CHAPTER XVII.
THAT EDDYFYING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
This season there broke out in our community, as elsewhere, what has always appeared to me, to be a distemper, misnamed by its crafty creator, "Christian Science." Unchristian scienceless would be a more appropriate name, as the so-called divine revelation was made to its Eddyfying high priestess about 1800 years after the sublime career of Christ was ended, and its preposterous claims antagonize every principle of modern science.
This craze seized certain discontented young women who studied "Science and Health" under the tutorage of its author, and they soon became too transcendental to perform the useful duties of life, posing as teachers of the "utterly utter." It monopolized the feeble intellects of some farmers' boys, who at once began to try to get a lazy living by sitting beside sick women with their hands over their eyes, ostensibly engaged in prayer, but really endeavoring to prey upon the weak minded.
Some superstitious people who had been long under the care of a regular physician, and who were just at the turning point of receiving benefit therefrom, took an "Eddy sitting" and jumped to the conclusion that said mummery affected a miraculous cure.
As a drowning man clutching at a straw, I confess that I accepted the offer of treatments, made by a pleasant lady "Christian science" doctor. I found it tolerably agreeable to sit by her side, holding her soft hand while she assumed an attitude of supplication, but my malady was in nowise benefited thereby. This amiable lady finally loaned me a copy of their sacred book called "Science and Health," expressing the opinion that a careful reading thereof would renew my youth and make me a believer in their modern Eleusinian mysteries forever.
I read this preposterous book with all the earnestness and prayerfulness of which I was capable; but found it to be a heterogeneous conglomeration of words—mere words, a hodge podge of all the exploded philosophical, religious, and scientific heresies of the past ages, so cunningly jumbled that the gullible, unable to find any meaning to it, conclude that it is too profound for their comprehension, and unwilling to acknowledge the fact for fear of being called ignorant, solemnly pronounce it to be great.
One quotation will reveal the utter nothingness of this book, from the sale of which "Pope Eddy" is said to have realized, a half-million dollars. Says this modern goddess: "The word Adam is from the Hebrew Adamah, signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness. Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads a dam or obstruction. This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal mind in solution."
Like all the other humbugs of superstition, this new doctrine seems to me to contain but a single drop of truth submerged in an ocean of folly. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the great high priestess, claims to possess the power to heal the sick and raise the dead; yet she has retired with much lucre to her palatial residence, lives like a queen, rolling in luxury, refusing to exercise her pretended healing power upon the thousands writhing in agony and whom she claims to be able to cure. Surely her "Key to the Scriptures" should thunder in her ears the anathema, "To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is a sin."
I, too, claim a great discovery, a new "sacred book," which I have been inspired to write, and if people will give it the implicit faith required to benefit by "Christian Science," I will guarantee to cure all mental ills, and to bring eternal peace on earth. I herewith give my revelation to all, without money and without price, in strong contrast to the mercenary methods of the Eddy healers. My "science and health" is multum in parvo. Here it is:
Columbus discovered the new world; but his wife discovered the old world. The name of his wife, of course, was Columba, which in Latin, means a dove. Columba, the dove, flew forth from the ark, and so discovered the Eastern Continent. Columbus sailed from G—noa; but Columba sailed from Noah, and when the gods saw her with the olive-branch, they said "blessed be the dove, for whosoever shall receive her by faith into his heart, the same shall be free from unrest and from war forevermore."
Faith can remove mountains, and faith is all there is to "Christian Science," so far as we have been able to ascertain. We concede to its many devotees an almost unlimited amount of this saving grace; but sincerely claim that our "Columba science" will be equally efficient for good if received in the same spirit which has greeted the new gospel promulgated by Saint Mary Baker G. Eddy. Selah.
[Illustration: We Steamed up the Lordly St. John's River of Florida.]