Christian Science

t of late years the master-passion in Mrs. Eddy's heart is a hunger for power and glory; and that while her hunger for money still remains, she wants it n

of her name's glory after she shall have passed away. If she has overlooked a single power, howsoever minute, I cannot discover it. If she has found one, large or small, which she has not seized and made her own, there is no record of it, no trace of it. In her foragings and depredations she usually puts forward the Mother-Church-a lay figure-and hides behind it. Whereas, she is in manifest reality the

lly controlled by

ctively and drastically barred off and made impossible. Then presently the object begins to dawn upon us. That is, it does after we have read the rest of the By-law three or four times, wondering and admiring to see Mrs. Eddy-Mrs. Eddy-Mrs. Eddy, of all persons-throwing away power!-making a f

, Massachusetts, shall assume no official control of other churches of t

air of perfect fairness, unselfishness, magnanim

ch, proclaims that she will assume no official control of other churches-branch chu

a member, in good standing, of the Mother-Church, and who is also a pupil of one of Mrs. Eddy's accredited students

until its members have individually signed, and pl

and order their lives by them. And the

rayers provided by her, and use no others

ve preachers and

ey must have two Read

he services framed

anch Church-appoi

Church-dismisses them

consulting the branch Chur

ous lecture from time to time. By apply

h cannot select the lect

nch Church

ranch Church, must be done by duly authorized and consecrated Christian Sci

rable from this that a Christian Science child is b

nferable, then, that a branch Church is priv

e the branch in any noticeable way independent of the Mother. Church?-even in any trifling degree? I think of none. If the named functions were ab

rch has permanent and unchallengeable control, upon every one of them Mrs. Eddy has set her irremovable grip. She holds, in perpetuity, autocratic and indispu

l control of other churc

es of a branch Christian Science Church are

ers. 3. It can, in accordance with its own choice in the matter, burn, bury, or preserve members wh

irs. Those are all locked up, and Mrs. Eddy has the key. "Local Self-Government" is a large name and soun

-CHURCH

Peter's, reveals in her By-laws her purpose to set the Mother-Church apart by itself in a stately seclusion a

ristian Science churches, th

ition that no othe

ssume such position would be d

refo

es. There shall be no Christian Science St. Peter's

RST ME

Smiths and Furgusons and Shadwells and Simpsons that organized a branch would assume that great title, of "First Members," along with its vast privileges of "discussing" t

ed, her college of functionless cardinals, her Sanhedrin of Privileged Talkers (Limited). After taking away all the liberties of the branch Churches, and in the same b

ize with First Members, that special method of org

e that they must then necessarily organize with Subsequent Members. There is no other way. It will occ

T

on the Pope. He can never put his avid hand on that word of words-it is pre-empted. And copyrighted, of course. It lifts the Mother-Church away up in the sky, and fellowships it with the rare and select and exclusive little company of the THE's of deathless glory-persons and things whereof history and the ages could

er it and made it sacre

not be used before the t

tions for membership in

ies, and each may call itself (suppressing the article), "First Church of Christ. Scientist"-it is permissible, and no harm; but there is only one The Church of Christ

furnish a match to this, anywhere in the history of the nursery. Mrs. Eddy does seem to b

with her own hand; she did not wa

-TERM

whole Christian Science world; she re

PETUA

nored with that title and holding that office: it is her book, the An

s which make her the only really absolute

, nor any indulgence in idle gossip there; and from the general look of that By-law I judge that

SANCTORUM AN

ectrically lighted oil-picture of a chair which she used to sit in-and disciples from all about the world go softly in there, in restricted groups, under proper

s upon the Seamless Robe, and humbly worships; and does the same in that other continental church where they keep a duplicate; and does likewise in the Church of the Holy Sep

he contact-something not thought of before by any one-something original, all her own, and copyrightable. The new feature

herself is certainly not of that company. Any healthy-minded person who will examine Mrs. Eddy's little Autobiography and the Manual of By-laws written by her will be convinced that she worships herse

a year later-a hap which had not happened. I then sent the chapters composing it to the North American Review, but failed in one instance, to date them. And so, in an undated chapter I said a lady told me "last night" so and so. There was nothing to indicate to the reader that that "la

explained that my "last night" meant a good while ago; that I did not doubt his assertion that there was no such portrait there now, but that I should continue to believe it had bee

to set the matter right and make everything pleasant and agreeable all around will be to print in this place a description of the shrine as it appeared to

et in a recess of the wall and illumined with electric light was an oil-painting the show-woman seriously declared to be a lifelike and realistic picture of the Chair in which the Mother sat when she composed her 'inspired' work. It was a picture of an old-fashioned? country, hair cloth rocking-chair, and an exceedingly commonplace-looking table with a pile of manuscript, an ink-bottle, and pen conspicuously upon it. On the floor were sheets of manuscript. 'The mantel-piece is of pure onyx,' continued the show-woman, 'and the beehive upon the window-sill is made from one solid block of onyx; the rug is made of

h the portrait, and compromise on the Chair. At the same time, i

its sumptuous shows. I believe He would put that Chair in the fire, and the bell along with it; and I think He would make the show-woman go away. I think He would break those electric bulbs, and the "mantel-piece of pure onyx," and say reproachful things about the golden drain-pipes of t

N SCIENCE PA

d the Holy Ghost to fill their place. If this language be blasphemous, I did not invent the blasphemy, I am merely stating a fact. I will quote from page 227 of Scie

resent a trinity in unity, three in one-the same in essence, though multiform in offic

s expressed in Divine Science, which is the Comforter, leading into all Truth, an

ther passage. S

had witnessed and suffered they were roused to an enlarged understanding of Div

n the chapter cal

nce; the developments of

ed in Divine Science, and is the Comforter; Divine Science conveys to men the "spiritual int

the whole spirit of the Trinity, and is therefore "The Holy Ghost"; it conveys to men

chapters and verses; in leaving out old chapters and verses and putting in new ones-seem to be next to innumerable, and as there is no index, there is no way to find a thing one wants without reading the book through. If ever I inspire a Bible-Annex I will not rush at it in a half-digested, helter-skelter way and have to put in thirty-eight years trying to get some of it the way I want it, I will sit down and think it out and know what it is I want to say before I begin. An inspirer ca

ancient versions: the thirty thousand different readings in the Old Testament and the three hundred thousand in the New-these facts

t down," as the ballad says. Listen to the boastful song of Mrs. Eddy's organ, the Christian Science Journal for March, 1902, about that year's revamping and half-soling of Science and Health, whose official name is the Holy

he time and labor thus bestowed is relatively as great as that of-the committee who revised the Bible.... Thus we have additional evidence of the hercule

red; I am not doing much now, and would work for

THE PASTO

, from five hundred to seven hundred per cent., as already noted In the profane subscription-trade, it costs the publisher heavily to canvass a three-dollar book; he must pay the general agent sixty per cent. commission-that is to say, one dollar and eighty-cents. Mrs. Eddy escapes this blistering tax, b

n Scientists to circulate and to sell

d to the members (numbering to-day twenty-five thousand) of The Mother-Church, also, but with it went a threat, of the infliction, in case of disob

all fail to obey this injunction, it will render him liab

it of the Span

will take anything from that class. Mrs. Eddy knows the human race; knows it better than any mere human being has known it

UNDRED

t is true. But in the book-trade-that profit-devourer unknown to Mrs. Eddy's book-a three-dollar book that is made for thirty-five or forty cents in large editions is put at three dollars because the publisher has to pay author, middleman, and

salvation, he would have to do as Bible Societies do-sell the book at a pinched margin above cost to such as could pay, and give it free to all that couldn't; and his name would be praise

words. The New Testament by itself conta

ains one hundred and twenty thousand word

ns one hundred and eighty thousand words-not counting the thirty thousand at the back, devoted b

his press-room and bindery he can fill the idle intervals on your book and be making something instead of losing. That is the kind of contract that can be let on Science and Health every year. I am obliged to doubt that the three-dollar

other for fifteen cents. Or, if three dollars is all the money he has, he can get his Bible for nothing. When the Supreme Being disseminates a saving Message through uninspired agents-the New Testament, for instance-it can be done for fiv

e perfectly authentic, and whi

example, the American Bible Society offers an edition of the whole Bible as low as fifteen cents and the New Testament at five cents, and the British Society at six