^e MASK of M 
 CHRISTIAN SCIENC 
 
LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 I roT. L^dwcnr-d L. nrrn-5-t-rono^ 
 Division 
 
 Section 
 
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 The Mask of 
 
 Christian Science 
 
 A History of the Rise and Growth of the System, together 
 
 with a comparison of Metaphysical Healing with 
 
 Matters Scientific, Christian and Biblical. 
 
 By 
 
 Francis Edward Marsten, D.D. 
 
 Author of 
 The Freedom of Christ, Songs of Life, etc. 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 
 150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK 
 
 B 101927' 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1909, 
 BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 
 
SUBJECT INDEX 
 
 Foreword 
 
 The Woman and the Prophet 
 
 Birth and ancestry. Early life. Imitating Jesus at twelve 
 years of age. Mesmer. Parallels in Shakerism. Mar- 
 riage. Second marriage. Dr. Quimby. Germs of the 
 new religion. Domestic life 15 
 
 The Woman and the Book 
 
 Wanderings. The first practitioner. A lawsuit. 
 Quimby manuscripts. "Science and Health" pub- 
 lished. Third marriage. Confusing dates. A miracu- 
 lous" cure. A fictitious revelation .... 32 
 
 A Mask for Commerce and Glory- 
 Christian Science not Christian. Not scientific. A 
 travesty on Christianity, yet a power. Doctoring the 
 book. Autocratic rule. Instructions to healers. Incon- 
 sistencies. "Science" dietetics. Influence over life and 
 death. The "Metaphysical College." "Put money in 
 thy purse." Material prosperity 48 
 
 Antagonisms of "Science" 
 
 Old methods outgrown. Mermerism. Clairvoyance. 
 Spiritualism. Faith Cure. Contradictions and absurdi- 
 ties. "Scientific" experiments. Mental surgery. A 
 bunion and insanity. Eternal youth .... 65 
 
 Power of Mind Over Body 
 
 Christian Science doctrines not new. No sin, sick- 
 ness, or death. Exorcising disease. A boast not ful- 
 filled. Metaphysical healing. The healer healed. The 
 Emmanuel Movement 7© 
 
 The Philosophy of Christian Science 
 
 Forerunners. Gnostic vagaries. Neo-Platonism. 
 Gnosticism defined. Agreement with "Science." 
 Burned-out torches. Socrates, Plato, Plotinus. Jo- 
 
Subject Index 
 
 anna Southcott. The Comforter, Christian Science. 
 The real and the unreal. Metaphysics. Pantheism and 
 Theism 93 
 
 Bible Verities and Christian Science Vaporings 
 
 Parallels and divergencies. How Jesus healed. The 
 Bible does not deny sin. God defined. Matter not real. 
 Jesus called it real. Mrs. Eddy improving on Paul. 
 Christ's "seeming" death. The doctrine of the Holy 
 Spirit. The resurrection 108 
 
 The Last Supper, Prayer, and Marriage 
 
 "Science" mystic and conflicting. Substituting for the 
 last supper the last breakfast. Audible prayer of no 
 avail. The Lord's Prayer. Mrs. Eddy's amendment. 
 Prayer to principle as God. Doctrine of marriage. A 
 menace to social well-being. Agamogenesis. Mrs. 
 Eddy taken at her word. The rock of Holy Scriptures. 
 "Science" on heredity 121 
 
 The "Key" 
 
 "In the beginning." God— Elohim. Exegesis accord- 
 ing to Mrs. Eddy. God does not know matter. God is 
 everything. Explanation of ignorance. The second 
 chapter of Genesis. The Apocalypse explained . 139 
 
 Conflict with Medicine and Law 
 
 The challenge. The boast of Christian Science. The 
 first plank. A cult of negation. Lack of understand- 
 ing in curing the sick. A pat definition. Cure of con- 
 sumption. A touch of madness. A medley. Strange 
 statements. A victim to "Science." A lawyer's testi- 
 mony as to Christian Science 153 
 
 The Mask of Delusion 
 
 Delusion in the face of experience. Mrs. Eddy close 
 to Deity. Under the mask. Scientific works not to be 
 read. Prevarication. Deification. Self-deluded. A 
 grave danger 171 
 
 The Mask Withdrawn 
 
 A lost faith. Vaunted cures. Under the spell. A 
 shattered dream. The awaking. The world's need. 
 Some other way 181 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 According to some a new religion was born in the 
 closing years of the nineteenth century. It has its 
 prophet, its revelation, its church and its form of wor- 
 ship. It has also a name. This name it wears as a 
 mask, concealing its real identity. Catching the 
 aroma of the advanced thought of the age, with keen 
 knowledge of human nature learned in years of ob- 
 scurity and adversity, its founder drew the name from 
 two sources. For well-nigh two thousand years the A " Ne w 
 Western world has hidden in its inmost heart the say- Rellslon " 
 ing, "Thou hast given Him a name which is above 
 every name." Above every name in the range of 
 human thought soars the name of Jesus, the Christ. 
 Another name that has become mighty in the sphere 
 of intellect is science. The founder of this extraordi- 
 nary system, where faggots of falsehoods are tied up 
 in bundles of absurdities, mused within herself, and 
 by the candle of the mystic coined the term "Meta- 
 physical Healing," which she afterward called "Chris- 
 tian Science." With wily words and catch phrases 
 culled from Holy Writ and the vocabulary of science, 
 she made a bid for disciples from among the children 
 of light and the kingdom of the world. Success came. 
 The thing thus evolved has stayed these years, al- 
 though "Christian Science," as a system, is neither 
 Christian nor scientific, except in name. 
 
 5 
 
6 Foreword 
 
 This cult declares that man's life upon earth is a 
 dream; all the world is nothing, and God is every- 
 thing. Hence there is no real body, and forms of 
 matter are but passing shadows. Yet the head of this 
 marvelous system stoutly reiterates that she does not 
 teach Pantheism. In these so-called revelations the 
 sweet and sacred tenets of the New Testament are 
 interwoven with fantastic and crude dogmas savoring 
 of the occult and mystic East, and curious "isms" 
 struggle for recognition along with the ethics of Jesus. 
 Similar manifestations of strange philosophies and re- 
 ligions trooped in swarms around the early Christian 
 Church. One was Gnosticism, another Neo-Platon- 
 ism. The latter nurtured within its bosom devotees 
 of magic, theosophy and mysticism. Some of the 
 early sects claimed special illumination and power to 
 work miracles. Denying the testimony of the senses, 
 they fell into all sorts of sensual excesses. Social and 
 intellectual characteristics marking that period are re- 
 peated in our own. Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Spirit- 
 ualism, Theosophy, Mind Healing and Christian Sci- 
 ence are all manifestations of the same spirit of curi- 
 ous unrest. Christian Science teaches its disciples to 
 deny the testimony of the senses. 
 
 Something about the teaching of the book, "Science 
 and Health," has captivated certain types of men and 
 women. There must be intrinsic good in it, and some 
 kernels of wheat among all its chaff. What may be 
 said in its favor? What is the nugget of truth that 
 gives it its attractiveness? 
 
 In the first place it is a protest against the bald ma- 
 
Foreword 7 
 
 terialism of our times. Men need to be reminded that 
 the seen is only temporal, and that God "has set 
 eternity" in the hearts of his children. If Christian 
 Science, though it may be a fleeting fad, on account 
 of its aspirational nature helps to fix the thought on 
 the all-sufficiency of God and His eternal verities, it 
 may fulfil a mission. Men have said of it, "Not only 
 was my body healed, but my soul was lifted into a 
 nobler spiritual attitude." 
 
 It is also a protest against the agnostic's ignorance 
 of his Maker. Sad is his boast of a civilization with- 
 out hope and without God in the middle of it. In 
 spite of its tangle of errors and inconsistencies, Chris- 
 tian Science does at least set forth the immanence of 
 God in human heart and life. The healing of the hurt 
 of the body, loudly heralded as it is, is not the only, 
 nor perhaps the greatest, factor about this system. A 
 gravely important practical bearing of these tenets lies 
 in the fact that they are a constant rebuke to the god 
 of Worry, that scowling menace to the peace of hu- 
 man life. They presume to furnish the world with an 
 incentive to do just what Jesus, when we understand 
 Him aright, would have us do; that is, to live with a 
 tranquil mind, without malice, without envy, without 
 fretting, and without anxiety. Has the Christian 
 Church lost the spirit of His invitation, "Take my 
 yoke upon you and learn of me, and ye shall find rest 
 unto your souls"? 
 
 It means just this blessed tranquillity. Herein is 
 the secret of success of Christian Science in its at- 
 tempt at habit-sculpturing and character-formation. 
 
8 Foreword 
 
 If we only believed Christ and His ability to help us, 
 we should live without the unrest that makes carking 
 care the curse and despoiler of human existence. We 
 are told that the peculiar opinions represented in "Sci- 
 ence and Health" have done wonders for those accept- 
 ing them. Mind is exalted over matter and the peace 
 of the Infinite comes to dwell in the human soul. These 
 views of Christian Science, it is affirmed, do not de- 
 stroy one fundamental article of Christian faith, but 
 add to it the elements of peace and strength that make 
 the soul free. Speech is also made about the solar 
 radiance and peace imprinted on the "mortal face" of 
 those trusting in these precepts. 
 
 This new religion takes such parts of the Word of 
 God as it pleases to appropriate, and ignores or denies 
 those passages that oppose its teachings. It denies sin 
 and consequently impeaches the authority of the 
 Decalogue. Opposite the copyright page stands this 
 motto from Shakespeare, "There is nothing either 
 good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Froude, the 
 historian, liked Hamlet's speech so well that he gave 
 it an anarchistic twist, subversive of the authority of 
 the Decalogue and much else, to which Carlyle replied 
 its Evil - n jjj s t renc hant way, "Such reasoning will result in 
 
 anarchy and broken heads!" To those in "Science," 
 marriage is not well thought of, and motherhood, at 
 least by implication, has lost its sacredness, as moral- 
 ity may be preserved, when "time matures," and the 
 highest relationships exist between the sexes outside 
 of the marriage bond. If it is only thinking makes it 
 so, what prevents the home being doomed and all the 
 
Foreword g 
 
 wild beasts of the sensual lair let loose upon society? 
 
 Much of this attempt at a new religious develop- 
 ment deals with questions of health and healing. 
 Physicians are ignored except in certain instances. 
 The healer of this cult is called a "practitioner." His 
 treatment is supposed to be purely mental. So far 
 the "practitioner" has rejected all responsibility to 
 both the State and his patient. Yet he does not re- 
 lease the patient from paying fat fees, and shows no 
 scruples of conscience in accepting them. All is mind, 
 and there is no matter, according to Christian Science, 
 consequently there can be no such things as sickness, 
 pain, and disease. 
 
 Both Science and Theology have acknowledged that 
 the powers of mind over matter reach beyond mortal 
 ken. No human thinker has ever traveled to the limits 
 of psychology and mental philosophy. Men who have 
 sought to use mental force to control physical condi- 
 tions outside of themselves have sometimes been re- 
 garded as saints and sometimes as charlatans. Those 
 who have used it to expel disease have by no means 
 always been conscious cheats. Incantations, charms 
 and medicine-makings have been resorted to by savage 
 and semi-savage priests, and often with results quite 
 marvelous. But these crude and rude therapeutic 
 methods do not differ more widely from the approved 
 practice of the accredited medical schools than do the 
 methods of Christian Science. 
 
 The advocates of this astonishing code, bristling 
 with self-contradictions, and unsatisfactory from its 
 poverty of ideas, invite men to accept their cult on 
 
io Foreword 
 
 the ground that belief in it, and even the reading of 
 the Eddy book, frees the body from all sickness and 
 pain and the soul from all moral responsibility. 
 
 Christian Science is a metaphysical system. With 
 great presumption it professes to interpret the philoso- 
 phy of life as taught by Jesus, and to supplement and 
 complete His redemption. It arrogates to itself power 
 to free men from that mighty trio, sin, sickness, and 
 death. Infatuation bordering on blasphemy meets the 
 devout at almost every turn of the page, and leads 
 him to exclaim in the words of the Psalmist: "Keep 
 back thy servant from presumptuous sins." There is 
 great adroitness in wresting Scripture to make it fit 
 the peculiar needs of "Science." The founder of the 
 sect asserts a profound belief in the ethical and spir- 
 itual foundations of the Gospel. Love is the note most 
 often sounded, apart from bodily healing, and its ad- 
 herents represent to the world that their chief purpose 
 is to abide in faith, hope, charity. 
 
 Notwithstanding that the nomenclature of Christian 
 thinking is adopted to a great extent in the text-book 
 of the cult, "Science and Health," there is a pitiable, 
 vagueness of expression. The amended editions have 
 hardly improved in this respect, but have rather grown 
 more vague. The evident motive appears to be to 
 make statements of anything approaching to dogma 
 or doctrine so misty and intangible as to render them 
 incapable of comparison with systematic and scientific 
 statements of belief. Thus they challenge any criti- 
 cism, and declare that the interpretation you may put 
 upon a certain passage is incorrect ; you do not under- 
 
Foreword n 
 
 stand it. But they are careful not to give the critic 
 any advantage by telling what it does mean. Yet the 
 whole system is encircled in a Christian atmosphere. 
 Ask a Christian Scientist to tell you what God is, and 
 you may find a typical answer in ''Science and Health." 
 "God," it says, "is supreme ; is Mind ; is Principle ; not 
 person; includes all and is reflected by all that is real 
 and eternal." This book also affirms that "The only 
 divine realities are the divine mind and its ideas." 
 
 Looked at from one angle, Christian Science teaches 
 obedience to moral obligations, obedience to the civil 
 law, and the performance of all works of righteous- 
 ness, sweetness and purity. On the other hand, re- 
 ligious platitudes abound, and in carrying out their 
 aims and purposes, subterfuge and falsehood bear 
 witness to the incongruity between profession and 
 practice. The Christian student hails with delight all 
 appearance of adherence to Gospel doctrine, but when 
 utterances are made that contradict the Bible he would 
 like to have them explained and put in a light, if pos- 
 sible, that will show their consistency with Gospel 
 truth. But here evasion comes in. On these contra- 
 dictory points no discussion can be elicited. It is either 
 utter silence, or the oft-repeated assertion, "Oh, you 
 do not understand us. You do not take us in the way 
 we mean." "You do not understand 'Mother,' " is a 
 very common expression that falls from their lips. 
 
 A just estimate of this new system of religion, or a 
 metaphysical school of healing, shows that it is a mask 
 worn over the face of experience, consciously or un- 
 consciously, and hiding from view both fact and real- 
 
 Mask 
 
12 Foreword 
 
 ity. It has taken one phase of the Redeemer's Life, 
 and that not the supreme one, and exalted it to the 
 highest; it has misstated the position and doctrines of 
 the Christian Church and made of evangelical faith a 
 caricature and travesty. In place of the personal God, 
 the infinite, loving, sympathetic Father, who knows 
 and feels for His children, it substitutes a principle, 
 an attribute, and a virtue. It draws the mystical dis- 
 tinction between person and individual, which, if not 
 a mere idle fancy, is at least too metaphysical for the 
 average human brain to understand. But let pardon 
 be craved, brain is "mythology, illusion" ; mind is 
 "deity mortal" ; mind is "mythology," "nothing claim- 
 ing to be something." May the idea that struggles for 
 expression here be put in this way? Mortal mind, 
 nothing, expresses nothing to nothing ; or Mind, which 
 is deity, expresses something to deity, but the same is 
 so far above human comprehension that the language 
 of deity — Mrs. Eddy — cannot be understood by it. 
 
 In preparing this volume the writer has visited the 
 scenes and places in New England connected with 
 Mrs. Eddy's life and work, and talked with many inti- 
 mate with the rise and growth of Christian Science. 
 He also desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to the 
 following works and authors, many of whom are 
 quoted in these pages : 
 
 "History of the Christian Church," Philip Schaff, 
 D. D.; "A Short History of the Christian Church," 
 Moncrieff; "History of Dogma," Harnack; "History 
 of Philosophy," Julius Seeley ; Philosophical Works of 
 Prof. Borden P. Bowne of Boston and Prof. James 
 
Foreword 13 
 
 of Harvard University; W. H. Keen, M. D.; O. W. 
 Holmes, M. D. ; and Doctor Brown-Sequard. Also 
 to the following writers on different phases of the 
 Christian Science Movement : William A. Purrington, 
 J. M. Buckley, LL. D., William H. Muldoon, Wm. 
 Peabody, Miss G. Milmine, Frank Podmore, and to 
 McClwrc's Magazine, The Contemporary Review, the 
 Brooklyn Eagle, The British Medical Journal,' and 
 others. 
 
One Christ, one Way, one Light divine 
 Is given in every age to shine: 
 The Lord and Master of the race, 
 The sun-road for our feet to trace, 
 The path that from the earth's green sod 
 Leads upward to the throne of God. 
 
 Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come 
 in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. 
 . . . But the end is not yet.— Matt. 24 : 4-6. 
 
The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE WOMAN AND THE PROPHET 
 
 The founder of Christian Science, Mrs. Mary Baker Birth and 
 G. Eddy, was born at Bow, near Concord, New Ancestry 
 Hampshire, July 16, 1821. For some reason the date 
 of her birth has been kept out of the stories of her 
 life and biographical cyclopedias. With her origin 
 and early childhood tradition has already been taking 
 liberties, and jumbled fact and fable in grotesque 
 combination. It has traced her ancestry to David's 
 line, and has surrounded her family with the aristo- 
 cratic halo of a distinguished Scotch patrician house. 
 But the plain fact is that there was no mystery about 
 her birth or about her Yankee ancestry for six or 
 seven generations of New England life. 
 
 Her father and mother were humble, everyday peo- 
 ple. She was the youngest child of Mark Baker and 
 Abigail Barnard Ambrose. The hilly farm which has 
 since been exalted into a Christian Science shrine was 
 cultivated by her father and grandfather. On both the 
 Baker and the Ambrose side of the house for genera- 
 
 15 
 
1 6 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 tions there was the good old New England type oi 
 plain farmer folk, stern, with a certain kind of piety, 
 but honest, "with as honest eyes as ever looked into a 
 milking pail or on a huckleberry bush." Her mothei 
 was a sweet, gentle, devoted soul, finding her joy in 
 her church (the family were Congregationalists) and 
 in neighborly ministries that made for peace and 
 heavenly inspiration. 
 
 The father, Mark Baker, was a man to be reckoned 
 with. He had a strong individuality, and heredity did 
 much in the transmission of certain vivid and sharply 
 defined characteristics from the father to the daugh- 
 ter, destined to a world-wide celebrity. Mark lived a1 
 Bow till 1836, and from 1836 until 1865, tne time oi 
 his death, at Tilton, New Hampshire; in both places 
 he is remembered for his strong and eccentric per- 
 sonality. His gray eyes, looking out from a well- 
 poised head that crowned his big, bony frame, his higli 
 forehead and firm-locked jaws, and his acrid criti- 
 cisms, are still well remembered. He had a fiery tem- 
 per, was close-fisted, and none was sharper in driving 
 a bargain. He never cheated ; his integrity was his 
 pride. He trained his children in the fear, nurture 
 and admonition of the Lord, and went to church regu- 
 larly on Sunday. The farm, the family, politics and 
 religion were the horizon of his life. In the war oi 
 the Rebellion he was a Copperhead; he thought the 
 "niggers" were made to be slaves; he hated Lincoln 
 and it is said that when told the news of his assassi- 
 nation he shouted in his gruff and terrible voice, "I'm 
 glad on it!" He quarreled with the minister, whc 
 
The Woman and the Prophet 17 
 
 was a good Republican and preached patriotic ser- 
 mons, and made himself as disagreeable as possible by 
 getting up when any passage in the sermon offended 
 his stubborn ignorance and prejudice, stamping down 
 the aisle with his huge walking stick, and out the door. 
 Mark Baker transmitted his qualities to his children, 
 most of whom were high-tempered and headstrong. 
 They were nearly all touched also with a little queer- 
 ness. The men were fine specimens of physical man- 
 hood; the women were endowed with marked good 
 looks. Mary Baker soon became the village beauty at 
 Tilton. Albert Baker had a college education, became 
 a lawyer, was associated with President Franklin 
 Pierce, entered politics, and was a man of rising fame 
 and large ability when he died at the early age of 
 thirty-one. 
 
 Mary Baker lived on the lonely, isolated farm at 
 Bow until she was fifteen. After the family moved to Early Life 
 Tilton she attended school there, grew to womanhood, 
 married, and was left a young widow. Rare beauty 
 and a strange, almost weird nervousness, producing 
 peculiar paroxysms, in which temper and disease 
 seemed to struggle together, marked her childhood 
 and dawning womanhood. As a child dainty, at- 
 tractive, and precocious; as a woman agile, lithe, and 
 graceful, she had a fascinating individuality. The 
 most striking part of a beauty illumined by so many 
 touches of loveliness were her large gray eyes; her 
 susceptibilities and aspirations spoke through them, 
 and when in anger they burned like black coals emit- 
 ting sparks. Those eyes have been of magnetic and 
 
18 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 impelling force all her life, helping powerfully to 
 weave around the men and women she would influence 
 the spell of her imperious will. For such a woman 
 strong men have taken up arms and championed her 
 cause unto death. Yet so hysterical and nervous was 
 she and so subject to convulsions, that the neighbors 
 said she had "fits," and when flashes of temper ac- 
 companied them, the uncharitable referred to them as 
 Mary Baker's "tantrums." Even her old father 
 deemed her possessed, not of seven, but of ten devils. 
 She was certainly an interesting girl, and no wonder 
 the spiritualists, abounding in New England, after- 
 ward claimed her as a medium. Mrs. Eddy herself 
 writes of her childhood : 
 
 "For some twelve months, when I was about eight 
 years old, I repeatedly heard a voice calling me dis- 
 tinctly 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." Then she relates that her mother told her 
 the Scriptural story of Samuel and directed that when 
 she heard the voice again she should reply: "Speak, 
 Lord, for thy servant heareth." As the result of fol- 
 lowing the advice, she says : "When the call came 
 again, I did answer, in the words of Samuel, but never 
 again to material senses was that mysterious call audi- 
 bly repeated." 
 
 Like Christ, at twelve years of age, if one credits 
 her story, she debated with the elders of the Church. 
 She does not draw therefrom any inferences; "Sci- 
 entists" have done it for her. She tells how she was 
 
The Woman and the Prophet 19 
 
 received into the Congregational Church at Tilton at 
 that time and how she made the minister and the dea- 
 cons all cry by her earnest words. But the official 
 record of that reception into church membership was 
 on July 26, 1838, consequently Mary was then seven- 
 teen years old. A lapse of memory may, moreover, 
 be pardoned her, only the parallel between herself and 
 our divine Lord falls to the ground. In other points, 
 also, she has made misstatements in her official biogra- 
 phy, declaring in "Retrospection and Introspection" 
 her family descent from the McNeils of Edinburgh. 
 Their coat of arms she uses, although the family have 
 expressly repudiated her claims, and she has herself, 
 after the publication of the refutation on the other side 
 of the water in Great Britain, told her Christian Sci- 
 ence followers not to connect her in the future with the 
 Scotch McNeils. Yet it is somewhat painfully signifi- 
 cant that the statement in her book has remained un- 
 corrected in subsequent editions. 
 
 In all New England towns during her youth, Mes- Mesmer 
 mer's name was well known. A girl who loved mys- 
 tery as Mary Baker did must have been greatly im- 
 pressed with what she heard of mesmerism, spiritual- 
 ism, clairvoyance, and mind reading. "Charles 
 Poyen," says Georgine Milmine, "a French disciple of 
 Mesmer, was a household word." Poyen in 1837 P u ^" 
 lished a book on "Animal Magnetism in New Eng- 
 land." According to this work he visited and lectured 
 in many of the towns where Mrs. Eddy spent her 
 early days. "At that moment," says Poyen, "animal 
 magnetism indisputably constituted, in several parts 
 
Parallels in 
 
 20 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 of New England, the most stirring topic of conversa- 
 tion among all classes of society." He calls it "a 
 great truth," "power of mind over matter," a "demon- 
 stration," a "discovery given by God." Above all, he 
 pronounced it "science." Whether Mrs. Eddy ever 
 read this book or saw Poyen is not known; the cir- 
 cumstances merely prove that many of the phrases 
 with which her name is now associated were current 
 in her youth. 
 
 Another religious and mystical development that 
 shakerisni must have had its influence on her forming mind and 
 character was Ann Lee's career. We are not asserting 
 that there is any close or basal resemblance between 
 the Shakers and Christian Science ; but there are a 
 few points of striking similarity in the words and 
 terms used by both sects. The Shakers spoke of Ann 
 Lee as "the female Christ," the "female principle of 
 God." We shall see that Christian Scientists have not 
 hesitated to make Airs. Eddy equal to Christ in her 
 mission and personality. The Shakers plainly asserted 
 that Ann Lee was greater than Christ. Mrs. Eddy 
 has herself said that her revelation was "higher, 
 clearer, and more permanent" than that given by the 
 Man of Galilee. The Shakers prayed to "our Father 
 and Mother." Mrs. Eddy's amended Lord's Prayer, 
 spiritually interpreted, or annotated for the enlight- 
 enment of to-day, reads in its first line, "Our Father- 
 Mother God." In the old Mother Church in Boston is 
 a stained glass window. It represents the woman of 
 the Apocalypse, clothed in the sun and crowned with 
 twelve stars, and is called "The Woman God 
 
The Woman and the Prophet 21 
 
 Crowned," while above it is a representation of the 
 book "Science and Health." The Shakers spoke of 
 Ann Lee as the Woman of the Apocalypse, and named 
 her "The God-anointed woman." 
 
 Christian Scientists call Mrs. Eddy "Mother"; Ann 
 Lee was addressed by the Shakers as "Mother." ' Both 
 these women put out the pretension that they had the 
 gift of healing. The Shakers believed that their 
 "Mother" had the divine illumination of the seer, the 
 gift of spiritual vision. This is exactly what Christian 
 Scientists think of Mother Eddy. The Shakers lived 
 in dread of the power of Ann Lee to work them 
 harm, through her mental insight and mental control 
 over them to work punishment or exact justice. It 
 was a doctrine of the early days of Christian Science 
 that Mrs. Eddy had the power of working evil on 
 others. "Malicious animal magnetism" is the devil of 
 that sect at the present time. The Shakers called 
 their denomination the Church of Christ. Mrs. Eddy 
 added to the name of Christ, for the designation of her 
 sect, "The Church of Christ, Scientist." Ann Lee 
 forbade audible prayer, so also Mrs. Eddy. 
 
 During Mary Baker G. Eddy's girlhood the very 
 atmosphere of New Hampshire was filled with 
 mysterious and scandalous charges about the Shakers. 
 They frequently figured in the courts. At least one 
 largely circulated book was written purporting to ex- 
 pose their iniquitous ways. A girl of her tempera- 
 ment must have been eager to hear about them and 
 doubtless dreamed over the occult mystery of their 
 strange doings. 
 
22 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 F i rs t It was in 1843, when she was a beautiful girl of 
 
 Marriage twenty-two, that Mary Baker contracted her first mar- 
 riage. George Washington Glover, a manly young 
 New Englandcr, was a bricklayer, who had worked at 
 his trade with Samuel Baker, her brother, in Boston. 
 Glover had removed to Charleston, South Carolina. 
 "He was spared to me," writes Mrs. Eddy in her 
 book, "Retrospection and Introspection," "for only 
 one brief year. He was in Wilmington, North Caro- 
 lina, when the yellow fever raged in that city, and 
 was suddenly attacked by that insidious disease, which 
 in his case proved fatal." She was far from home 
 and in dire pecuniary straits. The Masons gave him 
 decent burial and paid Mrs. Glover's fare to New 
 York. She has never forgotten that experience, be it 
 said to her honor, for while she has prohibited her fol- 
 lowers from joining any secret societies, the one ex- 
 ception that stands out is the Masonic fraternity. She 
 was met at New York by members of the family and 
 taken to the ancestral home. Here her son was born 
 in September, 1844. This was her only child. She 
 called him George Washington, after his father. For 
 ten years she lived in lonely, humdrum, dependent 
 widowhood. This period of her life was marked by 
 an aimless unhappiness. It was a shadowed house- 
 hold where age and misery sat by the board. 
 
 We are told that Mrs. Glover's hysterical attacks 
 increased in force with the years. She was always col- 
 lapsing. In fact her whole life at this period seems 
 to have been punctured with nervous collapse. The 
 family had to rock and soothe her as they would a 
 
The Woman and the Prophet 23 
 
 baby. It is said that the father was too old to meet 
 the strain upon him from her constant demands to be 
 rocked and cared for, so the hired man was enlisted 
 for this task. This, to the family, unseemly perform- i 
 ance was ended by the building of a picturesque cradle/ 
 with a platform at one end, on which the man sat, and^) 
 rocking himself, rocked the cradle at the same time. ( 
 
 In 1853 Mrs. Glover, cradle and all, was married in second 
 the Baker home to Dr. Daniel Patterson, an itinerant Marriage 
 dentist. The practice of mesmerism and clairvoyance 
 which she had carried on in the later years of her 
 widowhood had failed to support her; nor was her 
 second marriage venture a profitable one financially. 
 Patterson was a good fellow, dressed well, was in fact 
 a handsome man, yet in those days artificial denture 
 was not as lucrative as it has since become. The doc- 
 tor was most devoted to his wife. He carried her, 
 we are told, up and down stairs, rocked the cradle, and 
 in the meantime tried to keep the pot boiling, the latter 
 with indifferent success. Mrs. Eddy has tried to blot 
 out this period of her life. Indeed, Alfred Farlow, 
 with great mendacity, in his book, "Christian Science 
 Historical Facts," has said that Mrs. Patterson ob- 
 tained a divorce on the ground of adultery. The truth 
 is that the poor man stood the strain and temper, the 
 cradle and hysterics, until he himself became a nerv- 
 ous wreck, when he journeyed to Tilton, told the 
 family he could not exist longer in his wife's com- 
 panionship, made some provision for her support, and 
 practically dropped out of the world. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy has sought to draw the curtain of ob- 
 
24 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 livion over these long years of her career. She refers 
 to her union with Dr. Patterson in these unhappy 
 terms : 
 
 "My second marriage was very unfortunate, and 
 from it I was compelled to ask for a bill of divorce, 
 which was granted to me in the city of Salem, Massa- 
 chusetts. My dominant thought in marrying again 
 was to get back my child. The disappointment which 
 followed was terrible. His stepfather was envious; 
 and, although George was a tender-hearted, manly 
 boy, he hated him as much as I loved him.'' 
 
 In a small work entitled "Christian Science : An Ex- 
 position," it is said of this child that he "at the age of 
 four years was sent away from her and not seen again 
 by her until, at the age of thirty-four, he visited her in 
 Boston." The neighbors, who well knew of the whole 
 transaction, declare that she hated the boy and got rid 
 of him as a burden not to be borne by her. Mark 
 Baker said himself of his daughter : "Mary acts just 
 like an old ewe sheep that won't own its lamb. She 
 won't have it near her." She herself claims : "A plot 
 was consummated to keep us apart. The family to 
 whose care he was committed very soon removed to 
 what was then regarded as the very Far West. 
 . . . I was then informed that my son was lost. 
 Every means within my power was employed to find 
 him, but without success." She also speaks of a 
 strange providence that informed him of her where- 
 abouts. The facts of the case are that the people 
 with whom he made his home were constantly writing 
 back to Tilton and giving the news of the boy to their 
 
The Woman and the Prophet 25 
 
 friends there. It has also been proved that in 1861 
 she received a long letter from her son, and in 1865 
 she herself wrote a letter to P. P. Quimby, of Port- 
 land, Maine, in which she tells about her son being ill 
 at Enterprise, Minnesota. She claims to have written 
 a poem after her separation from the boy, one stanza 
 only of which is extant : 
 
 "Thy smile through tears, as sunshine o'er the sea, 
 
 Awoke new beauty in the surge's roll. 
 Oh, life is dead, bereft of all with thee, 
 
 Star of my earthly hope, babe of my soul." 
 
 Here we find the beginnings of some curious con- 
 tradictions and misstatements of facts that run as the 
 scarlet thread of sin through all Mrs. Eddy's works. 
 But a falsehood, being error, is nothing. It is only 
 an illusion. The reader will find as he goes along 
 many confused expressions from Mrs. Eddy's pen that 
 seem to be called forth by the need of meeting certain 
 exigencies of life, circumstance, or doctrine. We 
 may regard these things in two ways. Either the 
 prophet despises such a thing as consistency, or she 
 forgets the positions once assumed, and so uncon- 
 sciously contradicts herself. 
 
 In 1862, while Dr. Patterson was in Libby Prison, « Doctor „ 
 his wife, having heard of a certain Dr. Quimby of Qu*mby 
 Portland, Maine, determined to visit him in the hope 
 of once more regaining her lost health. Quimby was 
 no ordinary medical quack. He was neither a spirit- 
 ualist nor a clairvoyant. He eschewed trances, in- 
 
26 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 cantations, and was beyond even mesmerism. In his 
 profession he claimed to heal and make his patients 
 well and happy simply by the benign power of the 
 mind. He was an ignorant man who had taken up 
 these occult studies and thought things out for him- 
 self. His methods were in his day unique. The edu- 
 cated looked upon him as a benevolent, harmless fa- 
 natic, but his patients paid him the homage due to a 
 miracle worker. 
 
 The finding of himself was in Quimby a sort of 
 evolution. When Poyen, the French disciple of Mes- 
 mer, came to lecture in Belfast, Maine, he appealed to 
 the intellectual and the mystic in the man. Quimby 
 began shortly to experiment for himself. He found 
 out that the power of mesmerism was resident in him, 
 and as a mesmerist he won recognition. No matter 
 what the disease, he only knew enough, in his occult 
 ignorance of any real principle of diagnosis, to boldly 
 tackle it. It was a disease; it must be cured. But 
 after some rather profound experience with a clair- 
 voyant subject who in the trance state revealed to 
 Quimby the symptoms of his patient's diseases, he be- 
 gan to generalize. From careful observation he con- 
 cluded that the patients were not cured by the medi- 
 cines, but by the state of their own minds. The 
 "doctor" suggested to them the attitude and awoke the 
 faith in them that they would get well, and well they 
 got ! He made his discovery the basis of an extended 
 and original system of Mind Cure. Intellect and mor- 
 ality joined with a personality that won love and confi- 
 dence made his Mind Cure a great success. Patients 
 
The Woman and the Prophet 27 
 
 crowded his offices and letters came to him from all 
 over New England. His cures were not confined to 
 the ignorant and lowly. People of standing and edu- 
 cation professed recovery from various grievous 
 maladies under his treatment. 
 
 To this man Mrs. Patterson went to be cured, and 
 he rid her of her nervous disorders. For three weeks 
 she haunted his rooms and studied from his many vol- 
 umes of manuscript. Hungry and empty, intellectu- 
 ally and spiritually, Quimby gave her ideas which she 
 seized upon with avidity. She now had an object in 
 life — devotion to her prophet! She became the 
 prophet of a prophet. With her singular zeal, enthusi- 
 asm, and powers of persuasion she threw heart and 
 soul into propagating Quimby's ideas and exalting his 
 personality until her river of eloquence became a 
 stream of boredom to the uninitiated. 
 
 One of her letters reads in this way : "I am to all Germs of the 
 
 , ,. . , ,. . New Religion 
 
 who see me a living wonder and a living monument 
 of your power." She adds : "I eat, drink, and am 
 merry, have no laws to fetter my spirit. Am as much 
 an escaped prisoner as my dear husband was." 
 
 For a second time, in 1864, Mrs. Patterson paid a 
 visit to Portland and stayed three or four months. 
 Again she studied under Quimby and made some 
 friends, to whom she was afterward very much in- 
 debted. Absorbed in this peculiar study, she found the 
 innate cravings of her nature gratified. Now she be- 
 gan to discover in herself an active longing to be a 
 teacher and practitioner of this "Science." Little by 
 little the feeling, the confidence, and the power grew in 
 
28 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 her. Intimations of this inward yearning began to 
 appear in her letters ; the spirit of the prophet was 
 rising in her. "I ought to be perfect," she writes, 
 "after the command of science. I want to be like you, 
 good and noble, Doctor." Her adulation of her doc- 
 tor abounds in her correspondence. Now there runs 
 in her mind and comes to the surface in her written 
 messages the words that were afterward to become 
 famous as the shibboleth of a sect — "science," "be- 
 liefs," "truths," "errors." There was a strange magic 
 about the woman, and there was within her dreams a 
 slowly evolving idea that was to lead her very far 
 from those forty years of humiliation and obscurity 
 that formed the first long stage of her journey. 
 
 Now she plunged into spiritualism and astonished 
 her friends by going into trances and having spirits of 
 the departed speak through her. At one of these times, 
 when visiting a friend, Mrs. Crosby, who studied with 
 her in Quimby's office, she fell into a trance and rep- 
 resented the spirit of her brother Albert, who, to the 
 wonderment of her hostess, warned her, through Mrs. 
 Patterson's own lips, not to trust this ambitious, wily 
 woman, or she would do so to her own peril and sor- 
 row. Her high temper and selfish exactions made the 
 pathway of friendship perilous for her friends, and 
 her true character found revelation through this medi- 
 umistic channel, for few were the friends to whom 
 this strangely assorted personality did not bring the 
 sword of trouble. Yet in her the good and the bad 
 were so strongly mingled that those who could no 
 longer abide her imperious exactions remembered 
 
The Woman and the Prophet 29 
 
 with gratitude what she did for their intellectual and 
 spiritual awakening. 
 
 For a long time Quimby was the prophet whom she 
 proclaimed, and Mrs. Eddy continued unshaken in her 
 faith in him. She believed that her recovery from 
 the terrible malady that had worn her out and sapped 
 her vitality with such terrible tyranny was nothing 
 short of miraculous. The manner and method of her 
 restoration to health she recounts with vivid and 
 lengthy exactness. For herself she claims a soecial 
 revelation from God. In her autobiographical 
 sketches she writes of all these experiences. In 
 "Retrospection and Introspection" she says of herself 
 in 1866: "I then withdrew from society about three 
 years, to ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, 
 to find the Science of Mind that should take the 
 things of God and show them to the creature, and re- 
 veal the great curative principle — Deity." 
 
 In this work, which purports to be a biography, 
 with what appears to be a subtle and artful purpose 
 she passes over in silence some six years of her his- 
 tory. The reason for this silence will appear in sub- 
 sequent chapters. 
 
 In May of 1864 Mrs. Patterson went to visit her Domestic Life 
 friend Mrs. Crosby, and remained at her home until 
 the autumn of that year, when she joined her husband 
 in Lynn, Massacnusetts, in which place he had already 
 established himself in his dental profession. His prac- 
 tice was a fairly good one, and people liked the bluff, 
 good-natured, overgrown boy. Though the doctor was 
 untiring in his efforts to please and care for his long- 
 
30 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 time invalid wife, his devotion rarely drew from her 
 the smile of wifely approval. Many legends are ex- 
 tant of her selfish exactions, impatience, and fiery, 
 hysterical outbursts of temper. Whatever the outside 
 world saw of her charms, she evidently gave him the 
 worst side of her hereditary disposition. Her demands 
 seemed without end or reason. When the doctor was 
 at home she compelled him to humor her every whim. 
 
 When he was away on his professional engage- 
 ments, she was able to care for herself and walk up- 
 stairs and down, but on his return she immediately 
 lapsed into utter helplessness. Many amusing stories 
 are told of her odd freaks and outbursts of anger at 
 the good-natured man in the days before she met the 
 Portland seer and learned of him the secret of mind 
 cure. 
 
 While they were living at the Russell home Patter- 
 son deserted the woman and never returned. Those 
 who know him say that no word was ever whispered 
 against his character either then or subsequently. His 
 spirit seemed broken; indeed he never had much 
 nerve; and after roving around for some years he 
 drifted to his boyhood home, where he passed his days 
 in hermit seclusion, dying in 1896. But Mrs. Eddy 
 has taken occasion to relate this episode in her life, 
 coloring the narrative to suit her own purposes, be- 
 littling her one-time husband and placing on him the 
 brand of moral obliquity as well as cowardice. She 
 says: 
 
 "In 1862 my name was Patterson ; my husband, Dr. 
 Patterson, a distinguished dentist. After my marriage 
 
The Woman and the Prophet 31 
 
 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 re- 
 turned home, hoping once more to make that home 
 happy, but only returned to a new agony— to find my 
 husband had eloped with a married woman from one 
 of the wealthy families of that city, leaving no trace 
 saving his last letter to us, wherein he wrote: 'I 
 hope some time to be worthy of so good a wife.' " 
 
 Again the prophet of sweetness, light, and blessing 
 for humanity lapses from truth, and vaguely clouds 
 the facts in a medley of vanity, selfishness, and false- 
 hood. But why should a prophet be consistent? 
 
Wanderings 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE WOMAN AND THE BOOK 
 
 At the time of the dedication of the Christian Sci- 
 ence Church at Concord, New Hampshire, there ap- 
 peared in the Plymouth Record, from a correspondent 
 who lived among her old friends and neighbors and 
 had opportunity of gleaning the characteristics of the 
 prophet's life at first hand, this statement : 
 
 "With the announcement of 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 (North Groton). These people re- 
 member the woman at that time as one who carried 
 herself above her fellows. . . . 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 kindly 
 acts." 
 
 After Doctor Patterson left her the woman was 
 desperately poor. We are told that she went from 
 house to house wherever any would take her in, and 
 that she made friends and quarreled with them time 
 and again. From 1864 to ^7° was a period of pro- 
 tracted wandering. 
 
 32 
 
The Woman and the Book 33 
 
 Her intimates at this time were mostly spiritualists. 
 Besides living in Lynn, she visited Stoughton, Taun- 
 ton, Amesbury, Swampscott, Newburyport, Merri- 
 mac, Avon, and Haverhill. In all these sojourns she 
 made friends with her fascinating personality, and 
 then lost them by her vindictive temper and thought- 
 less requirements. In one instance, while at Taunton, 
 Massachusetts, it is stated that she tried to persuade 
 Hiram S. Crafts, who had met her at Lynn, to whom 
 she had taught the Quimby system, and who was hav- 
 ing some success in healing patients, to leave his wife 
 and get a divorce simply because she thought that 
 Mrs. Crafts hindered the success of the partnership 
 formed between the teacher and her pupil. In this 
 she did not succeed. Mr. Crafts, preferring his wife 
 either to Mrs. Patterson or the practice of Mind Cure, 
 gave up the whole business, and the family moved 
 away. 
 
 Wherever she went Mrs. Eddy sang the praises of 
 Dr. Quimby. In sweetest, gentlest tones she was wont 
 to say, on all occasions when discourse on her idol 
 was possible — for it was her habit to talk continually 
 of mind and matter — "I learned this from Dr. Quimby, 
 and he made me promise to teach at least two persons 
 before I die." 
 
 In the summer of 1870 Mrs. Eddy returned to Lynn. 
 It was here that she began the role of a successful 
 prophet, and in this career we will follow her. First 
 she will appear as the prophet of Phineas Parkhurst 
 Quimby, heralding his gospel and trumpeting his 
 praise. She will draw around her converts to his 
 
34 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 doctrine and teach them diligently from his manu- 
 scripts that have come into her possession. Then, in 
 the evolution of her peculiar mind and in the growth 
 of a large self-consciousness, she will throw off alle- 
 giance to her master and stand forth as the peculiar 
 favorite of heaven, yea, as a veritable anointed one. 
 In her hand she will carry — for a price — the Holy 
 Comforter, Christian Science, which she will claim 
 has been taught her not of man, but in direct revela- 
 tion, by God himself. 
 
 As the prophet of a prophet, up to 1870 Mrs. Pat- 
 terson had had but indifferent success. She had rev- 
 The First erenced her teacher and made no concealment of her 
 Practitioner ar( i or f or him. Hiram S. Crafts was the only poor 
 apology of a disciple she had converted to her prac- 
 tice, and he, through her own overreaching, had gone 
 back on her. On her return to Lynn she did two 
 things. She found a subject whose receptive mind 
 and bent of character made him a willing co-worker 
 with her in her chosen field, then she bent herself dili- 
 gently to the completion of her book. At this period 
 she began to call herself Mrs. Glover again. In the 
 young man, Richard Kennedy, she found an apt stu- 
 dent. Through him she again opened an office and 
 began the practice of her Science, which was now 
 destined to be more widely advertised and so to in- 
 crease the circle of her possibilities. Her limitations 
 began to dawn upon her. She was not cut out for a 
 practical healer, but as a teacher of the Quimby dis- 
 covery none, perhaps, might excel her. An experi- 
 ment was begun with Kennedy, who was only a boy 
 
The Woman and the Book 35 
 
 and looked exceedingly youthful, which lasted for 
 three years. In early summer he put up his modest 
 sign, ''Dr. Kennedy." By autumn his office was liter- 
 ally crowded with patients. Men laughed at him and 
 shrugged their shoulders, and then said to their wives 
 and daughters afflicted with divers and slight ailments, 
 "Go to Doctor Kennedy." The nervous wrecks and 
 discouraged invalids that had been given up by other 
 doctors he cured. 
 
 Mrs. Glover lived in the background of modest re- 
 tirement. Her mission was now a serious one, and the 
 spirit of the prophet was growing within her. She be- 
 gan to see visions of future power and mastery. As 
 never before life loomed up as a solemn business. 
 Within her was silently growing a sense of conquest, 
 a subconscious aspiration for power and influence. 
 She was concentrated on "Science," and any signs of 
 laxity on the part of her young coadjutor she frowned 
 upon as wanting dignity and appreciation of the im- 
 portance of the great mission she had espoused. Pros- 
 perity did not unnerve her purpose, but added a spur 
 to it. Then stirred in her dreams of future greatness 
 and glory. She was often heard to say that she meant 
 to establish a religion that would command great re- 
 spect from multitudes. One of her sayings was : "You 
 will live to hear the church bells ring out my birth- 
 day." She appeared now, not as the prophet of an- 
 other's great destiny, but as the prophet of her own 
 destiny. Up to this time life had doled out to her 
 only obscurity, ridicule, poverty and failure. But the 
 tide that is in the affairs of men had changed. To her 
 
A Lawsuit 
 
 36 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 had been given the foundations of great things to be 
 and a boundless ambition to achieve them. Every- 
 thing was forgotten but success and the passion of her 
 soul for "Science." When she reached her psycholog- 
 ical moment she knew it. When power to command 
 was placed in her hand her truly remarkable person- 
 ality responded to its touch. 
 
 Another promising student was Charles S. Stanley, 
 whose wife had been a patient of Kennedy's and re- 
 ceived much benefit from his treatment. Under the 
 influence of his wife's urging he applied himself to 
 learn Mental Healing, but afterward declared that 
 Mrs. Glover gave him nothing and had nothing to 
 teach. This was her second large and important dis- 
 agreement with a disciple, but it in no way discour- 
 aged her. The testimony of his fellow students is 
 that there was much talk between Stanley and Mrs. 
 Glover. Many disagreements followed. They clashed 
 on payment of fees. She said she could walk on the 
 water and live without eating. He took objections. 
 She demanded that Stanley give up his Baptist creed 
 and every other creed. He refused. She had met a 
 mind that she could not control, and they parted. A 
 civil suit followed, in which Mrs. Glover was worsted. 
 In the trial of the case most curious testimony came 
 out regarding her teaching, such as this : "So long as 
 one believed in a personal God and in response to 
 prayer, they could not progress in scientific religion." 
 Dr. Kennedy gave as his testimony that "I never gave 
 up my belief in a personal God, though my belief was 
 pretty well shaken up." 
 
The Woman and the Book 37 
 
 Under the name of Patterson Mrs. Eddy wrote to 
 the Portland, Maine, press : "P. P. Qnimby stands Quimby 
 upon the plain of wisdom with his truth. Christ Maniwcript. 
 healed the sick, but not by juggling or with drugs; as 
 the former speaks as never man before spake, and 
 heals as never man healed since Christ, is he not iden- 
 tified with truth, and is not this the Christ that was in 
 him? P. P. Quimby rolls away the stone from the 
 sepulchre, and health is the resurrection." 
 
 By the year 1870 her estimation of the Quimby 
 manuscripts and teachings seems to have undergone 
 some change. In the six years of her migratory life 
 she had written and rewritten parts and wholes of 
 these works, adding prefaces and changing and inter- 
 weaving into the heart of the compositions much of 
 her own thoughts. Yet she still continued to attrib- 
 ute their authorship to Quimby. Daniel H. Spofford, 
 who was one of her most brilliant students and prom- 
 ising disciples, states that he became her pupil in 1870, 
 when he resided in Lynn, Massachusetts, and that 
 then Mary Baker Glover was a teacher , of meta- 
 physical healing. She taught from three manuscripts, 
 entitled "Questions and Answers in Moral Science," 
 "The Science of Man," and "Soul's Enquiries of 
 Man." She always attributed the authorship of these 
 manuscripts to P. P. Quimby of Portland, Maine. 
 Notwithstanding this, as will appear more in detail 
 later, she denies her debt to Quimby, and claims that 
 in 1866 she discovered the Science of Metaphysical 
 Healing, which she afterward named Christian Sci- 
 ence. 
 
38 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 Mrs. Eddy's relation to Quimby and the part that 
 his manuscripts had in the development of her Chris- 
 tian Science doctrines have been a matter of grave 
 controversy for years. She claims that this discovery 
 was given to her as a divine revelation, and then re- 
 pudiates P. P. Quimby and all his works, especially 
 "malicious animal magnetism." Although this divine 
 revelation which she called Christian Science came to 
 her in 1866, so she says, in 1868 and 1870 she still 
 taught the Quimby method, and even allowed herself 
 to be treated by rubbing and all the methods of Quim- 
 byism. It is distinctly remembered by those who 
 played the role of host to her in those days that she 
 acknowledged Quimby, possessed and taught from the 
 Quimby manuscripts, and lauded Quimbyism as the 
 only cure for disease. Miss Milmine has presented in 
 one of her McClnrc Magazine articles a collection of 
 quotations from the Quimby manuscripts, "Ques- 
 tions and Answers," some of which are herewith given 
 to the reader; it will not be difficult to find in them 
 familiar words and expressions to one at all ac- 
 quainted with the Christian Science phraseology. 
 
 In this science the names arc given thus : God is Wisdom. 
 This Wisdom is not an Individuality but a principle, embraces 
 every idea form, of which the idea, man, is the highest — hence 
 the image of God, or the Principle. 
 
 Understanding is God. 
 
 All sciences are part of God. 
 
 Truth is God. 
 
 There is no other Truth but God. 
 
 God is Wisdom. God is Principle. 
 
 Wisdom, Love, and Truth are the Principle. 
 
 Error is matter. 
 
 Matter has no intelligence. 
 
The Woman and the Book 39 
 
 To give intelligence to matter is an error which is sickness. 
 
 Matter has no intelligence of its own, and to believe intelli- 
 gence is in matter is the error which produces pain and in- 
 harmony of all sorts; to hold ourselves we are a principle 
 outside of matter, we would not be influenced by the opinions 
 of man, but held to the workings only of a principle, Truth, 
 in which there are no inharmonies of sickness, pain or sin. _ 
 
 For matter is an error, there being no substance, which is 
 Truth, in a thing which changes and is only that which belief 
 makes it. 
 
 Christ was the Wisdom that knew Truth dwelt not in 
 opinion, and that matter was but opinion that could be 
 formed into any shape which the belief gave to it, and that 
 the life which moved it came not from it, but was outside of it. 
 
 I know of no better counsel than Jesus gave to His Dis- 
 ciples when He sent them forth to cast out devils, and heal 
 the sick, and thus in practice to preach the Truth, "Be ye 
 wise as serpents and harmless as doves." Never get into 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 to face the error and argue it down, 
 then you can heal the sick. 
 
 The patient's disease is in his belief. 
 
 Error is sickness. Truth is health. 
 
 If I understand how disease originates in the mind and 
 fully believe it, why cannot I cure myself? 
 
 Disease being made by our beliefs or by our parents' beliefs 
 or by public opinion, there is no one formula of argument to 
 be adopted, but every one must be hit in their particular case. 
 Therefore it requires great shrewdness or wisdom to get the 
 better of the error. 
 
 Many people unite in saying that she always ac- 
 knowledged the manuscripts that she used as from P. 
 P. Quimby's pen. One of these is the man who be- 
 came well known as her ablest manager and business 
 agent, Daniel H. Spofford, who declares that she al- 
 ways attributed the authorship of "Questions and 
 Answers in Moral Science," "The Science of Man," 
 and "Soul's Enquiries of Man" to Quimby. Little by 
 
40 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 little Quimby's name was dropped as of no advantage 
 and more and more possessing a positive hindrance to 
 her advancement. 
 
 The period of her wanderings is most unsatisfying 
 to the student of Mrs. Eddy's biography. She has 
 sought to seal it up as close as a tomb. Her aim 
 seems to be to leave the impression that, like St. Paul, 
 she was the peculiar recipient of the favor of God. 
 
 In ''Retrospection and Introspection," after fixing 
 the date 1866, the time of her now famous fall on the 
 ice in Lynn, as the period of her miraculous cure and 
 divine revelation of Metaphysical Healing, she says : 
 
 "I then withdrew from society about three years, 
 to ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find 
 the Science of Mind that should take the things of God 
 and show them to the creature, and reveal the great 
 curative Principle — Deity." 
 "Science and By 1 875 the book "Science and Health" was 
 published ready for the publishers. No word in it hints for how 
 large a part of it she was indebted to Quimby. As it 
 grew, so her desire to mention him grew less. Now 
 at the date of its completion the student in her classes 
 heard little or nothing about him. The book appeared 
 in print at the end of the year. Friends, it is stated, 
 advanced her the thousand dollars which the printer 
 wanted in hand before he would put out an edition. 
 One thousand copies fell silently from the press, al- 
 most unheralded. Born, and the world knew it not! 
 How must that four hundred and forty-first edition of 
 a recent year look down with compassion upon the 
 forerunner of a multitudinous race. 
 
Marriage 
 
 The Woman and the Book 41 
 
 The problem now was to sell it and make an ap- 
 preciative public. To effect this most desired purpose 
 she persuaded one of her most successful pupils, Mr. 
 Spofford, to take up the work of agent. This step 
 marked a new era in her rise to conspicuous position 
 before a wide public. Spofford sold the book and as 
 press agent made good in a large degree. 
 
 In 1877 she married Asa Gilbert Eddy, the stu- ™rd 
 dent who took Spofford's place as her leading prac- 
 titioner. She had now entered the matrimonial state 
 with a "true man," in the fifty-second year of her age. 
 Mr. Eddy was forty. It mattered not, however, in 
 "Science." For reasons best known to herself, but 
 not accepted in the most happy spirit by her inti- 
 mates in the business of advancing Christian Science 
 interests, she sent for Rev. Samuel B. Stewart, a Uni- 
 tarian clergyman, who on New Year's night performed 
 the ceremony at Mrs. Glover's residence on Broad 
 street, Lynn, Massachusetts. Hereafter she was to 
 be known to her church and the world as Mary Baker 
 Glover Eddy. Although her opinion of marriage, from 
 her published statements regarding it, is so low, of 
 this union she writes : 
 
 "My last marriage was with Asa Gilbert Eddy, 
 and was a blessed spiritual union, solemnized at Lynn, 
 Mass., by the Rev. Samuel Barrett Stewart, in the 
 year 1877. Dr. Eddy was the first student to publicly 
 announce himself a Christian Scientist and place these 
 symbolic words on his office sign. He forsook all to 
 follow in this line of light. He was the first organ- 
 izer of a Christian Science Sundav-school, which he 
 
42 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 superintended. He also taught a special Bible class, 
 and lectured so ably on Scriptural topics that even 
 ministers listened to him with mingled surprise and 
 approbation. He was remarkably successful in Mind 
 Healing and untiring in his chosen work. In 1882 
 he passed away with a smile of love and peace resting 
 on his countenance." The physicians who conducted 
 the autopsy concluded that death was caused by heart 
 disease, distinctly developed. Think of it — the first 
 Christian Science doctor ( ?) to hang out his shingle, 
 and then to die of heart disease ! But Mrs. Eddy de- 
 clared that he died of arsenical poisoning, mentally 
 administered. 
 confusing: j t j s ra th e r a curious coincidence that Mrs. Eddy 
 
 Dates . J 
 
 did not give to the world her work setting forth the 
 claims of Christian Science as a discovery of her own 
 until after P. P. Quimby passed away. His death 
 occurred in 1865. ^ n tne following year, she affirms, 
 the great revelation came to her, although she con- 
 tradicts herself in this matter by the substitution of 
 two other dates at different times as to the set time 
 of revelation. In plain terms she writes : 
 
 "It was in Massachusetts, in the year of 1866, that 
 I discovered the Science of Metaphysical Healing, 
 which I afterwards 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 mental cause, and in January, 
 1866, I gained the scientific certainty that all causation 
 was mind and every effect a mental phenomenon/' 
 Mrs. Eddy in those days even felt that her primary 
 
The Woman and the Book 43 
 
 students were quite well enough equipped to try their 
 fledgling wings on a public waiting to be impressed. 
 This is the way she puts it : "Having received my 
 instructions in the primary class, and afterwards stud- 
 ied thoroughly 'Science and Health/ the student 
 should not hesitate to enter upon this privileged Gos- 
 pel work and so fulfil the command of Christ. Yea, 
 an apt Bible scholar and a consecrated Christian by 
 deeply dipping into my last revised 'Science and 
 Health' may even enter this field of labor without any 
 personal instruction — beneficial to himself and the 
 race." 
 
 Certainly she can gloss over real facts and make 
 her motives appear quite different in the telling from 
 what they really are ! 
 
 The many conflicting dates which Mrs. Eddy has 
 chosen to give as the time when the inception of Chris- 
 tian Science came into her mind are puzzling to the 
 student of her history. Naturally an explanation is 
 sought. At first it may be thought to be simply the 
 general inconsistency that runs through her many 
 writings. But on further investigation a purpose and 
 an object loom up. She claimed a divine revelation. 
 She must make her prior and subsequent actions fit 
 into this revelation. The reader has seen that her 
 connection with P. P. Quimby had come to be re- 
 garded by her as a direct detriment. She must re- 
 move all trace of a distinctly human origin of her sys- 
 tem in order to meet attacks and assertions that the 
 beginning of her knowledge of Mind Healing was in 
 what she received from Quimby. To combat Mr. 
 
44 The Mask ot Christian Science 
 
 Julius A. Dresser's assertion, made in the Church of 
 Divine Unity in Boston, that Quimby was the origina- 
 tor of the present system of mental healing, and that 
 she received what she knows about it from him as his 
 patient and student, Mrs. Eddy was compelled to de- 
 fend her position. 
 
 In the Christian Science Journal of 1887 (June) is 
 an answer from her pen to this charge. It affirms : 
 "As long ago as 1844, I was convinced that mortal 
 mind produced all disease." In order to clinch the 
 point and rout the enemy, she adds : "In 1862 I 
 was proclaiming that Science must govern all healing." 
 Then in order to evade another attack, Mrs. Eddy 
 said that in 1853 she was acquainted with the science 
 of Mental Healing. Mr. Dresser was himself a pa- 
 tient and pupil of Quimby. In Boston he practised 
 mental healing as taught by his master and from manu- 
 scripts written by him. His statements as to Mrs. 
 Eddy's relation with the Portland seer, and the obli- 
 gation of Christian Science to him, led to the rise of 
 the so-called Quimby controversy. 
 
 In the first edition of "Science and Health," issued 
 in 1875, it is stated that its author first learned in 1864 
 that "Science mentally applied would heal the sick." 
 
 As late as 1887, in the Christian Science Journal, 
 she proclaims that prior to her visit to Quimby in 
 1862 she "knew nothing of the Science of Mind 
 Healing" and that "Mind Science was unknown to 
 me." Naturally her opponents and the objectors to 
 her lofty claim of any superior divine inspiration have 
 used this assertion against her, and with telling effect. 
 
The Woman and the Book 45 
 
 Christian Scientists have now settled on the even- 
 ing of February 1, 1866, as the hour when the new 
 religion was born. Mrs. Eddy, defending this point, 
 as strategic to her position, writes : "It was in Massa- 
 chusetts, February, 1866, and after the death of the 
 magnetic doctor, Mr. P. P. Quimby, whom Spiritual- 
 ists would associate therewith, but who was in no 
 wise connected with this event, that I discovered the 
 Science of Divine Metaphysical Healing, which I aft- 
 erwards named Christian Science." 
 
 In "Retrospection and Introspection," on page 38, 
 and onward, she tells the story : 
 
 "My immediate recovery from the effects of an in- 
 jury caused by an accident, an injury that neither 
 medicine nor surgery could reach, was the falling ap- 
 ple that led me to the discovery how to be well myself 
 and how to make others so." 
 
 In a later version of this affair, as told by the Pub- a 
 lishing Society of this denomination, the fall on the i ™ r e acnlous " 
 icy curbstone and the consequent almost fatal injury, 
 with the helplessness of the skilled physician, led to 
 miraculous results : 
 
 "Finding no hope and no help on earth, she lifted 
 her heart to God. On the third day, calling for her 
 Bible, she asked the family to leave the room. Her 
 Bible opened to the healing of the palsied man, Matt. 
 10:2. The truth which set him free she saw. The 
 power which gave him strength she felt. The life 
 divine which healed the sick of the palsy restored 
 her, and she rose from the bed of pain healed and 
 free." 
 
46 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 As near as proof that would hold in a court of law 
 can reach the case, the above is a fiction pure and 
 simple. 
 
 The facts are these : Mrs. Eddy did fall on the icy 
 sidewalk. She was hurt. A doctor was called in. 
 But the rest is fable. 
 
 The Christian Science Publishing Society says : "The 
 doctor pronounced the verdict that she had but three 
 days to live." 
 
 The physician, a Homceopathist, Alvin M. Cushing, 
 makes affidavit that he was called to attend profes- 
 sionally a Mrs. Patterson. He, under oath, affirms: 
 
 "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. Eddy writes in "Retrospection and Introspec- 
 tion" : 
 
 "Even to the Homoeopathic 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." 
 
 In the same affidavit, published in McClure's Maga- 
 zine, Dr. Cushing affirms: 
 
 "Mrs. Patterson did not suggest, say, or pretend, 
 or in any way whatever intimate, that on the third 
 day, or any other day, of her 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." 
 
The Woman and the Book 47 
 
 Mrs. Eddy herself disproves the miraculous ac- 
 count in one of her own letters written two weeks 
 after the fall : 
 
 "Two weeks ago I fell on the sidewalk and struck 
 my head on the ice, and was taken up for dead. 
 . . Now, can't you help me? I believe you 
 can. I think I could help another." 
 
 Now what conclusion may the investigator of 
 Metaphysical Healing and this episode in Mrs. Eddy's 
 life come to ? Evidently this : 
 
 The stories about it are fictions. There is nothing 
 miraculous in the cure. There is no divine revela- 
 tion regarding divine healing proved at this time. 
 Quite the contrary. The prophet was mute at the time 
 regarding it. She appealed to another for help eleven 
 days after she records a miraculous cure. The Miracle 
 —the Revelation— are a fancy. The legendary lore 
 created to throw a false, supernatural glamour about 
 the incident is a boomerang calculated to return with 
 destructive force against foundations laid in fable, 
 evasions, false imaginings, and cunning perversions. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 A MASK FOR COMMERCE AND GLORY 
 
 Flying Many Faith healing has long been a recognized privilege 
 Flags £ tne Ch r i s ti a n Church. Mesmer and his successors 
 
 made healing by fluid a popular fad. The something 
 he called fluid emanated from him. In these latter 
 days mysticism has discovered a new method of phys- 
 ical repair and bodily renovation, without drug inter- 
 vention or skill of surgery. Many names have been 
 given to the process, the New Thought, Mind Cure, 
 Metaphysical Healing, Faith Cure, Cure by Appeal to 
 the Sub-conscious Self, Cure by Suggestion, Divine 
 Healing, Divine Science, the Emmanuel Movement, 
 and others. 
 
 The basic element in a number of these is the same, 
 however, no matter how many differing shades of doc- 
 trine may be indicated. The central tenet, loudly pro- 
 claimed, is one, that the disease does not exist; it is 
 a figment, a mortal error. Believe there is nothing 
 the matter, and there is nothing to be cured. Chris- 
 tian Science boldly declares: "The power of poison 
 lies in the belief." "Deny sin, sickness and death, for 
 matter is nothing." "Rheumatism and pneumonia," 
 says one disciple, "are verbal utterances for unthink- 
 ables." "Deny sickness and pain," says another, 
 and you will be happy." "Disease is a delusion, the 
 
 4 8 
 
A Mask for Commerce and Glory 49 
 
 result of a conscious or unconscious conspiracy on the 
 part of a false belief that has fastened itself on the 
 mind." 
 
 The cure does not lie, it is asserted, in faith, but in 
 knowledge. Even this is not absolutely necessary on 
 the part of the patient, for he can be cured by the di- 
 rection of another's thoughts. Hence absent treatment 
 comes just as high as present, and is quite as effica- 
 cious. In all these attempts at projecting mental 
 states into the world of matter and making a belief 
 stand for accomplished results and living entities, the 
 mask of the unreal and the ideal covers the face of 
 reality and experience. 
 
 Of all these various schools of Mental Healing the 
 most loudly proclaimed to-day, and, it must also be 
 added, the most successful, is the self-called Chris- 
 tian Science. To the unbiased investigator the name 
 may not appear to be happily chosen, but rather to be 
 a misnomer, for it has the appearance of being a mask 
 to conceal depths entirely unsuspected from its out- 
 side indications. It attempts to characterize as Chris- 
 tian a something which has eliminated the distinctive 
 doctrines of Christianity on its evangelical side, and 
 gone out of its way to antagonize even those forms of 
 religious expression known as unevangelical. The 
 Christian could hardly be expected to recognize a sys- 
 tem from which all the distinctive articles of faith his 
 heart holds dear have been emasculated. Orthodox 
 science, on the other hand, would hardly allow the 
 presumptuous claim of family likeness to a cult that 
 denies the reality of matter and its divers phenomena, 
 
 Not Christian 
 
 Not Scientific 
 
50 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 and asserts that strychnine does not poison and alcohol 
 does not intoxicate, that geology cannot explain the 
 formation of the earth's crust, that animals were not 
 created carnivorous, that life is not propagated by 
 germ-cells, that there is no law of heredity, and that 
 male and female are % not necessary for human gener- 
 ation. 
 But a Power Though it may be neither Christian nor scientific, 
 Christian Science must be reckoned with as a promi- 
 nent modern force, a system that has secured a strong 
 foothold. On its aspirational side it is phenomenal, 
 and is found to be a most live and real thing in the 
 world of mind, and also of that matter which it af- 
 fects to despise. A door of hope has been opened by 
 it in the valley of sin, sickness and human misery 
 that has brought happiness and peace to thousands, and 
 a certain sort of nobility of spirit amid the mazes of 
 its strange delusions and in spite of the mask it wears 
 before the solid facts of existence. 
 
 The Christian Science sect has at present 1,100 so- 
 cieties. There are over 8,000 healers attached to Chris- 
 tian Science, and something like 60,000 church mem- 
 bers are claimed by it. The Mother Church in Bos- 
 ton was erected at a cost of $2,000,000. The stately 
 and magnificent architectural structures in New York 
 and elsewhere attest its wealthy, aristocratic, and 
 numerous following. Their Bible is "Science and 
 Health; with Key to the Scriptures." It was first 
 composed by Mrs. Eddy, who incorporated in it the 
 original manuscripts secured from the writings of P. 
 P. Quimby. She added many comments, additions, 
 
A Mask for Commerce and Glory 51 
 
 emendations, and speculations of her own with an ex- 
 panding and growing philosophy never dreamed of hy 
 Duimby. The first edition was crude, illiterate and 
 ^et claimed to be founded on the Bible, while in real- 
 ty it is a travesty on Christianity, from which it has 
 squeezed all the grace and beauty of its distinctive doc- 
 rines. Since that first volume some four hundred and 
 :orty editions have been issued. 
 
 The immature and almost incomprehensible style of 
 :he author has been altered for the better. This proc- 
 ess began with the author's confidential adviser, the 
 Rev. Mr. Wiggin, and has gone on in succeeding 
 , r ears from many different pens. Statements too out- 
 *ageous have been softened and partly eliminated, em- 
 phasis has been transferred from one event to another, 
 >ne crisis or strategic point in revelation dwarfed and 
 mother made prominent until the student is led to 
 exclaim : If the book is a divine revelation, as the 
 mthor claims, how comes it that Deity did not know 
 lis own mind and had to mask it under so many dis- 
 guises, and call in so many editors to smooth it out, 
 shifting the point of view according to the varying 
 vinds of circumstances, the stress of argument, and 
 he charge of contradiction, of falsehood, of impossi- 
 )ility? Does it take astute human editors to extricate 
 he divine Revelator from a dilemma? Upwards of 
 lalf a million of copies have been acknowledged as 
 ;old to date, the cheapest edition selling at the price of 
 ive dollars. No inconsiderable source of income ! As 
 :ommerce Metaphysical Healing pays ! 
 
 In her church Mrs. Eddy is an autocrat. All power 
 
52 
 
 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 Autocratic 
 Rule 
 
 Instructions 
 to Healers 
 
 emanates from her. Officers, readers, healers are her 
 creatures. She gives the law, and tenure of office is at 
 her pleasure. She prescribes the form of church serv- 
 ice. No one can preach in a Christian Science church 
 but Mrs. Eddy. The only books to be used in the ser- 
 vice are the Bible and "Science and Health; with Key 
 to the Scriptures." The service consists in reading 
 parallel passages from each book, usually some definite 
 theme being announced. No church members can 
 belong to any other society or club, the Free Masons 
 excepted. No books are needed in her code besides the 
 Bible and her own ''Science and Health" for all the 
 intellectual and social needs of her followers, and it is 
 understood that Mrs. Eddy is strictly obeyed by them. 
 Says a living Englishman : "Few rulers probably in 
 the course of human history have commanded such 
 implicit and such willing obedience from so large a 
 following." As glory the system is a great success ! 
 
 When one gathers together for a consecutive sur- 
 vey the many rules Mrs. Eddy has laid down for the 
 practice of her Mind Healing, absurdities and contra- 
 dictions meet the reader at almost every step of the 
 way. She transcends in singing the praise of know- 
 nothing-ism. Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be 
 wise. Keep your mind a blank and the first impres- 
 sions will stand out upon it in vivid relief. For "A 
 patient thoroughly booked in medical theories has less 
 sense of the divine power, and is more difficult to heal 
 through Mind, than an aboriginal Indian who never 
 bowed his knee to the Baal of civilization." 
 
 The healer ought to be alone with the patient, as 
 
A Mask for Commerce and Glory 53 
 
 minds adverse to Christian Science principles and 
 dogmas may set up cross currents of thought and work 
 against the mind of the one in "Science." Hence, 
 "You should seek to be alone with the sick while treat- 
 ing them," seeing to it that "the minds which surrround 
 your patient do not act against your influence by con- 
 tinually expressing such opinions as alarm." 
 
 Occult, mysterious and subtle mental practices are 
 recommended : "If you call mentally and silently the 
 disease by name, as you argue against it, as a general 
 rule the body will respond more quickly; just as a 
 person replies more quickly when his name is spoken; 
 but this is because you are not perfectly attuned to 
 Divine Science, and need the arguments of truth for 
 reminders. To let the spirit bear witness without 
 words is the more scientific way." 
 
 "Call the disease by name!" There is no sickness, 
 yet the disease is to be called by name ! 
 
 There are some wicked practices that must at all 
 hazards be eschewed. Right here Mrs. Eddy speaks 
 out with no uncertain sound: "A Christian Scientist 
 never gives medicine, never recommends hygiene, 
 never manipulates. He never tries to 'focus mind.' 
 He never places patient and practitioner back to back, 
 'never consults' spirits, or requires the life-history of 
 his patient. Above all he cannot trespass on rights of 
 mind through animal magnetism" — "malicious animal 
 magnetism/' 
 
 The "Mother" has a horror of water and the bath : 
 
 "Bathing and rubbing to alter the secretions, or re- 
 
Histenelcs 
 
 54 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 move unhealthy exhalations from the cuticle, receive 
 a useful rebuke from Christian Science Healing." 
 
 What may this mean? "John Quincy Adams pre- 
 sents an instance of firm health and an adherence to 
 hygienic rules, but there are few others." 
 
 Mrs. Eddy guards against anybody's thinking that 
 T ?°. on ', f° r tne patient to get worse is a bad sign. Strange 
 
 that one who never has been, is, or can be sick should 
 get worse. She says : 
 
 "Suppose the patient should appear to grow worse? 
 This I term chemicalization. It is the upheaval pro- 
 duced when immortal Truth is destroying erroneous 
 and mortal belief. Chemicalization brings sin and 
 sickness to the surface, as in a fermenting fluid, allow- 
 ing impurities to pass away. Patients unfamiliar with 
 the cause of this commotion, and ignorant of its fa- 
 vorable omen, may be alarmed. If such is the case, ex- 
 plain to them the law of this action." 
 
 Now behold! Notwithstanding her denial, there is 
 really existing down below somewhere sin and sick- 
 ness, for "chemicalization brings sin and sickness to 
 the surface I" 
 
 What Alice Fielding said about Christian Science 
 some years ago is not so far from the truth : 
 
 "This creed, invented, expounded, demonstrated, and 
 diffused by American ladies, is surely the natural out- 
 come, in emotional natures and untrained minds, of a 
 smattering of spiritualism, mesmerism, mental thera- 
 peutics, mysticism, and metaphysics, coupled with a 
 profound and lofty disdain of the most elementary 
 scientific knowledge." 
 
A Mask for Commerce and Glory 55 
 
 According to "Mother," sickness and disease are 
 nothing but error which Mind must heal. But they 
 can be called up from the vasty deep. Hence in pre- 
 paring to treat patients the mind of the healer must 
 take mental gymnastics to be fitted for the herculean 
 task : "Be firm in your understanding that mind gov- 
 erns the body. Have no foolish fear that matter gov- 
 erns, and can ache, swell, and be inflamed by a law of 
 its own, when it is self-evident that matter can have 
 no pain or inflammation." 
 
 Speaking of weak or inflamed nerves, she says : 
 "You will call it neuralgia, but I call it illusion." And 
 again : "Realize the absence of disease." 
 
 That the "Mother" in practice exhibits "the most 
 lofty disdain for the most elementary scientific knowl- 
 edge" this technical advice would indicate : 
 
 "Anatomy, physiology, treatises on health, sustained 
 by what is termed material law, are the husbandmen 
 of sickness and disease. It is proverbial that as long 
 as you read medical works you will be sick." 
 
 Now her old friends are held up to reprobation: 
 
 "Clairvoyants and medical charlatans are the pro- 
 lific source of sickness. When there were fewer doc- 
 tors, and less thought was given to sanitary subjects, 
 there were better constitutions and less disease." 
 
 Diet does not count either for weal or woe : "Science" 
 
 "We are told that the simple food our forefathers Dietetics 
 ate assisted to make them healthy ; but that is a mis- 
 take. Their diet would not cure dyspepsia at this 
 period. With rules of health in the head, and the 
 
 
 
56 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 most digestible food in the stomach, there would still 
 be dyspeptics." 
 
 If these words mean anything, one might just as 
 well give a horse bran as oats, and the human stomach 
 stone as bread. It is a well-known fact in human ex- 
 perience that what is food for one man may be poison 
 for another. Some men eat onions with delight, and 
 thrive on the diet. To others onions are rank poison, 
 even be they rare-ripes. There was a young physi- 
 cian in a certain town of New York who, on ac- 
 count of special constitutional tendencies, could not 
 eat the onion in any form. He boarded with a widow 
 who had an only daughter. She ridiculed the doctor 
 and — a Christian Scientist before its time — declared 
 that onions affected the young man adversely because 
 he believed they did. But not even ridicule could 
 shake him from his purpose not to eat them, as previ- 
 ous experience warned him of the danger. The young 
 woman, however, would not be convinced by his pro- 
 testations that there could be any harm to any one in 
 eating this fruit of the kitchen garden. One day the 
 doctor was late for the midday meal. She determined 
 to cure him of his dread of the plant and at the same 
 time obtain a triumph over him. Accordingly she pre- 
 pared a soup in which the onion in it was so disguised 
 that no expert sense could detect it, yet it was present. 
 The doctor hurried in to lunch. The young woman 
 set before him the soup. He tasted, paused, and in- 
 quired : "Is there not onion in this soup ? You know 
 I cannot eat it ; it poisons me." "Oh, how fussy you 
 are!" she cried. "Don't you suppose I know by this 
 
A Mask for Commerce and Glory 57 
 
 time that you say you cannot eat onions ? I have heard 
 it often enough." "It's a good soup," he replied, "but 
 I thought I detected the flavor of onion. If it's here 
 you will regret it." With a smile she turned away to 
 bring him the meat course, feeling that the moment 
 of her triumph was near and imagining the fun she 
 would have in teasing him. She returned to the din- 
 ing room with the rest of the meal just as he fell from 
 his chair in a convulsion. With difficulty he recovered. 
 Her apparent triumph was turned into genuine regret 
 for her foolhardy prank. 
 
 If diet is of no avail, Welsh rarebit, cocoanut and 
 lobster are as good for a weak stomach and impaired 
 digestion as the most easily digestible foods. For this 
 latter, according to the author of Christian Science 
 practice, would still breed dyspeptics. This teaching 
 strikes out against common sense and controverts in 
 the next place the value of physical exercise. Listen 
 to such curious ebullitions as these : 
 
 "Because the muscles of the blacksmith's arm are 
 strongly developed it does not follow that exercise did 
 it, or that an arm less used must be fragile. If mat- 
 ter were the cause of action, and muscles, without the 
 co-operation of mortal mind, could lift the hammer 
 and smite the nail, it might be thought true that ham- 
 mering enlarges the muscles. Bat the trip-hammer is 
 not increased in size by exercising. Why not, since 
 muscles are as material as wood and iron?" 
 
 If the strange views of Christian Scientists were con- 
 fined alone to mere expressions of belief, they might 
 be passed by as harmless. The doctrines of Metaphys- 
 
58 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 ical Healing have not been unknown to science, and 
 for generations medical men and expert students of 
 pathology have referred to them and made use of cer- 
 tain principles in the practice of medicine. But it is 
 when the Eddy accompaniments of Mind Healing are 
 pushed to the extreme that danger to the body politic 
 is to be feared. When a Christian Scientist goes into 
 the slums and tells ignorant and credulous people that 
 the "so-called laws of health and hygiene" are provoc- 
 ative of disease; that sanitary laws are no more than 
 bad dreams; that people who are cleanly are less 
 healthy than the filthy emigrants that come to our 
 shores, such teaching is liable to make the ignorant 
 regardless of law, bring our health and sanitary laws 
 and regulations into contempt, and contribute to the 
 startling spread of an epidemic. 
 power over Mrs. Eddy has put forth such astonishing claims 
 Death " tnat one must perforce deem her either tinged with 
 
 insanity or feigning to believe what she says with so 
 much vehemence of affirmation. In one of her books 
 she affirms that she "raised the dying," and her fol- 
 lowers believe it and report that in one instance she 
 restored the dead to life. 
 
 One of her pupils gives an account of a lecture she 
 attended : 
 
 "While she denied all matter, she said she had a 
 little geranium plant she thought much of, because it 
 was so responsive to her touch. She said that one 
 day she was standing beside it admiring it, when it 
 occurred to her mind that she would give a command 
 for a leaf to grow out while she stood there ; and she 
 
A Mask for Commerce and Glory 59 
 
 said : 'Now come forth/ and one of the most beau- 
 tiful leaves on the plant started from a bare place and 
 she watched it while it developed, until there was a 
 perfect production of her powers. . . . She said 
 we would eat chips in the place of food." 
 
 A very beautiful girl, but one of immoral life, who 
 lived to gratify her every whim and appetite, came 
 under Mrs. Eddy's instruction. Under some hypnotic 
 spell she became convinced that she would soon be able 
 to raise the dead. She burst in upon a refined and 
 spiritually minded acquaintance one day, exclaiming: 
 "I shall soon raise the dead, just as Jesus did." 
 
 The devout woman was exceedingly shocked, and 
 replied, putting her arms around the wayward, deluded 
 girl: "Never say this to another. I can understand 
 the hypnotic influence under which you have been 
 laboring. The black art has had its effect on you in- 
 deed. Are you like Jesus in character? Do you ex- 
 pect to do His works when there is not one desire of 
 the flesh you do not gratify? Do you think that by 
 denying sin, as Mrs. Eddy tells you, the denying of a 
 fact makes your character what it should be, giving 
 you the same power that Jesus possessed ?" The mask 
 of Metaphysical Healing covers up a host of deformi- 
 ties. 
 
 To say to yourself : "I am not sick, I have no pain," 
 when disease and suffering are racking and wasting 
 the system, does not change the actual condition. A 
 young "Scientist" was afflicted with a cold. She was 
 very hoarse, but had to take a singing lesson in a few 
 hours. Before setting out for the lesson she waited 
 
60 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 on her healer. A silent treatment was given, and the 
 healer bade her go to her task, as she would be 
 troubled with hoarseness no more. Let her tell the 
 story of her experience with the cold and her singing 
 master : 
 
 "As soon as I tried to sing, the German professor 
 said : 'You cannot sing to-day. Go home and get rid 
 of your cold.' 'Oh, I haven't any cold,' I said. The 
 professor looked at me in amazement. 'You haf no 
 col' !' he exclaimed, opening his eyes wide. 'No, I 
 have no cold,' I replied. 'Then why you not sing?' 
 said he. 
 
 "I made one heroic effort. It was useless. The 
 professor closed the piano with a bang, rose and bowed 
 low as he said : 'Go home and a doctor see. I myself 
 will see one, for eef you haf not a col', zen I am what 
 you call zee crazy man.' "* 
 
 The mask of Metaphysical Healing hides a tumult 
 of absurdities and, to the ordinary man of good, sober 
 sense, a big pile of nonsense. But the mask hides also 
 the greed of commercialism and the bid for glory. It 
 pays to advocate the philosophy of the unreal under 
 the countenance of bodily healing and religion. There 
 have been millions in it, too. The founder came forth 
 from the haunts of obscurity and poverty to reap from 
 this credulous and superstitious age a rich harvest in 
 the values of the world which she affirms is a shadow 
 and an illusion. But more than the gratification of 
 her sharp New England commercialism is her love of 
 glory, adulation, flattery and worship, and the whis- 
 
 *"Christian Science Claims," by William H. Muldoon. 
 
A Mask for Commerce and Glory 61 
 
 pers of prophecy from out the shadows echo: "Still 
 there is more to follow." What will the world, ever 
 eager to climb up some other way into the sheepfold 
 than the way of the good Shepherd, who is Himself 
 the "Door," accord her in the future? 
 
 Studying the various writings of the head of this The 
 system, one is more and more impressed with the idea " M «*«pi»ys*<*i 
 that Metaphysical Healing is strongly tinged with 
 commercialism and that the religious development of 
 this movement is largely bound up with finance and 
 glory. There is a shrewd money-making instinct ob- 
 servable in its inception and through all its ramifica- 
 tions. In "Retrospection and Introspection" Mrs. 
 Eddy says: "In 1867 ... I began teaching 
 one student Christian Science Mind Healing. From 
 this seed grew the Massachusetts Metaphysical Col- 
 lege in Boston, chartered in 1881." 
 
 No charter for colleges like the "Massachusetts 
 Metaphysical College" were granted by the State after 
 1883. In the charter taken out by Mrs. Eddy no 
 mention was made of Christian Science or any new 
 discovery. The records of the commonwealth show 
 the instrument, which recites the incorporation of a 
 college for the purpose of "teaching pantology, on- 
 tology, therapeutics, moral science, metaphysics and 
 their adaptation to the treatment of disease." 
 
 In 1883 the "anti-diploma" law was enacted which 
 prohibited societies organized under the Act by which 
 Mrs. Eddy obtained the charter for her college — "An 
 Act concerning Associations for Religious, Charitable, 
 Educational and other purposes" — from conferring 
 
62 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 degrees and issuing diplomas, unless authorized by 
 special act of the Legislature. The penalty for dis- 
 obeying this consisted of a fine of from five hundred to 
 one thousand dollars for each violation. Perhaps 
 some light is here thrown on the Christian Science 
 commercial spirit and Mrs. Eddy's "conscientious 
 scruples about diplomas." 
 
 Her alleged reason for closing the college is stated 
 by her in this fashion : 
 
 "The Massachusetts Metaphysical College drew its 
 breath from me, but I was yearning for retirement. 
 The question was, who else could sustain this insti- 
 tute under all that was aimed at — its vital purpose the 
 establishment of genuine Christian Science Healing? 
 My conscientious scruples about diplomas, the recent 
 experience of the Church fresh in my thoughts, and 
 the growing conviction that every one should build on 
 his own foundation, subject to one builder and under 
 God — all these considerations moved me to close my 
 flourishing college." 
 
 We have seen above that the State and the law 
 raised a barrier to the continuance of her college, not- 
 withstanding there were three hundred candidates 
 waiting for admission to it, representing a business of 
 at least ninety thousand dollars. For, although the 
 courses were short in this remarkable institution, the 
 fees were certainly unknown for quantity in any other 
 like commercial transaction. The founder writes : 
 
 "When God impelled me to set a price on my in- 
 struction ... I was led to name $300 as the 
 price for each pupil in one course of lessons at my 
 
A Mask for Commerce and Glory 63 
 
 college— a startling sum for tuition lasting hardly 
 three weeks." 
 
 Three hundred dollars was asked for a course of "Put Money 
 twelve lessons lasting three weeks. The normal class In Thy Purse " 
 received six lessons at a cost of two hundred dollars. 
 There was a class in Metaphysical Obstetrics which 
 required six lectures, price one hundred dollars. There 
 was also a- class in theology, for which two hundred 
 must be paid. Hence to be rounded and completed in 
 Metaphysical Healing and Christian Science Theology 
 required $800 in tuition alone! 
 
 From the four hundred and forty-one editions of the 
 book, "Science and Health," it has been estimated that 
 over two millions of dollars have been realized. This 
 and much else is the sole property of the great auto- 
 cratic head of the institution. Her profits must have 
 been something enormous, demonstrating that her 
 Metaphysical Healing and religion pay. Not for 
 nothing was the mind of the mystic tinctured with the 
 trade instinct of the Yankee. In pages 300 and 301 
 in "Miscellaneous Writings" this remarkable woman 
 says: "Christian Science demonstrates that the 
 patient who pays whatever he is able to pay for being 
 healed is more apt to recover than he who withholds 
 a slight equivalent for health." The author of the 
 book and the Christian Science practitioner both stand 
 ready, with charity toward all and malice toward none, 
 to help the poor patient recover who does not "with- 
 hold a slight equivalent for health !" 
 The material prosperity that has come to Christian 
 
64 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 Scientists is witnessed to in the preface of the fore- 
 going work in this way : 
 
 "In the early history of Christian Science among my 
 thousands of students few were wealthy. Now Chris- 
 tian Scientists are not indigent; and their comfortable 
 fortunes are acquired by healing mankind, morally, 
 physically, spiritually !" 
 
 The italics in the above are not in the original, but 
 emphasize the fact that fortunes have multiplied in the 
 hands of "Scientists," and that not only doing good 
 and getting glory is in their purpose, but to reap a 
 harvest of commercial values. Though money is noth- 
 ing but matter, which they pronounce an "illusion," 
 they seem to set a great store on possessing just such 
 an illusion. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 ANTAGONISMS OF "SCIENCE" 
 
 As has already been seen, in Mrs. Eddy's mind ™ J~ 
 Metaphysical Healing was a growth slowly developed 
 according to the exigencies of her need. At first she 
 was a spiritualist and a mesmerist. Taught by 
 Quimby, manipulation played no small part in her 
 cures. But her mental evolution progresses, and when 
 the idea begins to dawn upon her that she herself 
 is a prophet of a new revelation, and not simply the 
 prophet of a prophet, she begins to make everything 
 bend to her own ambition and glory. She apparently 
 repudiates a miserable past and covers it with a mask 
 which changes its lineaments altogether. As she was 
 accustomed to break her friendships to suit her pur- 
 poses or convenience, so she now seems to part com- 
 pany with practices which militate against the su- 
 premacy of a system she is to give to the world as her 
 own discovery, and which will exalt her as the original 
 prophet of a new era in metaphysical healing, to be 
 labelled by her "Christian Science." Little by little 
 the stupendous idea, the vision of a glory to be told 
 to ceaseless ages, takes form in her brain, and with 
 amazing ingratitude and inconsistency she covers and 
 hides the sources of her knowledge and the scaffold on 
 which she is to rise to eminence with the mask of a 
 
 65 
 
66 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 divine revelation. God speaks directly to her, His 
 chosen prophet, and she calls the message which she 
 declares He gave her, God, the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Listen to this humble prophet of her own mission, 
 who has forgotten all about Dr. Quimby, of whom she 
 wrote : "Quimby rolls away the stone from the sepul- 
 chre of error, and health is the resurrection. But we 
 also know that 'light shineth in darkness, and the 
 darkness comprehendeth it not.' " 
 
 In reply to a question asked her by Mr. W. W. 
 Wright, at one time a prospective pupil, about the year 
 1 87 1, as to whether her theory had been advertised 
 and practiced by any other than herself, Mrs. Eddy 
 answered : 
 
 "Never advertised, and practiced by only one indi- 
 vidual, who healed me, Dr. Quimby, of Portland, Me., 
 an old gentleman who had made it a research for 
 twenty-five years, starting from the standpoint of mag- 
 netism, thence going forward and leaving that behind. 
 / discovered the art in a moment's tunc, and he ac- 
 knowledged it to me; he died shortly after, and since 
 then, eight years, I have been founding and demon- 
 strating the science. . . . Please preserve this, 
 and if you become my student call me to account for 
 the truth of what I have written." 
 
 "Sound morals are most desirable," but in the 
 prophet of a great cult, that opens more doors on the 
 public than did the temple of Janus in ancient Rome, 
 many contradictions and slips from the exact rule of 
 rectitude may be excused. When the mask of assump- 
 tion and prophetic pose is withdrawn, what see we? 
 
Antagonisms of "Science" 67 
 
 Only a sinful mortal. Yet as plain Mary M. Patter- 
 son she can burst into song, or at least a bit of rhyme, 
 which she sends to the Portland Courier. It runs as 
 follows : 
 
 SONNET 
 
 Suggested by Reading the Remarkable Cure of Cap- 
 tain J. W . Deering. 
 
 To Dr. P. P. Quimby 
 
 'Mid light of science sits the sage profound, 
 Awing with classics and his starry lore, 
 Climbing to Venus, chasing Saturn round, 
 Turning his mystic pages o'er and o'er, 
 Till from empyrean space his wearied sight 
 Turns to the oasis on which to gaze, 
 More bright than glitters on the brow of night 
 The self-taught man walking in wisdom's ways. 
 Then paused the captive gaze with peace entwined, 
 And sight was satisfied with thee to dwell; 
 But not in classics could the bookworm find 
 That law of excellence whence came the spell 
 Potent o'er all— the captive to unbind, 
 To heal the sick and faint, the halt and blind. 
 
 The "light of science" which she claimed for the 
 simple old man of Portland, which "not in classics 
 could the bookworm find," nor anywhere else except 
 in the imaginings of ignorant and untrained heads, she 
 
68 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 is now about to assume for herself. She has ceased 
 to be the prophet of a prophet, and places the crown 
 of inspiration, if not of divinity, upon her own brow. 
 
 When the idea has simmered, evolved and shaped 
 itself in the secret places of her boundless aspirations, 
 she boldly attempts to make all things accord with it 
 and to weave into the warp and woof of her loom the 
 thread of consistency. A mystic and enthusiast, un- 
 consciously, it may be, she impulsively and intuitively 
 takes the pose demanded by the needs of the moment. 
 Mrs. Eddy has now no use for spiritualism, mesmer- 
 ism, clairvoyance and faith cure. Her antagonism to 
 all these is thus expressed : 
 
 "Mortal mind acting from the basis of sensuous be- 
 lief in matter is animal magnetism. ... In pro- 
 portion as you understand Christian Science you 
 lose animal magnetism. ... Its basis be- 
 ing a belief, and this belief an error, animal 
 magnetism, or mesmerism, is a mere negation, pos- 
 sessing neither intelligence nor power. . . . An 
 evil mind at work, mesmerically, is an engine of mis- 
 chief little understood. . . . Animal magnetism, 
 clairvoyance, mediumship and mesmerism are antago- 
 nistic to this Science, and would prevent the demon- 
 stration thereof. . . . The mesmerizer produces 
 pain by making his subject believe that he feels it; here 
 pain is proved to be a belief without any adequate 
 cause. That social curse, the mesmerist, by making 
 his victims believe they cannot move a limb, renders 
 it impossible for them to do so until their belief or 
 understanding masters his." 
 
Antagonisms of "Science" 69 
 
 Spiritualism and clairvoyance come in for special 
 reprobation. 
 
 ''Spiritualism, with its material accompaniments, 
 
 would destroy the supremacy of spirit. Clairvoyance 
 
 investigates and influences mortal thought only. 
 
 Clairvoyance can do evil, can accuse 
 
 wrongfully, and err in every direction.'' 
 
 Faith Cure has no virtue at all : 
 
 "It is asked : Why are Faith Cures sometimes 
 more speedy than some of the cures wrought through 
 Christian Scientists? Because faith is belief, and not 
 understanding; and it is easier to believe than to un- 
 derstand Spiritual Truth. It demands less cross-bear- 
 ing, self-renunciation, and Divine Science to admit the 
 claim of the personal senses, and appeal for relief to 
 a humanized God, than to deny these claims and learn 
 the divine way, drinking his cup, being baptized with 
 his baptism, gaining the end through persecution and 
 purity. Millions are believing in God, or Good, with- 
 out sharing the fruits of goodness, not having reached 
 its Science. Belief is mental blindness, if it admits 
 Truth without understanding it. It cannot say with 
 the apostle, T know in whom I have believed.' There 
 is even danger in the mental state called belief, for if 
 Truth is admitted but not understood, error may enter 
 through the same channel of ignorance. The Faith 
 Cure has devout followers whose Christian practice is 
 far in advance of meie theory." 
 
 ^ When she comes to test her theory in actual prac- contradictions 
 tice, Mrs. Eddy in her "Practice" entangles herself in and 
 curious and often amusing contradictions. Read this, AbsurdltIes 
 
70 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 and consistent with Mrs. Eddy's principles save your 
 grocer's bills : 
 
 "Gustatory pleasure is a sensuous illusion, an il- 
 lusion that diminishes as we understand our spiritual 
 being and ascend the ladder of life. This woman 
 learned that food neither strengthens nor weakens the 
 body — that mind alone does this. . . . Teach 
 them that their bodies are nourished more by Truth 
 than by food." 
 
 How is the testimony of the senses to be silenced? 
 She tries to do it in these words : 
 
 "Admitting the common hypothesis that food is 
 requisite to sustain human life, there follows the neces- 
 sity for another admission in the opposite direction, 
 namely, that food has power to destroy life, through 
 its deficiency or excess, in quality or quantity. This is 
 a specimen of the ambiguous character of all material 
 health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self- 
 destructive — a kingdom divided against itself, that is 
 brought to desolation. If food preserves life it can- 
 not destroy it. The truth is, food does not affect the 
 life of man ; and this becomes self-evident when we 
 learn that God is our only life. Because sin and sick- 
 ness are not qualities of soul, or life, we have hope in 
 immortality ; but it would be foolish to venture beyond 
 our present understanding, foolish to stop eating, until 
 we gain more goodness and a clearer comprehension 
 of the living God. In that perfect day of understand- 
 ing we shall neither eat to live nor live to eat." 
 
 One of the writer's followers sweeps away difficul- 
 ties in this fashion : 
 
Antagonisms of "Science" 71 
 
 "No great faith is necessary on the part of the 
 patient, but it will expedite his recovery if he takes 
 interest enough in the method by which he is being 
 healed to read suitable books on the subject, and con- 
 verse profitably with the healer. . . . Prayer to 
 a personal God affects the sick like a drug that has no 
 efficacy of its own, but borrows its power from human 
 faith and belief. The drug does nothing because it 
 has no intelligence." 
 
 Again the prophet attacks the facts of experience 
 and attempts to controvert them. Having gotten rid 
 of a personal God, of all the basic credal belief of 
 Christendom, and swept all matter into the realm of 
 dreams and non-existence, how easily her pen creates 
 a travesty of all minor details. Of poison Mrs. Eddy 
 writes : 
 
 "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 potion swallowed by the 
 patient to be harmless, but the vast majority of man- 
 kind, though they know nothing of this particular case 
 and this special person, believe the arsenic, the strych- 
 nine 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 infinitesimal minority of opinions in the sick 
 chamber." 
 
72 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 The facts of the action of poison must be admitted. 
 How absurd the above bundle of contradictions ! 
 
 Absurdities increase as the student follows the 
 prophet's many meanderings, for she announces : 
 
 'The preference of mortal mind for any method 
 creates a demand for it, and the body seems to require 
 it. You can even educate a healthy horse so far in 
 physiology that he will take cold without a blanket; 
 whereas the wild animal, left to his instincts, sniffs the 
 wind with delight." 
 
 Her pupil, Mrs. Stuart, exceeds the teacher in 
 climbing the heights of absurdity. To her, long years 
 of study, generations of patient investigation of 
 nature's laws, binding the golden sheaf of wisdom for 
 the instruction of mankind, go for nothing. She says : 
 
 "Materia Medica falls back upon these so-called 
 demonstrations of Science as absolutely indisputable 
 proofs of its theories. Now it never seems to have 
 occurred to them that all the effects witnessed of such 
 experimenting might be accounted for on the basis of 
 Thought ; and with the view of investigating the sub- 
 ject to establish a totally opposite explanation, and to 
 show that Mind acting on Matter could account for all 
 their facts, the following experiments have been re- 
 cently made. The object of the experiments was a 
 dog, a noble thoroughbred, of great sagacity and intel- 
 ligence. The first experiment consisted in conveying 
 commands to him entirely through mind. Not a word 
 was spoken, but his mistress would say to him 
 mentally : 'Carlo, come here,' or 'Carlo, lie down,' and 
 although the thought might have to be repeated 
 
Antagonisms of "Science" 73 
 
 mentally a number of times, yet it would reach him, 
 and sometimes he would respond almost immediately. 
 Second experiment : One day his master discovered an 
 appearance to which he gave the name of mange. All 
 the dogs around were having it. It was catching ; Dr. 
 So-and-So had pronounced it mange, and prescribed 
 a mixture of sulphur and castor oil, etc., which was to 
 be applied externally in such a way that Carlo, in at- 
 tempting to remove the preparation with his tongue, 
 would get a dose into his system. But here the mis- 
 tress interposed, and insisted that Carlo should be sub- 
 jected wholly to mental treatment. The result was 
 entirely satisfactory. The appearance vanished as it 
 came. Again the experiment of placing Carlo en- 
 tirely under the intelligence of his master's mind and 
 thoughts for a certain period was tried, and compared 
 with the effects of leaving him wholly under his mis- 
 tress's mind. In the former case he soon exhibited 
 every symptom of dyspepsia and indigestion in every 
 form to which the master was subject, and in a very 
 marked degree. But under the thought of the mis- 
 tress every symptom and appearance vanished at 
 once." (Why did not the mistress let her mind cure 
 the master of his dyspepsia?) She goes on : "He soon 
 attained a perfection of physical condition which at- 
 tracted the attention of every one. Experiments of 
 this kind were carried much further, and can be by 
 any one who wishes to test the matter for themselves. 
 In all the instances just mentioned the physical condi- 
 tion of the dog responded to the mind under, whose 
 influence it chanced to be. Love and fear — especially 
 
74 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 fear — are the most marked characteristics of the ani- 
 mal mind. The instances are innumerable where the 
 instinct of the animal surpasses the reason of man in 
 detecting the kindly thought, or the thought of harm, 
 toward itself. When a scientific experimenter gives a 
 drug to a dog it is done with a perfect certainty in his 
 mind that disorder, derangement of the system, suffer- 
 ing, etc., in some form or another, are sure to follow. 
 A fear corresponding to the thought of the man in- 
 stantly seizes upon the dog, and various results do fol- 
 low. The experimenter notes them down and then 
 proceeds to try his drug on dog No. 2, all the while 
 holding in his mind an image of the results of exper- 
 iment No. 1, expecting to see similar results. In all 
 probability he sees them." 
 
 Christian Science repudiates the need of surgery 
 in case of accidents or in great extremity : 
 
 'The fear of dissevered bodily members, or a be- 
 lief in such a possibility, is reflected on the body in the 
 shape of headache, fractured bones, dislocated joints, 
 and so on, as directly as shame is seen in the blush 
 rising to the cheek. This human error about physical 
 wounds and colics is part and parcel of the delusion 
 that matter can feel and see, having sensation and sub- 
 stance. " 
 
 But here Mrs. Eddy's argument limps and halts : 
 
 "Christian Science is always the most skillful sur- 
 geon, but surgery is the branch of its healing that will 
 be last demonstrated. However, it is but just to say 
 that I have already in my possession well-authenticated 
 
Antagonisms of "Science" 75 
 
 records of the cure, by mental surgery alone, of dis- 
 located hip joints and spinal vertebrae." 
 
 Even insanity may be attacked. No wonder that 
 Christian Scientists talk nonsense, when fed with such 
 material ! Hear it : 
 
 "Listen to these words and tell the sick that on insanity 
 he suffers only as the insane suffer, from a mere 
 belief. The only difference is that insanity im- 
 plies belief in a diseased brain, while physical ailments 
 — so-called — arise from the belief that some other 
 portions of the body are deranged. The entire mortal- 
 body is evolved from mortal mind. A bunion would 
 produce insanity as perceptible as that produced by 
 congestion of the brain, were it not that mortal mind 
 calls the bunion an unconscious portion of the body. 
 Reverse this belief and the results would be different." 
 
 Reverse! If the bunion calls the mind an uncon- 
 scious portion of the body what a revolution ! Smaller 
 things than bunions may cause insanity. 
 
 In lectures on the pathology of the central nervous 
 system Doctors Brown-Sequard and Holmes recite 
 the instance of a youth — fourteen years old — who went 
 to bed perfectly sane, nor had he ever had a symptom 
 of insanity. The next morning when he arose and 
 stepped upon the floor he became a maniac. With 
 great difficulty he was replaced upon the bed, and the 
 moment he touched it he was sane. During the morn- 
 ing he made several attempts to rise, always with the 
 same result. A physician was called, who in his ac- 
 count of the case says : "When sitting up in his bed 
 he drew on his stockings ; but on putting his feet on 
 
76 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 the floor and standing up, his countenance instantly 
 changed, the jaw became violently convulsed," etc. 
 He was pushed back on the bed, was at once calm, 
 looked surprised, and asked what was the matter. In- 
 quiry showed that he had been fishing the preceding 
 day, but had met with no accident. His legs were ex- 
 amined minutely, and nothing unusual was seen; but, 
 says the physician : "On holding up the right great toe 
 with my finger and thumb to examine the sole of that 
 foot, the leg was drawn up and the muscles of the 
 jaws were suddenly convulsed, and on relaxing the 
 toe these effects instantly ceased." After further ex- 
 periment an irritated point, so small as to be scarcely 
 visible, was taken away by the cutting of a piece of 
 skin, and "the strange sensation was gone and never 
 returned." 
 
 A trifling piece of glass has made a boy insane. 
 Nervous temperaments are subject to strange disor- 
 ders. Recall Mrs. Eddy's own history. To keep young, 
 to never grow old, is in the range of the prophet's 
 glance. Mrs. Eddy tells how this has been done, in 
 her estimation : 
 
 "The error of thinking that we are growing old, and 
 the benefits of destroying that illusion, are illustrated 
 in a sketch from the history of an English lady, pub- 
 lished in the London Lancet. Disappointed in love in 
 early years, she became insane. She lost all calcula- 
 tion of time. Believing that she still lived in the same 
 hour that parted her from her lover, she took no note 
 of years, but daily stood before her window watching 
 for his coming. In this mental state she remained 
 
Antagonisms of "Science" 77 
 
 young. Having no appearance of age, she literally 
 grew no older. Some American travelers saw her 
 when she was seventy-four, and supposed her a young 
 lady. Not a wrinkle or gray hair appeared, but youth 
 sat gently on her cheek and brow. Asked to judge her 
 age, and being unacquainted with her history, each 
 visitor conjectured that she must be under twenty." 
 Dr. Buckley, commenting on this, says : 
 'That the above should be adduced as proof of any- 
 thing would be wonderful if the person adducing it 
 had not previously adopted a theory which supersedes 
 the necessity of demonstration. It is important to 
 notice that if the belief had anything to do with it, this 
 amazing result grew from a belief in a falsehood. She 
 did not live in the same hour that parted her frommer 
 lover ; but she believed that she did ; and, according to 
 Mrs. Eddy, this belief of a falsehood counteracted all 
 the ordinary consequences of the flight of time. 
 
 "But this delusion among the insane that they are 
 young, that they are independent of time and of this 
 world, is very common; and the most painfully para- 
 doxical sights that I have ever witnessed have been 
 men and women, toothless, denuded of hair, and with 
 all the signs of age — sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, 
 sans everything, — some of them declaring that they 
 were young girls and engaged to be married to presi- 
 dents and kings, and even to divine beings. These de- 
 lusions in some instances had been fixed for many 
 years. Having an official connection with an insane 
 asylum for five years, I have had more opportunities 
 than were desired for conversing with persons of this 
 class." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 POWER OF MIND OVER BODY 
 
 Great and startling pretensions are put forth by 
 Mrs. Eddy. She demands rights and privileges for 
 her "Science," reaching even to a divine attitude, and 
 thence stretching out wings in benefaction over man- 
 kind. By these she appears to be the discoverer of 
 something new, the recipient of a special revelation of 
 Deity, and thus exalted above her fellows. But the 
 discovery is new only to her. Others who have seen 
 the same or similar things have not set up the demand 
 to be considered superior to their fellows. The influ- 
 ence of the intellectual over the physical has long been 
 a theme of serious investigation by philosophers and 
 those who have studied the peculiar influences of 
 materia medica and other forces upon the human 
 body. Just as prayer is ordained of God to be a force 
 in the spiritual universe, so faith is a tremendous fac- 
 tor in the kingdom of the spiritual, and a force in the 
 realm of the physical and in dealing with diseases of 
 the body. Pathologists have long observed that faith, 
 cheerfulness, and optimism play a large part for the 
 better in the sick room. 
 
 Dr. J. M. Buckley, the author of "Christian Sci- 
 ence and Mind Cure," speaking of the comparative 
 
 78 
 
Power of Mind over Body 79 
 
 successes of faith curists and Christian Science heal- 
 ers, says: 
 
 "They are rather more successful than faith healers 
 for this reason: with the faith healers it is generally 
 either an instantaneous cure or none at all. And an 
 instantaneous cure cannot be made to apply to a great 
 many cases, and what is supposed to be such is very 
 frequently a delusion followed by a complete relapse. 
 The Christian Scientists, however,*and their congeners 
 make many visits and give nature a much better op- 
 portunity without the destruction of the patient's faith 
 in them by a failure at a critical juncture; thus it hap- 
 pens that the proportion of recoveries is more numer- 
 ous." 
 
 Ages of experiment have proved that Doctor Nature 
 is, after all, the most successful practitioner. The 
 physician can only in specific cases afford her some 
 assistance; she in every case must do the bulk of the 
 work. Mrs. Eddy herself in her dabblings into many 
 things once touched upon Homoeopathy. She diluted 
 and diluted table salt, until naught was left. In every 
 case it proved just as efficacious, until at last the 
 dawning light worked into her consciousness, not how 
 great Nature is, but how potent Mind is, and if she 
 could cure without any medicinal property in her pill 
 or powder, why not let all needed remedy be mentally 
 administered ? But this was not new, for great physi- 
 cians had seen it long before her time. And num- 
 bered among the very foremost are those who have 
 declared that they paid particular attention to the 
 mind of their patients. Sir John Forbes in 1846 ad- 
 
80 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 vocated "the administration of . . . non-perturb- 
 ing medicines in all cases in which drugs are pre- 
 scribed pro forma, for the satisfaction of the patient's 
 mind, and not with the view of producing any dire or 
 remedial effect." 
 
 Mrs. Eddy says that she teaches the art of healing, 
 yet she boldly announces that there is nothing to cure. 
 
 "In the year of 1866 I discovered the Science of 
 Metaphysical Healing and named it Christian Sci- 
 ence. God had been graciously fitting me, during 
 many years, for the reception of a final Revelation of 
 the Absolute Principle of Scientific Mind Healing. 
 My conclusions were reached by allowing the evidence 
 of this revelation to multiply with mathematical cer- 
 tainty and the lesser demonstration to prove the 
 greater; as the product of three multiplied by three, 
 equaling nine, proves conclusively that three times 
 three duodecillions will be, must be, nine duodecillions 
 — not a fraction more, not a unit less. No human 
 pen or tongue taught me the Science contained in 'Sci- 
 ence and Health.' " 
 
 There is no sin, sickness, or death, according to 
 this woman's often repeated statements. Yet part of 
 her book is devoted to rules for the mental healing of 
 diseases which, according to her expressions else- 
 where, do not exist. No wonder that the ordinary in- 
 vestigator is baffled and confused in the attempt to 
 understand her. But without controversy, let it be 
 conceded that Christian Science has effected cures of 
 many diseases of a nervous character. Others, both 
 pagan and Christian healers, for ages have done the 
 
Power of Mind over Body 81 
 
 same things these Scientists profess to accomplish. 
 History furnishes abundant proof that Mrs. Eddy has 
 not made any new discovery. 
 
 Both the founder and many of her disciples declare 
 that they heal just as Jesus did. How did Jesus heal? 
 His cures were instantaneous. Is there any shadow 
 of record of His giving such mental treatment, or 
 absent treatment, as their codes describe? Jesus 
 Christ cured immediately. Concede all their claims, 
 yet Christian Scientists do not do that. Their mental 
 gymnastics, grotesque and mystical as they are, re- 
 semble more the actions of the African or North 
 American Indian medicine-man. 
 
 In her rules for mental treatment the "Mother" Exorcising 
 gives various directions for what a pagan would call 
 exorcising disease. Let the reader remember that 
 there is no sickness. "If you mentally and silently 
 call the disease by name, as you argue it, as a general 
 rule the body will respond more quickly." "Plead 
 the case in Science, and for truth, mentally 
 and silently." "You may call the disease by name 
 when you mention it mentally ; but by naming it audi- 
 bly you are liable to impress it upon the thought." 
 "To prevent disease or cure it mentally, let Spirit 
 destroy this dream of sense. If you wish to heal by 
 argument, find the type of the ailment, get its name 
 and array your mental plea against the physical. Ar- 
 gue with the patient (mentally, not audibly) that he 
 has no disease. Mentally insist that health is the 
 everlasting fact, and sickness the temporary falsity. 
 
82 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 Then realize the presence of health, and the corporeal 
 senses will respond, 'So be it.' " 
 
 Again we read of a profound and "scientific" treat- 
 ment of the insane. "The treatment of insanity is 
 especially interesting. However obstinate the case, it 
 yields more naturally than most diseases to the salu- 
 tary action of Truth, which counteracts error. The 
 leading arguments for curing insanity are the same as 
 in other cases, namely : The impossibility that matter 
 should control mind, or suffer; the need of mortal 
 mind to be cured by Truth; the fact that mind can 
 establish a healthy brain, and that intelligence can de- 
 stroy all error, whether that error be called physical 
 or mental, dementia or dysentery.' , 
 
 "To fix Truth steadfastly in your patients' thought, 
 explain Christian Science to them; but not too soon — 
 not until your patients are prepared for it — lest you 
 array the sick against their own interests by troubling 
 and perplexing thought. " 
 
 Cannot one see the effect produced on a raving 
 maniac by explaining Christian Science to him ? That 
 is soon, but not too soon ! 
 
 Christian Science says there is no such thing as con- 
 sumption, yet "Science and Health" gives explicit 
 rules for the cure of this disease which does not exist : 
 
 "What if lungs are ulcerated, God is more to a man 
 than his lungs, and the less we acknowledge matter 
 or its laws, the more immortality we possess. Correct 
 material belief by spiritual understanding and Spirit 
 will form you anew. You will never fear again ex- 
 
Power of Mind over Body 83 
 
 cept to offend God, and will never believe again that 
 lungs or any portion of the body can destroy you." 
 
 If sickness is merely a delusion, then death is a de- 
 lusion also, and ought to yield to the treatment of 
 "Science." Their claim is that even death has in one 
 instance given up its prey at Mrs. Eddy's command. 
 Many mystical creeds have held out this hope of es- 
 caping death. Men and women have ere this thought 
 they had discovered the secret and offered their 
 knowledge to their fellows at a good price. Thomas 
 Lake Harris assured an expectant world that he had 
 found the fountain of immortality and was living in 
 the spring and summer of the new existence. While 
 devoting his later years to the study of how he could 
 best impart the knowledge of his wonderful discovery 
 to his fellows, he died. Mrs. Eddy says that she has 
 now reached the stage where one enemy to life has 
 been conquered, she is immune against poisons. If 
 she drink any deadly thing it shall not harm her. Is 
 this a stage on the road to the claim of immortality? 
 Christian Science asserts that it can cure cancer, pneu- 
 monia, smallpox and all acute and contagious diseases 
 after the medical practitioners have given up the 
 patient. 
 
 Some Mind Cure leaders want their patients in an A clalni Not 
 atmosphere of absolute faith. Mrs. Eddy's disciples Carried out 
 proclaim that they cure without faith on the part of 
 their patients. Here is a noteworthy declaration that 
 may challenge observation. Look closely at the as- 
 surance that faith is not necessary. A clear analysis 
 will reveal that it is all in vain. There must be some 
 
84 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 faith before the mental healer is sent for, and often- 
 times a great deal of it, combined with distinct or 
 vague distrust of other systems. Whatever may be 
 said of the attitude of large numbers when the cult 
 began its demonstrations, this cannot be affirmed. 
 They have a constituency developed that employs no 
 other method. If what they claim could be true, there 
 must be at least distrust of other forms of healing, or 
 the Christian Science healer would not be summoned. 
 Where there is no faith on the part of a patient, 
 usually his friends believe in their practice. Thus the 
 atmosphere of faith is so important that all the writers 
 on the varying forms of mental healing attach great 
 weight to it. Perhaps one potent cause in awakening 
 faith in the sick is the sublime audacity of the prac- 
 titioner himself, who without drugs, hygiene, prayer, 
 religious ceremony, or manipulation of any sort, dares 
 by Mind alone to attack disease. Such a spectacle 
 would produce either startling and vehement opposi- 
 tion and contempt or an abundant confidence. In the 
 presence of the mighty issues of life and death a man 
 is swayed by positive convictions one way or another. 
 Thus whatever "Scientists" may say about there 
 being no need of faith in the mind of the patient, they 
 must have more or less of it. The sick man would 
 not send for a healer unless some faith was resident 
 in some mind outside of the Christian Science prac- 
 titioner. Certainly the patient must have some faith 
 to read Mrs. Eddy's book to be cured, or to practice 
 upon himself the methods of her healing. For she 
 claims that people have been cured by simply reading 
 
Power of Mind over Body 85 
 
 attentively "Science and Health." - So that it is quite 
 difficult to attempt to eliminate on the part of the 
 patient faith altogether. "According to thy faith be 
 it unto thee" is a maxim of Him whom the Christian 
 Science movement says it imitates. 
 
 When you come to compare metaphysical healing 
 with other forms and systems of healing you will find 
 that in many of these, from the practitioners of the 
 most scientific and approved schools down through all 
 the esoteric and eclectic systems not acknowledged by 
 the regular schools, much attention has been paid to 
 the mind of the sick one, to the awakening of faith 
 in some person or method. 
 
 A case in point was that of a lovely young lady 
 confined in one of our lunatic asylums. Her mania 
 took the form that she was especially called of God to 
 do some great work which had not yet been indicated 
 to her. Mixed up with this delusion was the habit of 
 fasting, excessive prayer, and other harmful practices. 
 Months passed. She waited in expectation of the 
 summons to her important work. It came not. Her 
 condition grew worse rather than better. 
 
 At last one of the physicians, deeply interested in 
 studying the phenomena of the influence of mind on 
 body, thought of a plan which might prove a most 
 powerful stimulus, which he trusted would react upon 
 the body. At any rate it was an experiment well worth 
 trying. It might be termed a mental operation. 
 
 The doctor introduced a tube into her room without 
 her knowing of its presence. He also prepared a 
 
86 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 strong calcium light with which at the appointed time 
 to flood the room with the rays of intense brilliancy. 
 
 The young woman had not walked a step for 
 months. When the hour came, while the physicians 
 of the institution and a Christian woman, deeply sym- 
 pathetic with the girl, were present, the experimenter 
 spoke through the tube in the name of the Lord, in- 
 forming the girl that she should be sent upon her mis- 
 sion, and soon return to her home to acclaim His glory. 
 At the same instant that the voice sounded the room 
 was filled with a radiance surpassing the midday sun. 
 
 The girl's face, with the simplicity of implicit faith, 
 was lighted up with a joy that seemed too great for 
 mortals. Those situated so that they could see it said 
 that hardly ever had they seen such an expression of 
 seraphic bliss. 
 
 The question now was how she would act in the 
 days to come. The next morning she came down to 
 breakfast, walked the length of the hall, continued to 
 improve and was discharged from the institution prac- 
 tically cured.* 
 
 In spite of the loud protestations of the power of 
 mind over matter-nothing, the prophet of this system 
 has had to pay visits to her dentist the same as an ordi- 
 nary mortal. This story is told of her going to one 
 of the local Concord, New Hampshire, dentists for 
 the purpose of having a tooth extracted. The Rev. 
 Mr. Whitaker, it transpired, had criticised the 
 "Mother" for so far going back on a prophet's proc- 
 
 *"Christian Science and Mind Cure." 
 
Power of Mind over Body 87 
 
 lamation as to have a tooth extracted. This called 
 forth a letter from the dentist which is quoted: 
 
 The story told by the Rev. Dr. Whitaker and others, to the 
 effect that Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy called at my office in 
 Concord, N. H., in great pain, and had a carious tooth ex- 
 tracted, requesting me to use a local anaesthetic before ex- 
 tracting the tooth, is incorrect. Mrs. Eddy did call at my 
 office and had a troublesome tooth extracted. But it was not 
 a carious tooth, neither was she in pain at the time. She did 
 request me to extract the tooth, allowing me to use my own 
 painless method for extracting teeth, which I had recom- 
 mended. 
 
 I shall take no further notice of enquiries on this subject. 
 Signed John M. Fletchee. 
 
 Concord, N. H., November 22, 1900. 
 
 Now follows the very unique and sophistical way 
 in which Mrs. Eddy wriggled herself and her "Science" 
 out of a somewhat awkward situation, if any dilemma 
 can be awkward to a Christian Scientist or in any way 
 unsettle his equipoise : 
 
 "Bishop Berkeley and I agree that all is mind. Explanation 
 Then consistently with this premise the conclusion is !!* at does not 
 
 , * Explain 
 
 that if 1 employ a dental surgeon, and he believes that 
 the extraction of the tooth is made easier by some ap- 
 plication or means which he employs, and I object to 
 the employment of this means, I have turned the den- 
 tist's mental protest against myself; he thinks I must 
 suffer because his method is interfered with. There- 
 fore his mental force weighs against a painless opera- 
 tion, whereas, it should be put into the same scale as 
 mine, thus producing a painless operation as a logical 
 result." 
 
 This explanation may suffice for the initiated whose 
 
88 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 thinking processes whirl around the maelstrom of Mrs. 
 Eddy's mental gyrations, but to the onlooker and cool 
 logician it smacks too much of an explanation that 
 does not explain. One of her followers claims to have 
 had no need of a dentist for a "carious tooth." Her 
 friends wanted her to use some reason and good sense 
 and go to a dentist. But she said : "Let me give 
 Christian Science a fair trial first. The healing 
 seemed very slow, and for about two months I labored 
 faithfully. The result was, indeed, glorious, as I 
 found the cavity in the tooth growing up, and all pain 
 ceased, neither heat nor cold disturbed the tooth, which 
 filled, not with a foreign substance, but the genuine, 
 white and perfect. My friends were eager to examine 
 it, because they could not believe without seeing, but 
 they were satisfied, and error stood dumb before 
 Truth."* The lady goes on to say that she is "learn- 
 ing that the entire moral dream is a deep dream 
 cavity of nothingness." 
 
 As to absent treatment so much vaunted by Chris- 
 tian Scientists, these in all Mind Cures proceed on the 
 theory that to think with concentrated abstraction of 
 another results in the spiritual presence of that other. 
 The "living image and inner personality seem to stand 
 before us, and what we say to it we say to him." 
 Healers endeavor to extend this phenomenon so as to 
 make it actually annihilate space. 
 
 An instance Mrs. Eddy has given with considerable 
 pride, as a demonstration of her powers in absent 
 treatment, recounts how in the case of a very sick 
 
 ^Christian Science Journal, Vol. xvi, page 758. 
 
Power of Mind over Body 89 
 
 woman her husband wrote to Mrs. Eddy, and an al- 
 most miraculous cure followed in this wise : "The 
 day you received my husband's letter I became con- 
 scious for the first time in forty-eight hours." What 
 does this prove? Simply nothing. Letters similar 
 have been written and the patient died. There are 
 records of cases where treatment has been given by 
 Christian Science healers and the patient died. What 
 does it prove one way or another? The coincidence 
 of the letter being written and the patient's recovering 
 consciousness, or of Mrs. Eddy's receiving the letter 
 and the patient being cured, are in no way related. 
 Instances are on record of the healer invoking the 
 spiritual presence of a person who did not exist or who 
 never existed. There is no healer of this class who 
 may not be so imposed upon. What is it they speak 
 to? If in case of a hoax being played upon one of 
 them, and he thinks he is speaking to a "spiritual pres- 
 ence" when nothing of the kind exists, is not the in- 
 ference clear that the whole business is a delusion and 
 a snare, and that in every case the healer is talking 
 only to "such stuff as dreams are made of"? 
 
 As has been previously remarked, in all forms of 
 Metaphysical Healing much effort has been expended 
 on the mind of the patient. The different types of 
 metaphysical healing, while showing the power that 
 mind exercises over the body, also demonstrate the 
 readiness with which mind may trick and deceive 
 itself. Most of these forms of Mental Healing are 
 one in acknowledging the existence and reality of 
 matter. 
 
go The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 The latest claimant among these aspirants for pe- 
 culiar honors is the so-called Emmanuel Movement. 
 In this we have an embryo system, acknowledging its 
 own limitations. While relying on mind, it does not 
 repudiate matter, nor does it scorn the patient phy- 
 sician and his science, but voluntarily and cheerfully 
 co-operates with them. It has much in common with 
 the great brood of Mind-Cure propositions that have 
 appealed for popular recognition, but its work is 
 within the Church and not out of it. It avows hum- 
 ble dependence upon God and the heritage of human 
 experience. If it is to prove of any more lasting value 
 to the world than the multitude of its predecessors, 
 time will tell. 
 
 It is not the object of this work either to discuss 
 or to favorably or adversely criticise the Emmanuel 
 Movement, but to refer to it as one of the many types 
 of Mind Healing, in order to emphasize the fact that 
 Metaphysical Healing does not need to deny the per- 
 sonal God, repudiate the existence of matter, or found 
 a sect of its own to find scope and plan wherein to 
 spread its wings and exercise its gifts. 
 
 Stated in brief, the Emmanuel Movement seeks to 
 demonstrate the peculiar power of mind over matter ; 
 the control of physical ailments where such are caused 
 by the mind or may be influenced by it ; and the relief 
 and return to equipoise of the mind itself when 
 troubled. Over all is stretched the canopy of abound- 
 ing faith. From three separate agencies flow the 
 springs of the mind's effective power : Moral Regen- 
 eration, Arousing Suggestion, and Spiritual Hyp- 
 
Power of Mind over Body 91 
 
 nosis. The last method is employed gingerly, and 
 only in cases of certain forms of mania, alcoholism 
 and such like, with the co-operation of an expert 
 neurologist. Jastrow's "Sub-Consciousness" has been 
 in its analysis taken as the scientific and philosophic 
 basis of this new religious school of healing. It is 
 generally acknowledged, by those competent to judge, 
 that the powers of the sub-conscious mind are mani- 
 fold. They flower into genius or pale into fragile 
 visions whose fruitage is disease. 
 
 Suggestion is made much of in Emmanuelism. To 
 be successful, suggestion must become part of the 
 life. Reason stands guard, a God-given sentinel, to 
 protect the citadel of man from all outside interfer- 
 ence. It calls a halt to all overflowing emotions and 
 defends from all assaults and inducements. Reason is 
 the censor that passes on all strange ideas and sug- 
 gestions. It must either be respected or ignored, and 
 somehow, in certain crises, its hold on the inner life 
 be weakened. So, in order to give the right of way 
 to the needed suggestion, reason and consciousness 
 must be held in abeyance. This may be done when 
 the person needing the help has full confidence in the 
 one offering the suggestion. Here is where what is 
 called hypnosis comes in. It does not effect a cure. 
 Simply the way is prepared by it and hindrances re- 
 moved. The thing to be done is to defeat the antag- 
 onisms of reason, put to sleep self-consciousness, and 
 prepare the way for the suggestion to enter the depths 
 of our sub-conscious being. 
 
 Now these may all be strange terms, and have a 
 
92 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 weird and even uncanny sound to some, but the thing 
 they represent is not new. This is the way the mys- 
 terious fascinates and captivates the mind. Supersti- 
 tion exercises through these avenues a stupendous 
 force in human existence. What a power it is ! We 
 need not turn to Africa or India for illustrations. The 
 writer, traveling in the hills of New Hampshire one 
 summer, sat on the box with the stage-driver as the 
 team wended in and out and up and down amid pros- 
 pects of enchanting loveliness. The mountain peaks 
 seemed to summon to lofty thoughts. Aspiration 
 pulsed in the very air. But a toothache troubled the 
 passenger. The obliging whip had a remedy close at 
 hand. "Look here," said this Yankee of the granite 
 hills, reaching down and drawing out from the depths 
 of a capacious pocket a peculiar bone. "Look here. 
 Fifteen year ago I had a blazing toothache, but I got 
 this yere toothacher bone, and I hain't had a toothache 
 since. Use ter have 'em lots." 
 
 What cured his toothache? 
 
 Christian Science as a Mind-Cure has mingled with 
 it much of error and superstition with a modicum of 
 truth. Its philosophy, we have seen, has within it the 
 seeds of disaster. We conceive only faintly the power 
 of mind over matter. God, the Creator, has set the 
 soul, the mind, in a house of dust and bidden it be 
 master there and exercise universal dominion. Now 
 we see the immortal mind not yet master, but limited, 
 baffled, perplexed. No wonder Professor James feels 
 it is time for psychology to do something! What its 
 last word will be who may say? 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHISTIAN SCIENCE. 
 
 Some of the apparently scientific statements of Forerunners 
 Christian Science seem to have had their origin in 
 Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism, which played an im- 
 portant part in the early centuries of Christianity. "In 
 every age, as in every man," writes Philip Schafr", 
 "light and shade in fact are mingled, that no flesh 
 should exalt itself above measure. . . . Even 
 the most important periods have heavenly treasure in 
 earthen vessels, and reflect the spotless glory of the 
 Redeemer in broken colors." Between miracle and 
 fraud lie many intermediate steps of self-deception, 
 clairvoyancy, magnetic phenomena, hypnotic signs, 
 and other unusual states of the human mind, which 
 is full of deep mysteries and stands nearer the invisi- 
 ble spirit world than we may often suspect. 
 
 These strange and mysterious states appeared in 
 the first and second centuries of Christianity in many 
 effervescings of heathenism attempting to wrap itself 
 in the warp and woof of the Gospel, and gave rise to 
 strange minglings of pagan philosophy with the aspi- 
 rations and reasonings of Christianity. It may be 
 stated without controversy that Christianity has in all 
 ages been hospitable to truth wherever found, and 
 
 93 
 
94 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 many Christians in the first and second centuries felt 
 that the splendid manifestations of mind in philosophy, 
 art and literature had not bloomed and matured with- 
 out a divinely ordered end, and that they were predes- 
 tined to become important agencies in the higher 
 spiritual development of the race. Here in such a situ- 
 ation do we find the origin of Gnosticism. The world 
 of that time, as the world of our day, in its restless 
 intellectual activity had been seeking for an expla- 
 nation of the antithesis between matter and spirit, of 
 the ceaseless conflict between good and evil. It was 
 in the second century that the search reached the fever 
 of its intensity. 
 
 Reason and faith appear in an eternal conflict. 
 Christianity offers a solution of the problem of life 
 through faith, with its practical results of pure and 
 happy lives; but the world wants a philosophy born 
 of reason and knowledge. Over against practice the 
 world wants reason and theory. Now Christianity is 
 not averse to reason so far as the intellect has power 
 to reach. One of these efforts at mingling philosophy 
 and Christian faith and practice resulted in the tangle 
 of Gnosticism, which began in New Testament times. 
 It was at its height in the second century ; it declined 
 in the third, and in the sixth it had run its course. 
 What was it? 
 Gnosticism Gnosticism took many forms, but there were some 
 
 Defined common characteristics in most of them. It believed 
 
 in one supreme God, dwelling in eternity; that all mat- 
 ter is essentially evil ; that God is opposed to matter, 
 hence a dualism in the universe ; that Christ emanated 
 
The Philosophy of Christian Science 95 
 
 from God and liberated the spirit from matter; that 
 since matter is evil, and since contact of the spirit with 
 matter is contamination, Christ could not have a 
 human body, consequently His sufferings and death 
 upon the Cross were not real, but only an appearance. 
 Gnosticism was essentially aristocratic. It claimed a 
 degree of enlightenment that the vulgar could not at- 
 tain unto. Thus it turned to mysticism and asceti- 
 cism. It became very soon a mingling of the good and 
 bad. Matter was the source of evil. This on the one 
 hand led to the strictest moral code, and an abhor- 
 rence of the sensuous; on the other, a party arose 
 which plunged into all forms of sensual excesses, 
 claiming that as matter was evil, "nothing," to over- 
 come it was to indulge in it ; hence arose the hated sect 
 of the Nicolaitans, corrupting the pure springs of 
 Christian morality. 
 
 The teachings of these Gnostics remind the stu- 
 dent of the words of the founder of this twentieth 
 century cult: "Error is unreal because untrue — that 
 which seemeth to be and is not. If error were true, its 
 Truth would be error." That is to say, a lie is un- 
 real, because untrue — that which seemeth to be and 
 is not. Gnosticism boldly declared that redemption 
 consisted in mere knowledge. This was followed by 
 high intellectual pride. Redemption was only for a 
 select few — for us who know. This aristocracy per- 
 ished in the presence of the humility and universality 
 of Christianity. 
 
 The whole history of philosophy is the attempt to 
 solve the riddle of the universe. 
 
96 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 In the opening of the third century the gospel was 
 thrilling with new life all the old Roman Empire. 
 Neo-Platonism had its rise in Alexandria, where the 
 triumphs of Gnosticism were the most brilliant in its 
 clash with the purer forms of Christianity. The 
 foundations of its aspirations are laid in the teachings 
 of Euclid of Megara, a pupil of Socrates, and its basic 
 principle was a combination of the Eleatic conception 
 of Being — the One and All — and the Socratic concep- 
 tion of the Good. Plotinus, the greatest exponent of 
 these doctrines, and regarded as the real founder of 
 Neo-Platonism in the Christian era, taught that the 
 primal essence — Principle — was the "First," "the 
 One," "the Good/' "that which stands above Being." 
 The Good with him was the same as God, as the Rea- 
 son of Socrates, as Wisdom, and that which alone 
 truly exists. Over against this put the oft-repeated 
 declaration of Mrs. Eddy, the three fundamental 
 propositions of Christian Science : 
 
 i. God is All. 2. God is Good. God is Mind. 3. 
 God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter." 
 
 Another point of resemblance to Neo-Platonism and 
 Christian Science is exhibited by Prof. Harnack when 
 he says : 
 
 "Never before had real science and pure knowledge 
 been so undervalued and despised by the leaders of 
 culture as they were by the Neo-Platonists." 
 
 Neo-Platonism starts with a transcendent conception 
 of God, from whom it develops the universe in a 
 series of emanations or overflowings. Writing of 
 this ancient philosophy, Prof. Adolf Harnack might 
 
The Philosophy of Christian Science 97 
 
 be thought to be giving expression to views on the 
 Christian Science of our time: 
 
 'The primal Being is, as opposed to the man, the 
 One; as opposed to the finite, the Infinite, to the un- 
 limited. It is the source of all life, and, therefore, ab- 
 solute causality and the only real existence. It is 
 moreover the Good, in so far as all finite things have 
 their purpose in it, and ought to flow back to it. One 
 cannot attach moral attributes to the original Being, 
 because this would imply limitations. Neo-Platonism 
 may be described as a species of dynamic Pantheism. 
 Directly or indirectly everything is brought forth by 
 the One." 
 
 Platonists and Mrs. Eddy agree when she teaches: 
 "In Science, Mind is One— including non-mena and 
 prenomena, God and his thoughts. Man, the infinite 
 idea — nous— of Infinite Spirit; the full representation 
 of Mind." 
 
 The highest state of the soul is reached through the 
 contemplating of the highest being — the One; or, in 
 other words, it is the philosophy of ecstasy. Contem- 
 plation, meditation and concentration pass into an 
 exalted frame where the soul loses itself in the One. 
 Porphyry says that on four occasions in six years 
 Plotinus obtained this ecstatic union with God. Neo- 
 Platonism bequeathed to the world "a frame of mind," 
 namely, that "the blessedness that can alone satisfy 
 man is iound somewhere else than in the sphere of 
 Knowledge." 
 
 Gnosticism led to the ascetic life ; the monk isolated 
 himself in mystic contemplation from his fellows. The 
 
98 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 philosophy of the Neo-Platonist mixed with a diluted 
 and degenerate Christianity produced the same sort 
 of a bloom, the plant of celibacy as a passport to the 
 joy of blessedness of the higher spiritual being. This 
 same weird mysticism, caught in some way by their 
 author, pervades nearly all the pages of "Science and 
 Health." Read these expressions from this book : 
 
 "God is good. God is principle. God is all. Mor- 
 tal existence is a dream, it has no real entity." 
 
 "Now I ask is there any more reality in the waking 
 dream of mortal existence than in the sleeping dream ? 
 There cannot be, since whatever appears to be mortal 
 mind, or body, is a mortal dream." 
 
 "The mortality of man is mere myth, for man is 
 immortal." 
 
 "All is mind, there is no matter." 
 
 "Matter is a finite illusion." 
 
 Not being understandable to the untrained mind of 
 average persons, these utterances are regarded by her 
 followers as the very essence of profundity, and mark 
 an era of emphatic inspiration. And all the time, 
 when they gape at a supposed revelation, they are too 
 ignorant of real history to know that this thought, 
 doctrine and philosophy rose long since and kindled a 
 glowing torch that centuries ago burned itself to the 
 socket. Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, and hosts of bril- 
 liant men following their leadership taught the essence 
 and flavor of these things long before a restless wom- 
 an's mind, stirred by a disciple of Mesmer and the 
 occult whisperings of spiritualism, framed a dream of 
 
The Philosophy of Christian Science 99 
 
 religion and metaphysics mixed with crude, far-away 
 mummyfied philosophies. 
 
 In the middle of the last century Bab taught a re- 
 vival of Neo-Platonism, in so far as he declared that all 
 beings are an emanation of the supreme Being into 
 whom all will ultimately be reabsorbed. 
 
 Joanna Southcott, an Englishwoman of Devonshire, 
 a domestic servant, thought she, too, was inspired with 
 a divine message and persuaded herself that she had 
 supernatural powers. She was born about 1750, and 
 in middle life announced that on November 19, 1814, 
 she would give birth to Shiloh. But Shiloh failed to 
 appear, and she died on the 29th of the same month of 
 dropsy. Her publications are all equally incoherent in 
 thought and deficient in grammar, reminding the 
 reader of Mrs. Eddy's books. Yet she numbered 
 a hundred thousand followers. She gathered much 
 money, one woman bequeathing large sums to pay 
 for the printing of the Sacred Writings of Joanna 
 Southcott. 
 
 We have seen that the doctrine of celibacy was 
 prevalent among the Gnostics and the mystics in 
 all ages. One of those modern communities was 
 at Tilton only a few miles from the home of Mrs. 
 Eddy's youth. Mrs. Eddy differs from most mystics 
 in permitting marriage until Christian Science is bet- 
 ter understood and a purely spiritual generation is 
 attained unto. But Thomas Lake Harris has formu- 
 lated and taught the very same doctrine, and this has 
 been urged by his disciples with great vehemence. And 
 just as Mrs. Eddy has caught the spirit of ancient 
 
ioo The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 mysticism, so she has evidently caught the trend of 
 present-day mysticism. Reasoning from supposed 
 revelations and philosophy, most latter-day prophets 
 have declared their Messiahship. Swedenborg made 
 this high claim for a little while, but when the tempo- 
 rary wave of insanity receded he withdrew his pre- 
 posterous aspiration, and as prophet of a new dispen- 
 sation was content with a more modest program. 
 Many others have yielded to this form of mystic de- 
 mentia and loudly asserted lofty prerogatives. The 
 best thing that charity can do for them all is to deem 
 them possessed by an obsession of hallucinations. 
 Mrs. Eddy has insidiously attempted to make herself a 
 sort of reincarnation of the Christ. She claims to be 
 without sin in all that she has done for and with 
 Christian Science. Her book, she asserts, is inspired 
 of God, in fact is a revelation. She also puts forth 
 the astonishing claim in the very spirit of Jesus' words 
 that no other can drink of the cup which she has 
 drained to the very dregs : 'The virgin Mary, Jesus 
 Christ and the author of Christian Science have each 
 their individual mission in the world, which none other 
 may do." Thus she associates herself with Christ in 
 a way that would indicate to a plain mind, notwith- 
 standing her oft-repeated declaration that she is not 
 the Christ, her high aspirations. The Holy Spirit, the 
 Comforter promised, she has no hesitation in saying, is 
 Christian Science. Is not her look towards deifica- 
 tion, and possibly a middle place between Jesus, the 
 Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit? 
 
The Philosophy of Christian Science 101 
 
 What has been said of Christian Science teaching in The «Reai» 
 this chapter, and a large part of that which appears " nd the „ 
 elsewhere in this book, clearly demonstrates that very " Unreal " 
 much of the confusion of its philosophy revolves 
 
 round this word, so often quoted by its followers 
 
 reality. They speak constantly of the real and the 
 unreal. 
 
 This much must be accepted by an ordinary indi- 
 vidual as true, that all our thoughts about life and 
 the world around us must be founded on what we call 
 experience. We must have some sort of an experience 
 with this or that thing before we can think about it. 
 When we speak about the world of experience we are 
 not touching on a transcendental theme, but a very 
 matter-of-fact, every-day one. The objects of our 
 experience, the things nature has for us, the persons 
 we daily meet— these are what we must fit ourselves 
 to. We cannot ignore our environment if we would. 
 From it we get our experience of what life is like, 
 and he who learns by this experience to adjust him- 
 self and his affairs to the order of things around him 
 reaches the highest practical wisdom. The sum of 
 knowledge comes to us through contact with these 
 things. What we call it is of little moment. We can 
 use the words real or unreal, fact or dream, just as 
 we please, but one thing we must do, we are com- 
 pelled to recognize it, if we intend to live in this 
 world. 
 
 When we study the order of nature around us, we 
 find that things exist and occur in a certain sequence. 
 Experience tells us of a law that governs and directs. 
 
102 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 We may say these things are not real, only appear- 
 ances, but the experience is just the same. If we call 
 them illusions, the experience is real. If we call them 
 nothings, it does not alter the experience in the least. 
 Call flour nothing, water nothing, milk nothing, eggs 
 and butter nothing, spice nothing, the pudding that 
 results nothing. Say that food is an illusion ; then one 
 illusion gives rise to another illusion. Man is an il- 
 lusion, food is an illusion. The facts of experience 
 are just the same whether we say one illusion causes 
 the other illusion to disappear, or simply state : Mor- 
 tal man eats the pudding. Life remains just the same : 
 its laws are there, and we break them at our peril. 
 
 Prof. Borden P. Bowne has this to say of experi- 
 ence: 
 
 "It is, then, a great mistake to fancy that our meta- 
 physics is the source of experience, or that it in any 
 way makes the experience real or unreal." 
 
 He also adds with great vividness : 
 
 "The experience remains the same under one sys- 
 tem of metaphysics as under another. Thus Berke- 
 ley, Mill, Hume, Reid, and Hamilton differed widely 
 in their metaphysics, but practically they had to live 
 in the same way. Kant, with his ideality of space and 
 time, found it no easier to get around the world than 
 the ordinary realist on that subject. Berkeley found 
 his butcher's bills and his grocer's bills just as im- 
 portant a matter and just as difficult to pay as Reid. 
 So on the plane of experience we are all alike, and 
 the philosophers cannot help us. ... If the 
 philosophers can do anything it must be in the way of 
 
The Philosophy of Christian Science 103 
 
 interpreting experience, not in the way of producing 
 or verifying it. In this sense experience is real and 
 carries its truth or verification in itself." 
 
 But just as Mrs. Eddy's Mind Healing theories arc The 
 metaphysical, all these things are the same and 1 g£gg hle a 
 have no bearing on the reality of the experience 
 we may have from day to day with nature and hu- 
 manity. When the "Scientist," suffering from a 
 jumping toothache, says, "I have no pain," what does 
 he mean? If anything except a silly, or mayhap a 
 soothing, falsehood occurs to his mind in the transac- 
 tion, he must know, in his sub-conscious self at least, 
 that pain is an actual incident in experience. It is not 
 of course a tangible thing like a stone or a book. 
 Smallpox is not a real thing, but it is a condition of 
 the system, and its symptoms are realities in experi- 
 ence. Contagion is not a substance, but it is actual in 
 effect, and must be guarded against more carefully 
 than an enemy with cannon and bomb. So death is an 
 event, yet for all that it is supremely significant to us, 
 and cannot be shunned by calling it by another name. 
 Whatever we call it, whatever our metaphysics may 
 be, it is a condition we cannot evade. The "Science" 
 glossary calls appetite an illusion and food an illusion ; 
 the fact is, there is a condition there that must be met 
 in only one way, by filling the ache of one illusion 
 with another illusion. So through the long category. 
 As we investigate these things, by and by we shall see 
 that these facts of experience come to us in an order 
 and sequence that we may not escape. We do not 
 create these conditions, we cannot get away from their 
 
104 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 effects. They are part and parcel of the world and its 
 laws in which we live and to which we are subject. 
 New names do not alter old conditions. Our business 
 in life is to adjust ourselves to our environment, for 
 as long as we live here we cannot get away from it. 
 
 The Christian Scientist who admits this differs from 
 the rest of us in nothing but terms, the use of words. 
 This theoretical divergence is in the realm of meta- 
 physics. Metaphysics is a very difficult theme to 
 wrestle with. Two Scots were disputing as to just 
 what metaphysics might be. The one said to the 
 other, "Metaphysics, is it? Metaphysics? Weel, ken 
 ye noo yonder bank, the holes with the swallows go- 
 ing in and out? Take away the bank and leave the 
 holes — that's metaphysics." But if the Christian Sci- 
 entist will, we must leave him to his speculations and 
 the holes. 
 
 Our Boston philosopher, Professor Bowne, has this 
 also to say of him : 
 
 "If he insists that his metaphysics can exorcise a 
 blizzard or quench the violence of fire or put to flight 
 the many ills that flesh is heir to, or do away with 
 hunger and cold and pain, then, as just suggested, 
 there is ample room for decisive experiment. By 
 keeping this point in mind we shall at least escape the 
 confusion that arises from the ambiguity of this word 
 reality, and we may have a chance to test the validity 
 of our notions. In the long run the death rate seems 
 to be about one apiece for all of us, Christian Scientists 
 and other folk alike/' 
 
 Mrs. Eddy denies that her system teaches Panthe- 
 
The Philosophy of Christian Science 105 
 
 ism. She has devoted one of her annual messages to 
 the Church to a discussion of this subject. In this her 
 idea of Pantheism seems to be derived very largely Pantheism 
 from the mythological god Pan. She makes the inter- 
 esting statement that "Pan in imagery is preferable to 
 Pantheism in theology." The only conception of 
 Pantheism she appears to have is expressed by her in 
 the terms of the Standard Dictionary, "The deification 
 of natural causes, conceived as one personified na- 
 ture." To her Theism is "belief in the personality 
 and infinite mind of one supreme, holy, self-existent 
 God, who reveals Himself supernaturally to His cre- 
 ation, and whose laws are not reckoned as science." 
 
 Just what the last clause in this definition means it 
 is hard to say. 
 
 Turning the page, we read that "Theistic theological 
 belief may agree with physics and anatomy, which 
 reason that the universe owes its origin and continuity 
 to the reason, intellect, and will of a self-existent di- 
 vine Being who possesses all wisdom, goodness, and 
 power, and is the creator and preserver of man." This 
 she claims is the doctrine of Theism. To this she 
 makes exceptions. First, God as creator is dealt with 
 and eliminated: 
 
 "A Theistic theological belief may agree with 
 physics and anatomy that reason and will are properly 
 classified as mind, located in the brain. . . . But 
 reason and will are human; God is divine." From 
 which we are shut up to the inference that God has 
 neither reason nor will. Her teaching is that God is 
 impersonal. "God is All. God is All-in-All." "God 
 is Principle." 
 
106 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 In the very next paragraph of the message the 
 "Mother" seems to agree with Theism, when she 
 writes : "God, Spirit, is indeed the preserver of man." 
 But lest the reader should perchance draw any sensi- 
 ble conclusion from her words, she makes it plain 
 that to her no human devices are the preserver of man. 
 And she ends this paragraph with the astounding in- 
 formation that "All things were made by Him — the 
 Word. What, then, can matter create or how can it 
 exist?" 
 
 Christian Science does not teach Pantheism, it is 
 claimed. What does it teach, then? Pantheism said, 
 God is All-in-All. Christian Science says : God is 
 All-in-All. Pantheism acknowledged the existence 
 of the material universe. It denied the personality of 
 God, and made everything in the universe an emana- 
 tion or reflection of Him. All is God. Christian Sci- 
 ence says the same thing, with this difference, perhaps, 
 that it denies the existence of the material universe. 
 It boldly controverts every fact of existence and of 
 experience, and in the terms of a pure Pantheism says, 
 God is everything; All is God. 
 "Science" and The fact of Jesus Christ troubles it. What shall 
 Christian Science do with Jesus Christ? 
 
 The Christian Church has worshiped Jesus as God. 
 He is not divine in the light of "Science." In it the 
 philosophy of Jesus, the philosophy of the Cross, dis- 
 appears in one vast mirage of meaningless contradic- 
 tion in this modern philosophy. Jesus died for our 
 sins according to the Scriptures, but according to "Sci- 
 ence" there is no sin, no death, no need of a Saviour 
 who is the Resurrection and the Life. 
 
 Christ 
 
The Philosophy of Christian Science 107 
 
 Amid the fog this statement stands out : "Does not 
 the belief that Jesus, the man of Galilee, is God, imply 
 two Gods, one the divine infinite Person, the other a 
 human finite personality?" Jesus had a human body. 
 But the body is an illusion. It does not exist to the 
 writer of the words just quoted. What does she mean 
 by a finite personality ? For this is her position : "Sci- 
 ence ... is strictly monotheism ; it has One God." 
 Then the climax and keystone is added : "Science is 
 not Pantheism, but Christian Science." 
 
 Its philosophy is the philosophy of perversion and 
 negation. It asks its disciples to take as a philosophy 
 of life the wriggling of the serpent and sophistries 
 that impeach reason, fact, and testimony, and with an 
 assumption that touches the foolhardiness of blas- 
 phemy declares that Christian Science is the Holy 
 Spirit — Christian Science is God. 
 
 The Christian Scientist proudly points to the vic- 
 tories his theories achieve over that persistent and 
 prickly god of Worry. No member of the cult wor- 
 ships at his altars. They seemingly forget that the 
 old Gospel is one continuous protest against slavery 
 to worry. Its message of peace and good will is a call 
 to freedom from the fret and carking care of this 
 world. He who said, "Come unto Me, and I will give 
 you rest," said to this devil, "Get thee behind me." 
 No wrinkle of worry ever invades the fairness of His 
 brow. The heart of Christianity is tranquillity and 
 peace. Others beside "Scientists" have found the se- 
 cret and rejoiced in it. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BIBLE VERITIES AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 VAPORINGS. 
 
 parallels and This chapter will discuss the relationship of the 
 nergencies ^ QQ ^. "S c i ence and Health" to the Word of God, and 
 the doctrines of the cult to the accepted beliefs of the 
 Evangelical Churches. It may be said that in many 
 particulars Mrs. Eddy's teachings cannot be distin- 
 guished from the truths taught by the established 
 churches of Evangelical faith. This is so, but in other 
 particulars there is such a wide divergence, and so 
 glaring an attempt to discredit God's Word in its en- 
 tirety, that one would blush to think of such fallacious 
 statements being associated with Christianity and the 
 great Master who spake as never man spake, and in 
 Himself manifested the fullness of the Father's glory. 
 In the preface to her book the prophet of "Science" 
 sets forth that "The divine principle of healing is 
 proved in the personal experience of any sincere seeker 
 of Truth. . . . No intellectual proficiency is re- 
 quired in the learner, but sound morals are most de- 
 sirable." In the study of this book one will find that 
 "intellectual proficiency" is best honored by its absence. 
 
 How Jesus Mrs. Eddy continues in the preface to say that Jesus 
 
 healed "from the operation of divine principle"; but 
 Jesus healed in the mightiness of his divine person- 
 ality. She controverts the supernatural dements in 
 
 108 
 
Bible Verities and "Science" Vaporings 109 
 
 Christ's works : 'These mighty works are not super- 
 natural, but supremely natural." In the case of the 
 man sick of the palsy did not Jesus use supernatural 
 power? Was it natural for a sinful man to say unto 
 sinful man, "Thy sins are forgiven thee"? But He 
 was good. There is none good but God. 
 
 Compare with Christian Science methods the inci- 
 dent of the healing of the man sick of the palsy : 
 
 They brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a 
 bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the 
 Pa t y, j°u\ b f, 0f good cheer ' th y sins be forgiven thee. 
 
 And, behold certain of the scribes said within themselves, 
 I his man blasphemeth. ' 
 
 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye 
 evil in your hearts? 
 
 For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee- 
 or to say, Arise, and walk? to ' 
 
 mSM?? ^ may kn /°u that - the Son of man hath Power on 
 earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of the palsy) 
 Arise take up thy bed, and go unto thine house P 7) ' 
 
 And he arose, and departed to his house.— Matt. 9 : 2-7. 
 
 There is no trace here of any long mental process; 
 there is no suggestion of Christian Science methods. 
 The act transcended the natural. The divine Father 
 can forgive sins. That they might know the Son of 
 Man had power on earth to forgive sin, Christ per- 
 formed the miracle of healing. The cure was in- 
 stantaneous. Did He deny sin? 
 
 _ Christian Science says there is no sin. Hence, there No sm 
 is nothing to repent of, nothing from which to be 
 saved. 
 
 The inspired John proclaims : 
 
no The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and 
 the truth is not in us. 
 
 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive 
 us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness^ 
 
 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and 
 His word is not in us. — I John 1 : 8-10. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy says: "Our Master healed the sick 
 . . . taught the generalities of its divine Science 
 principles to his students; but He left no definite rule 
 for demonstrating his principles of healing and pre- 
 venting disease. This remained to be discovered 
 through Christian Science." That is, Christian Sci- 
 ence is an improvement on the Word of God; its 
 founder is something more than the divine Master 
 whom Christians reverence as the very God of very 
 God, the manifestation of the Father's presence and 
 the fulness of His glory ! 
 Pounder of a Now she blows the trumpet of a new revelation. Is 
 church t j ie following quotation poetry, or the outcome of an 
 
 imagination self-deluded and dreaming the shadowy 
 substance of mere dreams? It is taken from "Mis- 
 cellaneous Writings" : 
 
 "Above the fogs of sense and storms of passion 
 Christian Science and its arts will rise triumphant. 
 . . . Angels with overtures hold charge over both, 
 and announce their principle and idea. 
 
 "No works similar to mine on Christian Science 
 existed prior to my discovery of this Science. Before 
 the publication of my first work on this subject a few 
 manuscripts of mine were in circulation. The dis- 
 covery and founding of Christian Science has cost me 
 more than thirty years of unremitting toil and unrest ; 
 
Bible Verities and "Science" Vaporings in 
 
 but, comparing those with the joy of knowing that the 
 sinner is helped upward, that time and eternity bear 
 witness to this gift of God to the race, I am the 
 debtor." 
 
 This woman, rivaling Jesus, has founded her church. 
 "Until I founded a church of my own," she says. 
 Again she writes of it : 
 
 "In 1895 I ordained the Bible and 'Science and 
 Health; with Key to the Scriptures/ the Christian 
 Science text-book, as the pastor on this planet of all 
 the churches of the Christian Science denomination. 
 . . . Whenever and wherever a church of Chris- 
 tian Science is established its pastor is the Bible and 
 my Book. 
 
 "In 1896 . . . Christian Science is founded by 
 its discoverer, and built upon the Rock of Christ. The 
 elements of earth beat in vain against the immortal 
 parapets of this Science. Erect and eternal it will go 
 on with the ages, go down the dim posterns of time 
 unharmed, and on every battlefield rise higher in the 
 estimation of thinkers and in the hearts of Christians." 
 
 The Gospel of Jesus says : 
 
 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, 
 the Son of the living God. 
 
 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, 
 bimon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto 
 thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 
 
 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this 
 rock 1 will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail against it— Matt. 16:16-18. 
 
 This founder of a church, this prophet of a cult, has, 
 when brought to bay, disclaimed any aspirations of 
 
112 
 
 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 being termed a second Christ or of sharing equality 
 with Jesus, but does not her language remind one of 
 the boast of a long-dead king : 
 
 Claiming 
 
 Divine 
 
 Inspiration 
 
 All this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. 
 
 At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the 
 kingdom of Babylon. 
 
 The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I 
 have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my 
 power, and for the honor of my majesty? — Daniel 4:28-30. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy claims a divine inspiration. Her fol- 
 lowers believe that she received the truths of Chris- 
 tian Science as a direct revelation from God. Not- 
 withstanding the founder's connection with the hum- 
 ble healer of Portland, and her oft-repeated state- 
 ments of obligation to Quimby, which have been as 
 well established as any historical events ever were in 
 this world, Christian Scientists repudiate even a sug- 
 gestion of these facts. Their endeavor is to prove the 
 same sort of a revelation for this bundle of curious 
 assertions, often contradictory, as shines in Holy Writ. 
 Her revelation was given to fulfil and complete the 
 revelation and mission of Jesus Christ. "What I am 
 it is for God to declare in His infinite mercy." 
 
 "No person can take the place of the Virgin Mary," 
 Mrs. Eddy writes in "Retrospection and Introspec- 
 tion." "No person can compass or fulfil the individual 
 mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the 
 place of the author of 'Science and Health,' the dis- 
 coverer and founder of Christian Science. Each indi- 
 vidual must fill his own niche in time and eternitv 
 The second appearing of Jesus is unquestionably the 
 
Bible Verities and "Science" Vapo^ngs 113 
 
 spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God as in 
 Christian Science.'" 
 
 The definition of God in "Science and Health," un- God Defined 
 
 d.QC the head of "Science, Theology, Medicine," is : 
 "God is All-in- All, God is Good. God is mind. God, 
 Spirit, being all, nothing is matter." 
 
 Again, under th? heading, "Scientific Translation 
 of Immortal Mind," may be read these definitions : 
 
 "God: Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, 
 Spirit, Mind. 
 
 "Man: God's spiritual idea, individual, perfect, 
 eternal. 
 
 "Idea: An image in Mind; the immediate object 
 of understanding." 
 
 To this author God is not a person. She denies 
 that her system includes and teaches Pantheism, yet 
 her words distinctly imply it, while she does not want 
 to be so understood. This teaching is opposed to the 
 plain utterance of God's Word. Of the first series of 
 propositions quoted above this prophet declares : "The 
 reverse of these propositions will be found to agree in 
 statement and proof." A marginal note, supposedly 
 with the cognition of the author, reads, "Reversible 
 Propositions." Look at them reversed: 
 
 1. All-in-All is God. 
 
 2. Good is God. Mind is God. 
 
 3. Spirit, God, All Being, Matter is Nothing. 
 
 If this is not undiluted nonsense, if it teaches any- 
 thing at all, it is a simple and crude Pantheism. 
 
 "God is Divine Principle," is the teaching of "Sci- 
 ence." To confound a person with an attribute is to 
 
U4 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 introduce endless folly into our thinking. God is 
 good, and God is love, it is true. G-vxlness and love 
 are attributes of God ; they form a part of his charac- 
 ter, but they are not all of God ; they are not God. 
 
 Jesus teaches that God is a person. He is clothed 
 with personality. The charge that Mrs. Eddy brings 
 that the Christian Church believes God is corporeal 
 and is only a gigantic man, is untrue. She confounds 
 personality and corporeality. 
 
 The Westminster Confession says: "God is a 
 Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, 
 wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." 
 
 The writers of the Confession believed that spirit 
 and matter are both real. While spirit may dwell in 
 close union with matter, and matter be closely allied 
 with spirit, each are distinct entities. 
 
 The New Testament God is a Spirit: 
 
 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worship- 
 pers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the 
 Father seeketh such to worship him. 
 
 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship 
 him in spirit and in truth.— John 4: 23, 24. 
 
 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the 
 Lord is, there is liberty. 
 
 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory 
 of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to 
 glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.— 2 Cor. 3:17, J 8. 
 
 Jesus Christ taught that matter was real and not a 
 figment, dream, or shadow. Mrs. Eddy says that mat- 
 ter is unreal and only reflects, or is a reflection of, an 
 idea of God. Her reiterated statement is : "Matter is 
 nothing, that is just what I call matter, nothing." 
 
Bible Verities and "Science" Vaporings 115 
 
 Jesus says: 
 
 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, 
 what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your 
 body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, 
 and the body than raiment? . . . 
 
 If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and 
 to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more 
 clothe you, O ye of little faith? 
 
 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, 
 What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 
 
 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your 
 heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these 
 things. — Matt. 6: 25, 30-32. 
 
 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto 
 your children, how much more shall your Father which is in 
 heaven give good things to them that ask him? — Matt. 7:11. 
 
 Jesus' teaching is that the personal All-Father, who 
 ministers to His children in material benefits, also 
 gives them the highest spiritual good. 
 
 Christian Science proclaims itself sufficient to inter- ImproV | nK 
 pret to humanity the middle ground between the seen Paul 
 and the unseen and eternal. "Science and Health" 
 continues the teaching of St. Paul ; or, in other words, 
 Mrs. Eddy is a betterment on St. Paul. What may 
 this mean : 
 
 "St. Paul first reasons upon the basis of what is 
 seen, the effects of Truth upon the material senses, 
 thence up to the unseen, the testimony of spiritual 
 sense; and right here he leaves the subject." 
 
 Paul saw only two things, the seen and the unseen, 
 but it remained for Mrs. Eddy to improve upon Paul. 
 He says : 
 
 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the 
 things which are not seen : for the things which are seen are 
 temporal ; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 
 
n6 
 
 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
 were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made 
 with hands, eternal in the heavens. . . . 
 
 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst 
 we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. — 
 2 Cor. 4 : 18—5 : 1, 6. 
 
 She says: 
 
 "Just there, in the intermediate line of thought, is 
 where the present writer found it when she discovered 
 Christian Science, and she has not left it, but con- 
 tinues the explanation of the power of Spirit up to its 
 infinite meaning, its Allness." 
 
 Paul stood in the midst of the howling of a real 
 storm and cried, "I believe in God." He believed in a 
 personal God. 
 
 Christ 
 
 "Seem 
 Death 
 
 's 
 ins" 
 
 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) 
 
 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent 
 from the body, and to be present with the Lord. 
 
 Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we 
 may be accepted of him. 
 
 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; 
 that every one may receive the things done in his body, ac- 
 cording to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. — 
 2 Cor. 5 : 7-10. 
 
 Jesus had a real body. Mrs. Eddy says He had not 
 a real body. In "Science and Health" she says that 
 the death of Jesus was not a real death, but a seem- 
 ing death only. The Scriptures say that Christ died 
 for our sins. She proclaims that his phantom being 
 in the world was only a demonstration, the herald of 
 Christian Science. 
 
 "The lonely precincts of the tomb gave Jesus a 
 refuge from his foes, a place in which to solve the 
 
Bible Verities and "Science" Vaporings 117 
 
 great problem of being. ... He met and mas- 
 tered, on the basis of Christian Science, the power of 
 Mind over matter, all the claims of medicine, surgery, 
 and hygiene." 
 
 Compare with this 1 Cor. 15: 1-14: 
 
 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I 
 preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein 
 ye stand ; 
 
 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I 
 preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. 
 
 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also re- 
 ceived, how that Christ died for our sins according to the 
 Scriptures ; 
 
 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third 
 day according to the Scriptures. . . . 
 
 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how 
 say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ? 
 
 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ 
 not risen: 
 
 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, 
 and your faith is also vain. 
 
 Still further, speaking of the death of Jesus, the 
 prophet says in her "Science and Health" : 
 
 "Our Master fully and finally demonstrated divine 
 Science in his victory over death and the grave. Jesus' 
 deed was for the enlightenment of men and for the 
 salvation of the whole world from sin, sickness, and 
 death. Paul writes : Tor if, when we were enemies, 
 we were reconciled to God by the (seeming) death of 
 His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be 
 saved by his life.' " 
 
 The Christian Church believes that Jesus' death 
 upon the cross was a real death : his despairing cry on 
 Calvary was to the Father Infinite. To Mrs. Eddy it 
 
n8 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 was only a "highest demonstration, " and his appeal 
 was only to "divine Principle," and "to himself, Love's 
 purest idea." 
 
 To her that death on Calvary was only a "seeming 
 death," and she wrests Paul's words to make them ac- 
 cord with her theories and fit into her dream philoso- 
 phy of the earthly existence. Of course, if there is 
 no sin, there is no need of a Redeemer from sin. The 
 idea of a vicarious or of a merely moral atonement is 
 utterly superfluous and an impertinence in the scheme 
 of the universe. Man does not need an example, even, 
 that makes for righteousness ; he is righteous and per- 
 fect. There is no veil between him and the face of 
 God; he can say with Jesus, "I and the Father are 
 one." 
 
 Concerning the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, amid 
 much confusion one thing is clear in Christian Science 
 teaching, that the Holy Spirit is Christian Science. 
 This is clearly stated on several pages of "Science and 
 Health." The mission of Jesus was to teach or demon- 
 strate Christian Science. The advent of the Holy 
 Ghost was the influx of the understanding that the 
 disciples could heal the sick and raise the dead. Mrs. 
 Eddy's disciples believe that her discovery of "Meta- 
 physical Healing" has given again the day of Pente- 
 cost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The book 
 reads : 
 
 "The advent of this understanding is what is meant 
 by the descent of the Holy Ghost— that influx of Di- 
 vine Science which so illuminated the Pentecostal Day 
 and is now repeating its ancient history." 
 
Bible Verities and "Science" Vaporings 119 
 
 The chapter in "Science and Health" named "Atone- 
 ment and Eucharist" closes in this fashion : 
 
 "In the words of St. John: 'He shall give you 
 another Comforter, that he may abide with you for- 
 ever.' This Comforter I understand to be Divine Sci- 
 ence." 
 
 These statements show a wide divergence from the 
 faith of the Christian Church. There is nothing said 
 by Jesus of such fantastic interpretations as Mrs. Ed- 
 dy's mystical ideas more than hint at. In John we 
 read that Jesus said: 
 
 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the 
 Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, 
 and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have 
 said unto you. — John 14 : 26. 
 
 The Holy Spirit is a teacher, a personal teacher : 
 
 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, 
 because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him : but ye know 
 him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.— John 
 
 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide 
 you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but what- 
 soever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show 
 you things to come. m . 
 
 He shall glorify me : for he shall receive of mine, and shall 
 show it unto you.— John 16 : 13, 14. 
 
 He is a personality, not a "Science" or a book, but 
 the Spirit of Truth. He is to dwell with the people of 
 God, to comfort them with truth. Jesus says further 
 (not quoted by Mrs. Eddy, who says there is no sin) 
 through the inspired pen of John : 
 
120 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of 
 righteousness, and of judgment: 
 
 Of sin, because they believe not on me; 
 
 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me 
 no more ; 
 
 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. — 
 John 16:8-11. 
 
 When the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost 
 we hear nothing of Jesus' death not being real, of the 
 Resurrection being an illusion, of sin not being a real 
 fact in human experience. The outpouring of the 
 Holy Spirit was the immediate inspiration of Peter's 
 sermon. This discourse exalted the death and resur- 
 rection of Jesus Christ, and was a call to repentance of 
 sin, baptism unto its remission, and the reception of 
 the Holy Spirit. Nowhere in these transactions does 
 the peculiar "understanding" Mrs. Eddy avouches ap- 
 pear in evidence. Jesus is a living reality ; the cruci- 
 fixion, the death, the resurrection of the Redeemer are 
 facts for all time and eternity. Do we hear the first 
 Christian preacher cry aloud, "There is no sin" ? His 
 words are : 
 
 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that 
 God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both 
 Lord and Christ. 
 
 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their 
 heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, 
 Men and brethren, what shall we do? 
 
 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every 
 one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of 
 sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. . . . 
 
 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized : and 
 the same day there were added unto them about three thou- 
 sand souls. 
 
 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and 
 in breaking of bread and in prayers.— Acts 2 : 30-42. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE TEACHING OF "SCIENCE AND 
 
 HEALTH" ON THE LAST SUPPER, 
 
 ON PRAYER, AND ON 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 The mystic and conflicting thoughts found in "Sci- 
 ence and Health" now partake of the truths which all 
 Christians of the Evangelical communions believe, and 
 now dash the cup of a living faith from the lips. It 
 talks sweetly of love, life, truth, and giving all for 
 Christ. In one place we read : 'This is the new un- 
 derstanding of spiritual Love. It gives all for Christ, 
 or Truth." Well may the devout, humble disciple of 
 the real Jesus, not the phantom one, say : "This Sci- 
 ence has taken away my Lord, and I know not where 
 it has laid him." 
 
 Mrs. Eddy writes of the Lord's Supper: 
 "Have you shared the blood of the new covenant, 
 the persecutions which attend a new and higher un- 
 derstanding of God? If not, can you say you have 
 commemorated Jesus in His cup? . . . Why as- 
 cribe this inspiration to a dead rite, instead of show- 
 ing, by casting out error and making the body 'holy 
 and acceptable unto God,' that Truth has come to the 
 understanding? If Christ, Truth, has come to us in 
 demonstration, no other commemoration is requisite; 
 . . . and if a friend be with us why need we me- 
 morials of that friend?" 
 
 121 
 
122 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 Here again, it is not Christ, the personal Redeemer, 
 but some phantom, some shadow, a virtue, a trait, a 
 principle, that finds exaltation in the mind of this 
 founder of "My Church." She would do away with 
 the "Last Supper," and in keeping with her many bor- 
 rowings from many sources, she would substitute 
 what she calls our Lord's "last spiritual breakfast with 
 his disciples in the bright morning hours at the joyful 
 meeting on the shore of the Galilean Sea." 
 
 "This spiritual meeting with our Lord, in the dawn 
 of a new light, is the morning meal which Christian 
 Scientists commemorate. They bow before Christ, 
 Truth, to receive more of his reappearing and silently 
 to commune with the divine Principle, Love." 
 
 Thus this improver on God's plan for all the ages, 
 who does away with sin, confounds right and wrong 
 as the mere result of thinking, and confuses the feet of 
 the unwary in subtleties of metaphysics, supplants the 
 rites of the Church with whimsical fashions of her 
 own. 
 
 The Evangelists give the account of the institution 
 of the Lord's Supper and declare it to be Jesus' com- 
 mand that it be an everlasting memorial. The mask 
 that Christian Science wears here in seeking its abro- 
 gation is the mask of His second appearance. They 
 claim that Christ has come in Christian Science. That 
 is, Christian Science masquerades now as the Holy 
 Spirit, now as He for whom the Christian Church is 
 exhorted by the Holy Book to patiently wait in the 
 love of God. 
 
 The Church will judge if this strange mingling of 
 
Last Supper, Prayer and Marriage 123 
 
 the rubbish and vagaries of all the long centuries is 
 the messenger of God to execute His will to our time. 
 Compare the account of the Supper's institution in 
 the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the 
 words of Paul, as to its continuance : 
 
 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered 
 unto you, That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he 
 was betrayed, took bread : 
 
 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, 
 eat ; this is my body, which is broken for you : thi-s do in 
 remembrance of me. 
 
 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had 
 supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood : 
 this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 
 
 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do 
 show the Lord's death till he come. — 1 Cor. 11:23-26. 
 
 This is not a human institution. The divine Re- 
 deemer on the eve of his great sacrifice for sin com- 
 manded it, as a perpetual remembrance of himself, a 
 showing forth of his death "till he come." Christian 
 Science says, "It is mournful," and would substitute 
 for it a breakfast, jubilantly joyful. 
 
 The volume "Science and Health" opens with a 0n p raye r 
 treatise on Prayer. But here, too, the doctrine enun- 
 ciated is confusing and misleading. The Old and 
 New Testaments are full of calls to praise God. This 
 call is continuous and universal. Think of the last 
 Psalm as a type of the way in which the Infinite 
 Father delights in the praises of His children : 
 
 Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise 
 him in the firmament of his power. 
 
 Praise him for his mighty acts : praise him according to his 
 excellent greatness. 
 
 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with 
 the psaltery and harp. 
 
124 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with 
 stringed instruments and organs. 
 
 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the 
 high sounding cymbals. 
 
 Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise 
 ye the Lord. 
 
 This new bible says : 
 
 "God is not moved by the breath of praise to do 
 more than he has already done, nor can the Infinite 
 do less than bestow all good, since He is unchanging 
 wisdom and love." 
 
 In the next paragraph we read : 
 
 "Prayer cannot change the science of being. . . . 
 The mere habit of pleading with the divine Mind, as 
 one pleads with a human being, perpetuates the belief 
 in God as humanly circumscribed — an error which 
 impedes spiritual growth." 
 
 Jesus taught the doctrine of prayer in the Gospel of 
 Luke. He certainly sanctions the belief that men 
 should feel the need of something of real necessity and 
 come to God and plead before Him for the fulfilment 
 of a right desire. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy claims that what is most desirable is 
 not audible, but silent prayer, the fervent desire for 
 growth in grace, and the struggle to be good. She 
 says: 
 
 "What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire 
 for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, 
 love, and good deeds." "The habitual struggle to be 
 always good is unceasing prayer." "Audible prayer is 
 impressive ; it gives momentary solemnity and eleva- 
 tion to thought. But does it produce any lasting bene- 
 
Last Supper, Prayer and Marnage 125 
 
 fit?" "God is lot influenced by man. The 'divine 
 ear' is not an au litory nerve." 
 
 Jesus both in substance and doctrine taught the op- 
 posite of all this. And no distinction is made in the 
 Scripture between the merits of silent and audible 
 prayer. Compare Luke 11: 1-13. 
 
 Again, Mrs. Eddy writes : "The danger from 
 prayer is that it may lead us into temptation. By it 
 we may become involuntary hypocrites. . . . 
 Hypocrisy is fatal to religion." 
 
 Jesus said : "Watch and pray lest ye enter into 
 temptation." 
 
 This new prophet rings the changes on a "corporeal 
 God" as the belief of Evangelical Christendom. The 
 writer has asked many Christians, clergymen and lay- 
 men, not affected with the Christian Science vagaries, 
 if they believed in a corporeal God. None of them 
 held any such belief. 
 
 Again the pen transcribes : 
 
 "Prayer to a corporeal God affects the sick like a 
 drug, which has no efficacy of its own but borrows its 
 power from human faith and belief. . . . The 
 common custom of praying for the recovery of the 
 sick finds help in blind belief, whereas help should 
 come from the enlightened understanding. . . . 
 If the sick recover because they pray or are prayed 
 for audibly, only petitioners (per se or by proxy) 
 should get well." 
 
 God's Word says : "The prayer of faith shall save 
 the sick and the Lord will raise him up again." 
 
 In Christian Science, the crux of the matter is 
 
126 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 found in "the enlightened understanding." But it may- 
 be asked, man's or God's? 
 
 The Redeemer teaches that all prayer is subservient 
 to the will of God. The one thing needful is the har- 
 mony of the divine and human will. Jesus cries : 
 
 "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me : never- 
 theless, not my will, but thine, be done." 
 
 The Christian Church in all ages has looked upon 
 the prayer given his disciples by our Lord as the per- 
 fection of all prayer. Mrs. Eddy, as prophet and priest 
 of her new cult, gives her church what she calls the 
 "spiritual sense of the Lord's Prayer." Her spiritual 
 interpretation of it has grown with the 441 editions of 
 her book. In earlier editions this is the prayer and its 
 spiritual (Christian Science) interpretation: 
 
 Our Father which art in heaven. 
 
 Our eternal supreme Being, all-harmonious. 
 
 Hallowed be thy name. 
 
 Forever glorious. 
 
 Thy kingdom come. 
 
 Ever present and omnipotent. 
 
 Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 
 
 Thy supremacy appears as matter disappears. 
 
 Give us this day our daily bread ; 
 
 Give us each day the living bread; 
 
 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 
 
 And Truth will destroy the claims of error. 
 
 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil ; 
 
 Led by Spirit, mortals are freed from sickness, sin and 
 death; 
 
 For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory for- 
 ever. Amen. 
 
 For Thou art all substance, Life, Truth and Love forever; 
 so be it. 
 
Last Supper, Prayer and Marriage 127 
 
 In the year 1900 an author and investigator of the 
 phenomena of Christian Science visited the Concord 
 Church. He was astonished during the hour of wor- 
 ship to hear the Lord's Prayer, which has been re- 
 garded throughout Christendom as the one perfect 
 prayer, even the infidel joining in the tribute to its ex- 
 cellence from the viewpoint of refined intellectuality, 
 improved upon and amended by the "Mother." He 
 had heard it whispered that the members of the cult 
 regarded Mrs. Eddy as something above a mortal, and 
 as he listened he said to himself, "To what mother are 
 they praying?" 
 
 This is the way the amended prayer stands in the 
 edition of 1908: 
 
 Our Father-Mother God, All-harmonious, Adorable One. 
 
 Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present. 
 
 Enable us to know — as in heaven, so on earth — God is 
 omnipotent, supreme. 
 
 Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections; 
 
 And Love is reflected in love; 
 
 And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us 
 from sin, disease, and death. 
 
 For God is infinite, all Power, all Life, Truth, Love, over 
 all, and all. 
 
 The "Amen" is cut off from the Lord's Prayer, and 
 the so be it from Mrs. Eddy's amendment in this later 
 edition. 
 
 One reader from his desk recites, "Our Father 
 which art in heaven," then the other reader replies : 
 "Our Father-Mother God, All-harmonious," and so on 
 to the close. Under Mrs. Eddy's pen the beauty and 
 meaning of the prayer are gone. 
 
128 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 In this chapter on prayer with its substitution of 
 divine "Principle" for the personal God and its state- 
 ment that Truth wipes out and gets rid of sin, the way 
 is prepared for the domination of Christian Science 
 in so-called Metaphysical Healing and the assertion 
 that there is no sin, sickness or death. So amid much 
 confusion of thought it dawns on the reader of these 
 pages that prayer to a mere principle or law, to a mere 
 attribute or virtue, is of little avail, for : "Prayer can- 
 not change unalterable Truth, nor can prayer give us 
 an understanding of Truth." 
 
 Through such teaching carried out to logical con- 
 clusion prayer is made ridiculous and a beating of the 
 air. 
 
 Jesus says: 
 
 "Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy 
 Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." 
 
 What is the meaning of this, one of the closing 
 passages in Mrs. Eddy's chapter on prayer : 
 
 "Mere legal pardon (and there is no other, for di- 
 vine Principle never pardons our sins or mistakes till 
 they are corrected) leaves the offender free to repeat 
 the offence, if indeed he has not already suffered suffi- 
 ciently from vice to make him turn from it with loath- 
 ing. Truth bestows no pardon on error, but wipes it 
 out in the most effectual manner. Jesus suffered for 
 our sins, not to annul the divine sentence for an indi- 
 vidual's sin, but because sin brings inevitable suffer- 
 ing." 
 
 The Bible says : "Christ died for our sins accord- 
 ing to the Scriptures." "Christ also hath once suffered 
 
Last Supper, Prayer and Marriage 129 
 
 for our sins, the Just for the unjust, that he might 
 bring us to God." "Who gave himself for our 
 sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil 
 world." 
 
 When Christian Scientists have found one of Mrs. on Marriage 
 Eddy's doctrines too monstrous or revolting for pres- 
 ent-day decency, it has been gradually changed or 
 so modified as to appear vague and inconsequential. 
 Such is the condition of her teachings on marriage 
 uttered boldly and wildly ten years ago. The refining 
 editor's hand has rubbed away the thorns and pricks in 
 "Science and Health," while still leaving severe plain- 
 ness of speech on the subject in "Mother's" other writ- 
 ings. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy, like other writers of her ilk, is suspicious 
 of all merely human ties. It is not strange, when her 
 exploitations in the field of friendship are considered, 
 that she should think it a hindrance in the sun-road of 
 celestial advancement. The single in her estimation 
 are better off than the married, and marriage is better 
 off without than when blessed with children. Like 
 many mystics she sounds the praises of celibacy. 
 
 The following concession is made to the weakness 
 and wickedness of the age, presumably. In her "Mis- 
 cellaneous Writings" we read : 
 
 "Until time matures, human growth, marriage, and 
 progeny will continue unprohibited in Christian Sci- 
 ence." 
 
 If this means anything it must be that in the esti- 
 mation of Christian Science time will mature, and then 
 the prohibition of marriage and progeny will ensue. 
 
130 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 "Until it is learned that God is the Father of all, 
 marriage will continue." 
 
 Is this utterance, taken from "Science and Health," 
 an indication that when men learn that God is the 
 Father of all, time will mature and marriage cease? 
 "Mother" declares that she looks to future generations 
 "for ability to comply with absolute Science, when 
 marriage shall be found to be man's oneness with God 
 — the verity of eternal love." 
 
 To the initiated these cabalistic words may have a 
 meaning, but to the man of sober judgment they are 
 monstrous with covert license. Call the flesh an "il- 
 lusion" 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 entrance with the lusts of the carnal nature, it will 
 be nothing strange if the dream of the Nicolaitans of 
 the first century is dreamed over again in this twenti- 
 eth century. These doctrines touching on marriage 
 promulgated by the "Mother" are so subtle and in- 
 sidious that they constitute a formidable menace to so- 
 cial well-being. They strike not at a human, but at a 
 divine institution. In the beginning God ordained 
 marriage between one man and one woman. This 
 doctrine was confirmed by Jesus Christ and re-enacted. 
 The whole Bible teaches it directly and indirectly. 
 God made man, male and female. God bade them 
 propagate and multiply : 
 
 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh 
 of my flesh. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his 
 
Last Supper, Prayer and Marriage 131 
 
 mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one 
 flesh.— Gen. 2 : 23, 24. 
 
 Our Lord attributes to these words divine authority 
 when he says : 
 
 And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorce- 
 ment and to put her away. „ t . , 
 
 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness 
 of your heart he wrote you this precept. 
 
 But from the beginning of the creation God made them 
 
 m For a this cTJse'shall a man leave his father and mother, and 
 
 C And ^hty twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no 
 more twain, but one flesh. 
 
 What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put 
 asunder.— Mark 10 : 4-9. 
 
 The laws concerning marriage apply to a real world, 
 and to real men and women in a real world. The 
 Bible does not speak of marriages in a future state. 
 Jesus says that in heaven they neither marry nor are 
 given in marriage, but are as the angels of God. 
 
 In the Christian Church monogamy does not rest 
 exclusively upon the original institution of the rite, 
 neither on the general underlying sentiment of the 
 Old Testament, but on the clear revelation of the will 
 of Jesus Christ. The doctrine is open and apparent. 
 Marriage is a contract between one man and one 
 woman, and may not be broken lawfully except by the 
 death of one of the parties. 
 
 Jesus teaches this in Matt. 19: 3-9; Mark 10: 4-9, 
 as quoted above; Luke 16: 18; Matthew 5: 32. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy can be understood only when she says in 
 plain language : "To abolish marriage at this period 
 
132 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 and maintain morality and generation would put in- 
 genuity to ludicrous shifts." In this peculiar situation 
 it remains for the prophet or any one of her disciples 
 to tell the world how morality and generation may be 
 preserved and marriage abolished. The prophet adds : 
 "Yet this is possible in Science." 
 
 If you ask them how this is possible, the disciples 
 of Mrs. Eddy refuse to utter a word on the subject, 
 but fly to platitudes and tell you how they love and 
 reverence Jesus and all good. Where in the science 
 that is not wearing the mask of falsehood, where in 
 the doctrines of Jesus, is anything so absurd, dia- 
 bolical, and inimical to all the teachings of Holy Writ 
 and the commandments of God even suggested? 
 
 In Romans 7 : 2, 3, it is written : 
 
 For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law 
 to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be 
 dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 
 
 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to an- 
 other man, she shall be called an adulteress : but if her hus- 
 band be dead, she is free from that law ; so that she is no 
 adulteress, though she be married to another man. 
 
 So the same doctrine is plainly stated 1 Corinthians 
 7: 2: 
 
 Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman 
 have her own husband. 
 
 The Scriptures do not support her contention, but 
 she seeks to shelter her vague notions under the aegis 
 of Prof. Agassiz's works, quoting from him in earlier 
 editions. These are the words that appear in "Science 
 and Health" : 
 
Last Supper, Prayer and Marriage 133 
 
 "The propagation of the species without the male 
 element, by butterfly, bee, and moth, is a discovery cor- 
 roborative of the Science of Mind, because it shows 
 that the origin and continuance of these insects rests 
 on Principle apart from material conditions." 
 
 The hand of the editor has softened this bold an- 
 nouncement in the 1908 edition into this : 
 
 "I never knew more than one individual who be- 
 lieved in agamogenesis ; she was unmarried, a lovely 
 character, was suffering from incipient insanity, and a 
 Christian Scientist cured her. . . . The perpetua- 
 tion of the floral species by bud and cell division is evi- 
 dent, but I discredit the belief that agamogenesis ap- 
 plies to the human system." 
 
 The readers of all the earlier editions, 339 in num- 
 ber, presumably have imbibed the tenet that marriage 
 is only temporary, and that God's command to propa- 
 gate and multiply was not to be carried out by sexual 
 union. It is well authenticated, however, that one of 
 Mrs. Eddy's disciples some years back took Mrs. Ed- 
 dy's words at face value and calmly announced to a 
 wonder-struck and incredulous world the immaculate 
 conception and birth of a son. 
 
 Into what depths of license and atrocious sensuality 
 would these doctrines sink society, vague and loose as 
 they are, but terribly forceful in their suggestion to 
 the evil in humanity ! Jesus says the world is real, the 
 world is evil, and he bids us not to love it or the things 
 of it. 
 
 Is there anything in the New Testament or in the 
 belief of the churches of Christendom that would tol- 
 
134 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 erate the brash wickedness and abomination of the 
 declaration made in "Miscellaneous Writings" on 
 page 289 : 
 
 "Human nature has bestowed upon a wife the right 
 to become a mother; but if the wife esteems not this 
 privilege, by mutual consent, exalted and increased 
 affections, she may win a higher." 
 
 What is the meaning of "a higher"? Mrs. Eddy 
 and her editors are silent here. Not a press agent of 
 her numerous publication bureaus has a word to say 
 along this line. If it means anything, this higher privi- 
 lege is the ruin of the family, the disintegration of so- 
 ciety. It means woe to the nation and disaster to hu- 
 manity. Let this become a fetish, a goddess before 
 whom womanhood shall bow down and worship, and 
 God's purpose and commands will be forgotten in a 
 maelstrom of vice, and the creature will be worshiped 
 and served more than the Creator. It is hard for the 
 best to keep right and live above the enticements of 
 the world, the flesh and the devil. Once let such doc- 
 trines as these find lodgment in mind and heart, and 
 anarchy, night and chaos would sweep the black cloud 
 of oblivion over all the beacon lights of the world. 
 
 The impregnable rock of Holy Scripture lifts its 
 towering head against such heathenish abominations. 
 The heart of the Christian Church revolts against such 
 subtle machinations, and tears off the mask of "Sci- 
 ence" and "Christian" from the face of this dream of 
 perdition. 
 
 Christian Science masquerades now as the Holy 
 Spirit, whose work in the Church and the human 
 
Last Supper, Prayer and Marriage 135 
 
 heart is to take of the things of Jesus and show them 
 unto us, to convince of sin, of righteousness, and of 
 judgment, again as fulfilling the mission of Jesus 
 Christ. In other words, it claims that the prophecy 
 concerning the second coming of the Redeemer is real- 
 ized in it; that this system with its many contradic- 
 tions is nothing less than the One who was the ex- 
 press image of the Father's glory and fullness of his 
 presence — Emmanuel, God with us evermore. 
 
 In Mrs. Eddy's different writings, as has already « Sc ience» 
 been observed on other topics, there are startling in- Heredity 
 congruities and inconsistencies. A case in point is her 
 teaching on the law of heredity. Her followers are 
 strenuous in declaring that "Mother" says there is 
 no such thing as heredity. In one place she rejoices 
 that neither good nor bad traits can be transmitted 
 to offspring. In her text-book, which she announces 
 as co-pastor with the Bible in churches of her de- 
 nomination, she bemoans the sad fate of children who 
 inherit tendencies— shall we say it?— diseases that 
 make them objects of loathing or compassion : 
 
 "The offspring of heavenly minded parents must in- 
 herit more intellect, better balanced minds, and 
 sounder constitutions. If some fortuitous circum- 
 stance places spiritual children in the arms of gross 
 parents, these beautiful children early droop and die, 
 like tropical flowers born amid Alpine snows. If per- 
 chance 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 hap- 
 piness, what noble ambition can inspire the child who 
 
136 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 inherits propensities that must be either overcome or 
 reduce him to a loathsome wreck ?" 
 
 Surely no student of the laws of heredity that pre- 
 vail in nature and govern the transmission of traits, 
 tendencies, and characteristics could wish from a lay- 
 man — even if inspired — a clearer expression of belief 
 in these fundamental principles. He who reads this 
 from the text-book and goes no farther may with 
 some degree of assurance announce Christian Science 
 as favoring the laws of heredity. But as elsewhere in 
 Christian Science, one cannot be too sure before leap- 
 ing to a conclusion on any matter of fundamental law 
 or basic principle, as to just the light in which "Sci- 
 ence" holds it. No wonder the book that is intended 
 as a shepherd guide needed repeated editing. Either 
 the author loses her memory or she must be impressed 
 with the belief that her readers have lost theirs. 
 
 In "Miscellaneous Writings," page 72, she asks the 
 question: "Does Christian Science set aside the law 
 of transmission, pre-natal desires, and good and bad 
 influences on the unborn child?" 
 
 The answer she makes is this : 
 
 "Science never averts law, but supports it. All ac- 
 tual causation must interpret Omnipotence, the all- 
 knowing Mind. Law brings out Truth, not error. 
 Whatever is humanly conceived is a departure from 
 Divine law ; hence its mythical origin and certain end. 
 According to Scriptures, Paul declares astutely, Tor 
 of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things.' 
 Man is incapable of originating; nothing can be 
 formed apart from God, Good, the all-knowing Mind." 
 
Last Supper, Prayer and Marriage 137 
 
 So far the deliverance here is in accord with the 
 statement quoted from "Science and Health" above. 
 It may be well to notice in passing that the teaching 
 is emphatically of an impersonal God, not the God of 
 whom this same Paul affirms, "I believe in God." The 
 reader will now observe that the continued quotation 
 from the same "Miscellaneous Writings" turns the 
 former positive statement into a negation, and deflects 
 what seems to be a support of the law of heredity into 
 a denial of the existence of such a law in the universe. 
 Thus the author goes on to say : 
 
 "What seems to be of human origin is the counter- 
 feit of the Divine — even human concepts, mortal 
 shadows flitting across the dial of time. 
 
 "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 noth- 
 ing evil or unlike Himself. For the innocent babe to 
 be born a lifelong sufferer because of his parents' sins 
 or mistakes were sore injustice. 
 
 "According to 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 a cause of rejoicing that this belief 
 is as false as it is remorseless/' 
 
 Why should a prophet and a seer be consistent? 
 The writings abound in contradictions evidently made 
 to guard the healer of this cult against punishment in 
 malpractice. It is but a little thing to brush away, 
 with one sharp stroke of the Seer's pen, law, 
 human and divine, which, affirmed in one place, be- 
 
138 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 comes in another a troublesome factor in the pathway 
 of a system that claims the name of Christian and sci- 
 entific, but which, when unmasked, reveals the features 
 of an agnostic and unbeliever in both. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 THE "KEY." 
 
 In Genesis it is written: "In the beginning God j**^ 
 created the heavens and the earth" God-Elohim. 
 This word is found in the Hebrew Scriptures fifty- 
 seven times in the singular, twice in the book of Deu- 
 teronomy and forty-one times in Job, and about three 
 thousand times in the plural, of which seventeen in- 
 stances are. in Job. The most probable meaning of 
 the root of the Arabic word is to be lasting, binding. 
 Hence the noun means The Everlasting, and, in the 
 plural, the Eternal Powers. It is correctly rendered 
 God the name of the Eternal and Supreme Being in 
 our English tongue. This Being is never to be con- 
 founded with principle or attribute, but is an eternally 
 living personality. 
 
 The Exegesis of Mrs. Eddy says: "The creative 
 Principle— Life, Truth, and Love-is God." Again 
 'The universe reflects God." "In the universe of 
 Truth matter is unknown. . . . Divine Science, 
 the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face 
 of error, 'God is All-in-All.' " 
 
 Here are two declarations: God does not know 
 matter; God is everything. This teaching, if words 
 have any meaning, is another expression of plain, un- 
 adulterated Pantheism, met with so often in this 
 
 139 
 
rhe "Untrue" 
 
 140 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 woman's writings. Christianity believes that matter is 
 real. God, Jehovah, formed man of the dust of the 
 ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
 life, and man became a living soul. The dust of the 
 ground is something real, and man did not become 
 a living soul until God had breathed into the body, 
 already made, created, "a living soul." 
 
 We read in the poets of the "light that never was on 
 land or sea." Mrs. Eddy in the heated fancies of her 
 brain has forged a "key," which she names the "Key 
 to the Scriptures," but it opens no lock and solves no 
 mystery. 
 
 In the "Key to the Scriptures" the prophet begins 
 by saying: "In the following exegesis each text is 
 followed by its spiritual interpretation according to 
 the teachings of Christian Science." 
 
 Again we read : "Spiritually followed, the book of 
 Genesis is the history of the untrue image of God, 
 named sinful mortal." 
 
 Here at the beginning of her exposition she labels 
 as false the Word of God in its statement and teach- 
 ing. The Bible account of the creation of man says : 
 
 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our 
 likeness : and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, 
 and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all 
 the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon 
 the earth. 
 
 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God 
 created he him; male and female created he them. 
 
 Nowhere does the Bible indicate that the image of 
 Himself in which God made man was an "untrue 
 image." There is no such distinction set up in the 
 
The "Key" 141 
 
 Word as this "Key" attempts to make out. It was this 
 man, made in the Creator's image, and not a shadow or 
 a picture of him, to whom was given dominion "over 
 all the earth." 
 
 How are the sublime facts of creation explained and 
 gotten rid of by a distinct Christian Science method : 
 "God creates neither erring thought, mortal life, muta- 
 ble truth, nor variable love." That is, God did not 
 create mortal man, man has no body, he is all soul 
 and spirit, according to this exegesis. Paul says : 
 "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also 
 quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth 
 in you." Not only does the apostle teach here that 
 man has a body, but also that the Spirit of God dwells 
 in that body. He also sets forth that the body is the 
 temple of the Holy Spirit. This "Key," which claims 
 to be Christian, and to have the power of opening the 
 truth of Holy Scriptures, offers flat contradictions' to 
 the express declarations of Scripture and exposes its 
 author to the charge of gross ignorance of exegetical 
 principles. 
 
 In the animadversion on the fifth verse of Gene- on Light 
 sis the "Key" continues : 
 
 "All questions as to the divine creation being both 
 spiritual and material are answered in this passage, for 
 though solar beams are not yet included in the record 
 of creation, still there is light. This light is not from 
 the sun nor from volcanic flames, but it is the revela- 
 tion of Truth and of spiritual ideas. . . . Was 
 not this a revelation instead of a creation?" 
 
 The "Key" seems to know that this light was not 
 
142 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 solar nor volcanic. It has never heard of heat gen- 
 erating light, or of the many ways in which at God's 
 command the light might pierce the vapory mists 
 which shrouded the world. The exegesis is simply a 
 consistent attempt to write out of Scripture what God 
 has written into it, and to put into the seat of Science 
 a crude and whimsical fantasy bred of morbid and 
 neurotic imaginings. 
 
 The facts and events of creation are, according to 
 the "Key," "the successive appearing of God's ideas." 
 
 Well may the Christian Church look with pain and 
 horror on such a travesty of its faith as this jumble 
 calling itself a "revelation" ! 
 
 The obscuration of the facts of creation and com- 
 mon sense is witnessed by this bit of explanation : 
 
 "Did Infinite Mind create matter and call it light? 
 Spirit is light, and the contradiction of Spirit is mat- 
 ter. Material sense is nothing but the supposition of 
 the absence of Spirit. . . . Immortal Mind makes 
 its own record, but mortal mind, sleep, dreams, sin, 
 disease, and death have no record in the first chapter 
 of Genesis." 
 
 All this is said in the face of the fact that in this 
 chapter is given the account of how God made man 
 and of His command to him to increase and multiply 
 and subdue the earth. 
 
 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, 
 and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and 
 have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of 
 the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the 
 earth. 
 
The "Key" 143 
 
 From this chapter, in verse two, we gather that God 
 is a Spirit, and further that He thinks, speaks, wills, 
 acts; and here are the great points of conformity of 
 man to God, namely, in that man, too, has reason, 
 speech, will, and power to act. Man is material, man 
 is also spiritual. In man is a spiritual being which 
 exercises reason and will, and from reason and will 
 comes the power to act. This is that form of God 
 in which man is created and through which God com- 
 municates with him. In the "Key," as all through 
 the pages of "Science and Health," attributes are con- * 
 founded with personality. Love, truth, goodness — 
 things that belong to the character of God — are con- 
 fused with his divine person and are themselves 
 worshiped as God. So in relation to matter, the "Key" 
 is not able to distinguish between matter and an at- 
 tribute of matter. "Did infinite Mind create matter 
 and call it light?" But He created matter, and from 
 it light emanated, radiated, was produced. Some one 
 has called Christian Science "a jargon of unreason 
 and a maundering science." Surely its exegesis 
 brought to the bar of reason and scholarship is some- 
 thing like that. 
 
 The "Key" turns its attention to the second chapter on Genesis 2 
 of Genesis. Dilating on verses four and five, "These 
 are the generations of the heavens and of the earth 
 when they were created, in the day that the Lord God 
 made the earth and the heavens," it is said that "here 
 the inspired record closes its narrative of being that 
 is without beginning or end. The continued account 
 is mortal and material." 
 
144 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 In explaining the sixth verse, "But there went up a 
 mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of 
 the ground," this inspired revelation declares: 
 
 "The Science and truth of the divine creation have 
 been presented in the verses already considered, and 
 now the opposite error, a material view of creation, is 
 to be set forth, . . . but it is a false history in 
 contradistinction to the true. The Science of the first 
 record proves the falsity of the second. . . . The 
 first record endows man out of God's perfection and 
 power. The second record chronicles man as mutable 
 and mortal. . . . This second record gives the 
 history of errors. ... It records Pantheism. 
 . . . In this erroneous theory matter takes the 
 place of Spirit. . . . The latter part of the second 
 chapter of Genesis ... is based on some hy- 
 pothesis of error." 
 
 Here we have a distinct repudiation of the revela- 
 tion of the divine Word when it does not fit into a 
 previously formed theory or hypothesis. What an ex- 
 hibition of an aping of Higher Criticism with scholar- 
 ship and equipment left out! 
 
 Presently the "Key" in its eagerness that the Holy 
 Scriptures should not, by any possible twisting of the 
 truth, conform to its baseless dreams and theories, 
 will turn the truth of God into a lie. 
 
 In Genesis 2: 7 we read: "And the Lord God 
 formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a 
 living soul." 
 
 The "Key" says: 
 
The "Key" i 45 
 
 "Is this addition to His creation real or unreal ? Is 
 it a truth, or is it a lie concerning man and God ? It 
 must be a lie, for God presently curses the ground. 
 . . . Man reflects God; mankind represents the 
 Adamic race, and is a human, not a divine, creation.' , 
 
 The account of the garden of Eden, the fall of man, 
 and sin entering into the world are brushed away in 
 one short sentence : "This second biblical account is a 
 picture of Error throughout. . . . The lie repre- 
 sents God as repeating creation." 
 
 While stoutly denying that matter can be real, or 
 that such a thing as sin entered into the world of man, 
 the "Key" when explaining Genesis 4: 1, and dilat- 
 ing on the birth of Cain, solemnly affirms : 
 
 "This account is given, not of immortal man, but of 
 mortal man, and of sin which is temporal. As both 
 mortal man and sin have a beginning, they must con- 
 sequently have an end, while the sinless, real man is 
 eternal." 
 
 Having called it all an error, a lie, in this instance 
 the fact and reality of sin and mortal man seem for 
 the nonce to be admitted. 
 
 This confusion of terms and ideas, this denial and 
 admission of the existence of the same things, factors " Im P OPtan * 
 
 j r , ,.,- • • Points" of 
 
 and forces in human life, is continually met with as "Science" 
 one turns the pages of "Science and Health." The 
 whole atmosphere of the book is perplexing, confusing 
 and vague. Misty is a term that it merits. If one 
 asks, What do these people believe ? he is met with the 
 answer that they believe in the Bible and take it as 
 the basis of all life and conduct. But we have seen 
 
146 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 how they take it. They are eclectic and esoteric, and 
 what does not coincide with their peculiar theories of 
 Metaphysical Healing they brand as false : "It must 
 be a lie." To the question propounded in her book, 
 "Have Christian Scientists any religious creed?" the 
 author replies, "They have not, if by that term is 
 meant doctrinal beliefs." Then follows what she calls 
 "the Important Points," or religious tenets, of Chris- 
 tian Science: 
 
 1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired word of the 
 Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal life. 
 
 2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. 
 We acknowledge his Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost, or 
 divine Comforter, and man in God's image and likeness. 
 
 3. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruc- 
 tion of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil 
 as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the 
 belief lasts. . . 
 
 4. We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as evidence of divine 
 efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through 
 Jesus Christ, the Way-shower ; and we acknowledge that man 
 is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as 
 demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and 
 overcoming sin and death. 
 
 5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and His 
 resurrection served to uplift faith, to understand eternal Life, 
 even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter. 
 
 6. And we solemnly promise to watch and pray for that 
 Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus ; to do unto 
 others as we would have them do unto us ; and to be merciful, 
 just, and pure. 
 
 As to article 1 of "Important Points," we have seen 
 that what militates against their theories they label as 
 false and "a lie." 
 
 The inspired Word says : 
 
The "Key" I47 
 
 But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and 
 hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned 
 them; 
 
 And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures 
 which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through 
 faith which is in Christ Jesus. 
 
 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable 
 for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
 righteousness : 
 
 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished 
 unto all good works.— 2 Tim. 3 : 14-17. 
 
 As to article 2, the first clause sounds reverent and 
 Evangelical, but we turn the page to find that God is 
 "Principle," not a person, he is an attribute, not a Article 2 
 loving Father, he is not the God of the Bible, but 
 simply "a force that makes for righteousness.' , 
 
 It will be noticed that "Scientists" do not adore the 
 Son, Christ, but simply "acknowledge" Him. We 
 glean that Jesus is a phantom, a picture, a dream. In 
 him is not united God and man in indissoluble union. 
 He says that he and the Father are one. "God is All- 
 in-All" to "Science." Jesus in this scheme is not a 
 part of Deity. And the Holy Ghost whom they "ac- 
 knowledge," what is He? The Christian Scientist 
 makes answer : "This Comforter I understand to be 
 Divine Science." 
 
 What is it that they acknowledge? Principle, 
 Truth, Christian Science. They acknowledge abstrac- 
 tions and not the concrete realities of the universe. 
 
 In article 3 they acknowledge "God's forgiveness of 
 sin in the destruction of sin." But evil is "unreal." 
 What is unreal cannot exist. Sin, evil, wrong are only sfnal 
 dreams. The only thing that is punished is "the be- 
 lief in sin." Here we are introduced into a world 
 
148 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 where phantoms with lurid leer mock us from the 
 shadows. The Bible in which they say they believe 
 sets forth the actuality of sin, the reality of the sinner, 
 the necessity of the atonement; but in Christian Sci- 
 ence the atonement of Jesus is lost in a confused maze 
 of salvation through "Truth, Life, and Love as demon- 
 strated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and 
 overcoming sin and death." 
 
 The Bible says that we are all sinners, and sin is an 
 actual fact, not a dream : 
 
 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. — 
 Rom. 3 : 23. 
 
 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh 
 after God. 
 
 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become 
 unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. — 
 Rom. 3: II, 12. 
 
 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners ; of whom I 
 am chief. — 1 Tim. 1 : 15. 
 
 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through 
 the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful 
 flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. — Rom. 8 : 3. 
 
 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ 
 died for the ungodly. 
 
 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die : yet perad- 
 venture for a good man some would even dare to die. 
 
 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we 
 were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 
 
 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall 
 be saved from wrath through him. — Rom. 5 : 6-8. 
 
 There is no plainer teaching in the Bible than that 
 Jesus Christ came to save sinners. Take these 
 passages : 
 
 And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salva- 
 
The "Key" 149 
 
 tion- even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the 
 wisdom given unto him hath written unto you.— 2 Peter 3:15. 
 
 Then opened he their understanding, that they might under- 
 stand the Scriptures, 
 
 And said unto them, Thus it is written and thus it be- 
 hooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third 
 
 & And that repentance and remission of sins should be 
 preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jeru- 
 
 And ye are witnesses of these things.— Luke 24:45-48. 
 
 The crucifixion and the resurrection are dwarfed Article 5 
 in article 5 to be the purveyors of a false philosophy. 
 This "acknowledgment" serves to "uplift faith," but 
 faith in what? Faith in the "allness of Soul, Spirit," 
 and also "the nothingness of matter/' As we have 
 stated elsewhere, the death of Jesus, according to 
 "Christian Science," was not a real death. Matter 
 has no real existence. In the Gospel story of these 
 stupendous transactions Jesus Christ is the great real- 
 ity. His death was a reality ; He died for our sins ; 
 His resurrection was real, and the symbol and pledge 
 of our own. 
 
 In article 6 the believers in this cult promise "to Article 6 
 watch and pray for that Mind to be in us which was 
 also in Christ Jesus." 
 
 What does this mean? Is it "Principle" to which 
 they pray? Can a blind force or an attribute hear and 
 answer prayer? We roll back the leaves of the book 
 and read, "God is not moved by the breath of praise." 
 "Shall we ask the divine Principle to do His own 
 
 work?" 
 
 In the closing sentences of this article the aspira- 
 tional side of Christian Science soars aloft. To keep 
 
150 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 the Golden Rule, to be merciful, just, and pure, is the 
 aim of a noble soul. Christianity teaches these things, 
 but does not omit to teach many others deemed by the 
 gospel necessary to man's life on earth. In the Word 
 of God there is no utterance to parallel such as this 
 one with which the book of the prophet of dreams and 
 unreality abounds : "Sin, sickness, and death must be 
 deemed as devoid of reality as they are of good, God." 
 "Science" in According to the belief of Christian Scientists, the 
 
 the . 
 
 Apocalypse Bible foretells the coming of Christian Science. St. 
 John in the Apocalypse has foreshadowed it according 
 to "Science and Health," the edition of 1888 of the 
 book. The "Key" proclaims : 
 
 Saint John writes, in the tenth chapter of his Book of 
 Revelation: "And I saw another mighty angel come down 
 from Heaven, clothed with a cloud; and a rainbow was upon 
 his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as 
 pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book open; 
 and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon 
 the earth." Is this angel, or message from God, Divine 
 Science, that comes in a cloud? To mortals obscure, abstract, 
 and dark ; but a bright promise crowns its brow. When un- 
 derstood, it is Truth's prism and praise ; when you look it 
 fairly in the face, you can heal by its means, and it hath for 
 you a light above the sun, for God "is the light thereof." 
 . . . This angel had in his hand a "little book," open for 
 all to read and understand. Did this same book contain the 
 revelation of Divine Science, whose "right foot" or dominant 
 power was upon the sea — upon elementary, latent error, the 
 source of all error's visible forms? . . . Then will a voice 
 from harmony cry : "Go and take the little book. Take it and 
 eat it up, and it shall make thy belly bitter; but it shall be in 
 thy mouth sweet as honey." Mortal, obey the heavenly evan- 
 gel. Take up Divine Science. Study it, ponder it. It will 
 be indeed sweet at its first taste, when it heals you ; but mur- 
 mur not over Truth, if you find its digestion bitter. 
 
 When you approach nearer and nearer to this divine Prin- 
 ciple, when you eat the divine body of this Principle, thus 
 
The "Key" 151 
 
 partaking of the nature, or primal elements, of Truth and 
 Love, do not be surprised nor discontented because you must 
 share the hemlock and drink the bitter herbs. 
 
 In the opening of the Sixth Seal, typical of six thousand 
 years since Adam, there is one distinctive feature which has 
 special reference to the present age. 
 
 Rev. 12:1. "And there appeared a great wonder in 
 Heaven — a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under 
 her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." . . . 
 Rev. 12 : 5. "And she brought forth a man-child, who was 
 to rule all nations with a rod of iron ; and her child was 
 caught up unto God, and to his Throne." Led on by the 
 grossest element of mortal mind, Herod decreed the death of 
 every male child, in order that the man Jesus {the masculine 
 representative of the spiriHoal idea) might never hold sway, 
 and so deprive Herod of his crown. 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 
 immaculate idea, represented first by man and last by woman, 
 will baptize with fire ; and the fiery baptism will burn up the 
 chaff of error with the fervent heat of Truth and Love, melt- 
 ing and purifying even the gold of human character. 
 
 In this "Key" found in the 1888 edition we read: 
 
 John the Baptist prophesied the coming of the Immaculate 
 Jesus and declared that this spiritual idea was the Messiah 
 who would baptize with the Holy Ghost— Divine Science. 
 The son of the Blessed represents the fatherhood of God ; and 
 the Revelator completes this figure with the Woman, or type 
 of God's motherhood. 
 
 In the 1908 edition the passage has been made to 
 read : 
 
 "John the Baptist prophesied the coming of the immaculate 
 Jesus, and John saw in those days the spiritual idea as the 
 Messiah, who would baptize with the Holy Ghost— divine 
 Science. As Elias presented the idea of the fatherhood of 
 God, which Jesus afterwards manifested, so the Revelator 
 
152 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 completed this figure with woman, typifying the spiritual idea 
 of God's motherhood. The moon is under her feet." 
 
 Christian Scientists believe that this woman is 
 "Mother" Eddy. When approached and interrogated 
 on the subject they may tell you they do not, but the 
 initiated have repeatedly affirmed that such is the faith 
 of their inmost heart. 
 
 As one ponders the selections already made and 
 realizes their trend, there is no mistaking the fact that 
 this "cult of American ladies" has no sympathy with 
 the real philosophy of Jesus, or of God's plan of salva- 
 tion from sin delivered in the Gospels and other books 
 of the New Testament; that the object of its belief 
 and worship is principle, idea, blind force, and an in- 
 forming mind, but not the God and Father Almighty, 
 Maker of heaven and earth, the Friend, Protector and 
 Redeemer and Lover, through personal interest and 
 affection, of all humanity. Accept this fad for a uni- 
 versal religion and the springs of intellectual growth, 
 scientific aspiration, and physical betterment and well- 
 being would be dried up at their fountain head. A 
 civilized world would descend by leaps and bounds 
 into the darkness of the Middle Ages. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 CONFLICT WITH MEDICINE AND LAW. 
 
 In their theories of mental healing Christian Scien- 
 tists early came into conflict with medical science, and 
 later with the law of the land. So long as "Science" 
 was presented mainly as a religion, and its disciples, £* aUeil g C 
 following Mental Healing, did no more than attempt 
 to cure neurotic troubles, and effect cures in such 
 cases by suggestion, mesmerism, mental stimulus — 
 what physicians of many schools have done for gener- 
 ations — their strange teachings received no more than 
 passing notice. This is a country of great liberty, and 
 people do not interfere with the isms innumerable that 
 crop out, so long as they are deemed harmless. Chris- 
 tian Science for a long time was looked upon by the 
 mass of the people, the medical fraternity and the 
 courts as no more harmful nor helpful than Theosophy, 
 New Thought, Spiritualism and a hundred other ir- 
 rational cults. But at the close of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury it made bold to throw down the challenge to medi- 
 cine, and to support its claims, when opposed, in the 
 courts of the land. Its advocates repeatedly declared 
 that there is really no need of physicians of any school, 
 that the profession of the surgeon mifht be abolished 
 for the good of humanity, and that "Science" could 
 cure any disease that flesh is heir to without the aid 
 
 153 
 
154 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 of materia medica or the knife. Then came a flood of 
 newspaper announcements of the awful failures that 
 had attended the efforts of the Metaphysical Healers, 
 and calls for the intervention of the law in defence 
 of social well-being. Mrs. Eddy and her followers 
 had made their boast in the public prints and in the 
 courts that they as healers of the sick are superior to 
 all physicians and surgeons. They said they could 
 cure without the intervention of an art that from crude 
 beginnings through the long centuries has grown to 
 be a safeguard against disease and by its investigations, 
 its intelligence and its skill has been a bulwark against 
 contagion, ignorance, and innumerable disasters. 
 
 Because of these things, it is the aim of this chapter 
 to test the tenets and practice of the "Science" by the 
 position, discoveries, and accomplishments of the 
 Healing Art in the hands of that great body of men 
 and women who believe that this world is real and 
 that its experiences in our mortal life of sin, sickness, 
 and death are real also. 
 
 The conflict between "Science" and the medical 
 fraternity and the courts is a natural sequence of the 
 basal utterances laid down by this singularly gifted 
 and ambitious woman in the two books called "Sci- 
 ence and Health" and her "Miscellaneous Writings." 
 In the latter work she gives the world her first plank 
 in this platform of negations, dreams, and imaginings, 
 in which all reality is in the eye of your mind : 
 
 "My first plank in the platform of Christian Science 
 is as follows : There is no life, truth, intelligence, or 
 substance in matter." 
 
Conflict With Medicine and Law 155 
 
 "Matter is the unreal and temporal." 
 
 "God is all and in all. What can be more than all ? 
 Nothing; and this is just what I call matter— noth- 
 ing." 
 
 It is right here that this prophet of dreams and 
 illusive thinking founds her healing system. For she 
 steps boldly out on the clouds, and, rocked by the 
 wind, sings with transcendental unconcern, in spite of 
 experience: "Here is found the pith of the basal 
 statement of the cardinal point in Christian Science, 
 that matter and evil (including all inharmony, sin, 
 disease, death) are unreal." Now we are at the heart 
 of Christian Science as a healing system. It under- 
 takes to deal with that which is unreal, a phantom, a • 
 shadow, and cure it. 
 
 Why should not a Christian Scientist, so believing, 
 defy the arrayed intelligence and science of all man- 
 kind? Why not? She says: "Sin, sickness, and 
 death . . . are without real origin or existence. 
 They have neither principle nor permanence, but be- 
 long, with all that is material and temporal, to the 
 nothingness of error which imitates the creations of 
 Deity." 
 
 Come, let us reason together with our Christian A Cult of 
 Science friends. If the statements so confidently put Negation 
 forth by this founder of a new school of healing be in 
 accord with fact, then there is no need of any healing 
 cult, for nobody was ever sick, no doctor ever existed, 
 no crime was ever committed, no judge ever convicted 
 of wrong-doing, for there never was any wrong-do- 
 ing. Right and wrong are in endless confusion, for it 
 
156 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 is only thinking that makes them so. There never 
 was any Decalogue. If a Christian Science advocate of 
 these sublimated doctrines claims that I struck him in 
 the face with my hand, all I need to do to disprove 
 such an absurd statement is simply to assert, "My 
 hand is nothing. My hand is matter ; matter is noth- 
 ing ; nothing could not strike any one." 
 
 No wonder that the disciples of this bold thinker of 
 the unthinkable go off into all sorts of vagaries when 
 the healing the body ("nothing") occupies the mind. 
 How is the reasoning human mind to maintain any re- 
 spect for itself and accept such absurd statements? 
 The senses rebel against it. Yes, but there are no 
 senses. Listen to the founder: "Any supposed in- 
 formation coming from the body or from inert matter, 
 as if they were intelligent, is an illusion of the mortal 
 mind— one of its dreams. Realize that the evidence 
 of the senses is not to be accepted in the case of sick- 
 ness any more than it is in the case of sin." 
 
 What have we here? The evidences of the senses 
 are not to be accepted in the sick room. The evidences 
 of the senses are not to be accepted by the judge upon 
 the bench in the court of law. Surely "Mortal exist- 
 ence is a dream; it has no real entity." ("Science and 
 Health," page 146.) 
 
 Not only is this system of healing diseases in con- 
 flict with the medical faculty and with all the facts of 
 experience, but its peculiar tenets must inevitably 
 bring it continually into a struggle with the Boards of 
 Health and the courts of the land. The truth appears 
 on every hand that it has set itself to disobey the laws 
 
Conflict With Medicine and Law 157 
 
 of health and t ) oppose all regulations that stand «as 
 safeguards to the community. 
 
 Some time ago a Christian Science healer was ques- 
 tioned by a surrogate in one of the New York City 
 courts. The magistrate asked: "When you find a 
 mortal human body in the same room with another 
 mortal, and one human body has the measles, do you 
 think that the other human body could catch the 
 measles ?" 
 
 "Some think so," replied the healer, "but the divine 
 mind does not know the measles." '"Is it your habit to 
 report contagious diseases to the Board «of Health ?" 
 "I have never done so," boldly answered the lady. 
 "Why did the patient die?" pursued the magistrate. 
 The answer the lady made was : "Because there was 
 not sufficient understanding on the part of the healer 
 to at that case." This juggling with sacred things and 
 some of the deepest realities of human life and experi- 
 ence would provoke risibility if the expressions were 
 not so blasphemous or utterly vague and meaningless. 
 "The divine mind does not know measles"! If this 
 means the divine mind in man, it is more than an 
 eclipse of thought by muddy and addled words, it is a 
 simple and inexcusable falsehood. If it refers to the 
 mind of Deity, it is blasphemous ! 
 
 Sir B. C. Brodie more than a generation ago wrote a Pat 
 — and it appears as true a reflection of the world to- 
 day as sixty years agone : "Quackery may, in general 
 terms, be defined as an arrogant assumption of some 
 mysterious knowledge which is not really possessed. 
 Words govern the generality of the world, who sel- 
 
158 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 dom go so deep as to look into things, and impostors 
 well know how likely their cause is to succeed if their 
 terms are but once admitted. Human credulity, in- 
 deed, seems wholly incurable, and, in spite of all warn- 
 ing, we see one generation after another, with their 
 eyes wide open, walk into the same gulf of fraud, 
 quackery, and imposture." 
 
 As regards sickness, disease, and healing the body, 
 as well as other points where Christian Science touches 
 upon the province of the physician and the reality of 
 human law, we find the disciples of Mrs. Eddy ready 
 to meet us with a host of quotations from the "Moth- 
 er's" books, all setting forth in bald statement the al- 
 legiance of Christian Science to reason, Christianity, 
 sound morals and reverence for human law. Not- 
 withstanding this, the reader will find page after page 
 contradicting its fellow, reason and unreason lying 
 down together like the lion and the lamb, or brigand- 
 like ferociously pistoling each other. The object of 
 this medley, if it has purpose in its seeming madness, 
 is to satisfy both the thinking and the unthinking, and 
 give scope and plan for defence against all attacks, 
 relying on the unwillingness of the many to make any 
 patient investigation. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy teaches her followers to hide contagion 
 from health officers and to declare that disease does 
 not exist, by all of which she encourages crime and 
 promotes falsehood. In her glossary where words 
 and ideas are defined in the terms of Christian Sci- 
 ence, the reader may become bewildered at incoheren- 
 ces and maniacal utterances and think himself in the 
 
Conflict With Medicine and Law 159 
 
 ward of an institution incarcerating megalomaniacs. 
 Witness : 
 
 Matter. Sensation in the sensationless. 
 
 Man. An illusion. 
 
 And illusion calls itself a man. 
 
 Death. An illusion. 
 
 Food. An illusion. An illusion to be dispensed with. 
 
 Education. A cause of disease. 
 
 Flesh. An illusion. 
 
 Knowledge. The origin of sin, sickness, and death. 
 
 Hygiene. Ignorance of a. blessing. 
 
 Does any one wonder that with such definitions as 
 the basis for the building up of a system of Mental 
 Cure or any other kind of cure, reason and unreason, 
 sanity and insanity, ignorance and folly should sit 
 cheek by jowl ! 
 
 Mrs. Eddy repeatedly says that there is no such n 
 thing as consumption, yet' on pages 422 and 423 of Consumption 
 "Science and Health" careful instructions are laid 
 down for the cure of this white plague. 
 
 "If the case to be mentally treated is consumption, 
 take up the leading points included (according to be- 
 lief) in this disease. Show that it is not inherited; 
 that inflammation, tubercles, hemorrhage and decom- 
 position are beliefs, images, of mortal thoughts, su- 
 perimposed upon the body; that they are not the 
 Truth of man; that they should be treated as error, 
 and put out of thought. Then these ills will disappear. 
 If the lungs are disappearing, this is hut one of the be- 
 liefs of mortal mind. Mortal man will be less mortal 
 when he learns that lungs never sustained existence 
 and can never destroy God, who is our Life. When 
 
V, 
 
 160 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 this is understood man will be more godlike. What 
 if the lungs are ulcerated? God is more to a man 
 than his lungs; and the less we acknowledge matter 
 and its laws, the more immortality we possess. . . . 
 Never believe that lungs or any portion of the body 
 vcan destroy you. ? ' 
 iuitiiiKimiiy? Here is a mixture indeed of the material and the 
 spiritual kingdoms. Food is an illusion to be dis- 
 pensed with, and you may live without lungs ! Would 
 not any of our great pathologists pronounce such 
 weird glimmerings the product of an unsound mind? 
 Again and again it has been demonstrated that a per- 
 son may be afflicted with a religious mania, or be de- 
 mented on some one point, and in every other way be 
 perfectly sound and sane. Some years since a man 
 by the name of Sperling was before the commission- 
 ers for an inquiry concerning his sanity. He testified 
 that he was restrained unlawfully of his liberty and 
 confined in a sanitarium for the insane. During the 
 interview with the commissioners he said among other 
 things : 
 
 "I have always been a good man and of good 
 habits. I do not smoke, drink, or use bad language. 
 Ever} night before going to bed I kneel down and say 
 my prayers. I have been a good citizen and good to 
 the poor. Yet these people say I am insane. Do I 
 look like an insane man? Do I act crazy? Put any 
 question to me that you like, and I will answer it as 
 best I can." 
 
 Then as the interview was progressing, suddenly he 
 broke out on a new tack : 
 
Conflict With Medicine and Law 161 
 
 "Now I have told you all about my life and am 
 ready to answer any questions. I haven't told you 
 all I could do; I don't like to talk about that, for you 
 might be like other people and think me crazy. I 
 am the Pope and can take people out of hell and put 
 them in heaven, but I won't talk about that, or you 
 might think I was crazy." 
 
 That poor man firmly believed that he had a divine 
 revelation, that his superhuman powers were con- 
 ferred on him by divinity. 
 
 Is there not evidence of madness in this strange 
 medley of unreason that Christian Science exalts? It 
 appears neither divine nor human, but the unconnected 
 and illogical mumblings of an unsound mind. It 
 comes in conflict with medicine that seeks to cure dis- 
 ease, it arrays itself against hygiene and against 
 health boards whose purpose is to prevent disease, it 
 comes in sharp clash with the courts whose duty is to 
 uphold the laws of the land. Should the community 
 let go unchallenged the statement that it is error that 
 imposes penalties for the violation of the laws of 
 health, and that it is mind, not matter, that infects? 
 Should this doctrine be given the right of way, it 
 would open the door to the ravages of plague and epi- 
 demic, savagery and anarchy, and turn the dial of 
 civilization backward to the shadows of the dark ages 
 of ignorance, alchemy, astrology and demoniacal pos- 
 session. 
 
 "Science and Health" makes these startling asser- 
 tions : 
 
 "Every law of matter or of the body supposed to 
 
162 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 govern man is rendered null and void by the law of 
 strange God. In ignorance of our God-given rights we submit 
 
 statements to un j us t decrees, and the bias of education enforces 
 this slavery." 
 
 "The laws of mortal belief are destroyed by the un- 
 derstanding that soul is immortal, and that mortal 
 mind cannot legislate the times, periods and types of 
 disease wherewith men die. God legislates, but God 
 is not the author of barbarous codes." 
 
 "Expose the Error which would impose penalties 
 for transgressions of the physical laws of health — 
 supposed laws of matter, lacking divine authority and 
 having only human approval for their sanction. If 
 half the attention given to hygiene were given to the 
 study of Christian Science and its elevation of thought, 
 this alone would usher in the millennium." 
 
 What does the first sentence of the above quotation 
 mean? The law of the body, the law of nature, the 
 law that governs matter is not the law of God! If 
 this teaches anything, it is that all Christian Scientists 
 may rightfully, according to some supposed divine 
 law, rebel against the law of the State that attempts 
 to regulate questions of health and hygiene. The law 
 has as its aim to prevent disease. But to thwart and 
 break it is a virtue in the minds of these people. 
 
 Recently in a certain section of New York a house 
 in which a scarlet fever case of very virulent type oc- 
 curred was not fully and completely fumigated accord- 
 ing to the law governing such cases. The family in 
 which the sickness took place removed to another city. 
 The place was rented. A new family moved in. A 
 
Conflict With Medicine and Law 163 
 
 daughter was placed in the very chamber in which the 
 contagious disease had run its course. She took the 
 scarlet fever and died. The strangers knew nothing A Cnse in 
 of what had transpired within those walls until after 
 the death had taken place. "Science" says it is a 
 virtue not to fumigate; it is laudable not fed use any 
 precautions to prevent disease; there is nothing the 
 matter. 
 
 "Obedience to the so-called laws of physical health 
 has not checked sickness," is the declaration of this 
 prophet of license, which evidently means, do as you 
 please, regardless of the rights of the other man, no 
 matter what experience has declared will be the conse- 
 quence. The plain teaching of this book is that a 
 healer or disciple of the cult need not consider pesti- 
 lential surroundings, foulness, filth, vitiated air, or 
 like circumstances. The refuse heap breathing miasma 
 is at the door, but shut it out of your mind, do not 
 think about it, then all will be well. Mrs. Eddy fol- 
 lows these teachings with an illustration, of course 
 quite convincing to the initiated, but approaching cari- 
 cature to the outside investigator not hypnotized by 
 idle dreams and dazing fancies. "A hint may be taken 
 from the immigrant whose filth does not affect his 
 happiness, inasmuch as mind and body rest upon the 
 same basis." "Bathing and rubbing," we are told, "to 
 alter the secretions or to remove unhealthy exhala- 
 tions from the cuticle, receive a useful rebuke from 
 Christian Science." 
 
 What does all this mean? It either means some- 
 thing or else it is arrant nonsense. If the laws of 
 
164 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 health were wiped out and the principles of hygiene 
 were forgotten, no longer would the greed of men be 
 The i,»Kicni restrained in the building of unsanitary tenements and 
 dwellings for the poor. The conditions are bad 
 enough now; but let these tenets be accepted as the 
 ultimate law of humanity, and how would the poor 
 be housed? The conditions in New York City in the 
 congested quarters of the East Side would become 
 speedily a hundred-fold worse. Springing up on 
 every side one will see the sweatshop, the ill-ventilated 
 schoolroom, the windowless, airless and dark sleeping 
 room. Sanitation and ventilation are illusions. Bad 
 air and good air, the cesspool and the marble bath of 
 scrupulous cleanliness, are alike fitting and proper, 
 according to these teachings. Tear down your small- 
 pox hospitals with their sanitary regulations and iso- 
 lation, remove your quarantine, let the leper eat at 
 your table, and fight the health officer who would pre- 
 vent the contagion of diphtheria in your home. Let 
 the slums breed plagues again as they did in ancient 
 London. Does the common sense of the American 
 people want such results? Yet this doctrine which 
 absolutely ignores human experience, if carried to its 
 logical sequence, or, indeed, if its teaching is but par- 
 tially obeyed, threatens the well-being of society and 
 untold ills. 
 
 What conclusion are we to reach concerning the 
 motives, good sense and judgment of people who ad- 
 vocate such theories? Either they are playing with 
 words and do not mean what they say or they are 
 trying to perpetrate a huge hoax on an unsuspecting 
 
Conflict With Medicine and Law 165 
 
 public, or their language has some occult or symbolic 
 meaning unknown to either lexicon or grammar. 
 Either they must be unsettled in their minds, or they 
 speak simply a philosophical language having nothing 
 to do with the ordinary experience of daily human 
 life. Whichever way we look at it, however, the teach- 
 ing hides a danger, and its exploitation is a menace 
 fraught with incalculable harm to the social structure. 
 In a somewhat celebrated case the following ques- 
 tions were put to a certain Mrs. Holden and compla- w,tne S e * 
 cently answered by her, so that under the solemnity of stand 
 a sacred oath (or is the oath simply a dream and 
 nothing, and so it matters not what is said in court, 
 or out of it?) we have this testimony: 
 
 Q. Do Christian Scientists die? A. They do. 
 
 DhVsician.S hri A Stl Tfc Sci j ntists at tend persons also attended by 
 physicians? A. They do not. That is, not if they follow the 
 rules laid down in the book, "Science and Health " 
 
 y. Is it the rule that no Christian Science healer should 
 anTb'solufe'ule. attCnded * " "*-* P^sidan? A ! It is 
 suPedly^ ° anCer bG ° Ured by Christia * Science? A. As- 
 
 Q. Smallpox? A. Assuredly. 
 
 y. Can consumption be cured? A. It can 
 
 ChVi-st^slnc h e e ? d X e T e he y k ca n Wn *° "-**" be CUred b * 
 
 coSd^veTrfo^d&^sTT!^ ^ ** ^ 
 
 Mrs. Holden was asked if she believed in the Apos- 
 tles Creed, which was repeated in her hearing, and she 
 assented to it. At the same trial, the same person be- 
 mg on the stand, the lawyer asked her if the book 
 called Christ and Christmas" was an authorized book 
 of the Christian Science Church. On her declaring 
 
Instructions 
 
 1 66 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 that it was, he called her attention to three illustrations 
 in the volume. One of them represented Christ rais- 
 ing a dead man ; another showed Mrs. Eddy in the act 
 of raising a sick man. 
 
 Q. As a matter of fact you don't claim to raise the dead? 
 Christian Science does not claim to be able to do that? A. 
 Christ did it. 
 
 Q. You believe you can do anything Christ did? A. We 
 believe that Christ was infinitely better and purer and had a 
 far better understanding of the mercy of God than any one in 
 these days. We believe that the power is the same. 
 
 Q. Still you have not raised the dead? A. We have not. 
 Then with some confusion the witness added, "I have not." 
 
 Here are some of the instructions called "scientific," 
 which the founder of this system has given to its dis- 
 ciples : 
 
 "He who is ignorant of what is termed hygienic 
 law is more receptive of spiritual power and faith in 
 one God than the devotee of this supposed law." 
 ("Science and Health," page 381.) 
 
 "The less we know or think about hygiene, the less 
 we are predisposed to sickness." ("Science and 
 Health," page 388.) 
 
 "Physiology is one of the apples of the Tree of 
 Knowledge. Error declared that eating this fruit 
 would open man's eyes and make him a god. Instead 
 of so doing, it closes man's eyes to man's God-given 
 dominion over earth. Obedience to the so-called 
 physical laws of health have not checked sickness." 
 
 "Physiology exalts matter and dethrones Mind." 
 (Page 43.) 
 
 "When there are fewer doctors and less thought 
 
Conflict With Medicine and Law 167 
 
 given to sanitary subjects, there will be better consti- 
 tutions and less disease." (Page 67.) 
 
 "It is not scientific (Christian) to examine the body 
 to ascertain if we are in health, and learn our life 
 prospects, because this is to infringe upon God's gov- 
 ernment/' (Page 214.) 
 
 "In families where laws of health are strictly ob- 
 served there is most sickness." ("Miscellaneous Writ- 
 ings," page 6.) 
 
 "The Christian Scientist, thoroughly understanding 
 Mental anatomy, discerns and deals with the real cause 
 of disease." (Page 447.) 
 
 "Whoever would demonstrate the healing of Chris- 
 tian Science must abide strictly by its rules, heed every 
 statement, and advance from the rudiments laid 
 down." 
 
 Under the spell of such teaching no wonder that a 
 premium is placed on ignorance and that we have a 
 system that must inevitably clash with the law. A 
 few of Mrs. Eddy's favorite expressions on the sub- 
 ject of hygiene are culled as a preface to a case of re- 
 markable pathos recited in the courts of Wisconsin : 
 
 "Hygiene, ignorance of a blessing; is found in- 
 effectual; less known about it the better; not God's 
 plan ; rebuked by Christian teaching ; usurps the power 
 of mind ; must we not, then, call the so-called law of 
 matter a canon more honored in the breach than the 
 observance?" 
 
 A notable instance where the law clashed with 
 Christian Science is the case of a little girl named 
 Irma Grosenbach. Her parents were members of the 
 
1 68 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 cult. She was eleven years of age and was sent home 
 a victim one day from the public school on account of a severe 
 
 to "Science" 
 
 attack of vomiting. The mother put her to bed. She 
 sent for Christian Science healers. They came and 
 began exercising the power of mental treatment. Not 
 a single attempt was made to alleviate the excruciating 
 agonies of the child in any way. They kept up the 
 treatment until midnight. Regular physicians, con- 
 ducting a post-mortem examination to find the cause 
 cf her death, pronounced it beyond a doubt diphtheria. 
 The father, mother, and the healers were summoned 
 to court. In the examination, where testimony had 
 to be drawn out of reluctant witnesses, enough was 
 established to present a picture of pathetic and awful 
 suffering on the part of the child, and brutal and in- 
 human indifference, in the name of "Science," on the 
 part of the healers. One Emma Nichols was asked to 
 tell about the passing away of the child. She was in 
 a pitiful condition, with swollen throat, awful thirst, 
 moaning and vomiting. At last at the request of the 
 father the sufferer was given a little piece of ice. In 
 this woful crisis, the healer said : 
 
 "There seemed to be a little sound of her voice with 
 her — it didn't seem like a groan nor like distress — 
 and she had an impulse to vomit, and so I went close 
 to her and put a towel under her chin and lifted her 
 head, and I went aside from the bed that she might 
 vomit easier, and as I lifted her she didn't breathe 
 again. That is, she breathed, made a motion, and as 
 I laid her back again she breathed one breath, and 
 then she didn't take the next ; it was not particularly 
 
Conflict With Medicine and Law 169 
 
 shorter than the breath before, and then, for an in- 
 stant, I thought that she was — I didn't know what to 
 think, but I kept waiting for her to breathe again." 
 
 The mother was standing near and cried : "Why, 
 the child is gone !" Think of a woman dawdling with 
 the grave issues of life and death and leaving a help- 
 less little child to suffer such horrible tortures, while 
 remedial agencies were left untried ! 
 
 The judge, in giving his verdict, among other perti- 
 nent matters, declared : 
 
 "Under existing laws, to heal the sick, or, to use 
 equivalent words, 'to practice medicine/ is not con- 
 strued by the courts as applying exclusively to the 
 administration of drugs and the use of instruments, 
 but may properly be construed to mean the treatment 
 in any manner of one who is ill, as, for instance, a 
 Christian Science healer, or practitioner, for a fee. 
 Consequently I am constrained to hold that Christian 
 Scientists undertaking the cure of the sick without 
 having first a license to practice medicine become sub- 
 ject to the penalties of the law. This in no way inter- 
 feres with the religious belief of anybody." 
 
 Again he said: 
 
 "However free the exercise of religion may be, it 
 must be subordinate to the laws of the land. . . ." 
 
 "I am of the opinion, and so find, that the defend- 
 ants, ... in treating the said Irma Grosenbach 
 as they did, came within the provisions of the law for- 
 bidding persons not qualified to practice medicine, and 
 that they are guilty in manner and form as charged in 
 the complaint. The sentence of the court is that each 
 
170 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 of said defendants pay a fine of $50 and costs, or in 
 lieu thereof stand committed to the House of Correc- 
 tion of the City of Milwaukee for the term of thirty 
 days." 
 
 Sixteen hours or more this little victim of Christian 
 Science lingered, nature fighting to retain its lease 
 of life, but fighting alone and all in vain. Under 
 such circumstances mortal existence could not be pro- 
 longed, and the spirit of the child martyr fled to God. 
 Christian Science talks about its charity, sympathy, 
 and good deeds, but doctrines that make the heart ice 
 and the ears mute to the appeal of an innocent, help- 
 less child are in truth a peril to society. 
 
 William A. Purrington, a lawyer, after according 
 to Christian Science, its doctrines and practice, a most 
 exhaustive investigation, has given as his testimony : 
 
 "We devoutly believe that Mrs. Eddy is an instru- 
 ment in the hand of God, not for the healing of the 
 nations, but to humble us intellectually by showing 
 that, at the end of the nineteenth century, professedly 
 intelligent persons can be as easily duped by her as 
 their forebears were by Cagliostro at the close of 
 the eighteenth century." 
 
 Amid the laudations of the march of intellectual 
 progress witnessed by the twentieth century, the men 
 of giant brains that contribute to the mighty move- 
 ments of modern thought, what words of burning elo- 
 quence are heard in praise of Christian Science ? Not 
 one. Why? It is the one "Science" that proclaims 
 an empty head — illusion — and puts a premium on ig- 
 norance and fantastic inconsistencies. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 THE MASK OF DELUSION. 
 
 The most charitable view of Christian Science is J««*«* on 
 to regard it as wearing the mask of delusion on 
 the face of experience and actuality. Mrs. Eddy 
 is under the hallucination that she is led by 
 divine inspiration and is a peculiar favorite of 
 Heaven. In December, 1900, she wrote to the Bos- 
 ton Herald: "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 was only a scribe echoing the har- 
 monies of heaven in divine Metaphysics, I cannot be 
 supermodest in my estimate of the Christian Science ^ 
 Text-Book," and she is not! 
 
 Here this self-appointed prophet puts herself in the 
 closest possible relationship to Deity. She is the spe- 
 cial vehicle of a divine revelation. She is under the 
 delusion that God has exalted her to complete the 
 mission of Jesus Christ. In "Pulpit and Press" she 
 has written : "What I am it is for God to declare in 
 his infinite mercy." Again she says: "Whoever in 
 any age expresses most of the spirit of Truth and 
 Love, the principle of God's idea, has most of the 
 spirit of Christ, of that mind which was in Christ 
 Jesus. If Christian Scientists find in my writings, 
 
 171 
 
17a The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 teaching, and example a greater degree of this spirit 
 than in others, they can justly declare it." In her new 
 bible she defines God to be this Truth, Love, and Prin- 
 ciple about which she discourses in the above. What 
 is it that she really says to her followers and the world, 
 if her statements on this subject are not avowals of her 
 connection with Deity? 
 
 Those who have formerly listened to her person^ 1 
 oral teachings declare that she hesitated not to make 
 herself equal with Christ and possessed of all the pow- 
 ers that Jesus had. In her own person and to this age, 
 she wants to be considered as having a similar mission 
 as Jesus had to his age, as being the feminine mani- 
 festation of all the powers, attributes, and characteris- 
 tics of Deity. There are indications that this delusion 
 sometimes leads her to the idea that she is a somebody 
 or something halfway between the Virgin Mary and 
 her exalted Son. Mrs. Eddy's writings on "Science" 
 make it clear that she feels that her place is to fulfil 
 the incompleted mission of our Lord. Ask for an ex- 
 planation of these positions from any leader of the 
 cult, and you are met with a volley of quotations from 
 the "Mother's" books and sayings indicative of the 
 profound respect that the followers of this prophet of 
 delusions entertain for morality, human law, religion, 
 love, compassion, and every Christian virtue. 
 
 It is the doctrines that are subversive of all the good 
 she teaches that arouse the gravest apprehension on 
 the part of the intelligent Christian investigator who 
 would get at the heart of Christian Science opinions 
 and beliefs. Very serious is the danger to society from 
 
The Mask of Delusion 173 
 
 the attitude of a woman whose followers almost deify 
 her, who is said to have reached a state where she is 
 immune from all poisons, can heal the sick, raise the 
 dead, cleanse the leper, and cast out devils. Is not 
 the woman under a terrible deception who makes the 
 assertions that she repeatedly makes ? When brought 
 to bay on some of her fantastic utterances, such as 
 her actually having once raised the dead, she hides 
 behind the spiritual interpretation of the phrase, de- 
 claring, "I mean the dead in trespasses and sins." 
 Tear off the mask. It is only a delusion ! There is no 
 other conclusion to be reached by the sane. Has her 
 ambition made wreck of her imagination? Has she 
 the daring of irresponsible and conscienceless in- 
 sanity ? 
 
 On the other hand, can we laugh at these things 
 as the offshoot of a metaphysical and esoteric philoso- 
 phy that in no way can have a lasting influence on our 
 ordinary life? 
 
 ^ Mrs. Eddy claims that pain is simply a "mortal be- 
 lief," that sin, sickness, and death "belong, with all 
 that is material and temporal, to the nothingness of 
 error, which imitate the creations of Deity." What a 
 horrible mockery of the sublime doctrines of the Gos- 
 pel and the tragedy of Calvary does Mrs. Eddy make 
 in her so-called revelation! Was it not of such 
 teachers that the divine Master lifted up the warning 
 which has sounded down the ages: 
 
 "Take heed that no man deceive you. For many 
 shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ ; and shall 
 deceive many. For there shall arise false Christs and 
 
174 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 false prophets, and shall show great signs and won- 
 ders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall de- 
 ceive the very elect. " 
 
 Under the mask of this marvellous phantasm Mrs. 
 Eddy weaves for herself a Gethsemane in "Retrospec- 
 tion and Introspection" : 
 
 "It is often asked why Christian Science was re- 
 vealed to me ... as one annihilating the false 
 testimony of the physical senses . . . No one else 
 can drain the cup which I have drunk to the dregs, 
 as the discoverer and teacher of Christian Science; 
 neither can its inspiration be gained without tasting 
 the cup ... No mortal could have first informed 
 the human mind of what the mortal and carnal cannot 
 discern." 
 
 This prophet of the unreal and the fantastic in both 
 religion and philosophy does not shrink from wearing 
 the mask of an imaginative sorrow and, if not in 
 so many words claiming equality with Christ, the 
 anointed One, yet using such language as to imme- 
 diately suggest such an alternative. 
 
 She wears the mask of great sanctity on the de- 
 lusions of mortal weakness, sinfulness and vanity. Ac- 
 cording to the statements of those who have known 
 personally her life, if there was ever a woman who ex- 
 hibited in her personality and character great human 
 frailty, it is she. She is said to have been filled with 
 vanity and frivolity in her youth, fond of dress and 
 the affectations of the toilet, with a raging temper and 
 exceedingly exacting, demanding great self-sacrifices 
 on the part of friends, stooping to acts of littleness 
 
The Mask of Delusion 175 
 
 and meanness, and not above using falsehood to extri- 
 cate herself from perilous and unworthy positions. 
 Flinging from her friends and friendship when she 
 had used both to further her personal ends, in her 
 writings she railed against friendship. Is this a charac- 
 teristic that ranks with the Son of Man? The Christ 
 of God was gentle, humble, holy. No pen of man has 
 been able to assail the white purity of his soul and 
 character. But who that knew this "prophet" in the 
 days of her obscurity and struggling to obtain a foot- 
 hold on the doorsill of prosperity, ever thought of 
 her as a saint even? Divinations, witchcraft, dissimu- 
 lations were her daily breath until, to quote her own 
 words, "I founded a church of my ozvn" 
 
 This mask of delusion puts a premium on ignorance. 
 
 , .. , 1 Fostering 
 
 The great exponents of medical science and surgery IgnoranC e 
 declare that one of the most important things in the 
 study of these sciences is to become intelligently ac- 
 quainted with the anatomy of the human body. No 
 man would place an engineer in charge of a locomo- 
 tive who was ignorant of the construction of the loco- , 
 motive. He must be acquainted with all the parts of 
 an engine and be able to take it apart and put it to- 
 gether again. One must know the effects of different 
 fuels on the boiler, the action of fresh water and salt 
 upon its pierced and complicated lungs. "So," an emi- 
 nent surgeon says, "surgical pathology is the study of 
 the processes of disease, the alteration in the minute 
 structure of tissues and organs, without which no 
 surgeon can be fitted for his task, much less can be 
 called an accomplished surgeon." 
 
176 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 But what is the idea of this prophet on these deli- 
 cate and far-reaching matters? She holds forth the 
 mask of ignorance in the name of Deity and religion : 
 
 "I recommend students not to read so-called scien- 
 tific works, antagonistic to Christian Science, which 
 advocate materialistic systems." And the irony of 
 fate for this mortal world is revealed in the fact that 
 thousands of men and women with a measure of in- 
 telligence believe in her, and led by the torch of hope 
 for the cure of bodily ailments and the happiness of 
 that which is proclaimed to them as "nothing," buy her 
 book at $5.00 a copy and are glad to do it. Happy 
 they are until the mask is stripped from the face of 
 experience, and they awake without God and without 
 hope in all the world! For Mrs. Eddy has taken 
 away God and given her followers an impersonal prin- 
 ciple in its stead. Can one love a law, or a force? 
 Alas for him who when the mask is withdrawn looks 
 for an angel face, and, aghast, beholds instead the 
 leer of a phantom. 
 Prevarication If nee d arises, Christian Scientists do not hesitate 
 to prevaricate and stultify their own expressed teach- 
 ings. They possibly consider these teachings of their 
 founder as mere deception. Carol Norton in "Chris- 
 tian Science Queries and Answers," says : 
 
 "Do Christian Scientists believe in obeying the 
 health laws of cities, towns and villages, in reporting 
 contagious diseases, in submitting to vaccination, if 
 the law insists, and in co-operating with all who stand 
 for good government, public health, sanitary reform, 
 
The Mask of Delusion 177 
 
 :nd a definite lessening of the death rate? Answer: 
 fes. M 
 
 This is the pose of a dress parade, when public 
 ►pinion is roused and criticism is rife. The whole 
 enor of the "Mother's" teaching is just the other way. 
 Vhat conclusion must we arrive at? Either they do 
 lot believe what they teach, or they are trying to 
 loodwink public opinion in the interest of their false 
 nd mistaken cult which masquerades under the name 
 f "Christian," but is at heart pagan in philosophy and 
 ulture; and of "science/' of which in its supreme ig- 
 orance it knows not even the shadow. 
 
 When Christian Scientists answer the above ques- 
 ion regarding "obeying the health laws of cities" in 
 le affirmative, as Carol Norton does, they do it in the 
 ace of evidence which refutes the testimony com- 
 letely. Their book, "Science and Health," does not 
 sach it, and their practice is against it. But why 
 hould they be consistent? 
 
 Mrs. Stetson says of Mrs. Eddy, her leader : 
 
 "She has penetrated the mystery of existence, has 
 Dimd a solution to the science of being, and within the 
 [oly of holies has received the inspired message of 
 >ivine Love, and given it to a waiting world." 
 
 What does this hymn mean? Is it worship to Mrs. 
 Iddy by her adoring followers? To whom is it ad- 
 ressed ? Take off the mask. Does it reveal the deifi- 
 ation of a human being? 
 
 Oh, fill us with meekness to sit at her feet, 
 
 Who teaches the pathway to Love's blest retreat ; 
 
 Deification? 
 
178 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 Who leads Israel's army in paths Jesus trod, 
 
 The highway of holiness, leading to God ; 
 
 Hear gratitude voiceless and prayer without speech, 
 
 Which soar like the dove Heaven's portals to reach." 
 
 The fact is that every one is subject to self-decep- 
 tion. Christian Scientists are not exempt from this 
 incident of human experience. They have often per- 
 suaded themselves that certain results were brought 
 about mentally when other causes were at work effect- 
 ing the end so much desired. They delude themselves 
 into imagining that actual facts bear out their theories, 
 when in reality they prove just the opposite. Mr. Nor- 
 ton once testified before a committee of the New York 
 Legislature that a severed artery could be reunited by 
 mental treatment alone. When asked what he would 
 do when a person cut an artery, he answered : 
 
 "This bleeding to death only exists in your mind. 
 If I cut my hand I would put a piece of plaster on it 
 to prevent the dirt from getting in, and then would 
 use my mind to stop inflammation or poisoning." 
 
 He described the case of a boy who had been under 
 water for fifteen minutes and was laid on the dock ap- 
 parently dead. Mr. Norton gave him mental treat- 
 ment for half an hour. At the end of that time the. 
 boy came to life and began to throw the water off his 
 stomach without the use of any rolling or other manip- 
 ulation usually employed in such accidents. 
 
 What assurance has any observer that it was the 
 Norton mind that recovered the boy ? Nature without 
 metaphysics may have been the instrument. 
 
The Mask of Delusion 179 
 
 This man testified that he had cured cows, and could 
 treat dogs, horses and plants successfully. 
 
 One of his ilk declared that she had caused a rub- 
 ber plant that was drooping and likely to die to be re- 
 vived by her mental processes. It was in this way: 
 In a case before a New York surrogate a lady gave 
 testimony that a plant in the house was observed to be 
 drooping. A few days afterward it was remarked by 
 a member of the family that the plant looked much 
 better and seemed to have revived. 
 
 "Yes," said a Christian Scientist living in the house, 
 "I have been treating it by Christian Science." 
 
 The witness hesitated, while a suppressed smile 
 broke out. On being asked its meaning she replied: 
 "Oh, nothing," with a shy glance at the court, "only 
 I had been watering it more regularly." 
 
 Is not the whole subject of absent treatment men- 
 tally administered a delusion and a snare? We have 
 seen that patients have been called up to the mind, 
 on the presentation of a lock of hair to the Mind 
 Healer, and supposed cures undertaken. The fact 
 was that the lock of hair belonged to the dead. If a 
 practitioner is not able to distinguish between the liv- 
 ing and the dead in giving absent treatment, how can 
 he ever be sure that his mind is focused on any partic- 
 ular individual? How then may any given cure un- 
 der such circumstances ever be effected? Is not the 
 whole theory absurd, and simply the shadowy creation 
 of the imagination? 
 
 There is a side of this whole question fraught with 
 graver danger. While we may not expect the pure- 
 
A Grave 
 
 Danger 
 
 1 80 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 minded and noble members of this sect to be cor- 
 rupted by its metaphysical delusions and contradic- 
 tions, how about the weak and the criminal of hu- 
 manity? if evil, crime, and sin are all illusions and 
 dreams, great classes of men and women may come to 
 say: "All is God, all is Good. It matters not what 
 we mortals do. Evil is not real, but only a bad 
 dream.'' Then right will be confounded with wrong. 
 Law will have no force of authority. Then the dream 
 of license, pleasure and sensuality — for there is no 
 evil — will entangle the feet of the race in lurid and 
 fantastic mazes. When these doctrines are carried to 
 their legitimate consequences what becomes of govern- 
 ment, personal rights, and all social order? 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 THE MASK WITHDRAWN. 
 
 What must be the practical outcome of a religion of The Awaking 
 dreams that puts the mask of delusion over the face 
 of reality? After the mask is withdrawn, the false- 
 hood and wickedness engendered by a wrong philoso- 
 phy and by denying the facts of experience are re- 
 vealed in the shock of reality. What bitterness, 
 hatred, and despair overwhelm the deluded soul ! Faith 
 in Christ as a personal Redeemer has been wrecked, 
 for this teaching demands that one empty himself of 
 his Evangelical faith and cease to think of God as his 
 personal Father. Said one who had had experience 
 with this subtle cult and its author, "She demanded of 
 me that I give up my belief in a personal God." An- 
 other testified, "My faith in a personal God received 
 a severe strain, but I never lost it altogether." This 
 "Science" tears away the very foundations of truth 
 and accustoms man to the constant repetition of a 
 falsehood until it appears the truth. 
 
 The condition of such souls finds portrayal by the 
 inspired pen, "How are they brought into desolation, 
 as in a moment they are utterly consumed with ter- 
 rors. As a dream when one awaketh," they despise 
 the image that has held their sleeping moments. In 
 dealing with these opinions, we have to do with Mind 
 
 181 
 
1 82 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 Cure, and a very old superstition woven as a continu- 
 ous thread through a patchwork of Christian truths. 
 Its methods are those of subterfuge. The potato cure 
 for rheumatism, the bone cure for toothache, can point 
 triumphantly to multitudes of cures. A certain patent 
 medicine that was advertised as having cured long 
 lists of people who had taken it in dozen lots was 
 proved to be nothing but bad whisky and molasses. 
 The venders of many patent medicines can show a 
 far greater number of cures effected than can Chris- 
 tian Science. Under the head of "Fruitage" the book 
 "Science and Health" enumerates its own victories in 
 the same way. All the quacks and charlatans, hum- 
 bugs and deceivers of humanity can do the same thing. 
 Successful physicians can boast of their cures. More 
 than all great Doctor Nature can show a larger ma- 
 jority than all other systems and schools combined. 
 
 But subterfuge cannot last always. It is bound to 
 get to the end of its tether. To tell a man with a 
 jumping toothache that there is no such thing as pain, 
 that it is all in his mind, and that he must attain a 
 serene and undisturbed composure of the imagination 
 and all will be well, does not produce in him a 
 sound tooth or a healthy nerve. But if you keep 
 up the urging long enough the nerve may die or the 
 man expire. 
 Christ's Jesus called things by their right names. Never 
 
 Teaching once did he drop a hint that he was not what he 
 seemed to be. While he taught the deepest truths in 
 the guise of parables, his meaning was always easily 
 ascertained. Never once did he hint that his life was 
 
The Mask Withdrawn 183 
 
 not a real life, that his struggles and passions were not 
 real experiences. The earthly life was positive, not 
 imaginary, to him, and so also was the spiritual. His 
 noblest followers, those who have done the most to 
 uplift and benefit the race, have walked in his foot- 
 steps. They have called the good good, and the bad 
 bad, and have courageously faced the realities of two 
 worlds. The material and the spiritual kingdoms 
 have been acknowledged by them and the personal 
 God, manifested by the personal Christ, has been the 
 soul's refuge "when the blast of the terrible ones has 
 been as a storm against the wall." To merge the 
 vision of the personal God into the image of an im- 
 personal force, principle, or tendency, even though 
 you clothe it with an attribute that makes for right- 
 eousness, has been to take the nerve out of spirituality 
 and devitalize the motive for high thinking and pure 
 living. The higher one climbs the slippery side of a 
 precipice, the more terrible the fall into the depths. 
 The more exalted our hopes, the more frightful the 
 awakening when these are proven a delusion and a 
 snare. 
 
 Put yourself, reader, in the place of an enthusiast 
 under the spell of the mask of Christian Science. ***** the 
 Think of the fascinations that its optimistic and 
 luminous countenance holds out to its devotee. He 
 says : "This carnal existence is only a dream, the mind 
 is all. Nothing is as it is except as thinking makes it 
 so. I cannot sin; I cannot be sick. If I only rise 
 high enough to learn the mastery of mind over the 
 material, I may not die. 'Mother' has almost, if not 
 
1 84 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 quite, reached it ; if she drink any deadly thing, it shall 
 not hurt her any more." Through storm and stress 
 and struggle he carries these deceptive hopes. They 
 really float him over floods of difficulties and impedi- 
 ments toward his lofty dreams. Days of prosperity 
 and blessing rain down upon him from a translucent 
 azure sky. But without warning, as in the case of Job, 
 servant of the living God, a cyclone of suffering and 
 sorrow sweeps over him. Disease tortures. He en- 
 dures the torment in dumb silence. But there is a 
 limit to human endurance. The bow of hope is shiv- 
 ered. The mirage that has lured him on vanishes. 
 He comes to himself in the desert of despair. Stern 
 reality looks him in the face and ghastly death waits 
 to cut him down. How terrible when the mask is 
 withdrawn to awake from such a dream ! 
 
 Years ago a child was born into a well-to-do family 
 Dream in ne of the fair cities of our land. Her childhood 
 
 was passed in cultivated and refined circles. Chris- 
 tian influences wove their spell into the formation of 
 habit and character. Wealth multiplied in that home. 
 Its master idolized his children, and no earthly ad- 
 vantage was too good for him to give them whenever 
 and wherever it lay in his power. The little maid was 
 very winsome. As she neared womanhood all that art, 
 culture, and intellectual training could do was at her 
 command. In her young maidenhood, guided by a de- 
 voted and faithful minister of the Word, she espoused 
 the truths of our holy religion and made profession 
 of her faith in the living personal Christ as her Re- 
 deemer. Of a meditative, somewhat mystic turn of 
 
 A Shattered 
 
The Mask Withdrawn 185 
 
 mind, the Church and its forms of worship held a deep 
 place in her spiritual life. The training of school days 
 over, she was enriched by foreign travel, and the treas- 
 ures and lore of the Old World, art and history and 
 learning, laid their gifts at her feet. Quick to take 
 advantage of her opportunities, and assimilating a 
 world culture, she returned to the city of her birth in 
 the flush of her young life. As some rare jewel shines 
 out from a setting of exquisite beauty, her soul looked 
 out from its setting of attractive personal loveliness. 
 With that homecoming the circle of which she was a 
 part recognized that in her grace and beauty of mind 
 and character a new star had risen on their social 
 world. With the many magnets that drew her amid 
 the attractions of a peculiarly bright and happy exist- 
 ence, her spiritual radiance continued to shine with 
 mild effusive rays. 
 
 A young professional man of ability and force with 
 alluring prospects in the field of politics and society, 
 as well as in his chosen calling, wooed and won her. 
 Great was the rejoicing at the nuptials of two young- 
 people so well suited to walk hand in hand down the 
 journey of time, scattering benefactions on their way. 
 A child came to gladden loving hearts, and awaken 
 the deep realities of the maternal nature. Soon there- 
 after, the wife became an heiress. A few years glided 
 swiftly and sweetly along. On a visit to Boston the 
 young woman became acquainted with Mrs. Mary 
 Baker Glover Eddy. Because she was opulent and 
 could command time and money, she was an ever- 
 welcome guest of the "Mother," who in the midst of 
 
1 86 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 making and selling her book and guiding the des- 
 tinies of the new denomination could ever make her- 
 self most fascinating to those over whom she deemed 
 it worth her while to weave the spell of her subtle per- 
 sonal attractions. 
 
 A little son born to the household met with an acci- 
 dent. It resulted in curvature of the spine. Physi- 
 cians counseled that proper treatment would restore 
 him to health and strength. Her husband and friends 
 urged the young mother to adopt the necessary meas- 
 ures for his recovery. Skilled physicians were at last 
 employed to treat the lad. All things seemed to be 
 going well, and human knowledge saw no reason why 
 an ultimate restoration to complete physical health 
 might not be hoped for. But that plaster cast, ever 
 before the mother's eye, seemed a standing menace to 
 her new-found faith and friendship. She looked upon 
 it as a mark of weakness. Why had she yielded? 
 Christian Science associates, now her bosom com- 
 panions, true to their convictions, upbraided her for 
 going back to material methods instead of clinging to 
 mental treatment. She had the cast torn off and told 
 the boy he was perfectly well. Poor child ! Christian 
 Science treatment, present or absent, left him crip- 
 pled. The healers evidently did not understand suffi- 
 ciently the art of mental healing to bring to him the 
 powers of restoration. Dwarfed, he moved in the 
 world as manhood gathered its years around him, an 
 object of commiseration to others and in spite of intel- 
 lectual ability with a fierce burning rage within his 
 
The Mask Withdrawn 187 
 
 heart that he should have been compelled to be a vic- 
 tim on the altars of this monstrous delusion. 
 
 Oh, falsehood, wearing on thy face the smile of an 
 angel of Light, yet hiding the lurid mockery of an 
 endless sorrow, unconsciously, it may be, for thine 
 innocent devotees, thou art neither Christian nor 
 science, and hast played fast and loose with sacred 
 things and vaunted thyself as enthroned with the 
 Highest. A great company of children, innocent and 
 helpless, cry out against thee. 
 
 The child's mother herself was attacked with in- 
 sidious disease. She flew to the prophet of her cult 
 for refuge. She had lost her hope in a personal God 
 and in the efficacy of prayer. The God who knows 
 naught of sin, sickness, or death could not help her. 
 Mrs. Eddy and her ilk in the security of their mystic 
 dreams and fond idealism told her over and over again 
 that there was nothing the matter with her. She said 
 confidently to herself and others the formulas of her 
 new-found faith, "I am perfectly well. I have no pain. 
 I am not sick." She read and studied the book that 
 was to heal her, but all in vain. The earthly help that 
 might at least have stayed for a while the plague, she 
 would none of. No pleading, no reasoning, no state- 
 ment of facts would move her. Infatuated with Chris- 
 tian Science and its aspirationalists, she turned a deaf 
 ear to every other counsel. The body grew weaker. 
 We saw her fade away day by day. But never once 
 did she acknowledge, even to herself, that she was not 
 in good health. Even when she had to take her bed, 
 
1 88 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 this strange subtle hope, working with the peculiarities 
 of her disease, sustained her. 
 
 It wrought with buoyancy within her. Restlessness 
 made her a bird of passage. She flitted between her 
 home and Boston. Now the fever burned within her, 
 and it rushed her into activities and social frivolities 
 foreign to her nature. Incessantly she perused the 
 pages of "Science and Health." Her answer to those 
 who asked how she fared invariably was : "I am well, 
 only a little tired." The hypnotic influence of the 
 Christian Science practitioners sustained her courage. 
 It is said that there is a devil in all religions. It may 
 be that Mrs. Eddy's devil, "malicious animal magnet- 
 ism," to whom she lays all the woes of her much- 
 troubled religion and all opposition met with by meta- 
 physical healing in the hands of her followers, egged 
 on the poor victim of this grievous malady. However, 
 the book was her constant companion. She was sure 
 in those days that she should get strong and that the 
 boy's crooked spine would be straightened. Her faith 
 in these mystic principles was unbounded. Yet she 
 welcomed her friends. She was no recluse, and many 
 a quiet conversation was carried on between her and 
 the religious guides of her youth and early woman- 
 hood. 
 
 She went to the South and she visited the North. 
 There was a strange fascination in that wonderful 
 New England woman, indomitable in the pursuit of 
 her occult dreams of the vague and misty East. In 
 her presence the sick one was persuaded that she was 
 well. But home again, day by day the hollow cheek, 
 
The Mask Withdrawn 189 
 
 the gleaming, glas. y eye, the hectic flush, the hacking 
 cough, all proclaimed the rapidly approaching end. In 
 all these long days she flatly refused to see a physi- 
 cian, or take a single remedy such as experience has 
 proved valuable in mitigating a consumptive's lot. At 
 last, so feeble was she that they took her, in spite of 
 her earnest protest that she was well, to a sanitarium. 
 It could only be done by yielding to her desire for 
 daily visits from the healer. But all was in vain. It 
 was too late. She grew worse and worse. Her days 
 were now destined to be few. 
 
 Insistently the healer came day by day, for a price, 
 of course. When he was with her she seemed to be 
 possessed by that something— devil or saint— that 
 passes from some strong minds to other weaker ones. 
 Hope scattered its flowers in her heart, and its per- 
 fume fell on her nostrils. The healer gone, it became 
 evident that he did not heal. She sank down into 
 lethargy and despondency. Suddenly one evening — it 
 seemed as if it occurred in the twinkling of an eye — it 
 flashed on her, "I am dying!" A terror seemed to 
 seize her. She demanded that the healer be sent for. 
 To her he was a person of mysterious mental powers, 
 holding the keys of life and death. She put the ques- 
 tion with startling energy, "Am I getting better? 
 Shall I get well ?" This person was a man. He did 
 not seem a fool. Was he hypnotized? Was he 
 self-deceived ? Was he a deliberate liar ? He told her 
 with calm deliberation and forethought that of course 
 she was getting better; she was not sick and would 
 soon arise from her bed; disease would yield to 
 
i go The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 health. And with many like words spoke he sooth- 
 ingly to her. With these technical phrases she was 
 familiar. She had heard them so long. 
 
 But she replied, for the first time apparently, in 
 some sort of doubt, "I am so weak. Oh, I am so 
 tired." The man lingered for a long time, gazing in- 
 tently at the woman, and administering mental treat- 
 ment, and under the charm of it the dying woman felt 
 encouraged. But it was only a temporary buoyancy. 
 The healer away, giving absent treatment all the 
 time (?), the old fear, terror, and doubt came back 
 with redoubled force. 
 
 Her gentle mother and loving sister ministered to 
 her. Yet she would not be comforted. She demanded 
 to see the physician of the house, an old family friend. 
 Fixing her eyes on him and clutching his hand, she 
 demanded of the old man, "Doctor, am I dying?" He 
 was a good man and noble. All his life he had walked 
 with the Master, to learn his secret and to know his 
 mind. Bending over her, he said soothingly, "My 
 child, you are a Christian. Summon your Christian 
 faith and courage." "Oh, doctor," she cried, "but I 
 have given up my Christian faith; I'm in 'Science' 
 
 now." 
 
 Calmly, gently, tenderly he told her the truth. Her 
 idol was broken, her expectation shattered. The bit- 
 terness of despair held her in its viselike grip. She 
 knew now that she was doomed to die. "I am lost! 
 I am lost!" she cried. She sank into quiet and self- 
 communing. What struggles went on in the secret 
 of her soul were never revealed. The mask fell from 
 
The Mask Withdrawn i 9I 
 
 the face of experience. Illusion vanished. She saw 
 things as they really are. 
 
 Some days after her pastor knelt by her bedside. He 
 spoke to her of the Great Physician, the Light of the 
 world. As he pointed her to the Lamb of God that 
 taketh away the sin of the world, she answered, "Jesus 
 knows best. I trust myself to Him in life and 'death." 
 Then from the fresh agony of a heart newly awak- 
 ened to a mother's tender love, sprang the yearning 
 cry, "But, oh, my poor little boy !" 
 
 Because in the days of her Christian Science de- 
 lusion she had so vehemently opposed a reasonable 
 course in her husband's estimation, there had grown 
 a coolness between the two. Now she sent for him 
 "Husband !" she cried ; "it's all a mistake. It's all a 
 mistake !" The mask was withdrawn. The dream was 
 over. Out of the land of shadows she passed to the 
 great Reality. There no deceptions are born and 
 practiced. There in that cloudless day shall we see 
 eye to eye and soul to soul. 
 
 This strange cult has surely humbled the pride of 
 the intellectual supremacy of the twentieth century The WorId ' 
 Its bald and empty vagaries are drawing thousands to *** 
 the precipice that hangs over the gulf of despair. 
 What a commentary on the need of humanity, capti- 
 vated in heart and bewildered in intellect, lost in tres- 
 passes and sins, for a divine Saviour who is able to 
 save from all sin! 
 
 There is only one way in which we may be saved 
 Yet in all the centuries men have been prone to dream 
 of some other way. This Christian Science is a vague 
 
1 92 The Mask of Christian Science 
 
 dream of reaching the impossible. It ignores the plain 
 
 facts of nature, the testimony of the senses, the dic- 
 
 «Some other tates of reason, the voice of God in revelation, and 
 
 "Way" 
 
 tries to climb up some other way than God's appointed 
 path of life. As those who are starving dream of a 
 banquet of richest viands and the delights of gratified 
 appetite, and awake to emptiness, delirium, and death, 
 so these deluded people, after the godlike dream of 
 victory over the forces of nature, awake to find their 
 castles in the air toppled into dust, and their souls the 
 prey of the devils of disappointment and despair. No 
 wonder that the soul cries out in sheer weariness and 
 bitterness, "It is all a mistake ! It is all a mistake !" 
 
 More serious than the loss of bodily life is the loss 
 of the soul. If there be no sin, there can be no Saviour 
 from sin. Our friends under the spell of this delusion 
 claim the name of Christian. But they contradict the 
 apostle who writes : "If we say we have no sin we 
 deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," and they 
 make the Redeemer talk nonsense when he says, "I 
 will forewarn you whom ye shall fear : fear Him 
 which after He hath killed hath power to cast into 
 hell. Yea, I say unto you, Fear Him." 
 

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