What is the meaning of these things? Here is a woman claiming the succession to Jesus, claiming to have received an exclusive revelation from Almighty God necessary to salvation, and, having organized a church ostensibly to lead unto the Father, she requires, as a condition of continued membership in the church, that its members shall “circulate and sell” as many of her copyrighted books, upon which there is a profit of five hundred per cent, “as they can”; and, year in and year out, she palms off upon the believers new editions of the old stuff upon the false pretense of new material important to their spiritual growth.

Nobody ever went at a thing in a more round-about,

indirect fashion, and nobody ever resorted to trickery more shamelessly than has the Reverend Mary Baker G. Eddy. Nobody ever assumed with so much boldness the complete asininity of the human race, as has this woman who professes to be the successor to Jesus Christ.

In the fall of 1899 suits were brought (as explained in the Introduction) against Mrs. Eddy and some of her leading supporters for the libel upon Mrs. Woodbury, in which damages, approximating half a million dollars, were asked. Mrs. Eddy and her friends were much alarmed and prepared for the most strenuous defence that could possibly be made. It was denied that Mrs. Woodbury was in any way referred to in the passage complained of; but numerous lawyers were retained to contest her endeavor to show that the denial was false. Mrs. Eddy retained four different firms of lawyers to represent her, three prominent Boston firms and the leading firm in New Hampshire, where she then lived. She thus found herself involved in enormous and unexpected expense, and money became the burning question of the hour.

Mrs. Eddy well knew, from experience, that all she had to do to procure the money necessary, was to ask the faithful to give it to her; but she, naturally, didn’t care to make an open appeal for it. She resorted, as I believe, to the strangest and most audacious trick ever employed by any human being to get money out of honest and trusting people.

Four days before Christmas, 1899, when it was safe to assume that the customary Christmas offerings were in the mail on their way to her, she published in the Christian Science Sentinel the following:

“A Card.

“Beloved: I ask this favor of all Christian Scientists. Do not give me on, before, or after the forthcoming holidays, aught material except three tea jackets. All may contribute to these. One learns to value material things only as one needs them, and the costliest things are those that one needs least. Among my present needs material are these three jackets. Two of darkish heavy silk, the shade appropriate to white hair. The third of heavy satin, lighter shade, but sufficiently sombre. Nos. 1 and 2 to be common sense jackets for Mother to work in, and not over trimmed by any means. No. 3 for best, such as she can afford for her drawing room.

“Mary Baker Eddy.”

When this “Card” was published Mrs. Eddy must have believed that there were upwards of a million Christian Scientists, for years before she had said, “In 1883 a million of people acknowledge and attest the blessings of this mental system of treating disease.” So she must have expected approximately a million people to make some response to her request.

It will be noted that the “Card” doesn’t ask for tea jackets; it asks for contributions for tea jackets. Mrs. Eddy had no expectation that a million or more garments would be received in response to her statement that she needed two of heavy silk, the shade appropriate to white hair, and one of heavy satin lighter shade but sufficiently sombre. If she had wanted the tea jackets and not contributions, she would have given waist and bust measurements, with length of sleeve and skirt. No, there was no room for doubt that what she wanted from all her “Beloved” was contributions and not jackets, and as she hadn’t designated anyone to receive the contributions, all were asked to make for Mother’s benefit, there was nothing to do but send the contributions straight to Mother. All had contributed many times and all were given another precious chance to show how “easy” they were.

There was never any publicity given to contributions received for the two common sense jackets for Mother to work in, and the more elaborate one such as she could afford for her drawing-room; but who, that has any familiarity with the exceeding eagerness of Mrs. Eddy’s followers to contribute, can have any doubt that none would think of sending her less than five dollars.