THE NEW INFALLIBILITY
All in proper time Mrs. Eddy's factory will take hold of that
Commandment, and explain it for good and all. It may be that one member
of the shift will vote that the word “all” means all; it may be that ten
members of the shift will vote that “all” means only a percentage; but
it is Mrs. Eddy, not the eleven, who will do the deciding. And if she
says it is percentage, then percentage it is, forevermore--and that
is what I am expecting, for she doesn't sell all herself, nor any
considerable part of it, and as regards the poor, she doesn't declare
any dividend; but if she says “all” means all, then all it is, to the
end of time, and no follower of hers will ever be allowed to reconstruct
that text, or shrink it, or inflate it, or meddle with it in any way at
all. Even to-day--right here in the beginning--she is the sole person
who, in the matter of Christian Science exegesis, is privileged to
exploit the Spiral Twist. The Christian world has two Infallibles now.
Of equal power? For the present only. When Leo XIII. passes to his rest
another Infallible will ascend his throne; others, and yet others, and
still others will follow him, and be as infallible as he, and decide
questions of doctrine as long as they may come up, all down the far
future; but Mary Baker G. Eddy is the only Infallible that will ever
occupy the Science throne. Many a Science Pope will succeed her, but
she has closed their mouths; they will repeat and reverently praise and
adore her infallibilities, but venture none themselves. In her grave she
will still outrank all other Popes, be they of what Church they may.
She will hold the supremest of earthly titles, The Infallible--with
a capital T. Many in the world's history have had a hunger for such
nuggets and slices of power as they might reasonably hope to grab out
of an empire's or a religion's assets, but Mrs. Eddy is the only person
alive or dead who has ever struck for the whole of them. For small
things she has the eye of a microscope, for large ones the eye of a
telescope, and whatever she sees, she wants. Wants it all.
THE SACRED POEMS
When Mrs. Eddy's “sacred revelations” (that is the language of the
By-laws) are read in public, their authorship must be named. The By-laws
twice command this, therefore we mention it twice, to be fair.
But it is also commanded that when a member publicly quotes “from the
poems of our Pastor Emeritus” the authorship shall be named. For these
are sacred, too. There are kindly people who may suspect a hidden
generosity in that By-law; they may think it is there to protect the
Official Reader from the suspicion of having written the poems himself.
Such do not know Mrs. Eddy. She does an inordinate deal of protecting,
but in no distinctly named and specified case in her history has Number
Two been the object of it. Instances have been claimed, but they have
failed of proof, and even of plausibility.
“Members shall also instruct their students” to look out and advertise
the authorship when they read those poems and things. Not on Mrs. Eddy's
account, but “for the good of our Cause.”
THE CHURCH EDIFICE
1. Mrs. Eddy gave the land. It was not of much value at the time, but it
is very valuable now. 2. Her people built the Mother-Church edifice on
it, at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 3. Then they
gave the whole property to her. 4. Then she gave it to the Board of
Directors. She is the Board of Directors. She took it out of one pocket
and put it in the other. 5. Sec. 10 (of the deed). “Whenever said
Directors shall determine that it is inexpedient to maintain preaching,
reading, or speaking in said church in accordance with the terms of this
deed, they are authorized and required to reconvey forthwith said lot
of land with the building thereon to Mary Baker G. Eddy, her heirs and
assigns forever, by a proper deed of conveyance.”
She is never careless, never slipshod, about a matter of business.
Owning the property through her Board of Waxworks was safe enough, still
it was sound business to set another grip on it to cover accidents,
and she did it. Her barkers (what a curious name; I wonder if it is
copyrighted); her barkers persistently advertise to the public her
generosity in giving away a piece of land which cost her a trifle, and
a two--hundred--and--fifty--thousand--dollar church which cost her
nothing; and they can hardly speak of the unselfishness of it without
breaking down and crying; yet they know she gave nothing away, and never
intended to. However, such is the human race. Often it does seem such a
pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
Some of the hostiles think that Mrs. Eddy's idea in protecting this
property in the interest of her heirs, and in accumulating a great money
fortune, is, that she may leave her natural heirs well provided for when
she goes. I think it is a mistake. I think she is of late years giving
herself large concern about only one interest-her power and glory, and
the perpetuation and worship of her Name--with a capital N. Her Church
is her pet heir, and I think it will get her wealth. It is the torch
which is to light the world and the ages with her glory.
I think she once prized money for the ease and comfort it could bring,
the showy vanities it could furnish, and the social promotion it could
command; for we have seen that she was born into the world with little
ways and instincts and aspirations and affectations that are duplicates
of our own. I do not think her money-passion has ever diminished in
ferocity, I do not think that she has ever allowed a dollar that had no
friends to get by her alive, but I think her reason for wanting it
has changed. I think she wants it now to increase and establish and
perpetuate her power and glory with, not to add to her comforts and
luxuries, not to furnish paint and fuss and feathers for vain display.
I think her ambitions have soared away above the fuss-and-feather stage.
She still likes the little shows and vanities--a fact which she
exposed in a public utterance two or three days ago when she was not
noticing--but I think she does not place a large value upon them now.
She could build a mighty and far-shining brass-mounted palace if she
wanted to, but she does not do it. She would have had that kind of an
ambition in the early scrabbling times. She could go to England to-day
and be worshiped by earls, and get a comet's attention from the
million, if she cared for such things. She would have gone in the early
scrabbling days for much less than an earl, and been vain of it, and
glad to show off before the remains of the Scotch kin. But those things
are very small to her now--next to invisible, observed through the
cloud-rack from the dizzy summit where she perches in these great days.
She does not want that church property for herself. It is worth but a
quarter of a million--a sum she could call in from her far-spread flocks
to-morrow with a lift of her hand. Not a squeeze of it, just a lift. It
would come without a murmur; come gratefully, come gladly. And if her
glory stood in more need of the money in Boston than it does where her
flocks are propagating it, she would lift the hand, I think.
She is still reaching for the Dollar, she will continue to reach for it;
but not that she may spend it upon herself; not that she may spend it
upon charities; not that she may indemnify an early deprivation and
clothe herself in a blaze of North Adams gauds; not that she may have
nine breeds of pie for breakfast, as only the rich New-Englander can;
not that she may indulge any petty material vanity or appetite that once
was hers and prized and nursed, but that she may apply that Dollar to
statelier uses, and place it where it may cast the metallic sheen of her
glory farthest across the receding expanses of the globe.
PRAYER
A brief and good one is furnished in the book of By-laws. The Scientist
is required to pray it every day.
THE LORD'S PRAYER-AMENDED
This is not in the By-laws, it is in the first chapter of Science and
Health, edition of 1902. I do not find it in the edition of 1884. It
is probable that it had not at that time been handed down. Science and
Health's (latest) rendering of its “spiritual sense” is as follows:
“Our Father-Mother God' all-harmonious, adorable One. Thy kingdom is
within us, Thou art ever-present. Enable us to know--as in heaven, so
on earth--God is supreme. Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished
affections. And infinite Love is reflected in love. And Love leadeth us
not into temptation, but delivereth from sin, disease, and death. For
God is now and forever all Life, Truth, and Love.”
If I thought my opinion was desired and would be properly revered, I
should say that in my judgment that is as good a piece of carpentering
as any of those eleven Commandment--experts could do with the material
after all their practice. I notice only one doubtful place. “Lead us not
into temptation” seems to me to be a very definite request, and that the
new rendering turns the definite request into a definite assertion. I
shall be glad to have that turned back to the old way and the marks of
the Spiral Twist removed, or varnished over; then I shall be satisfied,
and will do the best I can with what is left. At the same time, I do
feel that the shrinkage in our spiritual assets is getting serious.
First the Commandments, now the Prayer. I never expected to see these
steady old reliable securities watered down to this. And this is not
the whole of it. Last summer the Presbyterians extended the Calling and
Election suffrage to nearly everybody entitled to salvation. They did
not even stop there, but let out all the unbaptized American infants
we had been accumulating for two hundred years and more. There are some
that believe they would have let the Scotch ones out, too, if they could
have done it. Everything is going to ruin; in no long time we shall have
nothing left but the love of God.
THE NEW UNPARDONABLE SIN
“Working Against the Cause. Sec. 2. If a member of this Church shall
work against the accomplishment of what the Discoverer and Founder of
Christian Science understands is advantageous to the individual, to this
Church, and to the Cause of Christian Science”--out he goes. Forever.
The member may think that what he is doing will advance the Cause,
but he is not invited to do any thinking. More than that, he is not
permitted to do any--as he will clearly gather from this By-law. When a
person joins Mrs. Eddy's Church he must leave his thinker at home. Leave
it permanently. To make sure that it will not go off some time or other
when he is not watching, it will be safest for him to spike it. If he
should forget himself and think just once, the By-law provides that he
shall be fired out-instantly-forever-no return.
“It shall be the duty of this Church immediately to call a meeting, and
drop forever the name of this member from its records.”
My, but it breathes a towering indignation!
There are forgivable offenses, but this is not one of them; there are
admonitions, probations, suspensions, in several minor cases; mercy is
shown the derelict, in those cases he is gently used, and in time he can
get back into the fold--even when he has repeated his offence. But let
him think, just once, without getting his thinker set to Eddy time,
and that is enough; his head comes off. There is no second offence, and
there is no gate open to that lost sheep, ever again.
“This rule cannot be changed, amended, or annulled, except by unanimous
vote of all the First Members.”
The same being Mrs. Eddy. It is naively sly and pretty to see her keep
putting forward First Members, and Boards of This and That, and other
broideries and ruffles of her raiment, as if they were independent
entities, instead of a part of her clothes, and could do things all by
themselves when she was outside of them.
Mrs. Eddy did not need to copyright the sentence just quoted, its
English would protect it. None but she would have shovelled that
comically superfluous “all” in there.
The former Unpardonable Sin has gone out of service. We may frame the
new Christian Science one thus:
“Whatsoever Member shall think, and without Our Mother's permission act
upon his think, the same shall be cut off from the Church forever.”
It has been said that I make many mistakes about Christian Science
through being ignorant of the spiritual meanings of its terminology.
I believe it is true. I have been misled all this time by that word
Member, because there was no one to tell me that its spiritual meaning
was Slave.
AXE AND BLOCK
There is a By-law which forbids Members to practice hypnotism; the
penalty is excommunication.
1. If a member is found to be a mental practitioner--2. Complaint is to
be entered against him--3. By the Pastor Emeritus, and by none else;
4. No member is allowed to make complaint to her in the matter; 5. Upon
Mrs. Eddy's mere “complaint”--unbacked by evidence or proof, and without
giving the accused a chance to be heard--his name shall be dropped from
this Church.
Mrs. Eddy has only to say a member is guilty--that is all. That ends
it. It is not a case of he “may” be cut off from Christian Science
salvation, it is a case of he “shall” be. Her serfs must see to it, and
not say a word.
Does the other Pope possess this prodigious and irresponsible power?
Certainly not in our day.
Some may be curious to know how Mrs. Eddy finds out that a member is
practicing hypnotism, since no one is allowed to come before her throne
and accuse him. She has explained this in Christian Science History,
first and second editions, page 16:
“I possess a spiritual sense of what the malicious mental practitioner
is mentally arguing which cannot be deceived; I can discern in the human
mind thoughts, motives, and purposes, and neither mental arguments nor
psychic power can affect this spiritual insight.”
A marvelous woman; with a hunger for power such as has never been seen
in the world before. No thing, little or big, that contains any seed or
suggestion of power escapes her avaricious eye; and when once she gets
that eye on it, her remorseless grip follows. There isn't a Christian
Scientist who isn't ecclesiastically as much her property as if she had
bought him and paid for him, and copyrighted him and got a charter.
She cannot be satisfied when she has handcuffed a member, and put a
leg-chain and ball on him and plugged his ears and removed his thinker,
she goes on wrapping needless chains round and round him, just as a
spider would. For she trusts no one, believes in no one's honesty,
judges every one by herself. Although we have seen that she has absolute
and irresponsible command over her spectral Boards and over every
official and servant of her Church, at home and abroad, over every
minute detail of her Church's government, present and future, and can
purge her membership of guilty or suspected persons by various plausible
formalities and whenever she will, she is still not content, but must
set her queer mind to work and invent a way by which she can take a
member--any member--by neck and crop and fling him out without anything
resembling a formality at all.
She is sole accuser and sole witness, and her testimony is final and
carries uncompromising and irremediable doom with it.
The Sole-Witness Court! It should make the Council of Ten and the
Council of Three turn in their graves for shame, to see how little they
knew about satanic concentrations of irresponsible power. Here we have
one Accuser, one Witness, one Judge, one Headsman--and all four bunched
together in Mrs. Eddy, the Inspired of God, His Latest Thought to His
People, New Member of the Holy Family, the Equal of Jesus.
When a Member is not satisfactory to Mrs. Eddy, and yet is blameless in
his life and faultless in his membership and in his Christian Science
walk and conversation, shall he hold up his head and tilt his hat over
one ear and imagine himself safe because of these perfections? Why,
in that very moment Mrs. Eddy will cast that spiritual X-ray of hers
through his dungarees and say:
“I see his hypnotism working, among his insides--remove him to the
block!”
What shall it profit him to know it isn't so? Nothing. His testimony is
of no value. No one wants it, no one will ask for it. He is not present
to offer it (he does not know he has been accused), and if he were there
to offer it, it would not be listened to.
It was out of powers approaching Mrs. Eddy's--though not equalling
them--that the Inquisition and the devastations of the Interdict grew.
She will transmit hers. The man born two centuries from now will think
he has arrived in hell; and all in good time he will think he knows it.
Vast concentrations of irresponsible power have never in any age been
used mercifully, and there is nothing to suggest that the Christian
Science Papacy is going to spend money on novelties.
Several Christian Scientists have asked me to refrain from prophecy.
There is no prophecy in our day but history. But history is a
trustworthy prophet. History is always repeating itself, because
conditions are always repeating themselves. Out of duplicated conditions
history always gets a duplicate product.
READING LETTERS AT MEETINGS
I wonder if there is anything a Member can do that will not raise Mrs.
Eddy's jealousy? The By-laws seem to hunt him from pillar to post all
the time, and turn all his thoughts and acts and words into sins against
the meek and lowly new deity of his worship. Apparently her jealousy
never sleeps. Apparently any trifle can offend it, and but one penalty
appease it--excommunication. The By-laws might properly and reasonably
be entitled Laws for the Coddling and Comforting of Our Mother's Petty
Jealousies. The By-law named at the head of this paragraph reads its
transgressor out of the Church if he shall carry a letter from Mrs. Eddy
to the congregation and forget to read it or fail to read the whole of
it.
HONESTY REQUISITE
Dishonest members are to be admonished; if they continue in dishonest
practices, excommunication follows. Considering who it is that draughted
this law, there is a certain amount of humor in it.
FURTHER APPLICATIONS OF THE AXE
Here follow the titles of some more By-laws whose infringement is
punishable by excommunication:
Silence Enjoined. Misteaching. Departure from Tenets. Violation of
Christian Fellowship. Moral Offences. Illegal Adoption. Broken By-laws.
Violation of By-laws. (What is the difference?) Formulas Forbidden.
Official Advice. (Forbids Tom, Dick, and Harry's clack.) Unworthy of
Membership. Final Excommunication. Organizing Churches.
This looks as if Mrs. Eddy had devoted a large share of her time and
talent to inventing ways to get rid of her Church members. Yet in
another place she seems to invite membership. Not in any urgent way,
it is true, still she throws out a bait to such as like notice and
distinction (in other words, the Human Race). Page 82:
“It is important that these seemingly strict conditions be complied
with, as the names of the Members of the Mother-Church will be recorded
in the history of the Church and become a part thereof.”
We all want to be historical.
MORE SELF-PROTECTIONS
The Hymnal. There is a Christian Science Hymnal. Entrance to it was
closed in 1898. Christian Science students who make hymns nowadays may
possibly get them sung in the Mother-Church, “but not unless approved by
the Pastor Emeritus.” Art. XXVII, Sec. 2.
Solo Singers. Mrs. Eddy has contributed the words of three of the hymns
in the Hymnal. Two of them appear in it six times altogether, each of
them being set to three original forms of musical anguish. Mrs. Eddy,
always thoughtful, has promulgated a By-law requiring the singing of one
of her three hymns in the Mother Church “as often as once each month.”
It is a good idea. A congregation could get tired of even Mrs. Eddy's
muse in the course of time, without the cordializing incentive of
compulsion. We all know how wearisome the sweetest and touchingest
things can become, through rep-rep-repetition, and still
rep-rep-repetition, and more rep-rep-repetition-like “the sweet
by-and-by, in the sweet by-and-by,” for instance, and “Tah-rah-rah
boom-de-aye”; and surely it is not likely that Mrs. Eddy's machine has
turned out goods that could outwear those great heart-stirrers, without
the assistance of the lash. “O'er Waiting Harpstrings of the Mind” is
pretty good, quite fair to middling--the whole seven of the stanzas--but
repetition would be certain to take the excitement out of it in the
course of time, even if there were fourteen, and then it would sound
like the multiplication table, and would cease to save. The congregation
would be perfectly sure to get tired; in fact, did get tired--hence the
compulsory By-law. It is a measure born of experience, not foresight.
The By-laws say that “if a solo singer shall neglect or refuse to sing
alone” one of those three hymns as often as once a month, and oftener if
so directed by the Board of Directors--which is Mrs. Eddy--the singer's
salary shall be stopped. It is circumstantial evidence that some
soloists neglected this sacrament and others refused it. At least that
is the charitable view to take of it. There is only one other view to
take: that Mrs. Eddy did really foresee that there would be singers
who would some day get tired of doing her hymns and proclaiming the
authorship, unless persuaded by a Bylaw, with a penalty attached. The
idea could of course occur to her wise head, for she would know that a
seven-stanza break might well be a calamitous strain upon a soloist, and
that he might therefore avoid it if unwatched. He could not curtail it,
for the whole of anything that Mrs. Eddy does is sacred, and cannot be
cut.
BOARD OF EDUCATION
It consists of four members, one of whom is President of it. Its members
are elected annually. Subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval. Art. XXX., Sec.
2.
She owns the Board--is the Board.
Mrs. Eddy is President of the Metaphysical College. If at any time she
shall vacate that office, the Directors of the College (that is to say,
Mrs. Eddy) “shall” elect to the vacancy the President of the Board of
Education (which is merely re-electing herself).
It is another case of “Pastor Emeritus.” She gives up the shadow of
authority, but keeps a good firm hold on the substance.
PUBLIC TEACHERS
Applicants for admission to this industry must pass a thorough three
days' examination before the Board of Education “in Science and Health,
chapter on 'Recapitulation'; the Platform of Christian Science; page 403
of Christian Science Practice, from line second to the second paragraph
of page 405; and page 488, second and third paragraphs.”
BOARD OF LECTURESHIP
The lecturers are exceedingly important servants of Mrs. Eddy, and she
chooses them with great care. Each of them has an appointed territory
in which to perform his duties--in the North, the South, the East, the
West, in Canada, in Great Britain, and so on--and each must stick to
his own territory and not forage beyond its boundaries. I think it goes
without saying--from what we have seen of Mrs. Eddy--that no lecture is
delivered until she has examined and approved it, and that the lecturer
is not allowed to change it afterwards.
The members of the Board of Lectureship are elected annually--
“Subject to the approval of Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy.”
MISSIONARIES
There are but four. They are elected--like the rest of the
domestics--annually. So far as I can discover, not a single servant of
the Sacred Household has a steady job except Mrs. Eddy. It is plain that
she trusts no human being but herself.
THE BY-LAWS
The branch Churches are strictly forbidden to use them.
So far as I can see, they could not do it if they wanted to. The By-laws
are merely the voice of the master issuing commands to the servants.
There is nothing and nobody for the servants to re-utter them to.
That useless edict is repeated in the little book, a few pages farther
on. There are several other repetitions of prohibitions in the book that
could be spared-they only take up room for nothing.
THE CREED It is copyrighted. I do not know why, but I suppose it is to
keep adventurers from some day claiming that they invented it, and
not Mrs. Eddy and that “strange Providence” that has suggested so many
clever things to her.
No Change. It is forbidden to change the Creed. That is important, at
any rate.
COPYRIGHT
I can understand why Mrs. Eddy copyrighted the early editions
and revisions of Science and Health, and why she had a mania for
copyrighting every scrap of every sort that came from her pen in those
jejune days when to be in print probably seemed a wonderful distinction
to her in her provincial obscurity, but why she should continue this
delirium in these days of her godship and her far-spread fame, I cannot
explain to myself. And particularly as regards Science and Health. She
knows, now, that that Annex is going to live for many centuries; and so,
what good is a fleeting forty-two-year copyright going to do it?
Now a perpetual copyright would be quite another matter. I would like to
give her a hint. Let her strike for a perpetual copyright on that book.
There is precedent for it. There is one book in the world which bears
the charmed life of perpetual copyright (a fact not known to twenty
people in the world). By a hardy perversion of privilege on the part of
the lawmaking power the Bible has perpetual copyright in Great Britain.
There is no justification for it in fairness, and no explanation of it
except that the Church is strong enough there to have its way, right
or wrong. The recent Revised Version enjoys perpetual copyright, too--a
stronger precedent, even, than the other one.
Now, then, what is the Annex but a Revised Version itself? Which of
course it is--Lord's Prayer and all. With that pair of formidable
British precedents to proceed upon, what Congress of ours--
But how short-sighted I am. Mrs. Eddy has thought of it long ago. She
thinks of everything. She knows she has only to keep her copyright of
1902 alive through its first stage of twenty-eight years, and perpetuity
is assured. A Christian Science Congress will reign in the Capitol then.
She probably attaches small value to the first edition (1875). Although
it was a Revelation from on high, it was slim, lank, incomplete, padded
with bales of refuse rags, and puffs from lassoed celebrities to fill
it out, an uncreditable book, a book easily sparable, a book not to
be mentioned in the same year with the sleek, fat, concise, compact,
compressed, and competent Annex of to-day, in its dainty flexible
covers, gilt--edges, rounded corners, twin screw, spiral twist,
compensation balance, Testament-counterfeit, and all that; a book just
born to curl up on the hymn-book-shelf in church and look just too sweet
and holy for anything. Yes, I see now what she was copyrighting that
child for.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION
It is true in matters of business Mrs. Eddy thinks of everything. She
thought of an organ, to disseminate the Truth as it was in Mrs. Eddy.
Straightway she started one--the Christian Science Journal.
It is true--in matters of business Mrs. Eddy thinks of everything. As
soon as she had got the Christian Science Journal sufficiently in debt
to make its presence on the premises disagreeable to her, it occurred
to her to make somebody a present of it. Which she did, along with
its debts. It was in the summer of 1889. The victim selected was
her Church--called, in those days, The National Christian Scientist
Association.
She delivered this sorrow to those lambs as a “gift” in consideration of
their “loyalty to our great cause.”
Also--still thinking of everything--she told them to retain Mr. Bailey
in the editorship and make Mr. Nixon publisher. We do not know what it
was she had against those men; neither do we know whether she scored on
Bailey or not, we only know that God protected Nixon, and for that I am
sincerely glad, although I do not know Nixon and have never even seen
him.
Nixon took the Journal and the rest of the Publishing Society's
liabilities, and demonstrated over them during three years, then brought
in his report:
“On assuming my duties as publisher, there was not a dollar in the
treasury; but on the contrary the Society owed unpaid printing and
paper bills to the amount of several hundred dollars, not to mention
a contingent liability of many more hundreds”--represented by
advance--subscriptions paid for the Journal and the “Series,” the which
goods Mrs. Eddy had not delivered. And couldn't, very well, perhaps, on
a Metaphysical College income of but a few thousand dollars a day, or a
week, or whatever it was in those magnificently flourishing times. The
struggling Journal had swallowed up those advance-payments, but its
“claim” was a severe one and they had failed to cure it. But Nixon cured
it in his diligent three years, and joyously reported the news that he
had cleared off all the debts and now had a fat six thousand dollars in
the bank.
It made Mrs. Eddy's mouth water.
At the time that Mrs. Eddy had unloaded that dismal gift on to her
National Association, she had followed her inveterate custom: she had
tied a string to its hind leg, and kept one end of it hitched to her
belt. We have seen her do that in the case of the Boston Mosque. When
she deeds property, she puts in that string-clause. It provides that
under certain conditions she can pull the string and land the property
in the cherished home of its happy youth. In the present case she
believed that she had made provision that if at any time the National
Christian Science Association should dissolve itself by a formal vote,
she could pull.
A year after Nixon's handsome report, she writes the Association that
she has a “unique request to lay before it.” It has dissolved, and she
is not quite sure that the Christian Science Journal has “already fallen
into her hands” by that act, though it “seems” to her to have met with
that accident; so she would like to have the matter decided by a formal
vote. But whether there is a doubt or not, “I see the wisdom,” she says,
“of again owning this Christian Science waif.”
I think that that is unassailable evidence that the waif was making
money, hands down.
She pulled her gift in. A few years later she donated the Publishing
Society, along with its real estate, its buildings, its plant, its
publications, and its money--the whole worth twenty--two thousand
dollars, and free of debt--to--Well, to the Mother-Church!
That is to say, to herself. There is an account of it in the Christian
Science Journal, and of how she had already made some other handsome
gifts--to her Church--and others to--to her Cause besides “an almost
countless number of private charities” of cloudy amount and otherwise
indefinite. This landslide of generosities overwhelmed one of her
literary domestics. While he was in that condition he tried to express
what he felt:
“Let us endeavor to lift up our hearts in thankfulness to... our Mother
in Israel for these evidences of generosity and self-sacrifice that
appeal to our deepest sense of gratitude, even while surpassing our
comprehension.”
A year or two later, Mrs. Eddy promulgated some By-laws of a
self-sacrificing sort which assuaged him, perhaps, and perhaps enabled
his surpassed comprehension to make a sprint and catch up. These are to
be found in Art. XII., entitled.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY
This Article puts the whole publishing business into the hands of a
publishing Board--special. Mrs. Eddy appoints to its vacancies.
The profits go semi-annually to the Treasurer of the Mother-Church. Mrs.
Eddy owns the Treasurer.
Editors and publishers of the Christian Science Journal cannot be
elected or removed without Mrs. Eddy's knowledge and consent.
Every candidate for employment in a high capacity or a low one, on the
other periodicals or in the publishing house, must first be “accepted
by Mrs. Eddy as suitable.” And “by the Board of Directors”--which is
surplusage, since Mrs. Eddy owns the Board.
If at any time a weekly shall be started, “it shall be owned by The
First Church of Christ, Scientist”--which is Mrs. Eddy.