A Sham “Religion”
Mrs. Eddy describes herself, and has made her followers believe
her to be, the “discoverer and founder of Christian Science.”
It is very easy to disprove her claim to discovery, and to show
her foundation stones to have been theft and falsehood and fraud.
As a pretended “religion” it is all hers, and no one else lays
claim to it; as a mental healing system, it is none of it hers
and her pretensions to originality are wholly fictitious.
Let it be remembered, always, that on the first page of her book,
“Science and Health,” as published in 1898, and in many other
editions, Mrs. Eddy makes her claim to originality and revelation
in the following unequivocal terms:
“In the year 1866 I discovered the science of metaphysical
healing and named it Christian Science. God had been graciously
fitting me during many years for a final _revelation_ of the
absolute principle of scientific mind healing.”
If, prior to 1866, God had been “graciously fitting” her during
many years for the “final revelation,” it appears that, years
afterwards, God’s work was not quite completed and her character
entirely sublimated. Some of her friends in Lynn, in 1881,
fifteen years after the date of her alleged revelation, became of
the opinion that she was not, even then, absolutely perfect and
withdrew from her church there, giving, in writing, as their
reason, “her departure from the straight and narrow road which
alone leads to growth of Christ-like virtue, made manifest by
frequent ebullitions of temper, love of money and the appearance
of hypocrisy.” How accurate was this early estimate of the woman
as shown by every known act of her life!
The writer of the series of articles in _McClure’s Magazine_ on
Christian Science told me she had heard the criticism that it
contained only the bad things about Mrs. Eddy, and she had been
asked why she had not incorporated such good things as might be
said of her. She assured me she had searched the whole of Mrs.
Eddy’s life for a kindly, a generous, an unselfish, a fine
womanly deed, and would have been only too glad to have recorded
it, but had not found one—not one such act in the long life of
more than fourscore years.
Mrs. Eddy claims discovery, and commits herself not only as to
the _time_ of her “discovery,” but as to the _manner_ of it, and
each claim, that of _discovery_, that of the _time_ and that of
the _manner_, is wholly and demonstrably false.
In October, 1862, Mrs. Mary M. Patterson (now Mary Baker G. Eddy)
placed herself in the hands of Dr. Phineas P. Quimby of Portland,
Maine, for treatment, with the result described by herself over
her own signature in the _Portland Evening Courier_, of November
7, 1862, as follows:
“Three weeks ago I quitted my nurse and sickroom _en route_ for
Portland. The belief of my recovery had died out of the hearts
of those who were most anxious for it. With this mental and
physical depression, I visited P. P. Quimby, and in less than
one week from that time I ascended by a stairway of one hundred
and eighty-two steps to the dome of the City Hall, and am
improving _ad infinitum_. This truth which he opposes to the
error of giving intelligence to matter and placing pain where
it never placed itself, if received understandingly, changes
the currents of the system to their normal action and the
mechanism of the body goes on undisturbed. That this is a
science capable of demonstration, becomes clear to the minds of
those patients who reason upon the process of their cure. The
truth which he establishes in the patient, cures him (although
he may be wholly unconscious thereof), and the body, which is
full of light, is no longer in disease.”
This was Mrs. Patterson-Eddy’s professed understanding of Dr.
Quimby’s “science,” in 1862, after having been three weeks under
his treatment, and any one familiar with Christian Science will
not need to be told that it is the same thing. This “truth,”
which Mrs. Patterson-Eddy in 1862 said Quimby opposed to the
“error” of placing intelligence in matter and which, when
established in the patient, cured him, is the very same “truth”
which in her book, with tireless iteration, Mrs. Eddy opposes to
the very same alleged “error,” which thereupon effects the same
alleged “cure.” Every “Scientist” will at once recognize the A B
C of “divine science.”
Dr. Quimby, who is spoken of by a lady, who knew him well at the
time Mrs. Patterson-Eddy was taking his treatment and stealing
his system, as a man of “absolute sincerity and purity of thought
and life,” died in January, 1866, and Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs.
Patterson, not having conceived the plan of appropriating to
herself the ideas and theories she had learned from him, almost
immediately after his death wrote and published some verses about
him, in which she compared Quimby with Jesus. She now speaks of
him as a vulgar mesmerist or magnetic healer whose scribblings
she put into grammatical form; she then, in 1866, glorified him
as the Christian glorifies only the Saviour.
These verses, as here presented, are copied from a copy in Mrs.
Eddy’s own handwriting, now in the possession of Mrs. Sarah
Crosby of Waterville, Maine, to whom, in 1866, upon the death of
Dr. Quimby, she sent them:
“Lines on the Death of Dr. P. P. Quimby, who _Healed the Sick as
did Jesus_, in contradistinction to all Isms.
“Did Sack-cloth clothe the sun, and day grow night,
All matter mourn the hour with dewy eyes,
When Truth receding from our mortal sight,
Had paid to error her last sacrifice?
“Can we forget the power that gave us life?
Shall we forget the wisdom of our way?
Then ask me not amid this mortal strife—
This keenest pang of animated clay,
“To mourn him less! To mourn him more were just,
If to his memory ’twere a tribute given
For every earnest, solemn, sacred trust,
Delivered to us ere he rose to Heaven.
“Heaven but the happiness of his calm soul,
Growing in stature to the throne of God;
Rest should reward him who hath made us whole,
Seeking, ’tho tremblers, where his footsteps trod.”
M. M. Patterson.
Comment cannot add to the force of these verses. Inferior as
poetry, they constitute proof and argument not all the falsehoods
and sophistries in the imagination of Mrs. Eddy and her corps of
official defenders can meet and overcome.
In 1866, Mrs. Eddy reverently declared that Dr. Quimby had
“healed the sick as Jesus did;” today speaking slightingly of the
good old man, she says, “his healing was never considered
anything but mesmerism.” Then she gratefully acknowledged that he
had made her “whole”; now she says that his mesmeric treatment
gave her but slight, temporary relief. Then, not having
contemplated the great theft, she spoke of the “earnest, solemn,
sacred trust” delivered to her and others by the trustful man;
now she repudiates him altogether, and denies that she received
any helpful suggestion from him. Then she spoke of _herself_ as
“_seeking, though a trembler, where his footsteps trod;_” now she
scornfully says, “I used to take his _scribblings_ and fix them
over for him and give him _my_ thoughts and language which, _as I
understand it_, were _far in advance of his_.”
Can anything Mrs. Eddy says be believed, after this? Could
ingenuity contrive a more violent contradiction in human speech?
Standing absolutely alone, would anything more be needed to
convict her, out of her own mouth, of the basest ingratitude and
the most reckless fraud? But this is only one of a thousand items
in the accumulated proof!
If Christian Science healing is, as Mrs. Eddy and all other
Christian Scientists claim, a revival of the method employed by
Jesus, then Mrs. Eddy here, in her own handwriting, admits that
she learned it from Quimby. There is no possible escape from one
horn or the other of the dilemma—either it is not Christian, or
it is not Mrs. Eddy’s. It requires even less intelligence than
Mrs. Eddy’s friends bring to bear upon her teachings to
comprehend the conclusiveness of this demonstration.
Mrs. Eddy did not discover the Christian Science method of
attempting to heal. Let me make this a little clearer by
demonstrating the falsity of her story as to the _manner_ in
which she made the discovery.
Dr. Quimby died on January 16, 1866, and the first day of
February, 1866, Mrs. Patterson-Eddy, then living in Swampscott, a
suburb of Lynn, fell upon the icy sidewalk and injured herself;
and she now fixes upon her alleged miraculous recovery from this
injury as the precise _way_ in which she made her great discovery
and received her revelation.
In a sketch, published by her concern, The Christian Science
Publishing Society of Boston, and endorsed and approved by her as
an authorized statement, is the following account of _how_ Mrs.
Eddy discovered Christian Science:
“The manner of the discovery has been vividly described. In
company with her husband, she was returning from an errand of
mercy, when she fell upon the icy curbstone, and was carried
helpless to her home. The skilled physicians declared that
there was absolutely no hope for her, and pronounced the
verdict that she had but three days to live. Finding no hope
and no help on earth, she lifted her heart to God. On the third
day, calling for her Bible, she asked the family to leave the
room. Her Bible opened to the healing of the palsied man, Matt.
ix. 2. The truth which set him free she saw. The power which
gave him strength she felt. The life divine which healed the
sick of the palsy restored her, and she rose from the bed of
pain healed and free.”
In her autobiography, “Retrospection and Introspection,” she
says:
“It was in Massachusetts, February, 1866, and after the death
of the magnetic doctor, Mr. P. P. Quimby, whom spiritualists
would associate therewith, but who was in no wise connected
with this event, that I discovered the science of Divine
Metaphysical healing, which I afterward named Christian
Science. The discovery came to pass in this way. During twenty
years prior to my discovery I had been trying to trace all
physical effects to a mental cause; and in the latter part of
1866 I gained the scientific certainty that all causation was
Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon.
“My immediate recovery from the effects of an injury caused by
an accident, an injury that neither medicine nor surgery could
reach, was the falling apple that led me to the discovery how
to be well myself and how to make others so.
“Even to the homeopathic physician who attended me, and
rejoiced in my recovery, I could not then explain the modus of
my relief. I could only assure him that the Divine Spirit had
wrought the miracle, a miracle which later I found to be in
perfect Scientific accord with divine law.”
Unfortunately for her reputation for veracity and fortunately for
the truth of history. Dr. Alvin M. Cushing, the physician who
attended Mrs. Eddy, or Patterson, upon this particular occasion,
is still living and as an honored member of the profession is now
practising in Springfield, Mass. Dr. Cushing expressly, and under
oath, denies that he at any time believed or said that Mrs.
Patterson was in a critical condition, or that there was no hope
for her, or that she had but three or any other limited number of
days to live, and he, with great positiveness, says that she did
not, on the third day or any other day of her illness, say, or
suggest, or pretend, or in any way whatever intimate that she had
miraculously recovered or been healed, or that, discovering or
perceiving the truth of the power employed by Christ to heal the
sick, she had, by it, been restored to health, and he further
says that, on the contrary, on the third day and later days of
this illness, he himself gave her medicine, and again in August
of the same year called upon her four or five times and gave her
medicine.
Dr. Cushing still has his record book in which he, at the time,
recorded each visit, every symptom and every particular of his
treatment.
It must be a peculiar type of mind that can believe Mrs. Eddy’s
story of this illness and recovery, after having the
disinterested version of the attending physician. There is no
reason why Dr. Cushing’s version should be doubted. There is no
reason whatever why Mrs. Eddy’s should be believed.
But Mrs. Eddy herself furnishes, as usual, the most conclusive
evidence of the falsity of this story of her miraculous cure. Her
inventive faculty has ever been more remarkable than her memory,
and what she has forgotten contradicts her.
On “the third day,” according to her latest version, she “arose
from the bed of pain, healed and free,” but in a letter dated
February 15, 1866, two weeks after the accident and while she was
still suffering from its effects, she complained that she was
then “slowly failing,” and implored Mr. Julius Dresser, to whom
the letter was written, to help her.
Here is her story of the incident as written at the time:
Lynn, Feb. 15, 1866.
“Mr. Dresser,—
“_Sir:_ I enclose some lines of mine in memory of our
much-loved Friend, which perhaps _you_ will not think
over-wrought in meaning, _others_ must of course.
“I am constantly wishing that _you_ would step forward into the
place he has vacated. I believe you would do a vast amount of
good, and are more capable of occupying his place than any
other I know of.
“Two weeks ago I fell on the sidewalk and struck my back on the
ice and was taken up for dead, came to consciousness amid a
storm of vapors from cologne, chloroform, ether, camphor, etc.,
but to find myself the helpless cripple I was before I saw Dr.
Quimby.
“The physician attending said I had taken the last step I ever
should, but in two days I got out of my bed _alone_, and _will_
walk, but yet I confess I am frightened, and out of that
nervous heat my friends are forming, spite of me, the terrible
spinal affection from which I have suffered so long and
hopelessly.… Now can’t _you_ help me. I believe you can. I
write this with this feeling: I think I could help another in
_my_ condition, if they had not placed their intelligence in
matter. This I have not done and yet _I am slowly failing_.
Won’t you write me if you will undertake for me if I can get to
you?…
“Respectfully,
“Mary M. Patterson.”
Not to comment upon the singularity of the administration of
chloroform and ether to an unconscious person, it sufficeth to
call attention to the manner in which again Mrs. Patterson
contradicts Mrs. Eddy. She furnishes the most effective kind of
corroboration of Dr. Cushing, and the whole thing is clearly seen
to be an invention, so far as any unusual or peculiar or
miraculous features are concerned. It is clear that Mrs. Eddy did
not discover Christian Science in the _manner_ claimed.
So much for that particular, and particularly silly perversion of
the truth, and invention of the fictitious.
Mrs. Eddy has herself made it especially easy to prove her
revelation to be a fraud and has supplied us with a form of proof
especially convincing. It is conceivable that a claim to
revelation, however intrinsically idiotic, _might_ be made, the
legal disproof of which _might_ be difficult; but if I today say
God revealed something to me a year ago, and if you find many
persons of excellent character who tell you that three, four,
five, six and seven months ago I openly, by word of mouth, and in
writing, times without number, admitted having learned the whole
thing from John Smith, it will be impossible to believe that God
revealed it to me and to me alone. This is precisely the case
with Mrs. Eddy and her Christian Science “religion.” Her
oft-repeated admissions of appropriation disprove her
“revelation” completely.
Absolutely conclusive evidence of the fraudulent character of
Mrs. Eddy’s claim to originality, either by discovery or
revelation, has come to light, and any one, who will take the
trouble to examine it, will have no difficulty in arriving at
positive certainty in the matter.
Now, remembering Mrs. Eddy’s claim to discovery by revelation
from God in 1866, let us see what she was doing in 1867, 1868,
1869 and 1870, the years immediately following her alleged
discovery.
Some years ago I delivered an address in Boston upon Christian
Science that was extensively reported in the newspapers, and a
day or two following the delivery of the lecture a gentleman
called at my office and introduced himself as Horace T. Wentworth
of Stoughton, Mass. He asked me if I knew that in 1868, 1869 and
1870 Mrs. Eddy had lived with his mother, Mrs. Sally Wentworth,
at Stoughton.
I assured Mr. Wentworth that I had not heard of it, and asked him
what she was doing while there.
“Why, she was teaching my mother Dr. P. P. Quimby’s system of
mental healing,” said Mr. Wentworth, “and I have in my pocket my
mother’s copy of the manuscript from which Mrs. Eddy taught.”
Mr. Wentworth pulled the manuscript out of his pocket and handed
it to me. It was entitled, on the front page, “Extracts from Dr.
P. P. Quimby’s Writings.” I glanced through the manuscript and
discovered that it was copiously corrected and interlined in Mrs.
Eddy’s handwriting and contained an introduction signed by her
name. Perusal of it showed it to be in every particular precisely
the same thing as Mrs. Eddy’s Christian Science teachings
regarding the cure of disease.
This was a most interesting discovery, and I carefully
investigated the whole situation, made several trips to Stoughton
for the purpose, and talked with many residents of the place who
had known Mrs. Eddy well, and were perfectly familiar with her
history while there. I subsequently procured the whole story in
writing, under oath, by those who knew it personally. Since then,
others following my published accounts, have detailed the
Stoughton episode and _McClure’s Magazine_ published it in full.
It appears that in 1867, Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Patterson, went to
Stoughton to live. She had separated from her second husband,
Daniel Patterson, and not having then married her third husband,
Eddy, called herself, and was known by the name of her first
husband, Mary M. Glover.
Mrs. Glover first lived at Stoughton with one Hiram Crafts, and
taught Crafts from manuscript a system of mental healing she told
Crafts she had learned from Dr. P. P. Quimby. After learning it,
Crafts undertook to practise it and had announcements printed and
circulated declaring his system to have been the discovery of Dr.
Quimby.
But Mrs. Glover and Mrs. Crafts did not seem to find one
another’s society especially enjoyable, and for a time, Mrs.
Crafts left Mrs. Glover in possession. In 1868, upon the
invitation of Mrs. Sally Wentworth, Mrs. Glover moved to the
Wentworths’ house at Stoughton, where she continued to live until
1870.
Mrs. Eddy’s writings will be searched in vain for any reference
to Mrs. Wentworth, or to the fact that she spent about three
years in the Wentworths’ house at Stoughton; but, in
characteristic fashion, she hides the facts under this obscure
and oracular utterance:
“I then (1866), withdrew from society, about three years, to
ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the
Science of Mind that should take the things of God and show
them to the creature, and reveal the great Curative Principle,
God.”
Mrs. Wentworth invited Mrs. Glover to live with her and teach her
the Quimby science of mind healing, and that is what Mrs. Glover
did during the three years she was a member of Mrs. Wentworth’s
family. She “pondered her mission,” etc., by avowedly teaching
Dr. Quimby’s alleged science of mind healing, and she gave Mrs.
Wentworth a copy of her, Mrs. Glover’s, manuscript copy of
Quimby’s writings. This copy of Mrs. Eddy’s copy of what she then
said were Quimby’s writings, in Mrs. Wentworth’s handwriting and
containing corrections and interlineations in the handwriting of
Mrs. Glover-Eddy, is the manuscript now in the possession of Mrs.
Wentworth’s son, Horace T. Wentworth of Stoughton, Mass.
During Mrs. Glover’s sojourn at Mrs. Wentworth’s, the household
consisted, besides Mrs. Wentworth and her guest, of her husband,
Mr. Alanson C. Wentworth, and their two children, Lucy and
Charles O. Wentworth. Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth died in 1882, but
Lucy and Charles O. and Horace T. Wentworth are still living, and
they, with their cousin, Mrs. Catherine I. Clapp, who was much at
their house during Mrs. Glover’s visit, have stated the facts
under oath and in such a manner that they _must_ be believed.
Lucy Wentworth, now Mrs. Arthur L. Holmes, was about seventeen
years of age when Mrs. Glover left her mother’s house. Mrs.
Holmes, who still lives at Stoughton, says that she well
remembers Mrs. Glover’s visit, and that she was teaching her
mother a system of mental healing she said she had learned from
Dr. Quimby.
“‘It wasn’t safe for anybody to say anything to me against Mrs.
Glover,’ says Mrs. Holmes. ‘She spent all her time teaching my
mother her new science. I was around her constantly, would
rather be with her than with any one else, and I often used to
hear her say, “I learned this from Dr. Quimby.” It is one of
the distinct recollections of my childhood.’”
Charles O. Wentworth, now of Avon, Mass., says he, too, well
remembers Mrs. Eddy’s visit during the years 1868, 1869 and 1870,
and that he many times heard her say she had learned her mental
science from Dr. Quimby. He says she avowed it openly, and always
spoke of it as Dr. Quimby’s system.
Horace T. Wentworth, who was married and so not living at home
with his parents, but who was often at their house, adds his
positive testimony. He says:
“Never at any time during the years she was at our house, from
1868 to 1870, did Mrs. Glover give the slightest hint that any
one other than Dr. Quimby had had any share in the origin of
the system of mental healing she was teaching my mother. It
could not then have entered her mind to claim it for herself.
That was an afterthought. I heard Mrs. Glover over and over
again say she got it all from Quimby.”
Mrs. Clapp’s statement is even more specific than the others. She
is own cousin to the Wentworths and frequented their house at the
time Mrs. Glover was visiting them, and knew that Mrs. Glover was
teaching Mrs. Wentworth the Quimby system.
When Mrs. Clapp was recently asked if she had ever heard Mrs.
Glover-Eddy say that she learned her system from Dr. Quimby, she
replied:
“Yes, and I am not likely to forget it. It is fixed in my
memory by a very reprehensible proceeding of my own. You see,
Mrs. Glover used to say this to everybody who came in. She
wasn’t content with mentioning once or twice that she had
learned this from Dr. Quimby, she repeated it so often that we
girls got deadly tired of hearing it.
“Now Mrs. Glover not only said it to the point of wearying us,
but she had a peculiar way of saying it, and I am ashamed to
say that I used to mock her—I, a young lady grown, who ought to
have known better than to make fun of a person so much older.
“She always tried to be very gracious to everybody and she
tried so hard that it gave her graciousness a ridiculous touch.
She would fold her hands softly in her lap, smile gently, nod
her head slowly at almost every word, and say in a sweet voice,
‘I _learned_ this from _Dr. Quimby_ and he made me _promise_ to
teach it to at least _two_ persons before I _die_.’
“Well, this tiresome iteration, always with the same emphasis
and the same exaggerated graciousness, used to excite the
derision of the girls, and when Mrs. Glover wasn’t in hearing,
I would take her off. I would say, ‘I learned this from Dr.
Quimby,’ etc., at the same time nodding my head with a great
exaggeration of Mrs. Glover’s gentle inclination, and putting
tremendous emphasis on the words she emphasized, and wearing a
fixed smile.
“I know it was an awful thing to do,” added Mrs. Clapp,
penitently, “especially for a grown-up girl, but it used to
make my cousins laugh and that made me feel that I had done
something clever. Anyway, you see how it has fixed it on my
memory.”
Mrs. Clapp well remembered seeing Mrs. Wentworth copy Mrs.
Glover’s copy of Dr. Quimby’s writing.
“I once went to the Wentworths’ to get something,” she said,
“and Mrs. Wentworth was busy copying this manuscript. I went to
the buttery to get what I wanted, but couldn’t find it, and
called Mrs. Wentworth. She got up to get it for me, but before
doing so she put Mrs. Eddy’s copy of the Quimby manuscript in
the desk and locked it. I suppose I looked surprised that she
should take such pains when she was only stepping across the
room, for a moment, and she noticed my look, and said, ‘Mrs.
Glover made me promise never to leave this manuscript even for
a moment without locking the desk.’”
While Mrs. Wentworth was copying the Quimby manuscript, Mrs.
Clapp was employed by Mrs. Glover to copy a manuscript of her own
for publication. This manuscript contained the first expression
of the ideas subsequently given to the world by Mrs. Eddy. When
the book was completed, Mrs. Glover paid Mrs. Clapp for the work
and took it to Boston, but could not get a publisher to accept
it.
Mrs. Clapp was quite familiar with the appearance of the Quimby
manuscript from seeing Mrs. Wentworth copying it—she was Mrs.
Wentworth’s niece—and also from seeing Mrs. Glover take it out to
correct some of the work which Mrs. Clapp was doing. That would
happen in this way. Mrs. Clapp would complete the copying of a
page of Mrs. Glover’s book. Mrs. Glover would appear to be
dissatisfied with it; she would take from her desk the original
Quimby manuscript, the one from which Mrs. Wentworth had been
copying, and compare this original with the work Mrs. Clapp had
done. Then she would tear up Mrs. Clapp’s page and write it all
over again, consulting the Quimby manuscript as she did so, and
Mrs. Clapp would have the copying to do over again.
The unmistakable inference was that Mrs. Eddy was making her book
out of the ideas contained in the original Quimby manuscript.
Mrs. Clapp, with the irreverence of girlhood, had scant respect
for the weighty ideas contained in the Quimby-Glover book, and
there was one particular idea which she used to scoff at and make
fun of to her intimates. It was to this effect:
“The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural or
necessary than would be the process of taking a fish out of
water every day and covering it with dirt to make it thrive
more vigorously thereafter in its native element.”
Years afterward, Mrs. Clapp picked up a copy of “Science and
Health,” and opened it to this identical sentence which had so
often excited her girlish derision. It is on page 41, edition of
1898.
When Mrs. Wentworth died, in 1882, and the property was divided,
the son Horace laid claim to the copy of the Quimby manuscript.
He wanted it because it was in his mother’s handwriting (with the
exception of Eddy’s corrections), and it would be a souvenir of
her. He kept it with no other thought until now.
“But of late years,” said Mr. Wentworth, “as I have seen the
amazing spread of this delusion, and the way in which men and
women are offering up money and the lives of their children to
it, I have felt that it is a duty I owe to the public to make
it known.
“I have no hard feelings against Mrs. Eddy, no axe to grind, no
interest to serve, I simply feel that it is due the thousands
of good people, who have made Christian Science the anchorage
of their souls and its founder the infallible guide of their
daily life, to keep this no longer to myself. I desire only
that people who take themselves and their helpless children
into Christian Science shall do so with a full knowledge that
this is not a divine revelation, but simply the idea of an
old-time Maine healer.”
It may be assumed then, as proven, that as in 1868, 1869 and 1870
Mrs. Glover (Eddy) was teaching a system of mental healing she,
at the time, said she had learned from Dr. P. P. Quimby, she
couldn’t have discovered it herself in 1866. It now becomes
interesting to know if there is any similarity between what we
may call Quimbyism and Christian Science, between the teaching of
Mrs. Glover-Eddy in 1870 and her teaching now.
On the outside, this Quimby-Glover manuscript is entitled,
“Extracts From Doctor P. P. Quimby’s Writings,” and at the head
of the first page, on the inside, it is further entitled, “The
Science of Man, or The Principle Which Controls all Phenomena.”
There is a preface of two pages with Mary M. Glover’s name signed
at the end. The “Extracts” are in the form of fifteen questions
and answers, covering about thirty large pages, and are labeled,
“Questions by Patients and Answers by Dr. Quimby.” The document
contains an elaboration of Dr. Quimby’s mental healing system as
taught by Mrs. Eddy, by her own acknowledgment, as late as 1870.
The contents of this Quimby-Glover manuscript having been
communicated to Mr. George A. Quimby of Belfast, Maine, son of
Dr. P. P. Quimby, he says, having compared it with his father’s
writings in his possession, that it is a precise copy of them. He
further says that an opportunity was afforded Mrs. Eddy to copy
his father’s writings, as his father was accustomed to lend his
manuscript to his patients, one of whom Mrs. Eddy was.
A perusal of this manuscript in comparison with Mrs. Eddy’s
“Science and Health” shows, that every basic idea of Christian
Science as a healing system was bodily appropriated by her from
Dr. Quimby’s manuscripts and not obtained, as she says, by
revelation from God. As contained in the manuscript and as taught
by Dr. Quimby, there was no suggestion of a religious character
to his teachings; the religious phase was an afterthought of Mrs.
Eddy’s, as a means of facilitating the sale and distribution of
her profit-yielding, copyrighted and “inspired” writings.
It may be here remarked that, at the outset, Mrs. Eddy especially
deprecated the giving to Quimbyism, or Christian Science, a
religious character, as I shall hereafter show in more detail,
and she goes so far as to criticise the disciples of Jesus for
founding, as she says, religious organizations and church rites.
Thus, at first, healing was the only phase of Christian Science.
The religious feature was a subsequent invention.
Quimbyism, as contained in Mrs. Wentworth’s copy of Mrs. Glover’s
copy of Dr. Quimby’s “Science of Man,” as revised and corrected
in Mrs. Glover’s own handwriting, is compared with Mrs. Eddy’s
Christian Science as contained in her “Science and Health” in the
following parallel passages from the two. A glance will show Dr.
Quimby’s system of mental healing, as taught by Mrs. Glover,
later Mrs. Eddy, in 1870, to be no other than the “Science of
Metaphysical Healing” that Mrs. Eddy, formerly Mrs. Glover, now
says was revealed to her in 1866:
Quimby: From Quimby’s “Science of Man,” as Expounded by Mrs. Eddy
at Stoughton, 1868-69-70.
“If I understand how disease originates in the mind and fully
believe it, why cannot I cure myself?”
Disease being made by our belief or by our parents’ belief or
by public opinion, there is no one formula of argument to be
adopted; but every one must fit in their particular case.
Therefore it requires great shrewdness or wisdom to get the
better of the error.” ....
Eddy: From Mrs. Eddy’s “Science and Health,” the Text-Book of the
“Christian Science” She now Claims to have Discovered in 1866.
“Disease being a belief, a latent delusion of mortal mind, the
sensation would not appear if this _error was met and destroyed
by Truth._”—Page 61, edition of 1898.
“Science not only reveals the origin of all disease as wholly
mental, but it also declares that all disease is cured by
mind.”—Page 62, edition of 1898.
Quimby:
“I know of no better counsel than Jesus gave to His disciples
when He sent them forth to cast out devils and heal the sick,
and thus in practice to preach the Truth, ‘Be ye wise as
serpents and harmless as doves.’ Never get into a passion, but
in patience possess ye your soul, and at length you weary out
the discord and produce harmony by your _Truth destroying
error_. Then it is you get the case. Now if you are not afraid
to face the error and argue it down, then you can heal the
sick.”
Eddy:
“When we come to have more faith in the Truth of Being than we
have in error, more faith in spirit than in matter, then no
material conditions can prevent us from healing the sick and
_destroying error through Truth_.”—Page 367, edition of 1898.
“We classify disease as error, which nothing but Truth or Mind
can heal.”—Page 427, edition of 1898.
“Discord is the nothingness of error. Harmony is the
somethingness of Truth.”—Page 172, edition of 1898.
Quimby:
“The patient’s disease is in his belief.”
“Error is sickness. Truth is health.”
Eddy:
“Sickness is part of the error which _Truth casts out_.”—Page
478, edition of 1898.
Quimby:
“In this science the names are given; thus God is Wisdom. This
Wisdom, not an Individuality but a _principle_, embraces every
_idea_ form, of which the idea, man, is the highest,—hence the
image of God, or the Principle.”
Eddy:
“God is the principle of man; and the principle of man
remaining perfect, its idea or reflection—man—remains perfect.”
—Page 466, edition of 1898.
“Man was and is God’s idea.”—Page 231, edition of 1898.
“Man is the idea of divine principle.”—Page 471, edition of
1898.
“What is God? Jehovah is not a person. God is principle.”—Page
169, edition of 1881.
Quimby:
“Understanding is God.”
Eddy:
“Understanding is a quality of God.”—Page 449, edition of 1898.
Quimby:
“All sciences are part of God.”
Eddy:
“All science is of God.”—Page 513, edition of 1898.
Quimby:
“Truth is God.”
“There is no other Truth but God.”
“God is Wisdom.”
“God is Principle.”
Eddy:
“Truth is God.”—Page 183, edition of 1898.
“Truth, God, is not the Father of error.”—Page 469, edition of
1898.
Quimby:
“Wisdom, Love and Truth are the Principle.”
Eddy:
“How can I most rapidly advance in the understanding of
Christian Science? Study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the
spirit. Adhere to its divine Principle, and follow its behests,
abiding steadily in Wisdom, Love, and Truth.”—Page 491, edition
of 1898.
Quimby:
“Error is matter.”
“Matter has no intelligence.”
“To give intelligence to matter is an error which is sickness.”
“Matter has no _intelligence_ of its own, and to believe
intelligence is in matter is the error which produces pain and
inharmony of all sorts; to hold ourselves we are a principle
outside of matter, we would not be influenced by the opinions
of man, but held to the workings only of a principle, Truth, in
which there are no inharmonies of sickness, pain, or sin.”
“For matter is an error, there being no _substance_, which is
_Truth_ in a thing which changes and is only that which belief
makes it.”
“Christ was the Wisdom that knew Truth dwelt not in opinion and
that matter was but opinion that could be formed into any shape
which the belief gave to it, and that the _life_ which moved it
came not from it, but was outside of it.”
Eddy:
“Matter is mortal error,”—Page 169, edition of 1881.
“The fundamental error of mortal man is the belief that matter
is intelligent.”—Page 122, edition of 1881.
“Laws of matter are nothing more or less than a belief of
intelligence and life in matter, which is the procuring cause
of all disease; whereas God, Truth, is its positive cure.”—Page
127, edition of 1881.
“There is no _life_, _truth_, _intelligence_, or _substance_ in
matter.”—Page 464, edition of 1898.
[It will be seen that every idea contained in this last
passage, Mrs. Eddy’s famous “scientific statement of being,”
the mental repetition of which constitutes Christian Science
“treatment,” is taken from Dr. Quimby’s writings.]
This paralleling of Eddyism, or Christian Science, with Quimbyism
shows that, as late as 1870, Mrs. Eddy professed to have learned
from Quimby, that error is sickness; that belief is sickness;
that discord is sickness; that there is no life, truth,
intelligence, or substance in matter; that matter is error; that
the belief of intelligence in matter is the cause of all disease;
that Truth is God; that there is no other truth but God; that God
is Principle; that Wisdom, Love and Truth are Principle; that
Truth is health and cures sickness; that harmony, by destroying
disharmony, cures disease; and, finally, that all disease
originates in mind and is cured by mind alone.
And this is the sum total, the beginning and the end, of that
strange thing Mrs. Eddy calls Christian Science, as it is
contained and set forth in her book, “Science and Health.”
If the founder of Christian Science could be _expected_ to give a
candid answer to a plain question, might not some such respectful
inquiry as the following at this point be pertinently propounded:
If Mrs. Patterson, or Mrs. Glover, afterwards Mrs. Eddy, in 1868,
1869 and 1870 openly avowed that the “scientific mind healing”
she then taught was the discovery of Dr. P. P. Quimby, when and
how did Mrs. Eddy, formerly Mrs. Patterson and Mrs. Glover,
discover that she had discovered it herself in 1866?
But the question will not be answered for the reason that the
sworn evidence of the Wentworths and Mrs. Clapp, together with
the paralleling of Mrs. Eddy’s Christian Science of today with
her version of Quimbyism of 1870 shows, as clearly as words can
show anything, that Mrs. Eddy’s claim to having received, in
1866, a final revelation from God, who for many years had been
fitting her to receive it, is an invention, a fiction, a fraud, a
lie that for wickedness and cruelty surpasses any lie ever
invented by hypocrisy and greed.
The only person living who can meet this testimony and answer it
is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. Her newspaper puppets of the
“Publication Committee” knew nothing about her at the time to
which it relates. They have no knowledge whatever of the facts
stated. They will affirm or deny anything they are told to affirm
or deny; but their principal has maintained and will maintain
discreet silence. She will not venture to deny that she wrote the
letter to the _Portland Courier_, that she wrote the verses upon
Dr. Quimby glorifying him as a second Jesus, that she lived at
the Wentworths’ house during the years 1868, 1869 and 1870, and
that she then taught from a copy of Quimby’s writings a mental
healing system she then said she had learned from him.
Mrs. Eddy is bold, but not so bold as to give the lie direct to
the sworn statements of Horace T. Wentworth, Catherine Isabel
Clapp, Lucy Holmes and Charles O. Wentworth, all highly respected
residents of the town of Stoughton. Mrs. Eddy will dare much; but
she will hardly dare to dispute the evidence furnished by her own
hand.
And silence is confession, and confession is acknowledgment of
theft and falsehood and fraud, and hypocrisy beyond comparison.
Not upon such stones did the Jesus Christ, Whom Mrs. Eddy
professes to emulate, construct the religion that bears His name;
and there can be no greater irreverence than Mrs. Eddy’s calling
her pretended religion “Christian,” and no greater absurdity than
her calling it “Science.”
My purpose in showing Dr. Quimby’s authorship of Mrs. Eddy’s
Christian Science is to establish the falsity of her claim that
God revealed it to her. The thing itself, as Dr. Quimby’s, is of
no greater weight and of no more consequence than as Mrs. Eddy’s.
Dr. Quimby and Mrs. Eddy were evidently upon the same
intellectual plane, both uneducated and crude. He was a good and
sincere and unselfish and trustful man, and she appropriated his
ideas. They knew nothing of philosophy nor of science, and
whether Christian Science be his or hers is of slight importance,
except as the establishment of his authorship proves her to be
the author of a fraud whose large proportions and successful
workings challenge the kind of admiration one feels for the
criminal whose great crime proves him to be a man of immense
mental fertility and of profound understanding of human weakness.
When it is said that Mrs. Eddy stole her system from Dr. Quimby
and then falsely pretended that she received it by revelation
from God, her only response has been that the matter has been
adjudicated by the courts, and it has been definitely settled
that the charge is false. The adjudication in the courts had no
bearing whatever upon this charge. One Edward J. Ahrens, a German
adventurer, at one time an intimate of Mrs. Eddy’s, published
copious extracts from her book, and, having been sued by her for
infringement of copyright of her revelation and having failed to
make any defense, the court adjudged his publications
infringements of her copyright.
I am not aware that anyone has pretended that Mrs. Eddy did not
write “Science and Health” in its crudest, original form, and is
not entitled to the protection of copyright upon the book, but
the fact that the court has decided that she is entitled to the
protection of copyright, is no answer to the charge that certain
claims and pretensions made in the book are false. The copyright,
in her case, simply means that no one else has a right to publish
her lies without her consent. To the simple minded, it may seem a
little peculiar that Mrs. Eddy should insist upon exclusive
rights to publish and sell, by procuring copyright, a book of
which she says, not she, but God, was author and which she calls
“God’s Book,” at a profit, not to God, but to her, of 500 per
cent; but, as in the case of her three hundred dollar fee for
twelve or seven lessons, to which I shall presently call
attention, the worldly wisdom of her course has appeared in
multitudinous ways, likewise multitudinous dollars!
It would seem like a waste of time to contend that God is not the
author of “Science and Health;” that God, the All-wise, the
All-loving, the All-powerful, did not wait nineteen hundred years
after the death of Christ to complete the revelation of Himself
made through Jesus; that of all the personalities who have lived
upon this earth since the time of Jesus, the one selected by God
to lead the world unto Him should be this uncultivated and vulgar
woman, whose variegated career has been somewhat presented, and
whose whole energies have been devoted to utilizing her pretended
revelation for pecuniary profit. I say, it would seem to be an
utter waste of time, were it not for the pathetic fact that
thousands—sixty or seventy thousands—perhaps more—of the people
of this country believe that Almighty God so acted.
It now being perfectly clear that Mrs. Eddy did not, as she says,
receive Christian Science by revelation from God, she clearly has
no warrant for pretending it to be a religion. As a religion,
Christian Science is the shallowest fraud and imposture. It has
no conceivable right to the name “Christian,” and every one of
the beautiful churches erected in its honor is a monument simply
to Mrs. Eddy’s deception and hypocrisy and lies and to the
limitless gullibility of the human race, and every one of the
many thousands of sincere and simple-minded people who at its
services lift up their hearts in worship to God are the victims
of an old woman’s insincere, mercenary appeal to their religious
feelings.
No sane person can have followed this narrative thus far and not
agree with me that, as a religion, there is no warrant for
Christian Science, and those who will continue to the end will
further agree with me that, as a healing system, it is just as
fraudulent; that it kills the sweetest and tenderest emotions in
the human heart by rooting out sympathy, charity and compassion;
that there is no other hatred and vindictiveness equal to the
hatred and vindictiveness of its founder and her leading
votaries; that there is no other cruelty, no other greed, that
can compare with theirs; that the so-called malicious animal
magnetism, the witchcraft feature, is as wicked an invention as
the human mind ever conceived, and that its attempted use for
veritable assassination is as devilish as anything that could
possibly emanate from the depths of hell; and, finally, that the
inspired teaching of the three-or-four-times-married Mary Baker
G. Eddy, regarding the most sacred and fundamental institution
established among men, I refer to the institution of marriage, is
so low and so vile that self-respecting people, when they come to
understand it, must repudiate it from overwhelming shame.
Insanity is not responsible for indecency; but those Christian
Scientists who have not parted with their sanity, and are not in
Christian Science for revenue only, will turn with horror from
the woman and her work, when they know precisely what they are.
Surely one may be pardoned some warmth of indignation at the
assumptions of this vulgar adventuress, this mercenary charlatan!
It is difficult to think of them without impatience; it is
impossible to speak of them without anger.