It would seem like a waste of time to contend that God is not the author of “Science and Health;” that God, the All-wise, the All-loving, the All-powerful, did not wait nineteen hundred years after the death of Christ to complete the revelation of Himself made through Jesus; that of all the personalities who have lived upon this earth since the time of Jesus, the one selected by God to lead the world unto Him should be this uncultivated and vulgar woman, whose variegated career has been somewhat presented, and whose whole energies have been devoted to utilizing her pretended revelation for pecuniary profit. I say, it would seem to be an utter waste of time, were it not for the pathetic fact that thousands—sixty or seventy thousands—perhaps more—of the people of this country believe that Almighty God so acted.
It now being perfectly clear that Mrs. Eddy did not, as she says, receive Christian Science by revelation from God, she clearly has no warrant for pretending it to be a religion. As a religion, Christian Science is the shallowest fraud and imposture. It has no conceivable right to the name “Christian,” and every one of the beautiful churches erected in its honor is a monument simply to Mrs. Eddy’s deception and hypocrisy and lies and to the limitless gullibility of the human race, and every one of the many thousands of sincere and simple-minded people who at its services lift up their hearts in worship to God are the victims of an old woman’s insincere, mercenary appeal to their religious feelings.
No sane person can have followed this narrative thus far and not agree with me that, as a religion, there is no warrant for Christian Science, and those who will continue to the end will further agree with me that, as a healing system, it is just as fraudulent; that it kills the sweetest and tenderest emotions in the human heart by rooting out sympathy, charity and compassion; that there is no other hatred and vindictiveness equal to the hatred and vindictiveness of its founder and her leading votaries; that there is no other cruelty, no other greed, that can compare with theirs; that the so-called malicious animal magnetism, the witchcraft feature, is as wicked an invention as the human mind ever conceived, and that its attempted use for veritable assassination is as devilish as anything that could possibly emanate from the depths of hell; and, finally, that the inspired teaching of the three-or-four-times-married Mary Baker G. Eddy, regarding the most sacred and fundamental institution established among men, I refer to the institution of marriage, is so low and so vile that self-respecting people, when they come to understand it, must repudiate it from overwhelming shame. Insanity is not responsible for indecency; but those Christian Scientists who have not parted with their sanity, and are not in Christian Science for revenue only, will turn with horror from the woman and her work, when they know precisely what they are.
Surely one may be pardoned some warmth of indignation at the assumptions of this vulgar adventuress, this mercenary charlatan! It is difficult to think of them without impatience; it is impossible to speak of them without anger.
A Bogus Healing System
Of course the successor to and equal of Jesus must perform miracles, and Mrs. Eddy has a stock of miracles on hand suited to the large, the very large, the extraordinarily large, swallowing capacity of those who ache for something real hard to take in and digest. Nothing could be too hard for her worshipers, and she gives free rein to her inventive faculty in suiting the miracle to the need.
Mrs. Eddy has ever been noted for her modesty, her retiring disposition and proneness to underestimate herself and her powers. “Has Mrs. Eddy lost her power to heal?” she asks, and with characteristic bashfulness and self-depreciation she replies, “Has the sun forgotten to shine and the planets to revolve around it?” Sooner shall the light of the sun pale, sooner the planets fly from their orbits, than Mrs. Eddy part with her power to heal!
So great was the healing influence that radiated from her personality that she sometimes healed unconsciously.
“It was not an uncommon occurrence in my own church,” she says, “for the sick to be healed by my sermons. Many pale cripples went into the church leaning on crutches, who went out carrying them on their shoulders.”