Real-estate men in Boston would wonder how it was possible for Mrs. Eddy legally to acquire, for the sum of five thousand dollars, by the proper foreclosure of a mortgage, property upon which Mr. Nathan Matthews had been willing to lend nine thousand dollars. Indeed, it is remarkable that Mrs. Eddy should, at an open foreclosure sale, have been able to buy for five thousand dollars a property hundreds of men in the city of Boston would have been only too glad to have paid, at the time, upwards of ten thousand dollars for. Was this foreclosure regular, or was it fraudulent, as were so many of Mrs. Eddy’s transactions? To one who has delved into her methods, as I have, it would seem as if everything that she touched became tainted with fraud or false pretense; and it is simply incredible that here in the city of Boston, after due advertisement, and at a legal public auction, a piece of real estate could be purchased for but little more than half the money so sagacious an investor as Mr. Matthews was willing to lend upon it. And what of the owners of the equity in this land, who were Mrs. Eddy’s own friends and followers, and whom she thus despoiled? They had contributed about $7,000 and were left nothing, while Mrs. Eddy for $5,000 acquired all.
Mrs. Eddy, herself, says, “the property was transferred in a circuitous and novel way, the wisdom of which a few persons have since scrupled,” and that her intent, while “spiritually inalienable,” was “materially questionable.” It is interesting to note that the instruments employed by Mrs. Eddy for the executing of the “materially questionable” transaction were two Boston lawyers who have since been disbarred.
Again, in the Christian Science Journal for February, 1898, is an editorial statement, evidently prepared by Editor Hanna under Mrs. Eddy’s direction, in which an effort is made to meet the criticism upon Mrs. Eddy’s mercenary methods, he refers to three instances which he calls “evidences of a generosity and self-sacrifice that appeal to our deepest sense of gratitude, even while surpassing our comprehension.”
Now, what are these evidences of this extraordinary “generosity and self-sacrifice”?
The first is the gift of the land to the church. “Years ago,” says Mr. Hanna, “she donated a lot of ground in Boston, on which to erect the Mother Church, that was then valued at twenty thousand dollars, and now estimated to be worth more than double that sum.” Mr. Hanna, it should be observed, does not say, “which cost her five thousand dollars,” but which “was then valued at twenty thousand dollars”;
and he does not say anything about the reserved right to re-enter and repossess herself of the land and all the buildings that might be constructed upon it, which right she secured for not more than $5,000. If it was “then valued at twenty thousand dollars,” as Hanna says, or at forty thousand dollars, as Mrs. Eddy’s book says, how did Mrs. Eddy get it for five? Perhaps Mr. Hanna can tell. Mr. Hanna can tell many things, if he will. He has sworn that—so help him God!—he is completely ignorant of the belief of the members of the church of which he was the first reader, or minister, regarding the founder of the alleged religion he pretends to profess and professes to expound, so we may not ask him anything about that; but he may be able to tell us how his “generous” and “self-denying” leader secured for five thousand dollars Boston real estate worth twenty or forty thousand. It is a trick some of our real-estate speculators would be glad to learn.
Another of these evidences of a “generosity and self-sacrifice” surpassing Mr. Hanna’s comprehension is a conveyance in perpetuity to the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, of the real estate of the Christian Science Publishing Society; to wit, the lots and buildings known as 95 and 97 Falmouth Street, “valued,” says Mr. Hanna, at “not less than twenty-two thousand dollars.”
Again the wily Hanna gives us what he calls the value and not the cost to Mrs. Eddy; and again, like a true disciple of his cautious teacher, he suppresses the fact that the property in question was conveyed to Mrs. Eddy three days before she conveyed it to the church, by the Christian Science Publishing Society, for the nominal sum of one dollar. Mrs. Eddy always reserves very substantial rights, and here she reserved to herself the right to use and occupy as much room, conveniently and pleasantly located, as she might require for her own publishing business. If, at any time, she shall require the whole of the premises for her publishing business, she has the right, under her deed, to occupy the whole, and this right she acquired for one dollar, and did not part with. Mr. Hanna is a great stickler for values when contending for Mrs. Eddy’s great generosity. It sounds rather better, and makes a better showing for his patron, to say that her gift (to which she reserves, if she wishes it, the exclusive use) is valued at $22,000, than to state the cold truth that it cost her the sum of one dollar.
Another of these evidences of unselfishness on Mrs. Eddy’s part, too great for Mr. Hanna’s understanding, is the transfer to the church in perpetuity of the Christian Science Journal, Quarterly, and all the literary publications of the society, and every right and privilege whatsoever connected therewith, saving only the right to copyright the Journal in her own name; and these properties the astute Hanna again “values” at fifty thousand dollars. Again he says nothing about what they cost Mrs. Eddy, and again he says nothing about the right she reserved to herself. These properties, as in the case of the real estate, were acquired three days before she gave them to the church, by Mrs. Eddy, from the Christian Science Publishing Society, for the large sum of one dollar, and she reserved not only the right to copyright
the Christian Science Journal, which was the only value the Journal possessed, but she reserved the right to withdraw the Journal from the trust and from the church at any time she pleased. In other words, she procured title to the Journal, with a subscription list of 20,000 and over, for $1.00 and did not give the Journal to the church or the society at all. What she did give to the church, according to the official record, cost her nothing, and what she acquired was a prosperous periodical with a paying subscription list of 20,000 or more.