Before commencing to read from Mrs. Eddy's book "he shall distinctly announce its full title and give the author's name."
A Reader must not be a leader in the church.
Lest, under all these restrictions, his incorrigible ambition might still put forth its buds, there is a saving by-law which provides that Mrs. Eddy can without explanation remove any reader at any time that she sees fit to do so.[6]
Mrs. Eddy herself seems to have considered this a safe arrangement. In the same number of the Journal in which she dismissed her pastors and substituted Readers, she stated, in an open letter, that her students would find in that issue "the completion, as I now think, of the Divine directions sent out to the churches." But it was by no means the completion. By the summer of 1902 Septimus J. Hanna, First Reader of the Mother Church in Boston, had become, without the liberty to preach or to "make remarks," by the mere sound of his voice, it would seem, so influential that Mrs. Eddy felt the necessity to limit still further the Reader's power. Of course she could have dismissed Mr. Hanna, but he was far too useful to be dispensed with. So Mrs. Eddy made a new ruling that the Reader's term of office should be limited to three years,[7] and, Mr. Hanna's term then being up, he was put into the lecture field. Now the highest dignity that any Christian Scientist could hope for was to be chosen to read "Science and Health" aloud for three years at a comfortable salary.
Why the Readers Obeyed
Why, it has often been asked, did the more influential pastors—people with a large personal following, like Mrs. Stetson—consent to resign their pulpits in the first place and afterward to be stripped of privilege after privilege? Some of them, of course, submitted because they believed that Mrs. Eddy possessed "Divine Wisdom"; others because they remembered what had happened to dissenters aforetime. Of all those who had broken away from Mrs. Eddy's authority, not one had attained to anything like her obvious success or material prosperity, while many had followed wandering fires and had come to nothing. Christian Science leaders had staked their fortunes upon the hypothesis that Mrs. Eddy possessed "divine wisdom"; it was as expounders of this wisdom that they had obtained their influence and built up their churches. To rebel against the authority of Mrs. Eddy's wisdom would be to discredit themselves; to discredit Mrs. Eddy's wisdom would have been to destroy their whole foundation. To claim an understanding and an inspiration equal to Mrs. Eddy's, would have been to cheapen and invalidate everything that gave Christian Science an advantage over other religions. Had they once denied the Revelation and the Revelator upon which their church was founded, the whole structure would have fallen in upon them. If Mrs. Eddy's intelligence were not divine in one case, who would be able to say that it was in another? If they could not accept Mrs. Eddy's wisdom when she said "there shall be no pastors," how could they persuade other people to accept it when she said "there is no matter"? It was clear, even to those who writhed under the restrictions imposed upon them, that they must stand or fall with Mrs. Eddy's Wisdom, and that to disobey it was to compromise their own career. Even in the matter of getting on in the world, it was better to be a doorkeeper in the Mother Church than to dwell in the tents of the "mental healers."
Mrs. Stetson and Mrs. Eddy
Probably it was harder for Mrs. Stetson to retire from the pastorship than for any one else; indeed, it was often whispered that the pastors were dismissed largely because Mrs. Stetson's growing influence suggested to Mrs. Eddy the danger of permitting such powers to her vice-regents. Mrs. Stetson had gone to New York when Christian Science was practically unknown there, and from poor and small beginnings had built up a rich and powerful church. But, when the command came, she stepped out of the pulpit she had built. She is to-day probably the most influential person, after Mrs. Eddy, in the Christian Science body. Rumors are ever and again started that Mrs. Stetson is not at all times loyal to her Leader, and that she controls her faction for her own ends rather than for Mrs. Eddy's. Whatever Mrs. Stetson's private conversation may be, her public utterances have always been humble enough, and she annually declares her loyalty. In 1907 the New York World published several interviews with persons who asserted that they believed Mrs. Eddy to be controlled by a clique of Christian Scientists who were acting for Mrs. Stetson's interests. In June Mrs. Stetson wrote Mrs. Eddy a letter which was printed in the Christian Science Sentinel and which read in part:
"Boston, Mass., June 9, 1907.
"My Precious Leader:—I am glad I know that I am in the hands of God, not of men. These reports are only the revival of a lie which I have not heard for a long time. It is a renewed attack upon me and my loyal students, to turn me from following in the footsteps of Christ by making another attempt to dishearten me and make me weary of the struggle to demonstrate my trust in God to deliver me from the 'accuser of our brethren.' It is a diabolical attempt to separate me from you, as my Leader and Teacher....
"Oh, Dearest, it is such a lie! No one who knows us can believe this. It is vicarious atonement. Has the enemy no more argument to use, that it has to go back to this? It is exhausting its resources and I hope the end is near. You know my love for you, beloved; and my students love you as their Leader and Teacher; they follow your teachings and lean on the 'sustaining infinite.' They who refuse to accept you as God's messenger, or ignore the message which you bring, will not get up by some other way, but will come short of salvation....
"Dearly beloved, we are not ascending out of sense as fast as we desire, but we are trusting in God to put off the false and put on the Christ. This lie cannot disturb you nor me. I love you and my students love you, and we never touch you with such a thought as is mentioned.
"Lovingly your child,
"Augusta E. Stetson."