THAT _EDDYFYING_ CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
This season there broke out in our community, as elsewhere, what has
always appeared to me, to be a distemper, misnamed by its crafty
creator, "Christian Science." Unchristian scienceless would be a more
appropriate name, as the so-called divine revelation was made to its
Eddyfying high priestess about 1800 years after the sublime career
of Christ was ended, and its preposterous claims antagonize every
principle of modern science.
This craze seized certain discontented young women who studied
"Science and Health" under the tutorage of its author, and they soon
became too transcendental to perform the useful duties of life,
posing as teachers of the "utterly utter." It monopolized the feeble
intellects of some farmers' boys, who at once began to try to get a
lazy living by sitting beside sick women with their hands over their
eyes, ostensibly engaged in prayer, but really endeavoring to prey
upon the weak minded.
Some superstitious people who had been long under the care of a
regular physician, and who were just at the turning point of receiving
benefit therefrom, took an "Eddy sitting" and jumped to the conclusion
that said mummery affected a miraculous cure.
As a drowning man clutching at a straw, I confess that I accepted
the offer of treatments, made by a pleasant lady "Christian science"
doctor. I found it tolerably agreeable to sit by her side, holding her
soft hand while she assumed an attitude of supplication, but my malady
was in nowise benefited thereby. This amiable lady finally loaned me a
copy of their sacred book called "Science and Health," expressing the
opinion that a careful reading thereof would renew my youth and make
me a believer in their modern Eleusinian mysteries forever.
I read this preposterous book with all the earnestness and
prayerfulness of which I was capable; but found it to be a
heterogeneous conglomeration of words--mere words, a hodge podge of
all the exploded philosophical, religious, and scientific heresies of
the past ages, so cunningly jumbled that the gullible, unable to
find any meaning to it, conclude that it is too profound for their
comprehension, and unwilling to acknowledge the fact for fear of being
called ignorant, solemnly pronounce it to be great.
One quotation will reveal the utter nothingness of this book, from the
sale of which "Pope Eddy" is said to have realized, a half-million
dollars. Says this modern goddess: "The word Adam is from the Hebrew
Adamah, signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness.
Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads a dam or
obstruction. This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal
mind in solution."
Like all the other humbugs of superstition, this new doctrine seems
to me to contain but a single drop of truth submerged in an ocean of
folly. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the great high priestess, claims to possess
the power to heal the sick and raise the dead; yet she has retired
with much lucre to her palatial residence, lives like a queen, rolling
in luxury, refusing to exercise her pretended healing power upon the
thousands writhing in agony and whom she claims to be able to cure.
Surely her "Key to the Scriptures" should thunder in her ears the
anathema, "To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it
is a sin."
I, too, claim a great discovery, a new "sacred book," which I have
been inspired to write, and if people will give it the implicit faith
required to benefit by "Christian Science," I will guarantee to cure
all mental ills, and to bring eternal peace on earth. I herewith give
my revelation to all, without money and without price, in strong
contrast to the mercenary methods of the Eddy healers. My "science and
health" is _multum in parvo_. Here it is:
Columbus discovered the new world; but his wife discovered the old
world. The name of his wife, of course, was Columba, which in Latin,
means a dove. Columba, the dove, flew forth from the ark, and so
discovered the Eastern Continent. Columbus sailed from G--noa;
but Columba sailed from Noah, and when the gods saw her with the
olive-branch, they said "blessed be the dove, for whosoever shall
receive her by faith into his heart, the same shall be free from
unrest and from war forevermore."
Faith can remove mountains, and faith is all there is to "Christian
Science," so far as we have been able to ascertain. We concede to its
many devotees an almost unlimited amount of this saving grace; but
sincerely claim that our "Columba science" will be equally efficient
for good if received in the same spirit which has greeted the new
gospel promulgated by Saint Mary Baker G. Eddy. _Selah_.
[Illustration: We Steamed up the Lordly St. John's River of Florida.]