A MARTYR TO "SCIENCE."
"Christian Science," though its span be brief, has produced one of the
most exceptional martyrs that ever lived and prospered. It is a woman, of
course; for men, as a rule, have now become too "mortal-minded" for
sacrificial victims.
The lady referred to is a Mrs. Josephine C. Woodbury. Boston is her
habitat. She was long a follower of Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, and was a
preacher of the gospel, _Science and Health_. She talked and prayed, she
wrote and traveled, all "in Science," until she became a public personage,
celebrated throughout the dominions of the Eddyites. Then at last there
was "War in Heaven"--which is the title of one of Mrs. Woodbury's
books,[44] and she was excommunicated from the Mother Church Scientist of
the Boston Back Bay.
Now Mrs. Woodbury is not a lady who can be excommunicated from a church
without giving that church fair returns for the outlay. Mrs. Woodbury has
a pen, and there is black ink on it. She has attorneys quick to exchange
legal process for bank notes redeemable in gold. The lady has turned her
pen against "Mother Eddy," and cast ink-spots on the "Mother's" religion,
not to say her personal character. The Woodbury lawyers have been let
loose upon "the Mother" to sue for ethical redress and monetary
damages.[45]
Mrs. Woodbury entered "Science" very young--a fact on account of which let
us excuse her, as well as we can, for ever entering it at all. She thought
she was one of the "healed" in the Eddy faith, and, later, she imagined
that her reading a passage or two from _Science and Health_ snatched one
of her children from the jaws of death. Her _War in Heaven_ tells us this
story, and it may do no harm to trust it is true.
Mrs. Woodbury has the reputation of never doing things by halves, but of
attending to business religiously, and of attending to religion in a
business way. Having once entered "Christian Science," she pursued that
vocation with great metaphysical and financial success, until suddenly, on
the 4th of April, 1896, came the bolt of excommunication.
It can readily be understood that conventional respectability is a
necessary and profitable department of "The Eddy Church Scientist," and
that so shifty an ecclesiastic as "Mother Eddy" can scent opprobrium from
afar. Whereto applies certain "Christian-Science" history.
Soon after the excommunication of the apostle Josephine--the latter part
of the same year--she was attacked at law by a Mr. Fred D. Chamberlain, in
the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, on the charge that she had
alienated the affection and companionship of his wife. The case got into
print, and being displayed under large heads in the Boston _Traveler_ of
December 12th, 1896 and thereafter, a suit was instituted against Mr.
Chamberlain and that paper for libel.[46]
It appears from the files of the _Traveler_ that its industrious editor
collected a large variety of statements, letters, and interviews, for the
purpose of showing his readers, that, among Mrs. Woodbury's religious
accomplishments--whether it were due to suggestion, elective affinity,
hypnotism, or Christian Science--she possessed a mighty gift of drawing
simple souls--the rich invariably preferred--into the select congregation
of her fleecy followers. Then, at two hundred dollars a follower, she was
depicted as converting the sinners of other sects to "Christian Science."
It will be observed that Mrs. Woodbury seemingly dealt in "metaphysics" at
cut prices, the "Mother's" regular rate for instruction being three
hundred dollars, not two hundred. But, for value received from Mrs.
Woodbury's "loyal students"--she, like "the Mother," so naming her
disciples--from seven to ten lessons only, according to the _Traveler_,
were imparted to them. Then the course was indefinitely repeated, in
accordance with the demand that could be created for the healing staples.
Here, to be sure, was something that might have greatly offended "Mother
Eddy." Yet daughter Woodbury's cut prices were only colorable, not actual;
for, in the frequent repetition of the same wisdom and religiosity to the
same "loyal students," she must have done less work for more money than
was ever done even in the Mother's college itself.
Again, if we follow newspaper files and court records in the case of the
Boston _Traveler_,[47] we are told that Mrs. Woodbury had a family
interest in putting on the market certain stock in a hot-air engine--a
kind of "Christian Science" stock in which, if her "loyal students" took a
religious flyer, their secular dealings would be sure to turn up with the
right end in the air. This, perhaps, was a prime investment; but, on
investigation, one "loyal student"--plaintiff Chamberlain of the suit we
have touched--somehow received the impression, though doubtless through
"mortal mind," that the holy engine stock had a slight smell of the Keeley
motor. Unetherealized man that he was, this affliction of his base common
sense was the immediate cause, he declared, of all his trouble. His pious
wife was unable to bear such an affront to divinity in the person of her
"teacher," St. Josephine Woodbury. So the "teacher" stuck to the wife, and
the husband was left out in the cold.[48]
That Boston newspaper, the _Traveler_, in spreading the Chamberlain
unpleasantness, was assiduously biographical. Particulars can be
curtailed. It is only necessary to say that the distinguished Mrs.
Woodbury was depicted as a self-made woman who had once been known to
plain environments, but who, with preaching, healing, scientific religion
and engine-stock, had become financially as well as spiritually beatified.
Finally she had reached a shining abode on Commonwealth Avenue--that kind
of mansion, in Boston, being the very next thing to "a mansion in the
skies."
Her "loyal students," it is true, were not represented by the _Traveler_
as having been enriched in the same way. Still, if already wealthy, as
most of them were said to be, what was the use of it? Might they not
better come unto St. Josephine Woodbury, and cast upon her the dross and
sorrow of their material accumulations?
As described in the _Traveler_ print, these "loyal students" were, for the
most part, rather young people, rich in their own right, or so endeared to
their parents that neither gold nor silver, if it could be given, was
denied to them. Once in the woods and groves of Teacher Woodbury's
"Christian Science" paradise, these charmed innocents were turned into
missionaries to their families, where souls might be saved and further
possessions might accrue to a blessed instructor. If the heads of these
families would not turn from the wicked ways of the world and their own
churches, and bring gifts to the shrine of Christian Science, then the
"loyal students" were taught to shake the dust from their feet, and depart
from among the unholy.
Thus were the Scriptures fulfilled "in Science." But the _Traveler_ made
it to appear that such doctrine set daughter against father, son against
mother, and wife against husband.
So, indeed, the doctrine was made to appear in a letter written by Saint
Woodbury herself and published in the _Traveler_ over her full name.[49]
Therein was this preachment:
"The Bible says that the teachings of Jesus rightly practised, will,
_must_, set at variance the members of any household, some of whom do, and
some of whom do not, imbibe the faith.... God's will be done. The command
is still on the elect to come out from the world, and to separate and to
shake the dust from their feet, of any house which will not receive the
peace bestowed."
Mrs. Woodbury, having thus justified her religion and her economics by
Scripture, proceeded to justify Scripture itself by the Absolute--the
example of Mrs. Eddy. St. Josephine went on, in her letter, thus:
"When the Discerner of this Science first apprehended the demands of this
Religion and system of ethics, she was forced to withdraw from the
Congregational Church.... I have been informed, also, that not one of her
family ever held her faith in anything but active contempt."
This latter revelation to St. Woodbury, regarding Saint Mary Baker Eddy
and her relatives, is probably true. Others have received the same
information. But when the chosen one was rejected of the Baker family,
particularly of its affluent members, it is affirmed that the spirit of
"Science" arose within Mary, like a mighty tantrum, and, recalling her
early likeness to Samuel and the Hebrews, she exclaimed with "immortal
mind," "I will yet roll in wealth!" These words of the prophetess-Mother
are sweet to the ear of Christian Science, which admonishes its adherents
to go and do likewise--assuring them that if steadfast "in Science," they
will be sure to stand solid in Dunn and Bradstreet.
It is well that our condition of existence, whatever may be its
metaphysical bases, is not all tragedy, but is relieved by a border of
comedy. According to a tale of Christian Science, as told by the Boston
_Traveler_, Mrs. Woodbury, when in the prime of her healing illumination,
with its full returns, felt on one occasion that piety would be advanced
if a "loyal student" of hers--a lady of means--should add a promising
husband to the true Church. It was done. Then, the ever-watchful "teacher"
sent forth on the wedding tour a third "loyal student"--a virgin with her
lamp trimmed and burning--to see that neither of the other twain should
lapse from grace and the certainty of further contributions.
The complaint against the _Traveler_ newspaper got into court on the 11th
of January, 1897. Short work was made of it. Notwithstanding all the
divine science incarnate in St. Josephine C. Woodbury, His Honor the
Judge, Dewey by name, excluded her from the court-room, that she might not
contribute to the examination of her witnesses any eye-beams of hypnotism.
As this book is not designed to be improperly personal, but simply an
exposition of the claims, doctrines, and effects, of Christian Science,
all unnecessary use of individual names must be avoided. But a few are
indispensable; and people who are mentioned here have already got
themselves corruscatingly into print.
The first witness for Mrs. Woodbury--who turned out also to be the
last--was a Mr. Alfred M. Potter. He testified that he was a brother of
Mrs. Fred D. Chamberlain--the lady said to be alienated from her
husband--and that he and his sister boarded with the Woodburys. He was
estranged from his family, he said, except that one sister, but Mrs.
Woodbury was not the cause of it.
As the _Traveler_ summed up one point of the court-records, Mr. Potter, in
the past year, had paid the husband of Mrs. Woodbury thirteen thousand
dollars outside of board and room. He had paid Mrs. Woodbury "between a
thousand and eleven hundred dollars for instructions for himself." But, in
the summer of 1896, there was a European trip for Mr. Potter and the
Woodburys. How could a "loyal student," young and wealthy, venture abroad
without his "teacher?" And why was not his money well expended for
spiritual pleasures, on the way, if St. Josephine and Mr. Woodbury took
good care of Mr. Potter, and brought him safe home?
But the most extraordinary matter in connection with Mr. Potter's
depositions was a certain quasi-confirmation of a story that came to the
_Traveler_ and had been published, alleging that, on the authority of Mrs.
Woodbury, the ancient and most infinitely closed of all miracles, "the
immaculate conception," had been repeated under the advanced dispensation
of Mother Eddy's religion. Such was declared by various "loyal students"
of Mrs. Woodbury to have been the claim of their exalted "teacher," to
whom a son was born, named "Prince," an abbreviation of his full title,
"the Prince of Peace." Mr. Potter came short of corroborating the whole of
this miracle, but gave substantially the version of it which Mrs. Woodbury
presented to the public, after the trial, in the pages of her "War in
Heaven." There she says:
"On the morning of June 11th, 1890, there was born to me a baby boy;
though, till his sharp birth-cry saluted my ears, I had not realized that
prospective maternity was the interpretation of preceding months of
physical discomfort.... An hour after the birth I rose. In the afternoon I
was up and dressed, and at night dined with my family.... We named our boy
Prince Woodbury, partly because he came into our family as a veritable
harbinger of peace."
Witness Potter testified that he understood, through Mrs. Woodbury, that
"she had no knowledge of the birth of Prince" until she found him with
her. This circumstance, he understood, "was through Christian Science."
When Mr. Potter, with a straight, truthful, honest face, gave this
testimony, it naturally affected the gravity of the bench, the bar, and
all others present, except Christian Scientists. There was reflected from
one to another the sardonic smile of "mortal mind." But the case went on
until presently a paper was put before Mr. Potter, by counsel for the
defense, that it might be identified.
The paper never got before the court. But the contents of it were very
peculiar. The paper, in fact, was a brutally blunt form of retraction on
the part of Mr. Fred D. Chamberlain, of every derogatory criticism of Mrs.
Woodbury he had ever made, and a meek submission to her brand of
"Christian Science." In the event of his not signing the paper, he was
given to understand that he must depart from the abode of his wife.
The document, it appears, was in the handwriting of the "loyal student,"
Mrs. Chamberlain, and was dictated by Mrs. Woodbury. But when it was
presented to Mr. Chamberlain for his signature, he had not only declined
to attach his name to it, but had retained the document.
The Woodbury counsel quickly protested against the admission of such
evidence, and the protest was judicious; for was not the whole case of
"alienation" substantially set down on that paper? Hence, too, what would
become of the libel-suit? But the court decided that the evidence was
admissible. Then, in such a shocking plight, what could an able Woodbury
lawyer do but decline, with virtuous indignation, to go on further with
the case? The short of it was that Judge Dewey discharged the defendants,
reprimanded the prosecution, and the noisy _Traveler_ had everything its
own way.[50]
As for the Chamberlain suit for damages "in Science," it was not pursued
to the monetary end. It was soon ascertained that the wife really had more
affection for her delectable "teacher" than any "loyal student" could be
expected to have for a mere husband. As a business necessity, a divorce
was then procured by Mr. Chamberlain, on the ground of desertion, and the
twain went separate ways.
It was not proved in Mrs. Woodbury's libel suit against the _Traveler_
that St. Josephine had claimed the full import of the _Traveler's_ story
about her "Prince." The proceedings, we have seen, were prematurely
stopped. But, after the newspaper's legal victory, it published sworn
statements from a number of people who would have been its witnesses had
the trial gone on. The most important was one made by Hon. George E.
Macomber, an ex-mayor of Augusta, Maine.[51] In the regular form of a
legal deposition he declared that he had known Mrs. Woodbury for several
years, his acquaintance with her having come through his wife, who had
taken lessons of her. He said:
"My wife came one day and said Mrs. Woodbury had had a child down at Ocean
Point which was a 'Second Christ,' was immaculately conceived, and that it
was the duty of her students to make presents to this 'Second Christ.'"
Mr. Macomber declined to make presents, and, according to his statement,
his wife's "eyes were opened," after a while, and she "pulled out" of
"Science."
The _Traveler's_ other witnesses may pass. It is only essential to say
that they were numerous, and that they all agreed with Mr. Macomber. One
of them testified, in an interview, that he had once gone so far in
neglect of his own family as to make a will in favor of "the Prince of
Peace." But our direct point here is only this.--There would seem to be no
doubt that St. Josephine Woodbury's "loyal students," far and wide, were
called upon to bear gifts to her celestial son. Hence, his origin had
palpable use as a financial mystery, whatever may have been its precise
theological bearings.
In "Christian Science," the doctrine here recorded has been logically
coupled with another doctrine--that of inconnubiality in wedlock. This
tenet, we can see, like the former, might result in money, goods and
bequests, for some attractive "teacher," which might otherwise be
squandered by a "student" in raising a family.
But the principle here imbedded "in Science" has not been special to Mrs.
Woodbury. Mother Eddy herself is the crystal background of all good
things, and this one, with the rest, must be credited to the fountain of
universal originality, _Science and Health_.[52] The pure simplicity of
any being who can seriously read that book to the end, inevitably fits him
to maintain with Christian Scientists, that, if children be not given to
parents under physical laws, the science of perfect purity will
ultimately evolve "_Children of the Soul_." "My husband and I," recently
exclaimed a vestal matron of Mrs. Eddy's following, "have long lived
together as brother and sister: isn't it beautiful?" "Perhaps it is,"
replied another matron, thus addressed, "but I am told it is generally
impracticable, except in Boston."
When last heard from, our contemporary "Prince of Peace" was a pretty
school-boy of wit beyond his years. May the world smile kindly on "Prince
Woodbury," who is in nowise to blame for any new-fangled religion; but may
heaven preserve him from any further involution with the sacraments of
"Christian Science."
Before bidding adieu to the heroine-martyr of our present chapter, one
more instance must be given of her work in a careless world--a very sad
instance, not to be treated lightly.
Among Mrs. Josephine Woodbury's "loyal students" for some time preceding
the year 1897, was a hand-maiden of "Christian Science," one Mary Nash.
The story of poor little Mary was told in the Boston _Traveler_,[53]
chiefly in the words of her father, when that paper was sued for libel "in
Science."
Mary Nash, as we summarize that story, lived at Augusta, Maine, and her
father, like our witness Macomber, had been a mayor of that city. He was a
busy man, but one who loved his daughter, and kept her in funds for what
he regarded as harmless fads and amusements.
Mary joined the "loyal students." Then, little by little, she absented
herself from Augusta, making frequent pilgrimages to Boston. The
pilgrimages grew in duration, until her home was seldom her habitation.
"Teacher" Woodbury had not only changed her heart, but her whole tenor of
mortal life, and Mary was completely born again into the most progressed
fears and phases of "Christian Science."
Letters followed to her father, asking for money, and demanding that he
and all his house should join "the loyal students." He forwarded the money
as occasion required, but his unregenerate neck stiffly declined
"Science." So Mary went no more to her father for weeks and months
together. He sent her mother and brother to her, with prayers that she
return to the family hearth-stone, if not to the family church. But she
was always sequestered from the influence of her relatives, by some "loyal
student" or other in the Woodbury collection of dutiful freaks.
Mary's soul was much disturbed at times, notwithstanding the
religio-scientific consolations of her surrounding guardians. She began to
demonstrate, in her own scattered little person, the one everlasting
assumption of "Christian Science," that the human body is an illusion to
be dispelled. In other words, Mary Nash was fast sinking into what
ordinary doctors of medicine and divinity term illness, and it became
extreme.
Then, not for the first time, her father, went to Boston himself, to take,
if possible, his daughter back to his care and her mother's heart, at the
Augusta home. But still, still--unless by some accident of a moment--she
was always under the eye and the power of a "metaphysical" keeper. Then
Mary said "no"--she "could not leave the fount of Christian Science." So
she stayed in Boston; for she was of age, and could select her castle and
companionship while she had the ways and means to maintain them.
Now what could a poor law-abiding citizen of New England, who had once
been a mayor, do in such a case? Had Mary's father been a wild citizen of
the West or the South, he might have taken his handy "gun" along with him,
and removed his child or "cleaned out the ranch." But Maine and
Massachusetts are too subdued for such stringent remedies. So Mayor Nash
mourned of "hypnotism," and offered--the distracted father that he
was--five hundred dollars, to release his daughter from the blessings of
her religion. This mercenary offer was spurned, as suspect perchance in
legal and ecclesiastic form; but the way was pointed out in which the
money might be received for lessons in Christian Science, at the Woodbury
cut-rates.
Meanwhile, it being ascertained that Mary Nash had a modest bank-account
in her name, the money was sent for, by herself nominally, but visibly
through a person in the number seven shoes of a "loyal student." The bank
men--who were not "in Science"--declined to pay Mary's demand, and
referred the matter to her father. He agreed with the bank in holding the
proceeds of his daughter's account, and his very stomach, not to say his
soul, rejected the thought of exchanging cash for religious instruction
from Mrs. Josephine C. Woodbury.
So little Mary Nash became of no further promise to "Christian Science."
And there was no time to lose. Mary was plainly departing from the state
of deception--certainly such to _her_--called "earthly life." Hastily, at
last, she was permitted to journey home with her father, and presently the
sad man laid his daughter away in what to him was death.[54]
From the history of "Christian Science"--set down in these pages as the
thing really is--it must be clear to anybody not quite emptied of all
"mortal sense" that Mrs. Josephine C. Woodbury has been the most logical
sequence, the most practical outcome, of the whole firmamental
illumination.
But, that the Church of St. Bunco should grow and prosper--or should even
hold its own among its honest innocents--it has been necessary for Mrs.
Eddy not only to preach "love" and "purity" in general, but to draw the
line of practical conduct somewhere short of blackmail, larceny and
homicide. St. Josephine Woodbury never committed a sin in her life. Sin
has no reality "in Science." Her "loyal students" would all have testified
that she was equal to any of the angels, if not better than the highest.
Yet a hard world around her, not understanding "true religion," began to
fancy, say in 1896, that she was not, every second, fulfilling all the ten
commandments. Then, besides her _War in Heaven_, the lady has written
another book, called _Christian Voices_, in which, the thought having been
long imputed to her, she asked the question, "Who shall succeed Mrs.
Eddy?" As _Science and Health_ declares there is no death, and as "Mother
Eddy" is specially immortal, St. Josephine's carnal talk of the "Christian
Science succession" was naturally regarded "in Science" as worse than
blasphemy. Thus many things worked together against St. Josephine
Woodbury, until at last she sat on "Mother" Eddy's burning fagots and wore
the crown of martyrdom.
Thereat the world did not come to an end, but went right on with the
production of quacks, dupes, and "loyal students."