book carefully in his little hands, kiss it softly, then look about for the highest place of safety his arms could reach, and put it there.' This pious act filled the mother 'with such a train of thought as I had never experienced before. I thought of the sweet mother of long ago who kept things in her heart,' etc. It is a bold comparison; however, unconscious profanations are about as common in the mouths of the lay membership of the new Church as are frank and open ones in the mouths of its consecrated chiefs.
Some days later, the family library—Christian Science books—was lying in a deep-seated window. It was another chance for the holy child to show off. He left his play and went there and pushed all the books to one side except the Annex. 'It he took in both hands, slowly raised it to his lips, then removed it carefully, and seated himself in the window.' It had seemed to the mother too wonderful to be true, that first time; but now she was convinced that 'neither imagination nor accident had anything to do with it.' Later, little Gordon let the author of his being see him do it. After that he did it frequently; probably every time anybody was looking. I would rather have that child than a chromo. If this tale has any object, it is to intimate that the inspired book was supernaturally able to convey a sense of its sacred and awful character to this innocent little creature without the intervention of outside aids. The magazine is not edited with high-priced discretion. The editor has a claim, and he ought to get it treated.
Among other witnesses, there is one who had a 'jumping toothache,' which several times tempted her to 'believe that there was sensation in matter, but each time it was overcome by the power of Truth.' She would not allow the dentist to use cocaine, but sat there and let him punch and drill and split and crush the tool, and tear and slash its ulcerations, and pull out the nerve, and dig out fragments of bone; and she wouldn't once confess that it hurt. And to this day she thinks it didn't, and I have not a doubt that she is nine-tenths right, and that her Christian Science faith did her better service than she could have gotten out of cocaine.
There is an account of a boy who got broken all up into small bits by an accident, but said over the Scientific Statement of Being, or some of the other incantations, and got well and sound without having suffered any real pain and without the intrusion of a surgeon. I can believe this, because my own case was somewhat similar, as per my former article.
Also there is an account of the restoration to perfect health, in a single night, of a fatally injured horse, by the application of Christian Science. I can stand a good deal, but I recognise that the ice is getting thin here. That horse had as many as fifty claims: how could he demonstrate over them? Could he do the All-Good, Good-Good, Good-Gracious, Liver, Bones, Truth, All down but Nine, Set them up on the Other Alley? Could he intone the Scientific Statement of Being? Now, could he? Wouldn't it give him a relapse? Let us draw the line at horses. Horses and furniture.
There is a plenty of other testimonies in the magazine, but these quoted samples will answer. They show the kind of trade the Science is driving. Now we come back to the question; Does it kill a patient here and there and now and then? We must concede it. Does it compensate for this? I am persuaded that it can make a plausible showing in that direction. For instance: when it lays its hands upon a soldier who has suffered thirty years of helpless torture and makes him whole in body and mind, what is the actual sum of that achievement? This, I think: that it has restored to life a subject who had essentially died ten deaths a year for thirty years, and each of them a long and painful one. But for its interference that man would have essentially died thirty times more, in the three years which have since elapsed. There are thousand of young people in the land who are now ready to enter upon a life-long death similar to that man's. Every time the Science captures one of these and secures to him life-long immunity from imagination-manufactured disease, it may plausibly claim that in his person it has saved 300 lives. Meantime it will kill a man every now and then; but no matter, it will still be ahead on the credit side.
VIII
'We consciously declare that 'Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures,' was foretold as well as its author, Mary Baker Eddy, in
Revelation x. She is the 'mighty angel,' or God's highest thought
to this age (verse 1), giving us the spiritual interpretation of the
Bible in the 'little book open' (verse 2). Thus we prove that
Christian Science is the second coming of Christ—Truth—Spirit.'
There you have it in plain speech. She is the mighty angel; she is the divinely and officially sent bearer of God's highest thought. For the present, she brings the Second Advent. We must expect that before she has been in her grave fifty years she will be regarded by her following as having been herself the Second Advent. She is already worshipped, and we must expect this feeling to spread territorially, and also to deepen in intensity (1).
Particularly after her death; for then, as anyone can foresee, Eddy-worship will be taught in the Sunday- schools and pulpits of the cult. Already whatever she puts her trade-mark on, thought it be only a memorial spoon, is holy and is eagerly and passionately and gratefully bought by the disciple, and becomes a fetish in his house. I say bought, for the Boston Christian-Science Trust gives nothing away; everything it has for sale. And the terms are cash; and not cash only but cash in advance. Its god is Mrs. Eddy first, then the Dollar. Not a spiritual Dollar, but a real one. From end to end of the Christian-Science literature not a single (material) thing in the world is conceded to be real, except the Dollar. But all through and through its advertisements that reality is eagerly and persistently recognised. The hunger of the Trust for the Dollar, its adoration of the Dollar, its lust after the Dollar, its ecstasy in the mere thought of the Dollar—there has been nothing like it in the world in any age or country, nothing so coarse, nothing so lubricous, nothing so bestial, except a French novel's attitude towards adultery.
The Dollar is hunted down in all sorts of ways; the Christian-Science Mother-Church and Bargain-Counter in Boston peddles all kinds of spiritual wares to the faithful, always at extravagant prices, and always on the one condition—cash, cash in advance. The Angel of the Apocalypse could not go there and get a copy of his own pirated book on credit. Many, many precious Christian-Science things are to be had there—for cash: Bible Lessons; Church Manual; C.S. Hymnal; History of the building of the Mother-Church; lot of Sermons; Communion Hymn, 'Saw Ye My Saviour,' by Mrs. Eddy, half a dollar a copy, 'words used by special permission of Mrs. Eddy.' Also we have Mrs. Eddy's and the Angel's little Bible-Annex in eight styles of binding at eight kinds of war-prices: among these a sweet thing in 'levant, divinity circuit, leather lined to edge, round corners, gold edge, silk sewed, each, prepaid, $6,' and if you take a million you get them a shilling cheaper—that is to say, 'prepaid, $5.75.' Also we have Mrs. Eddy's 'Miscellaneous Writings,' at noble big prices, the divinity-circuit style heading the extortions, shilling discount where you take an edition. Next comes 'Christ and Christmas,' by the fertile Mrs. Eddy—a poem—I would God I could see it—price $3, cash in advance. Then follow five more books by Mrs. Eddy at highwaymen's rates, as usual, some of them in 'leatherette covers,' some of them in 'pebbled cloth,' with divinity circuit, compensation balance, twin screw, and the other modern improvements: and at the same bargain counter can be had the 'Christian Science Journal.' I wish it were in refined taste to apply a rudely and ruggedly descriptive epithet to that literary slush- bucket, so as to give one an accurate idea of what it is like. I am moved to do it, but I must not: it is better to be refined than accurate when one is talking about a production like that.
Christian-Science literary oleomargarine is a monopoly of the Mother Church Headquarters Factory in Boston; none genuine without the trade-mark of the Trust. You must apply there, and not elsewhere; and you pay your money before you get your soap-fat.
The Trust has still other sources of income. Mrs. Eddy is president (and perhaps proprietor?) of the Trust's Metaphysical College in Boston, where the student who has practised C.S. healing during three years the best he knew how perfects himself in the game by a two weeks' course, and pays one hundred dollars for it! And I have a case among my statistics where the student had a three weeks' course and paid three hundred for it.
The Trust does love the Dollar when it isn't a spiritual one.
In order to force the sale of Mrs. Eddy's Bible-Annex, no healer, Metaphysical College-bred or other, is allowed to practise the game unless he possess a copy of that holy nightmare. That means a large and constantly augmenting income for the Trust. No C.S. family would consider itself loyal or pious or pain-proof without an Annex or two in the house. That means an income for the Trust—in the near future—of millions: not thousands—millions a year.
