tenet by such hard swearing that it brought him peace. But we are assured by our divine lady of the "Church Scientist" that she took the better as well as the usual course prescribed for such trials. She "wrestled in prayer." For she felt sure that the Creator of the Universe, who had once descended in person and spoken to her by name, could not fail to possess the faculty of hearing and the usefulness of help. Behold it was so! Instantly the fever was gone and health was restored. "The physician marveled," she says, and John Calvin "lost his power."
In 1878 Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy was called to preach at the Baptist Tabernacle of Boston. The congregation increased beyond the capacity of the pews, and it was no uncommon occurrence for the sick to be healed by her sermons. Cancers were cured, and "many pale cripples went into the church, leaning on crutches, who went out carrying them on their shoulders." Mrs. Eddy says so.[21]
By the same authority—in herRetrospectionand Introspection—it is stated that her "Science of Divine Metaphysical Healing," otherwise "Christian Science," was "discovered" by her in 1866. The day and date are not given. But it was some time after February 15th; for at that time one Mary M. Patterson was occupied in putting on poetic mourning for Dr. P. P. Quimby, and in begging Mr. Julius A. Dresser to visit Lynn and heal an injury to her back from a fall on the ice.
It is not well to wear mourning too long. In the spring of 1866 it must have occurred to Mrs. Eddy that weeds of poetry would not pay, and she hustled them off. Dr. Quimby having gone "to heaven" and slipped out of a decayed memory, his obituary poetess just then realized that she had spent "twenty years" in tracing "physical effects to a mental cause." Then came the "scientific certainty" that "all causation" is "Mind," and that "every effect is a mental phenomenon."[22]
What "Christian Scientists" mean by "scientific certainty" is proof by "healing." Take the revered principle of cosmogony that "the moon is made of green cheese." If one whoholds the doctrine, "heals" anybody, the proposition is "demonstrated." Mrs. Eddy's "scientific works" are all filled with this unanswerable logic. "Mortal Mind"—a thing which she utterly reprobates—may find difficulty in accepting the conclusion; but it is doubtless quite as well founded as most of the "healing" itself.
Mrs. Eddy's own case is an illustration in point. A bed-ridden invalid for years, she was snatched from death, she has told us, by Dr. Quimby, and within a week of his first mental treatment she climbed to the top of a city hall. The writer has read a series of Mrs. Eddy's unpublished letters, which show that for some time she had varied nervous and spinal relapses. When not with Dr. Quimby, she wrote to him for "absent treatments," and sometimessaw him appear to her—or said she did—in response. Finally she was cured. Then she fell on an icy sidewalk, was nearly frightened to death, and wrote her letter beseeching Mr. Dresser to "undertake" for her. But, having been taught mind-healing by Dr. Quimby, she "demonstrated" over herself, and got up.The Doctor's original cure appears to have been so effective that her fall on the ice was mostly a jar of her imagination and a contusion on her veracity. For, in herRetrospection and Introspection, she solemnly affirms that her accident caused an injury far beyond the reach of "medicine" or "surgery," which she repaired by application of the Divine Spirit. This experience, says Mrs. Eddy ("scientist"), was a "falling apple of discovery" to her. Thereupon she went out into the wilderness of Boston—"withdrew," that is, from society—for three years—that she might search the Scriptures and find "Science."[23]At the end of her retirement, she had learned that "Mind reconstructs the body," and that "nothing else can." How it is done, she adds, "the Spiritual Science of Mind must reveal." Her charge for a course of ten lessons in this "divine science" was soon fixed at "only three hundred dollars."[24]
Of the genuine original "Christian Science"—the sole and undivided "discovery" of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy—she says:
"I named itChristianbecause it is compassionate, helpful, and spiritual. God I calledImmortal Mind. That which sins, suffers, and dies, I namedmortal mind. The physical senses, or sensuous nature, I callederrorandshadow. Soul I denominatedSubstance, because Soul alone is truly substantial. God I characterized as individual entity, but his corporeality I denied. The Real I claimed as eternal; and its antipodes, or the temporal, I described as unreal. Spirit I called thereality; and matter, theunreality."[25]
On the hash and rehash of theology, here announced, we need not dwell just now, but will consider, for the moment, how much of Mrs. Eddy's individually discovered and copyrighted creed was first expounded, thoughnotcopyrighted, by one P. P. Quimby.
Dr. Quimby never thought of pushing his thought and work under the special name of "Christian Science," though his writings show that he used the term.[26]
He was not in pursuit of money by truckling to current preconception or prejudice. We recollect, however—for our own memory has not been laid in the tomb of our piety—that after "his truth was discovered" he "found his new views all portrayed and illustrated in Christ's teachings." We recollect that he said of his practise, "It belongs to a Wisdom that is above man as man. It was taught eighteen hundred years ago, and has never had a place in the heart of man since." He said, "There is a bread which, if a man eat, he is filled; and this bread is Christ or Science." In 1865 the PortlandAdvertisersaid of Dr. Quimby:
"By a method entirely novel and at first sight quite unintelligible, he has been slowly developing what he callsthe 'Science of Health'; that is, as he defines it, a science founded on principles that can be taught and practised like that of mathematics, and not on opinion or experiments of any kind whatsoever."
Prior to the issue of Mrs. Eddy'sRetrospection and Introspectionshe had, of course, writtenher other great and better-known work of religious fiction, calledScience and Health. Now the title of that book—the term "Science and Health"—is quite different from Dr. Quimby's term, "The Science of Health." Still, the chief distinction between them, considering what Dr. Quimby taught, is that the latter came first and the former afterwards.
It does not appear that God—who in our day has been personally known by Mrs. Eddy only—and in an interview whichHetook the trouble to seek—was ever technically defined by Dr. Quimby as "Immortal Mind," or "characterized as individual entity," with "corporeality denied." It may have been so; for all the obligations derived by Mrs. Eddy from Dr. Quimby have not yet been published. By all competent theologians and metaphysicians, since the beginning at least of human records, God has been conceived and proclaimed as Infinite Spirit, one with "Immortal Mind," and above "corporeality," which has been accounted a temporary phase of finite things. Plato was pretty nearly made of this conception in philosophy, and St. John in religion. P. P. Quimby was neither a Plato nor a SaintJohn; but he "agreed" with them, in his literal, honest fashion, as he said he did with Bishop Berkeley.
If Mrs. Eddy had ever read a history of philosophy before she instituted a religion, she would have found that Spinoza honored her advent, some two hundred years in advance of it, by postulating "Substance" as the "Soul" of things. Incidentally, too, he postulated "matter" as an "unreality of sense," and thus, in a way, as "error" and "shadow"—the product of "mortal mind." Dr. Quimby said, with the utmost possible distinctness, "I believe matter to be nothing but an idea belonging to the senses"; and it will be found, when his writings get published, that he said the same thing in some hundreds of different ways. But all this was known to the thought of India, even before books were written, and the original authorities for it had then been lost.
But now: in one point of doctrine—and to her the most important one—Mother Mary Baker G. Eddy does stand completely "original," solitary and alone. She holds of "matter" that it is not only not what it seems, butisnothing at allsave "unreality." To recognize it as anything whatever, beyond "shadow" and "error," is to be buried in disease, sin, and death. Absolutely to deny the most palpable fact of daily existence is to Christian Science the one road to health and salvation.
To Dr. Quimby, matter was a state of things "reduced from mind," but the state and the things werehere. They were perfectlyactualasa condition, though not as an unrelated fixture of all time and eternity. Every "idealist," in every age, has taken this view, excepting only Mrs. Eddy. Of her own view, no human being out of a refuge for imbeciles or the Church Scientist, could possibly begrudge her the sole copyright. In due order Mrs. Eddy's theological speculation will be further considered.
From the Arabian Nights tales ofRetrospection and Introspection, we learn that, before setting up her new church, the revelator "wandered through the dim mazes ofMateria Medica." She "found," in Jahr's two hundred and sixty-two remedies, the one pervading secret that the less matter and the more mind, the better the work. Homeopathytaught her that in the higher attenuations of its drugs, "matter is rarefied to its fatal essence, mortal mind." Her conclusion was that "mortal belief," instead of any "drug," governs the action of material medicine. "I claim," says she, "for healing scientifically," that "it does away with all material medicine, and recognizes the antidote for all sickness, as well as sin, in the Immortal Mind; and mortal mind as the source of all ills which befall mortals.... The mortal body being but the objective state of the mortal mind, this mind must be renovated to improve the body."[27]
Considering the high moral perch on which Mrs. Eddy has set herself, and contemplating the cerulean nest in which she has laid the eggs of "science," it is really painful here to study her case of fatty degeneration of the memory. For, apart from mere phraseology and acquaintance with Jahr, Dr. P. P. Quimby had reached the principle and practise of "healing scientifically," more than twenty years before she proclaimed it inScience and Health, and he had applied it to Mrs. Eddy herself, thirteen years prior to that publication, whichdescended from heaven in 1875. He did not mention "mortal mind"—by name, that is—for he called the fact of it "opinion of the natural man," in "the state of matter," and so far of "error." He did not use the term, "Immortal Mind"; for he designated it as "Wisdom," "Science," and the "Christ," as distinguished from "the man, Jesus." Adopting the Christprinciple, Dr. Quimby aimed to follow, persistently but humbly, in the footsteps of Jesus. Dr. Quimby, in fact, was covering, both theoretically and practically, the whole true and essential field of "Christian Science," while avoiding its nonsense and its humbugs, at a time when Mrs. Eddy, as "Mary B. Glover," was a writer of love stories for "Peterson's Magazine."[28]
A SOFT SET OF CRITICS.
We have now learned a little of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy's celestial and terrestrial biography, as derived from the supramundane novel,Retrospection and Introspection, and some other sources. Bare allusion has been made to herScience and Health. But this, she says, "is my most important work, containing the complete statement of Christian Science."
The book, as we have seen, came among men—or, more strictly speaking, among less busy women—in 1875; and a thousand copies, we are told, comprised the first edition. "The critics," Mrs. Eddy informs us, pronounced it "wholly original," but a thing that would "never be read."
The foolish "critics"! How little they knew about "originality"! But they knew still less of Mrs. Eddy's "Spiritualafflatus,"as she designates it, in the fervency of which "erudite systems of philosophy" had "melted"; nor did they realize her "divinely appointed mission"; for, in 1891,Science and Healthhad reached sixty-two editions. "Then the critics said" that "Bishop Berkeley, David Hume, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or certain German philosophers," had originated Mrs. Eddy's sole and well-monopolized "Science."[29]
Now if any "critics" ever did really shoot such soft intellectual putty as that, they ought certainly to have been condemned to the most heroic sort of mind-healing.
Think of George Berkeley, the most acute, the most logical mind of his age, standing with both feet on John Locke's "Essay of the Human Understanding," and attempting to pull himself up into the Infinite by mouthing the shibboleth that there is no finite!
And David Hume—the bonny skeptic, David—whose keenness brought the philosophy of his age to a logical standstill, and for the moment broke up all "metaphysics"! Poor David Hume! In the hands of what a "critic" it was, who imagined he had ever furnished aspeck of meat for such a haggis asScience and Health!
For the moment, let us pass by Mr. Emerson, the Puritan mystic of New England transcendentalism, who beamed serenely down on mere "critics," and told them he hoped he "had never said anything that needed to be proved." But Mrs. Eddy's phrase, "certain German philosophers," is one that can only refer to Immanuel Kant, with his school of followers, who summed up the pure thinking of the modern world, as Plato and Aristotle summed up the pure thinking of the ancient world.
History tells us that Kant was a man who discovered the planet Uranus by mathematics before Herschel found it with a telescope, and who "had mastered all sciences" to date when he lived. Ripe with the knowledge of sixty years, he wrote hisCritique of Pure Reason. This, the most profound and far-reaching treatise of any age, should have been named "The Analysis of Mind and Matter, Time and Space"; for such was really Kant's subject and achievement.
This extraordinary little German professor, Immanuel Kant, was the most regular andtemperate of human beings; but he had a touch of asthma, for which, before all the medicinal properties of mind-cure were known, he took daily about a thimble-full of rum. Kant has been frightfully dealt with by his "critics," the most of whose heads he completely pulverized in connection with their activity in his behalf. But suppose Herr Professor Kant could have imagined that any "critic" on earth would ever accuse him of instigating the philosophy of Mary Baker G. Eddy! In that dread event, "the sage of Königsberg," who once lost the thread of a lecture when a button he used to finger was cut from his coat, might have been so disconcerted, so sunk in amazement and despair, as to swallow his whole bottle of liquor, instead of the twentieth of a gill, and to burn hisCritique of Pure Reasonin a fit ofdelirium tremens.
It is well he was tempted into no such catastrophe; for, on getting on a bit, we shall find that every possible system of "metaphysics," to have any scientific foundation in modern thought, must refer itself to Kant's dissection of the universe.
"THE PRECIOUS VOLUME."
In the world of books, Mrs. Eddy'sScience and Healthis the specially "precious volume"; for she herself so designates and describes it at the head of a chapter in herRetrospection and Introspection.[30]To her, indeed, it is a very precious volume—more precious than even a goodly pile of "the precious metals." Her devotees exchange these for it with sublime certainty that they get more than the worth of their money; and being in great need of science, to say nothing of health, their profuseness may be forgiven.
But it should be said at once that "Christian Scientists" are neither a bad nor a specially crude sort of the world's queer inhabitants. They are fanatically honest; and, as a whole, they have just that "little knowledge" which has long been proverbial as "a dangerous thing." Then they are quite incapable of lookingthrough the veil worn by their beatific "Mother."
In the eyes of the unregenerate, these children of hers frequently turn toScience and Health, or to a picture of its author celestially touched up, when it would be well to inspect their plumbing and wash their windows. But this is no broad case against them; for almost any sort of camp-meeting, without regard to sect, is apt to bring upon the wicked some small inconveniences.
As can readily be seen, Mrs. Eddy's lambs are often amusing, and thus brighten life for less spiritual beings.
There is my babe-eyed friend, Mr. Tott. He never committed a cent's worth of sin in his life. He is a veritable piece of the salt of the earth, a little over-salted. But his youth has departed, and his sight is failing. He used to wear glasses; but he discarded them for "Christian Science" and a dim, economic light. He sees a little yet, though chiefly with "the eye of the mind." With this eye, however, he beholds marvels of "healing" going on all around him, which he proclaims and verifies at the weekly meetings of his church.He buys all Mrs. Eddy's books and publications, as fast as they come out. By patient effort he deciphers something of their contents. Then, as he contemplates an assertive text fromScience and Health, or some tale of Jonah interpreted by Mother Eddy'sKey to the Scriptures, a celestial calm descends on his soul, and folds it in a fabric softer than silk. He knows that he is better in health than ever before, that he sees better, and that the entire universe is becoming unspeakably illuminated. Disease never touches his physical frame; he has merely "abeliefof a cold," or "abeliefof a corn." In the etherialized Mr. Tott only one thing ever suggests a remnant of "wicked matter." Cast a doubt on the sainthood of Mrs. Eddy, then you behold an angel in anger. He may not indulge in personal violence, but he swiftly threatens that, if once you breathe your unholy doubt aloud, "Judge Hanna," or some other Sampson of "Science," will reduce you to a grease-spot.[31]
But, among all Mrs. Eddy's followers, her "precious volume,"Science and Health, is paramountly precious to those who have paid their three hundred dollars for imbibing the inmost knowledge of her "unfathomable" religion, and have gone forth among the gentiles to teach and to heal. To a missionary "in science," the "precious volume" cannot be too preciously bound. Let the daintiest white of the white-winged dove encase its "inspired words," printed on translated tissue of ethereal linen. Let the sheen of the gold standard furnish splendor for the edges of the leaves, and letters for the cover. Let the book be held before the eyes of a new student or patient, with abysmal solemnity and mystic silence. Hypnotism, if younameit such, is bitterly disallowed; but "the precious volume" is so hallowed a thing that no danger can come from using it in the same way as the disk of a mesmerist. Impressiveness is the point—that self may depart, and "science" become boundless. Almost every religious sect in all history has had its fetich. "Christian Science" is not behind the procession. Mrs. Eddy'sScience and Healthis the fetich thereof. In a plain garment, forthe poorer saints, it may be had for three dollars and eighteen cents. In the purest, holiest, most golden robe it costs six dollars.[32]
Let us look intoScience and Healthand see what it is; though the author warns us that something more than "mortal mind" is required to understand it. This she asserts and repeats with the voice, as it were, of a fog-horn grown eternal, until a multitude of people have come to think that the sound really contains significance. In herRetrospection and IntrospectionOur Lady of "The Precious Volume" says:[33]
"Science and Healthis the textbook of Christian Science.... When the demand for this book increased, and people were healed by simply reading it, the copyright was infringed. I entered a suit at law, and my copyright was protected."
The case of "protected copyright" to which Mrs. Eddy refers, took place in 1883. A Mr. Arens had practised some sort of "mental healing," without the consent of the papalmother of "Christian Science." In connection with such healing he had issued some pamphlets, in which, according to the court records, he certainly came very near to reproducing certain sentences fromScience and Health, which had a commercial value in his line, though they would not have sold for a cent out of "Science." The man's defense was that Mrs. Eddy's own works were not original with her, but had been copied from writings by Dr. Quimby.
Now Dr. Quimby, as we have seen, had sown the seed of the whole modern field of "mental healing," and Mrs. Eddy, as Mary M. Patterson, had told the whole truth about it. But Quimby's simple doctrine was that matter is a phase of mind; and hence that the mind of man, as an inlet of God's truth and power, can change the body and cure disease. Appropriating this thought, Mrs. Eddy had stretched it out and blown it up into the ponderous misfit labeled "Christian Science."
In 1883 none of Dr. Quimby's writings had been published, and there was no convenient evidence to prove that Mrs. Eddy had ascribed his mind-healing to "the Christ that was inhim," and to his establishment of "Truth" in wrong-thinking sick patients. As no such facts were presented, and as Mr. Arens had clearly plagiarized Mrs. Eddy, whatevershehad done, the court properly decided that her "copyright" be "protected." In other words, the merits of the case were not involved, though the decision has given Mother Eddy a chance to say, with her usual candor and logic, that the failure of Arens "to produce his proof isconclusive evidencethatno such proof existed."
Science and Healthis a book of nearly seven hundred pages, containing somewhat less than two hundred thousand words; but this brief of Un-Christian Non-Science includes Mrs. Eddy'sKey to the Scriptures.
The eighty-second edition of "the precious volume" is the particular issue here elucidated. We shall make a few quotations fromScience and Health, but only just enough to verify our criticism of it as a pretentious, untrue, and unhealthy book, which, in the interest of the public, needs to be exploded. For these quotations we shall give Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy full credit. It would be a crime, indeed, to accuseany one else of originating such capsules of metaphysical ipecac.
As laid down inScience and Health, the fundamental propositions of the mumbo-jumbo termed "Christian Science" are four in number.
First: God is All.
Second: God is Good. Good is Mind.
Third: God, Spirit, being All, nothing is matter.
Fourth: Life, God, omnipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin, disease. Disease, sin, evil, death, deny Good, omnipotent God, life.
Mrs. Eddy says that,to her, these are "self-evidentpropositions." They are proved, too, by "the rule of inversion." They are just as harmonious backward as forward. There is a little hitch in Number Four, which declares one way that God denies death, evil, sin, and disease, and the other way that these deny God. But this one exception to "the rule of inversion" only confirms it; for, according to Scripture, God is true, and "every [mortal] man a liar."
For the corner-stone, then, of Eddyism, we have self-evident propositions—self-evident tothe mind of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy—and with these an appeal to Scripture. Truly enough this must be "Divine Science"; for no rational creature of modern times can suspect it of being human science, whether true or false. But, says the great teacher of it, "no human pen or tongue taught me the science," and "neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it." Well, never mind the overthrow. But, when Mrs. Eddy tells us that "no human pen or tongue" taught her "the science of mind-healing," we are obliged to infer that Dr. Quimby was more than human. How greatly would the plain but gifted Quimby have been shocked, had he foreknown that Mrs. Eddy would thus apotheosize him.
ThroughScience and Healthwe learn that "Christian Science" reveals, "incontrovertibly," that "Mind is All-in-all"—the only "realities" being "the divine Mind and idea." We learn, further, that this divine Mind is God, that God's idea is Man, and that by authority of Webster an "idea" is "an image in mind."
It would be truly pitiable for any theologian, or indeed for any believer in a spirit-principleof the cosmos, to attempt the "overthrow" of these venerable "revelations" now protected by Mrs. Eddy's copyright, but which were hoary with age even in the days of the Greek Academy. Barring Webster's definition of an idea, these "revelations" to Mrs. Eddy appear revealed in the Bible, though not copyrighted. As logical metaphysics, in recent times, Hegel reduced them to their utmost sublimation; and Hegel is excellent authority in many of our colleges, as well as with the good Dr. Harris, our United States Commissioner of Education at Washington.
Let us say once more that there is no trouble in effecting a spiritual derivation of the universe, except to our friends, "the materialists," who have themselves refined "matter" to things not much like it. The only trouble with an all-containing, all-pervading Spiritual Source of Existence, is in the funny havoc sometimes made of it by half-baked people, like "Christian Scientists."
To Dr. Quimby, "Mind," or "Spirit" was the principle of all things. To him, Matter was a condition of Spirit—"an idea," he said, "reduced to a solid"—a "solid" meaning adefinite and real appearance to human sense. But this conception, which the old and regular school of metaphysicians have held for thousands of years, would not do for the genuine original "Mother of Christian Science" when she came to prescribe a dogma for the cure of all possible disease from leprosy to bunions. It was necessary, she thought, to have a stronger pill. She compounded it in the form that "matter," including the "mortal body," is not only "the objective state of the mortal mind," but that mortal mind is unmixed, "error," entailing all sin, disease, and death. Yet "error" is really "nothing"; or say something only to bedenied. The duty of life, "in Science," is to make this denial effective. Matter, sin, disease, are absolute illusions and delusions of "mortal mind," which itself is just "error," to be wiped out. Now say so, and they are all gone. Or if they persist in seeming to be anywhere, be more firm with them. Sing the denial, as well as say it. Keep it up. Let nothing else intervene for a second. Let every paragraph you write be made of it. Give it ten thousand different forms, and each formten thousand variations. If you fully concentrate your whole mind on this "divine" business, and pay the full price for learning it, you will elevate yourself into "perfect harmony" with "Immortal Mind." When you accomplish this undertaking, impurity and evil, sin, disease and death, will disappear as the shadow of their original nothingness, which they always are and ever were.
Here is the whole real substance of "the precious volume,"Science and Health, including Mrs. Eddy's marvelousKey to the Scriptures. Still, the holy tome has some interesting particulars.
On opening it, and journeying only as far as page 2, one finds that, while "Christian Science" is copyrighted property, "the Divine Spirit" was the real author of it; for Mrs. Eddy explicitly declares that through "Christian Science" the Divine Spirit testified to her, and that the testimony unfolded her one basic, forever-echoed assumption that "matter" has nothing in it but "falsity."
Next comes up the Platonic conception—which, unfortunately for Plato, he neglected to copyright—that the Principle of Mind, withits reflection or "idea," constitutes the real universe. Mrs. Eddy pronounces this philosophical conception a scientific fact; but it was not "proved to the senses"—which, by the way,never perceive anything but "error"—until "Christian Science revealed it." Then it was proved "incontrovertibly, absolutely and divinely," by repairing Mrs. Eddy's back after a fall on ice.
From time immemorial, the history of philosophy has been familiar with the thought that the human body is a reflex and product of mind; a practical reality for all earthly conditions and purposes, but resolvable, from the view of spirit, into simply an objective appearance. The thought, too, has been frequent in poetry. Three hundred years ago Spenser sang:
"So every spirit, as it is more pure,And hath in it the more of heavenly light,So it the fairer body doth procureTo habit in, and it more fairly dightWith cheerful grace and amiable sight.For, of the soul, the body form doth take,For soul is form, and doth the body make.
Yet Mrs. Eddy claims this doctrine, too, as her "discovery," though, with her, it is notmerely "mind," but the "mortal" or "misnamed" article, that produces the body. All such "mind" is unalloyed "error," and the body, or apparition of this error, is another error. It was this "discovery," she says, that led to her infallible proposition, the all-inclusiveness of Immortal Mind and the all-nothingness of matter, which she made the bed-rock of her all-healing "Science."
Matter being Nothing, and our bodies being nothing but error, there is great use, notwithstanding, for the one genuine medicine, "Christian Science." "Physical healing," with "mental healing" thrown in, is the large wholesale business of which Mother Eddy is proprietor and director. In the last analysis, according to the preface ofScience and Health, this medicine is "Divine Principle." Such a remedy naturally dispels the unfounded belief of matter, the unfounded imaginings of sickness and sin, which drop out of supposed reality, and so out of existence.
As the term "Christian Science" is necessarily suggestive of Christian history, even Mrs. Eddy has not quite claimed the whole product of Christianity as originating inScience and Health. She does admit, with pious candor, that God imparted thespiritof Christian Science to Jesus and the Apostles. But theletteris another thing. "The absolute letter" waited for Mary Baker G. Eddy; and, were the blessed lady a living kaleidoscope, she could hardly add to the combinations and varieties in which she presents this claim to her readers.
Eddyism proclaims One God, all-inclusive, whose highest title is "Immortal Mind." But, "in Science," this God, being all-inclusive, as Unity, Identity, and Goodness—so otherwise all-exclusive—there is no room anywhere for a Devil, or say, rather, therecognitionof one. If God is not only all, but all-good, no opposite to this principle can exist. However, there is "mortal mind," or "sense," with its image and creation, "matter," and in these are sin and disease. Still, mortal mind, matter, sin, disease, have no relation or reference to God.He"fills all Space."[34]Theysubsist neither byHis creation nor permission. Hence theycan not be—they are justnaught.
But hold! Christian Science, withScience and Health, being present avatars to dispel sin and cure disease, such a science and such a book necessarily admit sickness and sin, both implicitly and explicitly. Now what is to be done in such a dilemma? Why, mortal mind, matter, evil, and all afflictions, while "nothing," are a kind of nothing that may be mentioned as "error" and ultimate "self-nullity." Thus, while Eddy Science, alias "Christian Science," has no real Devil, it has a very practicalseemingDevil, and whips him from stump to stump with logic worse than himself. Finally, as he is not "substance," but "shadow," you knock him out by calling him names.
But the doctrine of the Trinity, as "demonstrated in Science," is the best abstract of the Eddy theology. This Trinity consists of one self-identical "Father-and-Mother God"; Man, "the Idea" or "Reflection"; then Christian Science, "the Holy Comforter."
The position of man, as theologized by Mrs. Eddy, is, if anything, more terribly mixed than that of the Devil. Man is "the image ofGod"; but, as God isAll, man has "no real individuality." He cannot have personality of his own, as God has no "separability." Still this "God's idea," named man, somehow takes on an imaginary state, named "mortal mind," and this imaginary state has a dream of error and misery named "Sense." Human individuality, mortal mind, and sense, are all, in reality, null and void. Man, however, being God's idea and reflection, can never lose his unpossessed "true self." The divine contradictions ofScience and Healthare here insurmountable. Let no man try to rationalize them. Mrs. Eddy well remarks in herRetrospection and Introspection, that "Divine Science demands mighty wrestlings with mortal beliefs, as we sail into the eternal haven over the unfathomable sea of possibilities."
O Lord, how long!Oh, bosh, how strong!
The fact is that any long-continued reading ofScience and Health, with the innocence to imagine it either true, difficult or profound, is enough to turn a weak mind idiotic. To a trained thinker, the only danger from the book is an attack of nausea or a hemorrhage from laughing.
"KEY" TO THE EDDY SCRIPTURE, SCIENCE AND HEALTH.
Mrs. Eddy's Un-Christian Non-Science may be summarized as a caricature of her early "New England Orthodoxy," crazily combined with New England Transcendentalism, coated with a kind of free-thought permissible only to her own "divine Science," all overlying Dr. Quimby's "Science of Health," and carefully put under copyright.
Let us now see a few moonstone gems from her "precious volume"—just enough to illustrate our criticism of it and not infringe on her monopolized territory.
It may be explained, by the way, that the United States statute governing copyright precludes the reproduction and sale of books and pamphlets,as wholes, without permission of the authors; and protects evenpartsof dramas, pictures, and other "works of art"—the intentbeing, of course, to protect, also, one of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not steal." But, if an untrue and injurious book could not be analyzed, and a dozen extracts taken from it in proof of criticism, no literary quack could be exposed, in protection of the truth and the public. In that case, the Copyright Law would be worse than the old "Fugitive Slave Bill," and it would be a sacred duty to get into jail, if necessary, for violating it. Fortunately there is no such need. The law was not drawn in the interest of charlatans and malefactors, and has never been interpreted against the decencies of justice.
Following "Mother" Eddy's example in connection with our quotations from herScience and Health, we shall interpret them in a strictly "scientific" light, as she, with miraculous nerve, in herKey to the Scriptures, has done with other sacred writings. Thus we shall illumineScience and Healthin the same way that she has illuminedGenesisandThe Apocalypse.
Science and Health, 7.[35]—"In the year 1866I discovered the Science of Metaphysical Healing, and named it Christian Science. God had been graciously fitting me, during many years, for the reception of a final revelation of the absolute Principle of Scientific Mind-healing."
Interpretation "in Science."—History reveals to us, for sure, that "Mother Eddy," has alwaysclaimedto have discovered and founded the only genuine and original Christian Science. Though she was once a patient of Dr. P. P. Quimby, and at that time one Mary M. Patterson said that Quimby cured disease by mental truth—"the truth that Christ taught"—this miserable episode has nothing to do with the case. Mrs. Eddy has told us that the Patterson woman was a creature "ignorant" of "Science," whom Dr. Quimby used to "mesmerize." He cured her of a seven-years' complaint in the mortal body, but so addled her head that she had no knowledge of what she talked about. Thus, Mrs. Patterson's impression that Dr. Quimby was the modern founder of mind-healing has no weight. The truth was not in her. But Mother Eddy, notwithstanding she herself was once that same Mrs. Patterson, discovered all truth and all science,without regard to any of her previous statements.
Science and Health, 453.—"A Christian Scientist needs my work on Science and Health for his textbook, and so do all his students and patients.... It is the voice of Truth to this age, and contains the whole of Christian Science, or the Science of healing through Mind.... It was the first published book containing a statement of Christian Science.... It registered this revealed Truth, uncontaminated with human hypotheses. Other works, which have borrowed from this book without giving it credit, have adulterated the Science."
Interpretation "in Science."—It is evident that everybody "in Science" should buy its real Bible,Science and Health; for the Old and the New Testament, while it is policy to use them in the Church Scientist, are in dreadful need of exegesis by Mary Baker G. Eddy. She is the one religious person, altogether scientific, that now exists in the world. She is "uncontaminated truth," and anything that interferes with her abets larceny and spreads leprosy. Moreover, it is a financial crimeagainst her, conducive to heart-disease. Let it again be stated that "the precious volume,"Science and Health, is cheap for cash, ranging from only $3.18 to $6.
Science and Health,Pref.VIII.—"The question, What is Truth? is answered by demonstration—by healing disease and sin."
Interpretation "in Science."—That truth can only be set on its absolute end by curing megrims and other unhealthiness, has been incontrovertibly settled by the religious experience of "Mother Eddy" herself. When she rose into the revelation that matter is nothing—not even a phenomenal condition of anything—the truth instantly spliced her broken spine. It was this "demonstration by healing" that transformed the ignorant, deluded, mesmerized Mary M. Patterson, into our holy, scientific, infallible Lady of the "Precious Volume."
Science and Health, 2and3,passim.—"The divine Spirit, testifying through Christian Science, unfolded to me the demonstrable fact that matter possesses neither sensation nor life.... Human experiences show the falsity of all material things.... My discovery thaterring, mortal, misnamedmind, produces all the organism and action of the mortal body, led up to my demonstration that Mind is All, and matter is naught, as the leading factor in Mind-Science.... The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually, and apparently through divine power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: 'Unto us a child is born ... and his name shall be Wonderful.'"
Interpretation "in Science."—That there is absolutely nothing in anything you see, feel, hear, taste or smell, is eternally laid down as "the leading factor in Mind-Science." Though the ideas of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy are all wonderful, this is the most surpassingly wonderful of all. But Mother Eddy herself is much more wonderful than even her ideas. As little Mary Baker she was wonderful in her likeness to little Samuel; as Mary M. Patterson, she was more wonderful as a mesmerized victim of Dr. Quimby; and, as Mary Baker G. Eddy, she is most wonderful, as the Ark of the Covenant of the only true Medicinal Religion.All Mother Eddy's writings point, all the time, to this beautiful lesson.
Science and Health, 5.—"No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of Agnosticism, or Millenarianism, and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the divine Mind, expressed through Divine Science."
Interpretation "in Science."—All the ancient and modern "isms," except Eddyism, we must sit on and blot out. The most of them are unpopular, and don't bring us in anything. But he who opposes Eddyism contradicts the Divine Mind, expressed through Divine Science, which, logically, must be the production of our Divine Mother.
Science and Health, 8.—"The phrasemortal mindimplies something untrue, and, therefore, unreal."
Interpretation "in Science."—This truth is to be taken as infallible on all occasions. Still, the unreality, mortal mind, is a thing to be healed by Christian Science, and there is money in the metaphysical pills.
Science and Health, 21.—"There is nophysical science, inasmuch, as all true Science proceeds from divine Intelligence."
Interpretation "in Science."—Shut up your arithmetic, geometry, physics, and astronomy. They amount to nothing. There is no truly scientific book exceptScience and Health.
Science and Health, 25.—"Must Christian Science come through the Christian churches, as some insist? This Science has come already, and come through the one whom God called."
Interpretation "in Science."—Christian Science, my beloved, is copyrighted property, and can only spread through the owner and her deputies. The "one whom God called" is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy.
Science and Health, 244, 245, 473, 284.—"The act of describing disease makes the disease. Warning people against disease frightens them into it. This obnoxious habit ought to cease.... The unscientific practitioner says: 'You are ill; you must rest.' Science objects to all this.... Mind controls the body and brain.... A cup of tea is not the equal of Truth.... A material body is a mortal belief.... The medicine of Science is divine Mind."
Interpretation "in Science."—Your doctor is a fool, whether he be allopathic, homeopathic, magnetic, or even of anyunauthorizedschool of mind-healing. Dismiss him, and send for a Christian Science M. D., authorized to practise by Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. If he can't cure you, it will not be his fault; it will be simply because your mind, or the minds around you, or both, are out of tune withScience and Healthandits Key to the Scriptures.
Science and Health, 259, 480, 475.—"Electricity, the offspring of finite mind, is unreal.... The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals. Physical force and mortal mind are one.... Matter is neither self-existent nor a product of Spirit. An image of mortal thought, reflected on the retina, is all the eye beholds."
Interpretation "in Science."—That a force like electricity has no reference to any principle or power but finite mind, will always be hard for an unscientized person to believe. But Mother Eddy knows, and her word must go. Still, the unreality of electricity is not quite so to people "out of science." If one toys with a trolley-wire before he has read and understoodScience and Health, he may experience a slight shock of reality, if he lives long enough. But one who has purchased Mrs. Eddy's great work, and who reads it constantly, need have no fear of electrocution, or anything else. His mortal mind has pretty nearly departed from him. His "physical universe" is hardly a picture of "conscious thoughts," and his "unconscious thoughts," whatever such things may be, will never lead him into much danger.
Science and Health, 487.—"Science reveals material man as a dream at all times, and never as the real Being."
Interpretation "in Science."—Mortals are nothing. The One and Only Being is the Father-and-Mother God of Christian Science. Our Mother is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy.
Science and Health, 411.—"The Scientist knows there can be no hereditary disease, since matter cannot transmit good or evil intelligence to man, and Mind produces no pain in matter."
Interpretation "in Science."—On the ground that mind and matter are absolutely unconnected, there can be no doubt of there being no hereditary disease. On the same groundthere can be no heredity itself, and no world for heredity to exist in. How true it is, "in Science," that all actuality has no actuality in it!