"I knew a person," writes again Mrs. Eddy, "who when a child adopted the Graham system to cure dyspepsia" (p. 221); and then she proceeds to relate how this led him to death's door and he was ready to die, "having exhausted the skill of the doctors, who kindly informed him that death was indeed his only alternative," and how "Christian Science saved him, and he is now in perfect health without a vestige of the old complaint" (p. 221). Surely this fortunate person would have no objection to have his name announced and his case investigated. Why, then, suppress-his identity?
Printed in italics at the foot of page xii of Science and Health will be found the following notice or advertisement:—The author (Mrs. Eddy) takes no patients, and declines medical consultation.
The above offers an excellent illustration of the distinction between work and play. Mrs. Eddy, with the mentality she possessed, found it easier to compose phrases and make vague statements about past cures than actually to grapple with "patients" or to take part in "medical consultation," whatever that may mean in Christian Science. After repeatedly asserting that the only way to demonstrate the truth of her science is by healing the sick, she herself positively declines to give this demonstration. It is really puzzling. Here is a woman who had discovered the only power that can heal the sick as nothing else can, and no other person understands the modus operandi of this power better or even as well as she does, and yet she will take no patients—that is, she will under no circumstances apply her remedy, however urgent the need for it may be!
Some people might be led to think that Mrs. Eddy's refusal to practise healing was due to her fear that she might not always succeed, which would greatly diminish her prestige and prejudice the public against her discovery. To claim, as we have explained elsewhere, that Mrs. Eddy's motive in refusing to heal the sick herself was that she might have more time and strength for matters of higher importance would imply that she was not strong enough to do both. But would not such an admission prove fatal to the claim that all is divine Mind, and that in divine Mind there is no sin, sickness, fatigue, or limitation of any kind?
The husband of Mrs. Eddy died; that was an event calling for an explanation from the discoverer of an unfailing remedy for all maladies who happened to be the widow of the deceased. How could any one so closely related to Mrs. Eddy, and taking her treatment, succumb to sickness of any kind? Mrs. Eddy looked about for an answer to that question. "My husband died from the effects of arsenical poisoning mentally administered" was her first effort at self-defence.
But Mrs. Eddy was quick to realize that she could ill afford to admit that an imaginary dose of arsenic mentally administered could deprive a Christian Scientist of his life, for she hastened to explain further that unfortunately "circumstances debarred me from taking hold of my husband's case."
"Circumstances," then, killed her husband, since had she not been debarred by them she would have come to his rescue with her "divine" science and prevented his death. To further exonerate and defend herself she is inclined to blame her husband a little. "My husband declared himself perfectly capable of carrying himself through, and I was so entirely absorbed in business that I permitted him to try, and when I awakened to the danger it was too late." Now we know why Christian Science failed in this particular case. Mrs. Eddy was too busy, and she awoke to the seriousness of her husband's condition too late. Besides, the patient himself believed he was quite able to cope with the trouble without his wife's help. In short, "circumstances" proved too much for Christian Science. That is why Mrs. Eddy's husband died.
The more Mrs. Eddy explained, the more she had to explain. If Mr. Eddy was murdered by means of mesmeric poison (whatever that may be), mentally administered by an absent practitioner who, Mrs. Eddy believed, was one of her own apostate disciples—that is, if some one could from a distance kill her husband—what prevented her, by the same absent treatment, and without taking any time from her other duties, from defeating the work of the mal-practitioner by a thought or two of her own? If this could not be done, and since there is a possibility of other divine healers being so entirely absorbed in business as to neglect their patients, had we not better hold on to the doctors a little longer, at least until Christian Science has become a match for "circumstances, etc."? And if a healer equipped with "divine" science can have more to do than he or she has the strength to attend to, in what sense is "divine" science more resourceful than plain, ordinary science?
But there is more to come. Mrs. Eddy declares that one of her rejected students tried to kill her in the same way as her husband had been killed. But he could not, "because I instantly gave myself the same treatment that I would give in a case of arsenical poisoning (mentally administered), and so I recovered, just the same as I could have caused my husband to recover had I taken the case in time." There is no such thing as failure with Mrs. Eddy. Her husband would never have died had she given him the same treatment as she gave herself. Of course, years later Mrs. Eddy died too; but there, again, "circumstances" must have proved too formidable for Christian Science, otherwise both the Eddys might be living still.
The founder of this popular cult believed that she had now explained the death of her husband to the satisfaction of her faithful flock. She certainly could have saved Mr. Eddy's life had she not been too busy with other matters, or "too late" in taking hold of his case. To prove this she goes on to give examples of her wonderful powers, as will be seen by the following: "Only a few days ago I disposed of a tumour in twenty-four hours that the doctors had said must be removed by the knife. I changed the course of the mind to counteract the effect of the disease"; and of course the malignant tumour took wings and flew away, twenty-four hours of Christian Science being all it could stand. It was really unfortunate that so powerful a healer was prevented by pressure of "business" from lending a thought to her sick husband. It was not because she did not want to help him, nor because her "divine" science was not equal to his trouble, but because of "circumstances." We hope that in the near future some advanced practitioner of Christian Science will discover a cure for that terrible malady called "circumstances," which reduced Mrs. Eddy to impotency at the bedside of a dying husband; a cure which will be as effective against "circumstances" as against tumours, cancer, etc. In comparison with such sophistry or make-believe, how refreshing is the intellectual honesty which sees true and aims straight.