Her pastors having been satisfactorily dealt with, the next danger Mrs. Eddy saw lay in her teachers and "academies." Mrs. Eddy soon found, of course, that a great many Christian Scientists wished to make their living out of their new religion; that possibility, indeed, was one of the most effective advantages which Christian Science had to offer over other religions. In the early days of the church, while Mrs. Eddy herself was still instructing classes in Christian Science at her "college," teaching was a much more remunerative business than healing. Mrs. Eddy charged each student $300 for a primary course of seven lessons, and the various Christian Science "institutes" and "academies" about the country charged from $100 to $200 per student. So long as Mrs. Eddy was herself teaching and never took patients, she could not well forbid other teachers to do likewise. But after she retired to Concord, she took the teachers in hand. Mrs. Eddy knew well enough that Christian Science was propagated and that converts were made, not through doctrine, but through cures. She had found that out in the very beginning, when Richard Kennedy's cures brought her her first success. She knew, too, that teaching Christian Science was a much easier profession than healing by it, and that the teacher risked no encounter with the law. Since teaching was both easier and more remunerative, the first thing to be done in discouraging it was to cut down the teacher's fee, and to limit the number of pupils which one teacher might instruct in a year. By 1904 Mrs. Eddy had got the teacher's fee down to fifty dollars per student, and a teacher was not permitted to teach more than thirty students a year. Mrs. Eddy's purpose is as clear as it was wise: she desired that no one should be able to make a living by teaching alone. It was healing that carried the movement forward, and whoever made a living by Christian Science must heal. From 1903 to 1906 all teaching was suspended under the by-law "Healing better than teaching."
In the fall of 1895 Mrs. Eddy issued her instructions to the churches in the form of a volume entitled the "Church Manual of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass." The by-laws herein contained, she says, "were impelled by a power not one's own, were written at different dates, as occasion required." This book is among Mrs. Eddy's copyrighted works,—a source of revenue, like the rest,—and has now been through more than forty editions. Some of the by-laws in the earlier editions are perplexing.
We find that "Careless comparison or irreverent reference to Christ Jesus, is abnormal in a Christian Scientist and prohibited."[8] It is probable that no Christian church had ever before found it necessary to make such a prohibition.
Again, the by-laws state that "Any member of this church who is found living with a child improperly, or claiming a child not legally adopted, or claiming or living with a husband or a wife to whom they have not been legally married, shall immediately be excommunicated," etc.[9] This seems a strange subject for especial legislation.
The Manual, however, is chiefly interesting as an exposition of Mrs. Eddy's method of church government and as an inventory of her personal prerogatives. Never was a title more misleadingly modest than Mrs. Eddy's title of "Pastor Emeritus" of the Mother Church.
How the Mother Church is Organized
Next to Mrs. Eddy in authority is the Board of Directors, who were chosen by Mrs. Eddy and who are subject to her in all their official acts. Any one of these directors can at any time be dismissed upon Mrs. Eddy's request, and the vacancy can be filled only by a candidate whom she has approved. All the church business is transacted by these directors,—no other members of the church may be present at the business meetings,—and if at any time one of them should refuse to carry out Mrs. Eddy's instructions, or should grumble about carrying them out, her request would remove him. The members of this board, in addition to their precarious tenure, are pledged to secrecy; they "shall neither report the discussions of this Board, nor those with Mrs. Eddy."[10]
These directors are Mrs. Eddy's machine; they are her executive self, created by her breath, dissolved at a breath, and committed to silence. Their chief duties are two—to elect to office whomsoever Mrs. Eddy appoints, and to hold their peace.
The President of the church is annually elected by the directors, the election being subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval.[11]
The First and Second Readers are elected every third year by the directors, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval, but she can remove a Reader either from the Mother Church or from any of the branch churches whenever she sees fit and without explanation.[12]