I do not state this fourth marriage as a fact, but offer it as the only possible and creditable explanation of the facts.
As has been said, Mrs. Eddy has one son born to her who was totally and unfeelingly abandoned by her in his early infancy, who lives in a western State, and seldom or never visits his famous mother. No member of her family ever believed in her, ever placed the slightest credence in her preposterous pretentions. Mrs. Eddy also has an adopted son. Some years ago she legally adopted a male child, a medical man named Foster, then forty years old, who, to acquire a mother by adoption, took the name of E. J. Foster-Eddy, and became a member of Mrs. Eddy’s family; but, after a too brief period of harmonious cohabitation, the sweet domestic relation was, for reasons not made public, interrupted, and now he also finds it agreeable to live elsewhere than with his adopted mother and is heard of no more in Christian-Science-dom.
From a humble position of dependence, Mrs. Eddy has arisen to a proud position of great opulence, and from complete obscurity, devoid of influence and power, has placed herself at the head of the most phenomenal “religious” movement of this or any other time, and made herself believed to be the God-anointed successor to Jesus Christ, and His equal in attributes and power; and this she has accomplished through a lie, a deliberate, wilful, wicked lie.
Pretence of Equality with Jesus
Coming now to what makes it worth our while to consider the career of this remarkable woman, let me present the facts regarding her relation to the life and to the activities of the world of today, and how and by what very devious means she has reached and maintains the position she now holds.
What does Mrs. Eddy claim to be, and what is she believed to be by many thousands of people who have made her their religious leader and guide, and reverence her as the devout Christian reverences Christ?
Mrs. Eddy claims that she is the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy, that she and her book are specifically referred to and prophesied in the Book of Revelation.
She says, “My attention is especially called to the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse or Revelation of Saint John, on account of its suggestiveness in connection with this nineteenth century. In this opening of the sixth seal, there is one distinctive feature which has special reference to the present age, and the establishment of Christian Science in this period. ‘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.’”
With eyes downcast, with “bated breath and whispering humbleness,” bashfully pointing to herself, in low tones that inspire awe, she says, “The woman clothed with the sun, Mary Baker G. Eddy.”