The Church of St. Bunco Part 6

_Science and Health_, 487.--"Science reveals material man as a dream at all times, and never as the real Being."

_Interpretation "in Science."_--Mortals are nothing. The One and Only Being is the Father-and-Mother G.o.d of Christian Science. Our Mother is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy.

_Science and Health_, 411.--"The Scientist knows there can be no hereditary disease, since matter cannot transmit good or evil intelligence to man, and Mind produces no pain in matter."

_Interpretation "in Science."_--On the ground that mind and matter are absolutely unconnected, there can be no doubt of there being no hereditary disease. On the same ground there can be no heredity itself, and no world for heredity to exist in. How true it is, "in Science," that all actuality has no actuality in it!

_Science and Health_, 28.--"The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science."

_Interpretation "in Science."_--We know, too, from Mrs. Eddy's "precious volume," that Christian Science, in addition to being the Logos, is the Holy Comforter. Thus her copyrighted religion is two-thirds of the Trinity.

_Science and Health_, 411.--"The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural or necessary than would be the process of taking a fish out of water every day, and covering it with dirt, in order to make it thrive more vigorously thereafter in its native element.... Water is not the natural habitat of humanity."

_Interpretation "in Science."_--Don't take the trouble to wash the baby.

His body is only an expression of mortal mind, and is thus so mussed up with error and nothingness that water will never get him clean. His proper habitat is "Science." Scrub his "conscious and unconscious thoughts" with Christian Science, and never mind the rest of him.

We shall make but one more quotation, here, from Mrs. Eddy's "Divine comedy," _Science and Health_. There is no use of being too serious with it. History will soon take it as mostly a "grim joke" on metaphysics, theology, and medicine. But one thing must give us pause. On approaching the Lord's Prayer, one feels himself on solemn ground, if such ground there be anywhere in life, and for once, if never before, puts on the mantle of conservatism. But, to Mrs. Eddy, the words of Jesus in devotion and supplication--at once the simplest and grandest words ever uttered--require her "spiritual interpretation." What, in her index to _Science and Health_, she terms the "Spiritualized version" of the Lord's Prayer is this:

"Our Father and Mother G.o.d, all-harmonized, Adorable One. Ever present and Omnipotent. Thy Supremacy appears as matter disappears. Give us grace for to-day; Thou fillest the famished affections; and Love is reflected in love. And leavest us not in temptation, but freest us from sin, disease and death; for Thou art all Substance, Life, Truth, and Love, forever.--_So be it._"

The author of the _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ tells of a poet who

"Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke, And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch; And, undisturbed by conscientious qualms, Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the psalms."

Let any one not "in Science" ask himself if Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy has not gone farther and done worse.

CHAPTER VIII.

"CHRISTIAN-SCIENCE" ORGANIZING FORCES.

As Mrs. Eddy has been a manufacturer and vender of "Christian Science" for a comparatively short time--only a quarter of a century--many good people who knew her at the inception of that successful industry are still on earth, in an active condition of "mortal mind." They have volunteered to furnish for this brief book a variety of plain and ornamental information that is not essential to it. But, in justice to history and biography, one point must not be omitted. They all agree that "Mother Eddy," like Caesar, the Standard Oil Company, and the Sugar Trust, has more organizing capacity than "the sons and daughters of G.o.d," to use her own phrase, generally possess. With this capacity, it is also agreed that never a Bonaparte, never a Jay Gould, never a Pierpont Morgan, could be more handy in surmounting all over-nice impediments to practical success.

Thus by her rare combination of terrestrial and celestial genius, "Mother Eddy" has been able to hold her copyrighted religion, "Christian Science,"

strictly under her personal regnancy, and direct it to the highest financial, doctrinal, and healing ends. She permits no tinge of private judgment, no stain of unauthorized opinion, and no mere finite criticism, so far as she can silence it. She is the Church, and membership is obedience. Hence she bitterly antagonizes all independent agencies of scientific salvation, though with eyes rolled up, and with fervent proclamations of unbounded "love." In her _Science and Health_, she advises her readers not to read other "scientific works," as they are full of "materialism," and are not "Scientifically Christian." Directly or indirectly, too, there is always the point that money can be much better invested in Mrs. Eddy's own "sacred" and "positively demonstrated"

writings. It would almost seem that, in her universal motherhood, Mrs.

Mary Baker G. Eddy must have borne Mohammed's great soldier who burned the Alexandrian library in devotion to the _Koran_.

To a great organizer, a wholesale business is always more attractive than retail trade. It is handled quite as easily, with less detail, and thousands of small merchants contribute to the proceeds. The able founder of "Christian Science" early realized this fact--in her case drawn from on high, but sometimes reached through commercial experience. Having retired into the wilderness of her mind, far from all monitions of "sense"; having trained her memory to forget the existence of "matter," "error," and Mary M. Patterson; having taken a three-years' vacation with her only peers, "the ancient worthies" and "the Scriptures"; Mrs. Eddy came back at last, among the human species, with the metaphysics and curative formulas of "Christian Science." Then came practical transactions in "revelations" and "mental medicine," which soon rivaled the sales of Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup and Lydia Pinkham's celebrated compound.

Though Mrs. Eddy has gradually taken into her service various literary experts, theologico-commercial travelers and metaphysical auctioneers, she has always supervised, in person, the wholesale department of "Christian Science." On her return from the skies, she brought down a large collection of doc.u.ments in which "the whole science" was condensed and canned, and all the medical prescriptions required to fulfil a millennium of holiness and health. With these doc.u.ments in hand she formed cla.s.ses of "loyal students," her definition of "loyalty" being "allegiance to G.o.d" (as manifested in Mary Baker); "subordination of the human" (the student) "to the divine" (the teacher); "steadfast justice" (no wobbling over the cash); and strict adherence to "divine Truth and Love" (the Mother of the Logos and the Holy Comforter forever glorified).

To be more specific, it was in the year 1867 that Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Patterson, freed by divorce from the last-named culprit, and married to Asa Gilbert Eddy, began, as she records it, the teaching of "Christian Science Mind Healing" to "one student." Here was a good seed sown in fructifying ground; for, in 1881, it had grown to be "The Ma.s.sachusetts Metaphysical College" of Boston.[36]

This vast inst.i.tution was managed by Mrs. Eddy as chief impartress of "science," her a.s.sistants being her husband, her adopted son, and a General Bates. These four "scientists" const.i.tuted the faculty.

Mrs. Eddy's last husband is described, by those who knew him, as one of the most humble and obedient men that ever blest a perfect woman in immaculate matrimony. His value as a college professor may be inferred from one reminiscence of him. His supreme better-half once sued a poor young doctor who had fallen away from "science," and taken to homeopathy, that she might collect her fee for having taught him "Christian Science therapeutics." Her husband, Asa, was a witness for her, to prove the pecuniary value of her instruction, and was asked, among other questions,

"What is Man?" "As near as I can make it out," replied Prof. Eddy, "Man is an image." Mrs. Eddy lost her case, as the court was too unspiritual to reduce her "metaphysics" to dollars and cents.[37] But the good Asa showed that he was an "image" of Mary; and, in her _Retrospection and Introspection_, she has gratefully embalmed his memory in a text from the Psalms.

"Mark the perfect _man_, and behold the upright: for the end of _that_ man _is_ peace."

The italics are not in the psalm, but are Mary's.

Some further conception of "the perfect man," Prof. Eddy, and the value of Mother Eddy's estimate of him, may be gathered from an item which appeared in the Boston _Evening Herald_ of December 7, 1878, stating that "Edward J. Arens and Asa G. Eddy were indicted to-day by the Grand Jury for soliciting James H. Sargent to kill Daniel H. Spofford." It appears that Spofford, in order to probe the matter, led on the conspiracy, and so became technically involved in it himself. Thus the affair became so mixed up that, according to the official court-record, the District Attorney concluded not to prosecute the indictment, and Arens and Eddy were "discharged _on payment of costs_." The divine "Mother Eddy" surely could not have instigated a conspiracy to murder Spofford (a troublesome backslider from "Science"), though he and many other backsliders, who know her well, have long labored under the impression that the whole enterprise was hers.

The human head is a queer bulb, and often seems to be a direct evolution from the squash. This hypothesis, ill.u.s.trated by the researches of Darwin and his school, accounts for the rapid growth of Mrs. Eddy's Ma.s.sachusetts Metaphysical College from 1881 to 1889, when, in the latter year, she closed it. At that time, as she recollects things, her college was not only filled, but "flooded" with students from all parts of America, Europe, and the world. Three hundred applications were on the list, and the number was rapidly increasing.[38]

If Mrs. Eddy were not so far above the world and the flesh that her reasons for things seldom comport with a sub-lunar search into them, it might be possible to believe that she discontinued her college because she feared that "material organization," applied to "Christian Science,"

would obstruct "Love's Spiritual compact." Whatever it means, this at least is what she _says_. The success of her college had shown her the danger of placing people on "earthly pinnacles"; and even "mortal mind"

can see that such a setting-up might lead students away from the primal Mother and the central contribution-box. Besides, she had always had "conscientious scruples" against "giving diplomas" when she thought of those same "earthly pinnacles."

It may throw some light on the sudden closing of "The Ma.s.sachusetts Metaphysical College" to note that, notwithstanding "Mother" Eddy's "conscientious scruples" against granting mere "diplomas," she had issued hundreds of metaphysico-medical degrees at high prices.

According to a statement of hers, she obtained her college charter from the State of Ma.s.sachusetts in 1881, "with the right to grant degrees." But the act on which this grant was based was repealed in 1882. Then, in 1883, the conferring of "any diploma or degree" by any "corporation" or "a.s.sociation," was made a legal offense, punishable by a fine of not less than $500. Being the "president," not of any "corporation" or "a.s.sociation," but of a regular "college" (with a faculty of three beside herself), Mother Eddy's legal mind has held that this law, if aimed at her, failed to hit, though it knocked out all other mind-healing colleges.[39] But, in 1889, when, as persistent rumor has it, the problem was about to be solved by legal process against "Mother Eddy," the subject was practically closed by the closing of her "college," and by her retirement to New Hampshire, where "the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

Considering Mrs. Eddy's kind of "college-faculty" and "board," together with her exhaustive copyrights and the hierarchical monopolies consequent upon them, it is quite conceivable that when time was ripe she had no difficulty in "unanimously" pa.s.sing resolutions to discontinue her "flourishing school." The little joker in this pack of resolutions soon came out in one of them. It deftly touched the matter of "organization,"

and then propounded that "the hour" had "come" when "the great need" was for "more of the Spirit," not "the letter," and that _Science and Health_ was the spirit's nutriment.

It is not directly stated by Mother Eddy in this connection, that G.o.d Himself fixed the scale of prices for her book; but she does say it was "G.o.d" who "impelled" her to "set a price" for her "instruction in Christian-Science Mind-Healing." The price was three-hundred dollars a head, for a college course of three weeks. At first she "shrank from asking it." But "a strange providence" led Mary to these terms, and "G.o.d,"

she a.s.serts, "has since shown" her, in "mult.i.tudinous ways," the "wisdom"

of her "decision."[40] The "strange providence" and "the mult.i.tudinous ways" are not explained by her; but the "wisdom" of gathering together fat bank-deposits is unanimously acknowledged in the Church Scientist.

When our republic was a hundred years old, it had become worthy of having "The First Christian Science a.s.sociation." That body was accordingly organized, on the fourth day of July, 1876, by Mrs. Eddy and six of her head-light reflectors. Three years later, the a.s.sociation balloted on forming a Church, and the Eddyites won by a large plurality. Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy was of course chosen its "first pastor," and during her ministration it prospered in numbers and popularity. That is, she says so in her _Retrospection and Introspection_. But owing to tons of work, which increased upon her, she was unable to give the Church sufficient attention, and no son or daughter of "Science" was competent to take her place. Her church was "envied" and "molested" by other churches, and there was danger of "Christian warfare"--which might have led to a diminution of proselytes, and more horrible still, a loss of shekels. In such an extremity, she "recommended" the dissolution of the First Church Scientist, and again, as ever, her recommendation went through "without a dissenting voice."

"This measure," she tells us, was followed by "a great revival" in the way of "mutual love," with "spiritual power" and "prosperity." Those, we may be sure, were money-making times. Mrs. Eddy's reasons for dissolving her church were doubtless infallible. Still, that same church at once resurrected itself and exalted its horn--the "Mother Church" in Boston, and then children and grandchildren galore, in hundreds of secondary "Hubs" and their suburbs.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ONE TRUE "MOTHER CHURCH."[41]

It was in 1889, says Mrs. Eddy, that "I gave a lot of land in Boston," on which to erect "a church edifice" as "a temple for Christian Science worship."[42] The land, she is particular to say, was worth "twenty thousand dollars," and was "rising in value." As she has been careful to mention this increment of the "rise"--not hiding it under a bushel, but setting it on top of the cover--we must be sure to add it to the sum of the original benevolence.

But how much labor could be saved by a meek historian if only Mrs. Eddy's word could ever be safely accepted without looking behind it! On consulting the official registry of such matters, one finds that before Mrs. Eddy gave her land to the Church of Christ Scientist, _the Church itself owned the land_, under a mortgage of nine thousand dollars, four thousand of which had been paid off. The balance was five thousand. The provident "Mother" bought this mortgage and foreclosed it. She then conveyed the property to the trustees of the First Church of Christ Scientist, reserving the right to re-enter and repossess the land, with improvements, in case a church erected on it should not be run to suit her. All this was specified in ten conditions, which the angels have not recorded in her biography.

Adjoining the Eddy castle of "metaphysics" are two lots on which stand two buildings of the Christian Science Publishing Society. This real estate was set down in February, 1898, by the editor of "The Christian Science Journal," to be worth not less than twenty-two thousand dollars. On January 25th, 1898, "Mother" Eddy generously conveyed it to the First Church of Christ Scientist. _But_, three days before--on the 21st of January, 1898--the Christian Science Publishing Society, for the sum of one dollar, had _conveyed it to her_. The string tied to her _re_-conveyance was that she should "have and occupy so much room conveniently and pleasantly located" in the establishment, as might "be necessary to carry on the publication and sale" of her "books" and "literature"--a reservation of "room" which, under legal stress might easily be interpreted to mean the whole thing--it being distinctively a "publishing house."

With Mother Eddy's donation of January 25th, 1898, she threw in "The Christian Science Journal" and "all the literary publications of the Society"--these having been turned over to her with other things, for one dollar, on January 21st, 1898--she saving to herself "only the right to copyright the 'Journal' in her own name--an excellent way to make it self-supporting, with no liability on her part to incur its debts, while yet she could hold it under her absolute dictation.

"Let us endeavor," says the editor of "The Christian Science Journal"

(February, 1898), "to lift up our hearts in thankfulness to G.o.d ... and to his servant, our Mother in Israel, for these evidences of a generosity and self-sacrifice that appeal to our deepest sense of grat.i.tude, even while surpa.s.sing our comprehension."