Many hundreds of thousands of copies of this book have been sold at three dollars and upwards per copy. It is entitled, “Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,” although the only parts of the Scriptures touched upon by the alleged “Key” are the first chapter of the Old Testament and the last chapter of the New, Genesis and Revelation. To the intervening goodly portions God does not, through Mrs. Eddy, appear to have furnished us any “Key.”

“A Christian Scientist,” says Mrs. Eddy “requires my work ‘Science and Health’ for his text book, as do all his students and patients;” the soul’s salvation and body’s health being dependent upon the purchase and perusal thereof.

The organization of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, so called, which, let me again affirm, was a sham affair from start to finish, without college building, classrooms, faculty, curriculum or entrance or graduating examinations, this institution was a valuable agency for the distribution of Mrs. Eddy’s inspired and curative and copyrighted and costly writings, and so have been the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, the Mother Church, so called, and all the other Christian Science churches, of which the book itself has been, by her decree, constituted the impersonal “pastor.” Every member of every church and every student at the “college” must have a copy of the inspired “Science and Health,” at three dollars per copy, for the cheapest editions. (There is good profit in three dollars for a book costing not over fifty cents to publish​—​five hundred per cent profit.) Every teacher of Christian Science and every teacher’s student must have a copy of “Science and Health” properly to teach and to understand Mrs. Eddy’s “Science.”

Every one of the five thousand advertising Christian Science healers must keep a stock of the books on hand and sell them to their patients, who are made to believe, or to try to believe, Mrs. Eddy’s absurd pretension that its mere perusal cures disease, at prices ranging from three to six dollars, according to binding. And, finally, chapters having been transposed, the most trivial additions made or a different picture of the author inserted, all hands are invited, no matter how many copies may already be upon their shelves, to again step up and buy another copy, the revised edition, containing matter said to be of the greatest importance to their bodily and spiritual welfare, and all obediently accept the invitation.

In the words of our friend, Colonel Sellers of joyful memory, “There’s millions in it”!!!

It would be difficult to convince any one of the boundless audacity employed by Mrs. Eddy to promote the sale of this worthless book, if the authoritative evidence over her own signature were not available; but she has convicted herself, has proven in her own hand over her own signature that the author of this book, the founder of this alleged religion and the pretended successor to Jesus is the arch impostor of all time.

Before I quote the grabber of money against the “founder” of a “religion,” let me remind you that it was and is a part of Mrs. Eddy’s claim that her teachings complete the teachings of Jesus; that her “religion” completes the religion of Christ; that, as Jesus said, “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me,” so Mrs. Eddy, in effect, says, “No man cometh unto the Father but by Jesus, and me.” To come unto the Father is to obtain knowledge of the Father, and, according to Mrs. Eddy, while incomplete knowledge may be obtained through the teachings of Jesus, complete knowledge of the Father is attainable only through Jesus and her. She has established and organized The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, ostensibly to lead into complete knowledge of the Father those who seek Him in spirit and in truth. Bearing this in mind, note what follows, taken from the March, 1897, Christian Science Journal, signed by Mary Baker G. Eddy, and published just as her book, “Miscellaneous Writings,” was placed upon the market and for the sole purpose of promoting its sale.

She says: “Christian Scientists in the United States and Canada are hereby enjoined not to teach a student of Christian Science for one year, commencing on March 14, 1897.

“Miscellaneous Writings is calculated to prepare the minds of all true thinkers to understand the Christian Science text book more correctly than a student can.

“The Bible, ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,’ and my other published works, are the only proper instructors for this hour. It shall be the duty of all Christian Scientists to circulate and to sell as many of these books as they can.

“If a member of The First Church of Christ, Scientists, shall fail to obey this injunction, it will render him liable to lose his membership in this church.

Mary Baker G. Eddy.”

At this time there were upwards of twenty thousand members, resident and non-resident, of this church, and every one of them was by this decree required to become a canvasser for the sale of Mrs. Eddy’s books. Twenty thousand unpaid vendors of her worthless patent medicine, upon which there was a profit of five hundred per cent! Is it not enough to make other manufacturers of proprietary concoctions turn green with envy!

This compulsory sale of her books was in 1897, when Mrs. Eddy was seventy-six, but she is the same woman today, at eighty-eight years of age. With only a few steps between her and the grave, she reaches out her withered, palsied hand to grab, grab, grab.