Pretence of Equality with Jesus
Coming now to what makes it worth our while to consider the
career of this remarkable woman, let me present the facts
regarding her relation to the life and to the activities of the
world of today, and how and by what very devious means she has
reached and maintains the position she now holds.
What does Mrs. Eddy claim to be, and what is she believed to be
by many thousands of people who have made her their religious
leader and guide, and reverence her as the devout Christian
reverences Christ?
Mrs. Eddy claims that she is the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy,
that she and her book are specifically referred to and prophesied
in the Book of Revelation.
She says, “My attention is especially called to the twelfth
chapter of the Apocalypse or Revelation of Saint John, on account
of its suggestiveness in connection with this nineteenth century.
In this opening of the sixth seal, there is one distinctive
feature which has _special reference_ to the _present age_, and
the _establishment of Christian Science in this period_. ‘And
there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the
sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of
twelve stars.’”
With eyes downcast, with “bated breath and whispering
humbleness,” bashfully pointing to herself, in low tones that
inspire awe, she says, “The woman clothed with the sun, Mary
Baker G. Eddy.”
Again, she says: “Saint John writes in the tenth chapter of the
Book of Revelation: ‘And I saw another mighty angel come down
from Heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his
head, and his face was, as it were, the sun, and his feet as
pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book, open, and
he set his right foot upon the earth.’ Is this angel, or message
from God, Divine Science that comes in a cloud? This angel had in
his hand a little book open for all to read and understand. Then
will a voice from harmony cry, Go and take the little book. Take
up Divine Science. Study it, ponder it. It will be indeed sweet
at its first taste when it heals you, but murmur not over Truth
if you find its digestion bitter.”
The “little book,” “Science and Health,” of God’s authorship, but
copyrighted by Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, and to be had of her
publisher in Boston by any one who has three dollars or more,
according to binding, to pay for it!
Intentionally vague as are these oracular utterances, we cannot
but catch her evident meaning: In me behold the woman clothed
with the sun; in my book, the “little book” sent down from
Heaven, and in Christian Science the message from God contained
in the little book held in the hand of the angel!
Christian Scientists get this down without so much as a murmur!
This is one of the easy things she has given them to swallow.
Besides this, Mrs. Eddy has distinctly authorized the claim in
her behalf that she herself is the chosen successor to and equal
of Jesus, that her mission is to complete the religion of Christ.
In the earlier days she placed her mission above that of Jesus,
inasmuch as the idea of God given by her was, she said, “higher,
clearer and more permanent than before.” But, later, she seems to
have been satisfied with equality only, and says, “The second
appearing of Jesus is unquestionably the second advent of the
advancing idea of God as in Christian Science.”
She, however, patronizingly points out the short-comings of
Jesus. “Our Master healed the sick, practiced Christian healing,
and taught the generalities of this divine principle to his
students, but he left no definite word for demonstrating his
principle of healing and preventing disease. This remained to be
discovered through Christian Science,” and “Had wisdom
characterized all his sayings, he would not have prophesied his
own death and thereby hastened or caused it.” While in speaking
of herself she said, “The works I have written on Christian
Science contain absolute truth and my necessity was to tell it. I
was a scribe under orders, and who can refrain from transcribing
what God indites?” So wisdom did not characterize all of the
sayings of Jesus; but Mrs. Eddy speaks absolute truth!
In the _Christian Science Journal_ for April, 1889, when it was
her property and published by her, and upwards of twenty years
after the time she says God had selected her to complete the
religion of Jesus, it was claimed for her, and with her sanction,
that she was equal with Jesus, and elaborate effort was made to
establish the claim. “Now a word about the horror many good
people have of our making the author of ‘Science and Health’
equal with Jesus!” says the writer, and in the first paragraph of
the article, the question is asked, “Do we, then, say that the
author of ‘Science and Health’ is equal with Jesus?” A little
further on appears the statement, “Jesus demonstrated over all
the beliefs of this false sense of life, even over the belief of
death, the last enemy to be overcome.” And further, “Mrs. M. B.
G. Eddy has worked out for us, as on a blackboard, every point in
the demonstrations, or so-called miracles of Jesus, showing us
how to meet and overcome the one, and perform the other” and,
throughout the article, its whole clearly apparent purpose is to
carry the conviction that in attributes and power Mrs. Eddy is
the entire equal of Jesus.
In an illustrated “poem” entitled “Christ and Christmas,” written
by Mrs. Eddy, and published and copyrighted by her in 1894, there
is a picture labeled “Christian Unity,” in which Jesus is
represented as seated upon a stone holding the right hand of Mary
—Mary Baker G. Eddy. In the left hand of the woman is a scroll
bearing the legend “Christian Science,” and about the head of
each figure, that of Jesus and that of the Christian Science
woman, there is a halo. The picture is illustrative of these
lines on the opposite page:
“As in blessed Palestine’s hour, so in our age
’Tis the same hand unfolds His Power and writes the page.”
At the time this book was announced by Mrs. Eddy, in December,
1893, she publicly said of it, “‘Christ and Christmas’ voices God
through song and object lesson.” The price of the book was three
dollars. How convenient to be able to command a market by voicing
God! How kind God has been to Mrs. Eddy’s business ventures!
At the time of this publication, Mrs. Eddy, who claimed to have
shared in making the illustrations (which her man Hanna called
“exquisite bits of art,” but which are, doubtless, the vulgarest
products of the art of book-making of many years), at this time,
I say, Mrs. Eddy unquestionably wished this “Christian Unity”
illustration to signify the unity of Christianity and Christian
Science, as represented by the founder of Christianity and the
founder of Christian Science, and about her own head, as about
the head of Christ, she hangs a halo! The two Messiahs, masculine
and feminine, and representing “Our Father and our Mother God,”
hand in hand, absolute equality. Christian Unity!
Her private correspondence has been full of pretensions to direct
meditation with God, and her followers have been induced
unquestioningly to comply with her wishes regarding the most
trivial things because she but voiced a wish communicated to them
through her by God.
“God, our God has just told me,” she says, “who to recommend to
you for editor of the _Christian Science Journal_,” And, “No man
or woman has told me of this obnoxious feature, but my Father
has, and it shall be stopped by His servant who has given His
word to the world.” And, “God’s law ‘to feed my sheep,’ to give
Science and Health at once to those hungering for it, must be
obeyed.” (To those hungering three dollars worth!) And, “I ought
not to have consulted with man on the copyright of God’s Book.”
And, “Come to see me next Saturday, a.m., on nine o’clock train,
and God will settle this matter.” And, “Now what can I do, only
to spread His word of warning and wait for all students to grow
up to understand _His_ ways, and _mine_ when God directed.” And,
“God will not let me be silent relative to your business here
yesterday, but demands me to answer, reminding you of your
feelings toward me.” And, “Push the Book to as fast as possible
completion. It is _God’s Book_, and he says give it at once to
the people.” (At three dollars per copy!) And, “You know they
cannot be made sick for printing and binding _God’s Book_.”
But Jove nods; Mrs. Eddy stumbles. Sometimes it is the Christian
Science devil that, impersonating God, whispers to her. “I
regret,” she says, “having named the one I did to you for editor.
It was a mistake, he is not fit. It was not God evidently that
suggested that thought, but the person who suggests many things
mentally; but I have before been able to discriminate.” This
incident suggests the importance of one, who is the channel of
wireless telegraphy from God, being able to discriminate between
messages from Heaven and messages from Hell, and having the power
to prevent satanic interference with the medium of communication.
In a late edition of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy speaks of
Jesus as “the masculine representative of the spiritual idea,”
and says, “the impersonation of the spiritual idea had a brief
history in the earthly life of our Master, but of His Kingdom
there shall be no end, for Christ’s, God’s idea, will eventually
rule all nations and people, imperatively, absolutely, finally,—
with Divine Science. This immaculate idea, represented first by
man and last by woman, will baptize with fire,” etc.
By “Divine Science,” Mrs. Eddy, of course, means Christian
Science, as the terms are used interchangably with her, and with
characteristic modesty she places herself by the side of the
Master—He being the first and masculine, and she the last and
feminine, representative of the “immaculate idea.”
What marvelous presumption! What ineffable audacity!
The Mary Baker G. Eddy, who in speaking of a woman she disliked
savagely exclaimed, “I’d like to tear her heart out and trample
it under my feet!” who, at Lynn, because of her abuse of her
husband and violent outbursts of temper, was known as the “she
devil”; who, four years after the time of her pretended selection
by God for a divine mission, being denied hospitality she had
abused in the Wentworth household at Stoughton, left in a fury of
passion after having, with obvious intent, put live coals from
her stove upon a heap of newspapers in the closet; who figured
first as a spiritualist medium, giving public séances for money,
and later as the president of a bogus medical college issuing
illegal degrees; who unfeelingly abandoned the only child born to
her, and looked with unflinching eyes upon the detached heart of
her deceased husband; who has become the champion fraud and
impostor of the age; who in the livery of heaven has for forty
years wrought in the direct interest of hell,—this Mrs. Eddy, the
self-constituted representative with Jesus of the immaculate
idea! this woman and the immaculate Jesus mentioned in the same
breath!