Lynn, Feb. 15, 1866.
“Mr. Dresser,—
“Sir: I enclose some lines of mine in memory of our much-loved Friend, which perhaps you will not think over-wrought in meaning, others must of course.
“I am constantly wishing that you would step forward into the place he has vacated. I believe you would do a vast amount of good, and are more capable of occupying his place than any other I know of.
“Two weeks ago I fell on the sidewalk and struck my back on the ice and was taken up for dead, came to consciousness amid a storm of vapors from cologne, chloroform, ether, camphor, etc., but to find myself the helpless cripple I was before I saw Dr. Quimby.
“The physician attending said I had taken the last step I ever should, but in two days I got out of my bed alone, and will walk, but yet I confess I am frightened, and out of that nervous heat my friends are forming, spite of me, the terrible spinal affection from which I have suffered so long and hopelessly.… Now can’t you help me. I believe you can. I write this with this feeling: I think I could help another in my condition, if they had not placed their intelligence in matter. This I have not done and yet I am slowly failing. Won’t you write me if you will undertake for me if I can get to you?…
“Respectfully,
“Mary M. Patterson.”
Not to comment upon the singularity of the administration of chloroform and ether to an unconscious person, it sufficeth to call attention to the manner in which again Mrs. Patterson contradicts Mrs. Eddy. She furnishes the most effective kind of corroboration of Dr. Cushing, and the whole thing is clearly seen to be an invention, so far as any unusual or peculiar or miraculous features are concerned. It is clear that Mrs. Eddy did not discover Christian Science in the manner claimed.
So much for that particular, and particularly silly perversion of the truth, and invention of the fictitious.
Mrs. Eddy has herself made it especially easy to prove her revelation to be a fraud and has supplied us with a form of proof especially convincing. It is conceivable that a claim to revelation, however intrinsically idiotic, might be made, the legal disproof of which might be difficult; but if I today say God revealed something to me a year ago, and if you find many persons of excellent character who tell you that three, four, five, six and seven months ago I openly, by word of mouth, and in writing, times without number, admitted having learned the whole thing from John Smith, it will be impossible to believe that God revealed it to me and to me alone. This is precisely the case with Mrs. Eddy and her Christian Science “religion.” Her oft-repeated admissions of appropriation disprove her “revelation” completely.
Absolutely conclusive evidence of the fraudulent character of Mrs. Eddy’s claim to originality, either by discovery or revelation, has come to light, and any one, who will take the trouble to examine it, will have no difficulty in arriving at positive certainty in the matter.
Now, remembering Mrs. Eddy’s claim to discovery by revelation from God in 1866, let us see what she was doing in 1867, 1868, 1869 and 1870, the years immediately following her alleged discovery.
Some years ago I delivered an address in Boston upon Christian Science that was extensively reported in the newspapers, and a day or two following the delivery of the lecture a gentleman called at my office and introduced himself as Horace T. Wentworth of Stoughton, Mass. He asked me if I knew that in 1868, 1869 and 1870 Mrs. Eddy had lived with his mother, Mrs. Sally Wentworth, at Stoughton.
I assured Mr. Wentworth that I had not heard of it, and asked him what she was doing while there.
“Why, she was teaching my mother Dr. P. P. Quimby’s system of mental healing,” said Mr. Wentworth, “and I have in my pocket my mother’s copy of the manuscript from which Mrs. Eddy taught.”
Mr. Wentworth pulled the manuscript out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was entitled, on the front page, “Extracts from Dr. P. P. Quimby’s Writings.” I glanced through the manuscript and discovered that it was copiously corrected and interlined in Mrs. Eddy’s handwriting and contained an introduction signed by her name. Perusal of it showed it to be in every particular precisely the same thing as Mrs. Eddy’s Christian Science teachings regarding the cure of disease.