z£U£|fvE|n^r
YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of
IRVING N. FISHER
YALE 1923

The
Religio -Medical
Masquerade

A Complete Exposure of
Christian Science

FREDERICK W. PEADODlr, LL.B.
OF THE BOSTON BAR If,:

THE HANCOCK PRESS
BOSTON, MASS.

Copyright, 1910
BY
Frederick W. Peabody

The price of this book is $1.00.
Mailed to any address upon receipt of price and eight cents in
stamps for postage.
The Hancock-Press, Post-Office Box 2789, Boston, Mass.

CONTENTS

chapter page
Introduction  5
I. The Sacrifice of Children .... 21
II. The Detached Heart  36
III. Pretended Equality with Jesus . 48
IV. The Faked "Revelation"  56
V. The Fiction of God's Authorship . 65
VI. A Sham "Religion"  72
VII. A Bogus Healing System  103
VIII. Immeasurable Greed  121
IX. The Eddy Autocracy  147
X. The "String" on the Gifts .... 154
XI. The Eddy Ban on Marriage . . . 162
XII. Christian Science Witchcraft ... 168

e*

INTRODUCTION
yow. civ
RISTIAM. SCIENCE- is the most shallow
and sordid and wicked imposture of the ages.__
Upon a substratum of lies a foundation of false
pretense has been laid, upon which has been built
a superstructure of outward beauty in which multi
tudes of credulous people gather to glorify the founder
as God's chief anointed.
Never before has the world witnessed a mas
querade Uke that of Christian Science. Being every
thing that Christianity is not, it puts on the garb of
Christianity and seizes the name of Christ the better
to attract and the more strongly to hold people of
shallow mind, but sincere heart.. Having nothing I
in it remotely worthy of the name of science, it
meaninglessly appropriates scientific terms and
phrases in order to parade before the world with an
air of learning.
The founder of this pretended religion, this bogus
healing system, audaciously and irreligiously pro
fessing equality of character and of power with
Jesus, has, throughout her whole long life, been in
every particular precisely antithetical to Christ.

6 INTRODUCTION
("Sordid, mercenary, unprincipled, the consuming
) passion of her life has been the accumulation of
j money, and she has stopped at no falsehood, no
1 fraud and no greater wickedness that seemed to put
\ her in the way of adding to her accumulations, or
i overcoming her supposed enemies.
Jesus condemned nothing so forcefully as the
mercenary spirit. With a whip he scourged the
money changers from the Temple, and in language
that burned as flaming fire he denounced the hypo
crites and liars of his time as "like unto whited
sepulchers that are indeed beautiful outward, but
within are full of dead men's bones and all un-
cleanness." If the language of this book seem severe, if its
denunciations are emphatic, if things are called by
their right names and facts handled without the
least equivocation, if contrasts are drawn between
the founder of Christianity and the founder of
Christian Science that seem to border upon the
irreverent, let it not be assumed that there is in the
heart of the author the slightest particle of personal
animosity, or in his attitude toward real Christianity
and Christ anything but the most complete reverence.
It is time the plain facts should be stated in
plain terms, that the hand of truth should ruthlessly

INTRODUCTION 7
tear away the mask of falsehood from the face of
hypocrisy and expose to the horrified gaze of man
kind the hideous lineaments upon which are indelibly
and unmistakably written the craft and insincerity
of utter selfishness and monstrous greed, and the
hardness of a cruelty almost unbelievable.
Without egotism, I may say that no other man
knows, as I know, the true inwardness of Christian
Science, because no other man has come face to face
with it again and again on so many occasions as I
have, and no other has been in the position I have
to force from the lips of reluctant witnesses, under the
sanction of an oath, unwilling and discrediting testi
mony. Ten years ago I knew nothing and cared less
about Christian Science, assuming it to be a sincere,
but deluded, manifestation of the childish credulity
to which the human race is prone. But ten years of
investigations and repeated professional employments,
in which it became my duty as a lawyer to get at
the actual facts with the aid of legal process, have
qualified me, as no other not having had my experi
ence can be qualified, to set forth the amazing story
in utter nakedness. In order that it may appear
that I am talking from a basis of knowledge, and not
of rumor or gossip or speculation, let me briefly

8 INTRODUCTION
narrate the professional experiences above re
ferred to.
My first encounter with Christian Science came
about through an employment by the Arena Com
pany, publishers of the Arena magazine, in 1899.
In the May number of the magazine for that year
an article by Mrs. Josephine C. Woodbury, that was
in the nature of an expose of Christian Science, was
published, and instead of bringing suit against Mrs.
Woodbury or the magazine for the statements con
tained in the article, an endeavor was made, in Mrs.
Eddy's interest, to suppress the magazine by a suit
in equity to restrain its publication based upon the
incorporation in the article of a photograph of
Mrs. Eddy said to have been copyrighted. The
Arena Company retained me to represent its in
terests in the litigation, and during that employment
I was brought in contact with the author of the
article, and from her got my first inkling of the real
character of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, arid her
religio-medical-commercial system.
Mrs. Woodbury had been a Christian Scientist
for many years, during a long portion of which time
she enjoyed Mrs. Eddy's confidence as one of her
leading lieutenants. She had accumulated many
letters from Mrs. Eddy, and all her published utter-

INTRODUCTION 9
ances, whether in book or pamphlet form, from the
beginning of the movement down to that time.
Mrs. Woodbury was a woman of forceful, dominating
personality, of much greater culture than Mrs. Eddy
and the rank and file of her following, and in course
of time she attracted to herself a personal popularity
and influence that so threatened Mrs. Eddy's, that
it became important, if her ascendency was to be
maintained unimpaired, that Mrs. Woodbury be cast
into outer darkness and her influence wholly destroyed.
Occasion was readily found for this and, in due time,
without warning, without a notice of the charges
made against her, and without an opportunity to be
heard, Mrs. Woodbury was excommunicated from the
Boston Christian Science Church and cut off from
fellowship with the faithful. This placed her in a
position where rational reflection was forced upon her,
and she speedily came to the necessary conclusion
that she had been duped.
Arriving at this conclusion, with a courage much
to be admired Mrs. Woodbury wrote and published
in the Arena magazine the article to which I have
referred, and in unmeasured terms laid open the
sinister and sordid quality of the whole movement,
and exposed the consummate selfishness and greed
in the heart of its "founder." The article went_

10 INTRODUCTION
forth in the Arena, and Christian - Sciencedom was
V up in arms. Mr. Septimus J. Hanna, then editor
] of the Christian Science fournal, Mrs. Eddy's organ,
\ hastened to Concord, New Hampshire, to confer
; with Mrs. Eddy regarding ways and means of meeting
I it, and the method of squaring the account with Mrs.
^Woodbury was considered and determined.
Let it be remembered that the article in the Arena
was published in the May, 1899, number. Almost
immediately after the appearance of the article,
Mrs. Woodbury's husband, to whom she had been
much devoted, died and paeans of rejoicing went up
from the Christian Scientists that the Judge of aU
the world had thus righteously punished one who
had dared to assail the sanctified personaUty of
"God's voice to this age."
Mrs. Eddy's personal opportunity came in the
month of June, 1899, when, in her annual message
to the "Mother Church" in Boston, she undertook
to dispose once and for all of Mrs. Woodbury. In
language, seldom or never before equaled for cruelty
and brutality, Mrs. Eddy assailed Mrs. Woodbury.
Pretending, herself, to be the woman "clothed with
the sun," spoken of in the Book of Revelation,
Mrs. Eddy denounced Mrs. Woodbury as the Baby
lonish woman there referred to. She said:

INTRODUCTION 11
"The doom of the Babylonish woman referred to in
Revelation is being fulfilled. This woman, drunken
with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the
martyrs of Jesus, drunk of the wine of her fornication,
would enter even the church and retaining the heart
of the harlot and the purpose of the destroying angel
. . . poison such as drink of the living water." And
further: "And a voice was heard saying, come out of
her my people and hearken not to her lies that ye
receive not her plagues, for her sins have reached
unto Heaven and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Double unto her double, according to her work: in
the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. For
she saith in her heart I am no widow. . . . Therefore
shall her plague come in one day, death, mourning
and famine: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth
her. That which the revelator saw in spiritual
vision will be accomplished. The Babylonish woman
is fallen: and who shall mourn over the widowhood
of lust, of her that hath become the habitation of
devils, and the hold of every foul spirit and the cage
of every unclean bird."
I make no defense of Mrs. Woodbury's absurdities
when she was a Christian Scientist. She went the
limit. Nothing could have exceeded her confidence
in Mrs. Eddy's teachings and her zeal for the cause ;
but I am absolutely certain that there was nothing
in Mrs. Woodbury's life in the slightest degree justify
ing the reflections upon her chastity, and Mrs. Eddy's

12 INTRODUCTION
attack was utterly baseless and wanton and purely
vengeful. Immediately upon publication of this message
and its public reading in the "Mother Church" in
Boston, all Christian Scientists recognized the person
thus assailed. Either from native shrewdness, or by
advice of friends or perhaps of lawyers, Mrs. Eddy
had abstained from using Mrs. Woodbury's name in
the message; but no Christian Scientists anywhere
had any doubt that Mrs. Woodbury was the subject
of Mrs. Eddy's attack and, on every hand, Christian
Scientists openly expressed their gratification that
Mrs. Woodbury had thus been finally suppressed.
The next day after the publication, I asked a Christian
Scientist with whom I was intimately acquainted,
whom Mrs. Eddy referred to in the passage quoted
from her message. The unhesitating response was,
"Why, that vile Mrs. Woodbury, of course."
The acquaintance, begun with Mrs. Woodbury
through my employment by the Arena Company,
developed into the relationship of attorney and cUent
after the pubUcation of Mrs. Eddy's message; and it
was determined to bring suit against Mrs. Eddy for
this attack and against other Christian Science offi
cials responsible for its publication. Before begin
ning, I advised Mrs. Woodbury that, as she was not

INTRODUCTION 13
named in the article, her identity at the trial could
only be established by persons who understood her
to be referred to, and I asked her if she beUeved that
prominent Christian Scientists, who had openly
avowed such an understanding, could be relied upon
to tell the truth upon the witness stand. She assured
me of her confident belief that they could and that
none of them would go upon the witness stand and
deliberately commit perjury; but at the time of the
trial, having called as witnesses only those close to
Mrs. Eddy who had made avowal of their understand
ing that Mrs. Woodbury was the subject of Mrs.
Eddy's attack, none of them admitted that, at the
time of the publication, they had any such under
standing. As the language was wholly unintelligible
to any one but Christian Scientists, the suit necessarily
failed; but it would not have failed if, at that time,
I had had the familiarity I now have with Mrs.
Eddy's private correspondence; for I should have
been able to introduce in evidence letters of hers
clearly showing that Mrs. Woodbury was the Baby
lonish woman of her message.
In the course of the preparation for the trial of
this case, all of Mrs. Woodbury's letters from Mrs.
Eddy and all of Mrs. Eddy's published utterances
from the beginning down, to that time, including

14 INTRODUCTION
every edition of her book, "Science and Health,'
and every number of the Christian Science fournal,
were turned over to me by my client and studied
with most thorough and painstaking care. Then it
""was I learned that Christian Science was a deUberate
fraud foisted upon mankind by Mrs. Eddy in the
name of religion for the mere purpose of extorting
\_money from credulous people. Since that time I
have been intensely interested in following the matter
up and adding to my store of facts, until now I am
confident that no man can read this book, no man
and no woman who has not parted with every scrap
of sanity and who retains elemental decency in his
or her heart, and not be in entire accord with my
conclusions. Some time after the Woodbury-Eddy Utigation,
I was retained by Rev. Minot J. Savage, then of
New York City, to collect for him, and at his expense,
in legally evidential form, the facts showing unmis
takably Mrs. Eddy's false pretense and fraud, and
in pursuance of this employment I examined numerous
individuals and took their statements under oath for
Mr. Savage. Later, when McClure's magazine under
took the pubUcation of the facts of Mrs. Eddy's
career, I was employed to procure the sworn state
ments of many individuals in support of the maga-

INTRODUCTION 15
zine's story, and shortly thereafter I was retained
by Mrs. Eddy's two sons, George W. Glover, born/ to
her by her first husband, and Edward J. Foster, her
son by adoption, to cooperate with their other
lawyers, Hon. William E. Chandler, Ex-United States
Senator from New Hampshire being senior counsel,
in the prosecution in the courts of New Hampshire
of a suit in equity for the appointment of a receiver
to have charge of their mother's large estate for her
benefit, upon the ground that, through old age
mental weakness and delusions, if not actual insanity,
she was incompetent to have the care of it. This
Utigation never reached a determination in the
courts, but the family controversy was ultimately
settled by a family settlement in which the two
sons were paid approximately $300,000 for a relin
quishment of their prospective interest in their
mother's estate and an agreement not to contest
any will or other instrument disposing of her
property. As the Massachusetts attorney in this litigation,
it became my duty in the City of Boston to examine ,
under oath, many of Mrs. Eddy's most intimate
friends, and the highest officials of organized Chris
tian Science, who, by legal process, were compelled
to produce many hundreds of personal letters received

16 INTRODUCTION
by them from her. This last professional experience
completed my understanding of Christian Science,
and the facts herein set forth are, almost without
exception, based, either upon Mrs. Eddy's own pub
lished utterances, her private correspondence, the
sworn testimony of witnesses, or the admissions under
oath of her most confidential friends and followers;
and I give my book to the world with a full under
standing of the responsibility I assume and a com
plete willingness to justify in any legal tribunal
every statement I make.
Let it not be supposed, however, that I am pre
senting the spectacle of a cowardly man attacking a
weak and unprotected woman. Mrs. Eddy is the
head and front of a powerful and rich organization,
the leader of a movement that numbers many thou
sands of adherents, amongst them some thousands
I of more or less masculine men. She is Christian
J_Science, and Christian Science is Mrs. Eddy. Any
thing that money can buy or fanaticism give is con
stantly at her disposal, and back of her, as behind
the greatest and the humblest, stands the sovereign
law. Whoever offends another, is accountable to the
law; and if anything I say offend against her right
to enjoy the reputation warranted byjier Ufe, I can
~ and should be called to speedy and strict account.

INTRODUCTION 17
If the contents of this book are not true, I, myself,
proclaim that the severest legal penalty would in
adequately punish me for its publication. If, on
the other hand, what I say be true, as I am confident
there can be no doubt in any honest mind that follows
me to the end, then decent people, men or women,
can no longer afford to give the slightest countenance
to Mary Baker G. Eddy and her impostures, be they
called by the name of religion, or be they pretended
cure-alls for the ills to which our human flesh is
heir. I challenge Mrs. Eddy and the whole, Christian
Science combination to dare to prosecute me for
libel, and I affirm and shall continue to affirm that
their omission so to do is an acknowledgment of
the truth of every statement I make. She knows
I am telling nothing but the truth, and that the whole
truth, to be brought out upon a judicial investigation,
would be more damning than the truth as I have
presented it. The whole truth cannot be told out
side of a judicial tribunal.
In presenting the substance of this book in the
form of a lecture to the people of the country, from
one ocean to the other, the only response has been
slander and defamation of me, the last resort of the
accused who can make no defense; but nobody has

18 INTRODUCTION
met my facts with anything like evidence, or under
taken in any serious manner to disprove the truth
of my most damaging charges.
I beg every one who reads this book not to be
diverted from the facts by any personal abuse of me
that may follow its publication. It is the only
response that has been or can be made to my pres
entation, and I am accustomed to it from the paid
spokesmen of a cult that, so far as its ruling spirits
"are concerned, more resembles an organization of
outlaws banded together for plunder, than a reUgious
establishment based upon the sublime teachings of
the Man of Sorrows.
The knowledge I possess I could not suppress
without making myself a party to one of the greatest
crimes ever perpetrated against the human race;
and I will not, by my silence, permit myself to
become an ally with Mrs. Eddy and her associates
in that crime.
History is but repeated in Christian. Science.
"We have seen," said Macaulay, "an old woman
with no talents beyond the cunning of a fortune
teller, and with the education of a scullion, exalted
into a prophetess and surrounded by tens of thou
sands of devoted followers, many of whom were, in
station and in knowledge, immeasurably her su-

INTRODUCTION 19
periors, and all this in the nineteenth century, and
all this in London."
MarveUng as he thus did at the success of Joanna
Southcott's parody upon religion in the early part of
the last century, what would Macaulay have thought
of Mary Baker G. Eddy's utterly unintelligible hodge
podge, which she falsely calls both a discovery and a
revelation, a science and a religion, and what would
he have thought of her following?
Mrs. Eddy is in no respect superior to Miss South-
cott in the matter of origin and education. One
was as obscure and as unlearned as the other. In
one respect at least the Southcott woman was superior
to the Eddy woman. The former was at least honest ;
she believed in her mission. There is no evidence
that she built up a pretended religion upon a founda
tion of lies. She was, at the worst, an unbalanced
creature with a form of religious mania. She did
not grow rich out of her followers. She did not
use her supposed revelation as a business asset and
sell it for what it would bring. She did not take
out a copyright on her "religion," and monopolize
its sale for extraordinary profit. There was no
taint of commercialism about her frenzies. She
died poor.
The founder of Christian Science, on the contrary,

20 INTRODUCTION
is everything that Joanna Southcott was not. She
is mercenary, insincere, shameless, and bold to a
degree surpassing that of all other persons who have
duped mankind. Upon theft and falsehood she has
laid the foundations of the "religion" by the sale of
which she has accumulated a fortune.
F. W. P.

The Religio-Medical
Masquerade CHAPTER I
The Sacrifice of Children
AT the very outset of a candid consideration of
Christian Science, I feel the necessity, if not
of an apology, at least of an explanation. I shall
with entire freedom discuss a woman and a combined
religio-medical-commercial system of which she is
the founder. I -shall handle the one and the other
without the least regard for anything but the truth.
Mary Baker G. Eddy is the woman, and Christian"
Science, so called, is the system; but they are in
separable,' identical. They have arisen and they J
will go down together, and I predict that they will"
go down much more rapidly than they have ascended.
I am going to hold up for the inspection of man
kind the soul of a woman, of a woman eighty-eight
years of age, and I am going to do it without regard
to the fact that she is feminine and aged. There is
no other way to present Christian Science in its true
aspect. It rests exclusively upon Mrs. Eddy's repre
sentations and Mrs. Eddy's character. If every-
21

22 THE religio-medical masquerade
thing she has claimed regarding herself and Christian
Science as a religion and healing system be absolutely
false, then there is no justification for the existence
of Christian Science as a religion, or a heaUng system,
every church erected in its honor is but a monument
to the "Queen of frauds and hypocrites," and every
worshiper at its shrines the dupe of a designing old
woman who has laughed in her sleeves at the ease
with which she has gulled them.
While this is unmistakably true, it is, notwith
standing, most distasteful to a man, if he be half a
man, publicly to assail the character of a woman,
and nothing under heaven can justify it, if she be
in private life and not putting forth nor seeking to
put forth an influence upon the lives of others; but
if she have constituted herself sponsor for a reUgion
^of lies and a medical system that is a fraud and a
shame, if she profess God imparted knowledge of
everything needful for human bodies and souls, if
she reach out her influence to all parts of the land
and seek to govern hundreds of thousands of people
in every detail of their daily lives, and if her influence*.
be harmful and only harmful, it is the duty of a
man, who knows the facts, to make them public,
regardless of sex or age or anything whatever but
the public good. And so I ask my readers to beUeve
that while for Mrs. Eddy, the feeble and palsied old
woman tottering on the very verge of the grave, I
have feelings only of compassion; for Mrs. Eddy,
the charlatan and adventuress, for Mrs. Eddy, the
impious pretender to equality with Jesus, the fraudu-

THE SACRIFICE OF CHILDREN 23
lent claimant of exclusive and immediate revelation
from God, for Mrs. Eddy, upon whose altar of greed
have been sacrificed the harmony and happiness of
marriage, the natural love and tenderness of parents
and the sweet lives of God only knows how many chil-"
dren, for Mrs. Eddy, the heartless and avaricious
despot of multitudes of despoiled and demented
dupes, for that woman, as there is no sympathy in
my heart, so there shall be no charity in my speech.
Now, who is Mrs. Eddy, and what is this strange
thing called Christian Science ?
As I understand her, Mrs. Eddy is the inventor
and sole proprietor of the greatest get-rich-quick
concern ever conceived. Her business — there is no
religion about it, and her writings may be searched
from end to end without finding a line about the
worship of God — her business converts into cash"
the very highest emotions of the human soul by an
appeal to religious feeling and extorts huge sums of
money from multitudes of credulous people for heal
ing them of nothing but the delusion that there is
something the matter with them. Christian Science
never cured any one of anything but imaginary
illness; it never relieved any one of any real evil —
but his money. —J
Mrs. Eddy, boldly professing to have received a
revelation from God, and to be the equal of Jesus
Christ, has made upwards of a million and a half
dollars out of her enterprise that she calls Christian
Science since she reached sixty years of age; and, if
some be inclined to infer therefrom the possession

24 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
by her of extraordinary genius, I cannot agree with
"them. Mrs. Eddy has succeeded, not because of her
greatness, but because of the avidity with which
unreasoning people swallow the most monstrous
absurdities, the shamelessness with which men and
women will intellectually prostrate themselves
before the coarsest vulgarity and the most patent
^fraud. Let me illustrate this, if I can. It is no part of
my undertaking to account for Mrs. Eddy's foUowing.
The fact that she has some thousands of followers
does not, of itself, prove the truth of any of her teach
ings or pretensions. There was never any religious
pretender yet, who could not, with sUght effort, ob
tain a hearing and a following. I recently observed,
in one of our daily papers, an account of an amusing
incident of this character in Oklahoma. A man,
believing himself to be the incarnation of Almighty
God, started out to convert the world to his beUef,
and considered it to be his mission, in the first
instance, to persuade mankind to divest themselves
of clothes. The first man he encountered was his
next-door neighbor and the first woman his next-
door neighbor's wife, and they were easily persuaded
of the man's divine mission, and that it was God's
wish that they should revert to primitive nakedness.
So the three doffed the attire of civilization and per
ambulated into the adjoining town, naked as they
came into the world. A police officer, who en
countered them upon the street, with averted eyes
hustled them into a van and carted them off to the

THE SACRIFICE OF CHILDREN 25
nearest police station, where they were compelled to
assume at least the outward garb of decency and
sanity. This only shows how true it is that the
religious impostor has no difficulty in making con
verts, and that the first person he converts is usually
the first he encounters.
I am continually met with the inquiry, "If j
Christian Science is an absolute fraud, how do youf
account for the fact that so many intelligent people •
are Christian Scientists?"
In the first place, many people may be intelligent j
enough about the ordinary affairs of life, and utterly I
imbecile upon reUgious matters. History has again_s
and again shown that in no respect are people so
easily credulous and so readily victimized as in respect
to religious things. Doubtless there are intelligent
people in Christian Science ; but the whole cult is not
numerous, and the intelligent minority is a negligible
quantity. In the latest bulletin of religious statistics,
pubUshed by the Federal Government in 1909, the
total number of Christian Scientists is given as
85,717; but it is stated that a large portion, at least
half, of the membership of the "Mother Church" in
Boston is counted twice in this estimate; for the
41,634 membership of this Boston church is largely
composed of non-residents, who are also members of
other churches. So at least 20,000 must be de
ducted from the total of 85,717 in order to get at
anything like an accurate estimate, which cannot be
far from 65,000. These are the government's figures

26 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
for 1906, although Mrs. Eddy definitely stated that
there were a million Christian Scientists as long ago
as 1883. Now, admitting that amongst this 65,000 people
there are intelligent persons, I make the affirmation
boldly that not one of them ever went into Christian
Science because of his intelligence but notwithstand
ing and in spite of it. Let me make plain this non-
intelligent attitude of its devotees toward Christian
Science. The religious service in a Christian Science church
"contains no original utterance from the pulpit. There
is no preacher connected with any Christian Science
church, and the individuals officiating from the
platform are called readers, the first reader being a
man, who reads from Mrs. Eddy's book, and the
second reader being a woman, who reads from the
Bible. The sermon consists exclusively of the
alternate reading, by the second reader of passages
from the Bible, and by the first reader of alleged
interpretative passages from Mrs. Eddy's book,
"Science and Health," which is called by her, "The
rKey to the Scriptures."
Mr. Arthur G. Frisbie of Cleveland, Ohio, an
absolutely sincere and honest man, was for many
years the first reader of the leading Christian Science
church in that city. He became, however, con
vinced, as every sincere and honest person, who re
tains any remnant of analytical power sooner or
later must, that the thing was a monstrous fraud,
and he now denounces it in no less unmeasured terms

THE SACRIFICE OF CHILDREN 27
than my own. Mr. Frisbie tells me tljat during all
the time he was officiating as first reader in the
church and read from Mrs. Eddy's book, try as hard
as he might he could discover no slightest relation
between the Bible passages read by the second
reader and the "Science and Health" interpretative
passages read by himself. Any one who cares to
make the experiment may demonstrate this for him
self if he will get a copy of the Christian Science
Quarterly in which the so-called Sermon Lessons are
outlined. Such a test will show that there is no
more connection between the Biblical passages and
those selected and read from Mrs. Eddy's book than
there wouldbe if "Mother Goose" or "Robinson Crusoe"
were used as interpreters of the Scriptures. And
yet I have sat in a Christian Science church and seen
thousands of the faithful, with nothing less than
ecstatic expressions upon their countenances, listening
to readings that were absolutely unintelligible to both
readers and hearers. So I say that the only possible
way to be a Christian Scientist is to completely sub
ordinate intelligence to feeling and approximate as
nearly as possible the ideal condition pictured by
Mrs. Eddy when she says, "The less mind there is
manifested in matter, the better."
Before passing from this poin^ I can't refrain
from incorporating here, for the benefit of mankind,
the sage summary of a man whom I regard as the
very wisest of living estimatdrs of human qualities.
I refer, of course, to Mark Twain. His opinion of
why Mrs. Eddy has so many followers is most in-

28 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
forming. In a letter to me some few years ago,
Mr. Clemens said:
"Have I given you the impression that I was com
bating Xn Science? or that I am caring how the Xn
Scientists 'hail' my articles? ReUeve yourself of those
errors. I wrote the articles to please MYSELF ; and it
had not occurred to me to care what the ' Scientists '
might think of them. I am not combating Xn
Science — I haven't a thing in the world against it.
[Making fun of that shameless Old swindler, Mother
', Eddy, is the only thing about it I take any interest in.
i At bottom I suppose I take a private deUght in seeing
! the human race making an ass of itself again — which
it has always done whenever it had a chance. That's
"its affair — it has the right — and it will sweat blood
for it a century hence, and for many centuries there
after. "It distresses me a Uttle to hear you talk about
'sanity in the affairs of men.' So far as I know, men
have never shown any noticeable degree of sanity in
their affairs, and to me it seems rather large flattery
to intimate that they are capable of it.
"See them get down and worship that old creature.
A century hence, they'll all be at it. Sanity — in the
human race! This is really fulsome."
There is no other possible explanation than this
of Mrs. Eddy's success. It is based, as Mark Twain
says, upon the irresistible propensity of the human
race to make an ass of itself every time it gets a
chance. It is astounding, but it is a fact, that by
many thousands of people in the United States in
the year of grace 1910 this aged, illiterate, unprin
cipled, vulgar woman is regarded as the agent and

THE SACRIFICE OF CHILDREN 29
representative of the Almighty God. I do not know
how many times I have been told that because I
have endeavored to make the people of the country
understand that Christian Science is based wholly
upon Mrs. Eddy's falsehoods, I am therefore irrever
ently assailing the Almighty upon His throne. I
confess I am not much disturbed by this particular
criticism, because I feel that, if it be a fact, the Al
mighty will deal with me indulgently, knowing the
integrity of my motives, and that, however aggressive
I may become, the Almighty is in no danger.
The more I have studied and learned of the life
of this strange creature and the more closely I have
observed her effect upon the lives of those who
come under her sway, the more strongly I am con
vinced of the harmfulness of her influence. It is
literally derationalizing thousands of people, it is
turning multitudes "from the pursuit of knowledge
and steeping them in a superstition worse than that
of the Middle Ages. It is remorselessly separating
husband and wife, parent and child. It is the
mother and promoter of a new-old witchcraft which
has so taken possession of the minds and lives of
people that they live in constant terror of its sup
posed baneful work. This Christian Science witch
craft has reached the proportion amongst the faithful
almost of panic, and of it more hereafter. But of
all of the harmful influences of this alleged medical
science, which is an unmitigated nonsense or deviltry,
and of this alleged religion which, so far as its founder
is concerned, is the very quintessence of irreverence

30 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
and hypocrisy, of all of the evil consequences of the
life and work of this monumental imposture, thei
unrelieved suffering of helpless children is the worst.
Mrs. Eddy teaches and her followers believe that
God has revealed to her, as absolute truth, that sick- J
ness, pain and suffering do not in reality exist, and
many are the deluded mothers upon whom this
belief has taken so fast a hold that they permit their
I helpless children to suffer and to die without the
' slightest effort to alleviate the suffering, and with
the continued iteration and reiteration of the insane
notion that the child cannot be sick and cannot suffer, *
because sickness and suffering are unreal. Mean
time the sickness of the child is real, the suffering!
terribly real, and after protracted suffering it dies
without the turning of a hand to reUeve its pain or
_to save its life. Those sane parents who have en
dured the anguish of seeing their child suffer, say
from abscess in the ear, or from any one of the other
forms of torture with which nature stretches our
little ones upon beds of pain, will appreciate the
enormity of this crime.
I recently talked with a lady who had been
visiting her Christian Science sister whose little boy,
eight or ten years of age, became sick during my
friend's visit. He went to his mother and said,
"Mother, I have a terrible pain and feel very sick,
and think I ought to have a doctor."
What did the Christian Science mother do? Did
she coddle the Uttle fellow, take off his clothes and
put him to bed and tell him the good doctor would

THE SACRIFICE OF CHILDREN 31
soon be there and that he would be all well again very
shortly ? Nothing of the kind. ' ' Richard, ' ' she said,"
"it is very wrong of you to talk that way, when youj
have that error of belief. You know you are not sick,}
Richard, and cannot be sick ; you know how to treat'
yourself when you have that false belief. Treat your
self, run away and play, and don't bother me any!
more." — J
Little Richard turned from his Christian Science
mother and resumed his play, so long as he could
stagger about on his little feet and keep up the sad
pretense. And when he could not keep on his feet
any longer, he sat down upon the floor with his toys
about him, moaning with pain and holding his hand
upon his side. Meantime his Christian Science
mother busied herself about her family duties, totally
ignoring him.
The time came when little Richard could not any
longer sit up and completely lost interest in his toys;
and then he fell over upon the floor, and died — died
with his clothes on, died with his toys about him,
died absolutely neglected by his mother in his
extremity, died without the slightest sane endeavor
to save his life.
And so it is everywhere in Christian Science
famiUes throughout the length and breadth of this
land. Nothing but the employment of a fool-man
or a fool-woman, called a Christian Science healer,
to administer a Christian Science treatment, which
consists only of the inaudible repetition of Mrs.
Eddy's meaningless jargon, can be done by a Christian

32 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
Science parent to save the life of his child without!
repudiating Mrs. Eddy's fundamental teaching that *
sickness is unreal and giving the lie to her "inspired" ,_
insanity that there are no such things as pain and 1
death.
f"" Who has not, for years past, read such items? as
I these in the daily papers? "Christian Science ^
; parent arrested. Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin's twelve |
! years' old child died without medical attendance."
Again: "Jail term for Christian Scientist Brine,
who let his six-year-old child die without medical-
attendance." Again: "No medicine for dying boy. PubUc
prosecutor to take up case of year-old son of Frank
A. Black, who died on' Saturday without medical '
attendance." Again: "Mr. and Mrs. Edwin M. Watson, Chris
tian Scientists, convicted of voluntary manslaughter)
for failure to provide medical attendance for their
seven-year-old child, Granville."
Again: "Little Esther Quimby, the seven-year-sl
old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Quimby, Christian:
Scientists, allowed to die of malignant diphtheria
without attendence of a doctor."
There was in this country in the neighborhood!
of 5,000 advertising Christian Science healers, so
called, and their patients are largely women and
children. If each of them has but one patient a
day, there are over a million and a half lives annually
placed under their senseless and impotent minis
trations. As they doubtless average many more

THE SACRIFICE OF CHILDREN 33
than one a day, their patients are in the aggregate
many millions a year, largely women, still more
largely children. There are no statistics showing
the mortaUty of such patients, for it is the practice
of these healers to conceal their operations by calling
in a physician at the last moment to qualify him to
-give the necessary death certificate, in order that
there may be no investigation of their criminal
practices. It cannot be doubted, however, that the
sacrifice of child life to this stupid and cruel monster
runs up into the hundreds, if not the thousands,
annually. Could anything be more hideous?
But what, may I ask, does Mary Baker G. Eddy
care about the sacrifice of .children, so only that her
bank account continue to grow and grow and grow?
Her concern for children generally may be some
what judged by her regard for the only child she
ever brought into the world. Mrs. Eddy, when she
was Mrs. Glover, in September, 1844, gave birth to
her only child, a son, whom she named after his
father, George Washington Glover. As a young
infant, George lived at his aunt's house with his
mother, who, however, frequently sent him on long
visits to the family of John Varney, the hired man
(in whose lap it was her custom, when a young widow,
to be rocked to sleep at night), and also to Mahala
Sanborn, who had attended her at the boy's birth.
When he was seven years old, Miss Sanborn, who
had become Mrs. Cheeney, took him, at his mother's
request, permanently to live with her in North
Groton, New Hampshire, where he was from 1851 to

34 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
1857, when the Cheeneys moved to Enterprise, Minne
sota, taking George with them. During the larger part
of his life in North Groton, Mrs. Eddy lived in the same
town, but she seldom saw him, and did nothing for
him. She abandoned him, in other words, to an
entirely illiterate person who had lived as a servant
in her father's family. As her father said, she acted <
"just Uke an old ewe sheep that would not own its
lamb." Mrs. Eddy now pretends that she was obUged to
give up her child because her second husband,
Patterson, would not have him in the house. This
seems to me a poor reason for a woman to abandon
her infant child, but it is not true in Mrs. Eddy's
case, because she did not acquire Mr. Patterson until
years after she had permanently abandoned her child.
So complete was her neglect, so utter her abandon
ment of him that at the age of sixty-five this man,
born of New England parents, can neither read nor
"write! A mother who is so unmotherly as Mrs.
Eddy was toward her only child when it was Uttle
more than a baby, cannot be expected to give her
self great concern over the sacrifice of the children
of strangers that is incidental to the accumulation
of her fortune.
If the adult prefer foolishness to wisdom, if he
prefer suicide to life, by the Christian Science or any
other method, he may enjoy his preference. It is
no business of mine to come between him and the
grave; but no man and no woman has any right,
whatever be the motive or the relation, to stand

THE SACRIFICE OF CHILDREN 35
silently by and permit a child needlessly to suffer
and needlessly to die. The laws of the land should
provide, as they do in some States, for the punish
ment of such cruel offences; and to the extent that
my opposition and my protest may avail, no man and
no woman shall be permitted to murder little chil
dren by a wilful neglect that is based upon an insane
belief in the wicked teachings of a wicked woman,
in her cruel, greedy fraud, in her brazen, murderous
lies. If any one be disposed to feel that my language
sounds extravagant thus early in the narrative, I
beg that judgment may be suspended until I have
concluded, when the moderation of my speech will,
I think, be cause for wonder.

CHAPTER II
The Detached Heart
MARY BAKER GLOVER EDDY was born in
the town of Bow, New Hampshire, on Julyv 16,
' 1821, of good New England parentage; but never re
ceived anything but the most rudimentary education, j
The stories of her higher education are all fables. She
pretends to have studied the classic languages, and
to have been familiar with Hebrew. She has never
known anything of any of these languages, and any
one who has been compelled, as I have, to peruse
her unedited personal correspondence knows that
she has never been on any, but the most distant of
speaking terms, with her mother tongue. She was
graduated, she says, from Dyer H. Sanborn's Acad
emy at Tilton, New Hampshire; but her old school- J
mates, still living, say there was no such academy,
although Sanborn did teach a few children each year
in a room over the district school. There was no
regular course of study and were no graduations. !
According to these same schoolmates, Mary Baker
completed her education upon reaching long division
in arithmetic, and her culture, in advanced years,
may be somewhat gauged by her written attribution
in her seventieth year, when, if ever, one's education
may be assumed to have made some Uttle progress,
36

THE DETACHED HEART 37
of the authorship of Irving to the Pickwick Papers
of Charles Dickens. "The language is decaying as
fast," she says, "as that of Irving's Pickwick Papers."
One may be moved, by this reflection upon our
poor speech, to something like commiseration for the
language that has been so useful to us for centuries
past. But it is consoling to reflect that the race
may have access, throughout coming ages, to Mrs.
Eddy's exhaustless well of English undefiled as it
appears in her various immortal publications. Her
private correspondence, it must be admitted, how
ever, does not exhibit any considerable degree of
excellence in the matter of spelling, punctuation,
grammar and capitalization; but an inspired person
may be excused for a Uttle carelessness in the use of
words. Mrs. Eddy accounts for her amazing deficiency^
of education and entire lack of culture by an ingenious j
fairy tale . " After my discovery of Christian Science , "
she says, "most of the knowledge I had gleaned from j
school books vanished like a dream. Learning was I
so illumined, that grammar was eclipsed." If anyj
scraps of knowledge were ever possessed by this
pecuUar creature*, vanished, dreamlike or otherwise,
they surely did; and without quite assenting to the
illumination of learning hypothesis, I find no ground
for dissenting from the view that, at some time or
other, grammar underwent total eclipse.
The first fifty years of her life were lived in great_^
poverty and complete obscurity. Before her alleged t
discovery of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy at one <

38 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
time eked out a precarious existence in and about
Boston as a Spiritualist medium, giving pubUc
i seances for money. Sweet converse with the illus
trious dead could be had of Mrs. Eddy at any time
by any one who had the price. Her interest in the
dead seems to have been strictly confined to the
illustrious departed.
In December, 1843, when twenty-two years of
age, she married George W. Glover, a young brick
layer by trade, and with him, shortly after the
marriage, went to Wilmington, North Carolina, where
wages were somewhat higher than in New Hampshire.
There Glover, three months after the marriage and
six months before the birth of her only child, died
of yellow fever. He was buried in Wilmington, but
the spot is, to this day, unknown even to his widow.
Mrs. Eddy has for many years been exceeding
rich in this world's goods. In her personal conver
sation, and in her published works, she has spoken
in terms of the highest praise of this her first hus
band, "whose tender devotion to his young wife
was remarked," she says, "by all observers." He
was the father of her only child, yet all that is mortal
of him has for nearly seventy years lain with the
unclaimed, forgotten and abandoned dead at Wil
mington, North CaroUna.
Some years ago, friends of Mrs. Eddy at Wil
mington erected a stone to the memory of Mr. Glover
over a grave supposed to be his; but a descendant of
the person really buried there ruthlessly tore the
stone from the place he believed it to desecrate,

THE DETACHED HEART 39
and poor Glover's final resting place remains unknown
and unnoticed.
After reaching the dignity of leader of a great
religious movement, Mrs. Eddy elevated the, poor
bricklayer husband to the proud position of Colonel
of Volunteers, and she thus glorified him for approxi
mately forty years. Sad to relate, however, he is
"Colonel" no longer. In the recent litigation, in
stituted by Mrs. Eddy's sons, one of the witnesses I
was examining produced in evidence a letter from
Mrs. Eddy in which she said, "I called my late hus
band" (she should have said late first husband, as a
second, a third and perhaps a fourth had then inter
vened), "I called my late husband Colonel, because
he was connected with the militia, and I had got
mixed on his rank." She might just as well have
called him General for the same reason.
As a matter of fact, if Glover ever belonged to the
miUtia, he never arose beyond the dignity of high
private and having been a man of simple life and
honest purpose would, no doubt, if he could know
of it, be a little uncomfortable in his narrow bed at
the undreamed military distinction thrust upon him
by his famous widow ; but it would sadden him a little
to know that, after having elevated him to the exalted
rank of Colonel, she should in later years have reduced
him to the less imposing position of Major, by which
military title he now is distinguished in Mrs. Eddy's
conversation. As a second matrimonial venture, Mrs. Eddy in
1853 allied herself with one Daniel Patterson, who

40 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
in her autobiographical sketches has been completely;
ignored, although he shared twenty years of connubial
life with her. He does not seem to have left behind
him the sweet aroma of the more chivalrous Glover,
who survived the marriage only three months. Pat
terson was an itinerant dentist of little or no practice,
and life with him does not appear to have been a
pathway strewn with flowers.
It profits not to dwell upon the Patterson episode.
When he was not pursuing the elusive dollar that
perpetually fled away, he appears to have been chas
ing the festive bullfrog whose dismal croak jarred
upon his wife's sensitive nerves. Suffice it to say
that Daniel and Mary endured one another, with
what serenity and fortitude they might, for twenty
long, weary years, when, in 1873, a divorce was granted
her for his desertion. Mrs. Eddy says the divorce
was granted for a different cause, but the record con
tradicts her. The record always contradicts her.
She has declared herself to be opposed to divorce for
any but the single Biblical cause; but the record of
the Superior Court at Salem shows her to have ob
tained a divorce from Patterson for desertion seven
years after the time God, as she says, had revealed to
her the final religion.
Mrs. Eddy does not believe in marriage — for
others. She was inspired of God to teach that it is
not good — for others — to marry and she has in
spired into the minds of her faithful followers the
belief that marriage is of the earth very earthy
indeed, and that life in the realm of spirit is impossible

THE DETACHED HEART 41
td those in the holy estate of matrimony. But so
far as she herself was concerned, it cannot be
denied that she seems to have had a distinct fancy for
marriage, and I may go so far as to say something
approaching fondness for variety in the marriage
state. In any event, after the termination by operation I
of law of the second marriage, that is to say on !
January 1, 1877, Mrs. Eddy made another and third J
venture into marriage and conferred upon one Gil- *
bert Asa Eddy the proud and happy distinction off
successor to the deceased Glover and the departed!
Patterson. The record of this marriage (anotheri
record, be it noted) discloses the amusing fact that
Mrs. Eddy's age was given as forty years, the mar
riage having been celebrated fifty-six years from the
date of her birth; so that instead of blossoming and
blooming in garlands gay for a fair, young, winsome
thing of forty summers, the roads were decked with
garlands somewhat somber for the third glad nuptials
of the blushing bride of fifty-six. But what is a
Uttle matter of sixteen years in the life of a person
who is superior to time and of whose life here in the
flesh there shall be no end?
After years of toil and trouble, of conflict and
disharmony, of stress and strain, in which some of
Mrs. Eddy's early friends strongly sympathized with
Mr. Eddy, who complained that neither he nor God
Almighty could please his exacting spouse, this hus
band, too, was gathered to his fathers and Mrs.
Eddy was for a third time a widow,

42 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
[~~~ In her efforts to impose upon the creduUty of
' simple-minded people, Mrs. Eddy has not hesitated
to claim the power to triumph over death, and to
have actually restored the dead to life. To her
intimates she has claimed to have thus twice re
stored to life this lamented third husband, Asa G.
. Eddy. If Mrs. Eddy has, or had, this power, the mind of
the incredulous will wonder why the poor man is
now dead, why his potent helpmate did not restore
him to life the third time he died. Presumably,
Mrs. Eddy reasoned with herself that it was really
expecting too much of a woman, even a woman
Messiah, that she should recall from death the third
husband three times, and as husbands had become,
to some extent, a matter of habit with her, it is not,
perhaps, remarkable that she consented finally to part
with this one after such unmistakable evidence of his
persistent desire to be separated from her even by
death. Mrs. Eddy has in her book, "Miscellaneous Writ
ings," modestly given us this husband's estimate of
her in these words: "Perhaps the following words of
her husband, the late Dr. Asa G. Eddy, afford the
most concise, yet complete, summary of the matter,
'Mrs. Eddy's works are the outgrowth of her life.
I never knew so unselfish an individual.' " So, per
haps, she let Eddy go, finally, out of pure unselfishness.
Sweet as was his companionship, she could not keep
him by her side when repeatedly assured of his un
alterable wish to go hence.

THE DETACHED HEART 43
The first husband, Glover, survived the marriage
but a few months; the second husband, Patterson,
unappreciative wretch that he was, ran away, and,
as Mrs. Eddy tells us, found consolation in the affec
tion of the "wealthy lady" who ran away with him
(although it must be said that no corroboration
whatever of the "wealthy lady" feature of Mrs.
Eddy's story exists); and the third husband, Eddy,
after having been twice recaptured, finally escaped
by death's door.
There is another singular, grewsome incident"!
connected with the death of Mr. Eddy, husband
number three. He died of heart disease. There
was no manner of doubt about that; but Mrs. Eddy,
had professed to have the power to cure heart disease
in the most advanced stage, and she must find an
explanation of her husband's death consistent with
the possession, by her, of such power. So she said
that Eddy did not die of heart disease after air.
He died of poison, of arsenical poison, that's what he
died of; and he didn't die of arsenical poison mixed
with his food or drink or otherwise in chemical form'
smuggled into his organism. He died of arsenical |
poison mentally administered, thought into him by|
her enemies. -J
Now even a woman Messiah could not be on the
lookout all the, time against these malicious thoughts
directed at her third husband and, in a moment of
inadvertence, one of them got by and killed Eddy,
and killed him dead.
To confirm her singular notion and prove the

44 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
presence of the symptoms of arsenical poison in the
body, Mrs. Eddy procured the performance of an
autopsy upon her late husband's remains.
Dr. Rufus K. Noyes of Boston, who performe
the autopsy, tells me that, having removed the .;
diseased organ from Mr. Eddy's breast, he exhibited-
it upon a platter to the sorrowing widow, who craved j
the ocular demonstration, and pointed out to her
curious and eager inspection the precise cause of
death in its diseased condition. And it was after,
and notwithstanding, her close scrutiny of the
physical heart that had so robustly throbbed with
love of her, that, much to Dr. Noyes' amusement, ;
Mrs. Eddy gave out the statement, to the extent of
a column or more in the newspapers, that arsenical
poison mentally administered by absent treatment
had in fact torn her loved one a third time, and
finally, from her clinging grasp.
How sweet, how charming, is the wifely devotion, ,:
that, kissing the lips of death, speedily and fprever
loses track of the sacred ashes of the beloved first
husband, rushes into the divorce court for freedom '.
from the truant second, and, having twice restored
the adored third to life, when a third time he thus
eludes her refuses, positively and coldly refuses, to
bring him back and looks with calm and critical
eyes upon the formerly attached, but now, alas,
detached heart !
To the soft impeachment of these three several
marriages, this pronounced opponent of marriage
pleads a bashful guilty, but many are they who

THE DETACHED HEART 45
believe there was yet a fourth marriage, and that
the widow Eddy in course of time became, and is
today, the wife of one, Calvin A. Frye.
Frye is, ostensibly, at least, Mrs. Eddy's servant,
her man of all work. He is her footman, and in the
Uvery of a footman rides upon the driver's seat of
her carriage when she goeth forth for her daily drives.
He is also her private secretary, who handles her
mail, and, at his pleasure, permits her to peruse, or
throws into the waste-paper basket, communications
addressed to Mrs. Eddy. He is her major-domo,
master of ceremonies in her pretentious establish
ment and director of her large retinue of assistant
secretaries, literary experts, personal healers, 'mental
protectors and domestic servants. These positions
Mr. Frye has adorned, as a resident member of Mrs.
Eddy's family, occupying an adjoining room, for
upwards of thirty years. But not only is Mr. Frye
Mrs. Eddy's servant, her footman, her secretary, her
man-of-all work, he, strangely it would seem, has for
years at a time held the legal title to the capacious
residence in which she has lived at Concord, New
Hampshire, and to all the highly cultivated grounds
about it, and to all the personal property upon the
place. And not only has Mr. Frye been Mrs. Eddy's
servant and secretary, her footman and the owner of
her lands and houses, her horses and carriages, the
furniture within the houses, and the crops upon the
extensive acres, he was for years the legal owner of
her costly jewels, of the diamond cross which she
wore at her throat. Her footman, owner of the

46 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
house in which she lived, of the carriage in which he
took her to drive and of the jewels she wore! This
condition of affairs was not changed until I called
attention to it a few years ago, when Mr. Frye recon- ,
veyed to, shall I say Mrs. Frye? all the property!
standing in his name.
All of these circumstances, taken with the confi
dent opinion of one long a member of her household^
that, if Mrs. Eddy isn't the wife of Frye, she ought'
to be, are to my mind strong indication that Mrs.
Eddy ought to be called Mrs. Frye and her credu->®
lous followers not Eddyites, but Fryeites or Frytes; ,
and I predict that, if Frye survive Mrs. Eddy and be
not amply provided for by her will or settled with
by her executors, he will go into the Probate Court
and proclaim himself to be her surviving husband,
entitled to one-third of her estate.
I do not state this fourth marriage as a fact, but
offer it as the only possible and creditable explanation!
of^the facts.
As has been said, Mrs. Eddy has one son born to
her who was totally and unfeelingly abandoned by
her in his early infancy, who lives in a western State,
and seldom or never visits his famous mother. No
member of her family ever believed in her, ever placed
the slightest credence in her preposterous pretentions.
Mrs. Eddy also has an adopted son. Some years
ago she legally adopted a male child, a medical man
named Foster, then forty years old, who, to acquire a
mother by adoption, took the name of E. J. Foster-
Eddy, and became a member of Mrs. Eddy's family;

THE DETACHED HEART 47
but, after a too brief period of harmonious cohabita
tion, the sweet domestic relation was, for reasons not
made public, interrupted, and now he also finds it
agreeable to live elsewhere than with his adopted
mother and is heard of no more in Christian-Science-
dom. From a humble position of dependence, Mrs.
Eddy has arisen to a proud position of great opu
lence, and from complete obscurity, devoid of in
fluence and power, has placed herself at the head of
the most phenomenal "religious" movement of this
or any other time, and made herself believed to be
the God-anointed successor to Jesus Christ, and His
equal in attributes and power; and this she has ac
complished through a lie, a deliberate, wilful, wicked
lie.

CHAPTER III
Pretence of Equality with Jesus
COMING now to what makes it worth our while
to consider the career of this remarkable woman,
let me present the facts regarding her relation to the
life and to the activities of the world of today, and how
and by what very devious means she has reached
and maintains the position she now holds.
What does Mrs. Eddy claim to be, and what is
she believed to be by many thousands of people who
have made her their religious leader and guide, and
reverence her as the devout Christian reverences
Christ? Mrs. Eddy claims that she is the fulfilment of
Biblical prophecy, that she and her book are specifi-'l
cally referred to and prophesied in the Book of
i Revelation. She says, "My attention is especially called to the
twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse or Revelation of
Saint John, on account of its suggestiveness in con
nection with this nineteenth century. In this open
ing of the sixth seal, there is one distinctive feature
which has special reference to the present age, and the
establishment of Christian Science \in this period.
'And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a
48

pretence of equality WITH JESUS 49
woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under
her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.' "
With eyes downcast, with "bated breath and
whispering humbleness," bashfully pointing to her
self, in low tones that inspire awe, she says, "The
woman clothed with the sun, Mary Baker G. Eddy."
Again, she says: "Saint John writes in the tenth
chapter of the Book of Revelation: 'And I saw another
mighty angel come down from Heaven, clothed with
a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his head, and his
face was, as it were, the sun, and his feet as pillars
of fire. And he had in his hand a little book, open,
and he set his right foot upon the earth.' Is this
angel, or message from God, Divine Science that
comes in a cloud? This angel had in his hand a little
book open for all to read and understand. Then will
a voice from harmony cry, Go and take the little
book. Take up Divine Science. Study it, ponder it.
It wm be indeed sweet at its first taste when it heals
you, but murmur not over Truth if you find its
digestion bitter."
The "little book, " "Science and Health," of God's
authorship, but copyrighted by Rev. Mary Baker G.
Eddy, and to be had of her publisher in Boston by
any one who has three dollars or more, according to
binding, to pay for it !
Intentionally vague as are these oracular utter
ances, we cannot but catch her evident meaning:
In me behold the woman clothed with the sun; in
my book, the "little book" sent down from Heaven,
and in Christian Science the message from God con-

50 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
tained in the little book held in the hand of the
angel! Christian Scientists get this down without so
much as a murmur! This is one of the easy things|
she has given them to swallow.
Besides this, Mrs. Eddy has distinctly authorized
the claim in her behalf that she herself is the chosen;
successor to and equal of Jesus, that her mission is
Jo complete the religion of Christ.
In the earUer days she placed her mission above-
that of Jesus, inasmuch as the idea of God given'
by her was, she said, "higher, clearer and more per
manent than before." But, later, she seems to have
been satisfied with equaUty only, and says, "The
second appearing of Jesus is unquestionably the
second advent of the advancing idea of God as in
Christian Science."
She, however, patronizingly points out the short
comings of Jesus. "Our Master healed the sick,
practiced Christian heaUng, and taught the generali-j
ties of this divine principle to his students, but he
left no definite word for demonstrating his principle';
of healing and preventing disease. This remained'
to be discovered through Christian Science," and
"Had wisdom characterized all his sayings, he would
not have prophesied his own death and thereby
hastened or caused it." While in speaking of her
self she said, "The works I have written on Christian
Science contain absolute truth and my necessity was
to tell it. I was a scribe under orders, and who can
refrain from transcribing what God indites?" So

PRETENCE OF EQUALITY WITH JESUS 51
wisdom did not characterize all of the sayings of
Tesus; but Mrs. Eddy speaks absolute truth!
In the Christian Science fournal for April, 1889,
when it was her property and published by her, and
upwards of twenty years after the time she says
God had selected her" to complete the religion of
Jesus, it was claimed for her, and with her sanction,
that she was equal with Jesus, and elaborate effort
was made to establish the claim. "Now a word
about the horror many good people have of our
making the author of 'Science and Health' equal
with Jesus!" says the writer, and in the first para
graph of the article, the question is asked, "Do we,
then, say that the author of 'Science and Health' is
equal with Jesus?" A little further on appears the
statement, "Jesus demonstrated over all the beliefs
of this false sense of life, even over the belief of
death, the last enemy to be overcome." And further,
"Mrs. M. B. G. Eddy has worked out for us, as on
a blackboard, every point in the demonstrations, or
so-called miracles of Jesus, showing us how to meet
and overcome the one, and perform the other" and,
throughout the article, its whole clearly apparent
purpose is to carry the conviction that in attributes
and power Mrs. Eddy is the entire equal of Jesus.
In an illustrated "poem" entitled "Christ and
Christmas," written by Mrs. Eddy, and published
and copyrighted by her in 1894, there is a picture
labeled "Christian Unity," in which Jesus is repre
sented as seated upon a stone holding the right hand
of Mary — Mary Baker G. Eddy. In the left hand

52 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
of the woman is a scroll bearing the legend "Chris
tian Science," and about the head of each figure,
that of Jesus and that of the Christian Science;
woman, there is a halo. The picture is illustrative I
of these lines on the opposite page:
"As in blessed Palestine's hour, so in our age
'Tis the same hand unfolds His Power and writes
the page."
At the time this book was announced by Mrs.
Eddy, in December, 1893, she publicly said of it,
'"Christ and Christmas' voices God through song
and object lesson." The price of the book was three
dollars. How convenient to be able to command a
market by voicing God! How kind God has been to
Mrs. Eddy's business ventures!
At the time of this publication, Mrs. Eddy, who
claimed to have shared in making the illustrations!
(which her man Hanna called "exquisite bits of art,"'*
but which are, doubtless, the vulgarest products of
the art of book-making of many years) , at this time,
I say, Mrs. Eddy unquestionably wished this "Chris
tian Unity" illustration to signify the unity of
Christianity and Christian Science, as represented by
the founder of Christianity and the founder of Chris
tian Science, and about her own head, as about the
head of Christ, she hangs a halo! The two Messiahs,
mascuUne and feminine, and representing "Our
Father and our Mother God," hand in hand, absolute
equality, Christian Unity!

PRETENCE OF EQUALITY WITH JESUS 53
Her private correspondence has been full of pre
tensions to direct meditation with God, and her fol
lowers have been induced unquestioningly to comply
with her wishes regarding the most trivial things be
cause she but voiced a wish communicated to them
through her by God.
"God, our God has just told me," she says, "who**
to recommend to you for editor of the Christian Science
fournal." And, " No man or woman has told me of this
obnoxious feature, but my Father has, and it shall be
stopped by His servant who has given His word to
the world." And, "God's law 'to feed my sheep,' to
give Science and Health at once to those hungering
for it, must be obeyed." (To those hungering three
doUars worth!) And, "I ought not to have con
sulted with man on the copyright of God's Book."
And, "Come to see me next Saturday, a.m., on nine
o'clock train, and God will settle this matter." And,
"Now what can I do, only to spread His word of
warning and wait for all students to grow up to un
derstand His ways, and mine when God directed."
And, "God will not let me be silent relative to your
business here yesterday, but demands me to answer,
reminding you of your feelings toward me." And,
"Push the Book to as fast as possible completion.
It is God's Book, and he says give it at once to the
people." (At three dollars per copy!) And, "You
know they cannot be made sick for printing and
binding God's Book."
But Jove nods; Mrs. Eddy stumbles. Sometimes
it is the Christian Science devil that, impersonating

54 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
God, whispers to her. "I regret," she says, "having
named the one I did to you for editor. It was a
mistake, he is not fit. It was not God evidently thafc.
suggested that thought, but the person who suggests
many things mentally; but I have before been able
to discriminate." This incident suggests the im
portance of one, who is the channel of wireless teleg
raphy from God, being able to discriminate between
messages from Heaven and messages from Hell, and
having the power to prevent satanic interference
with the medium of communication.
„ In a lateeditionof "Science and Health"Mrs. Eddyi
speaks of Jesus as "the mascuUne representative of
the spiritual idea," and says, "the impersonation bf
the spiritual idea had a brief history in the earthly
life of our Master, but of His Kingdom there shall be
no end, for Christ's, God's idea, will eventually rule
all nations and people, imperatively, absolutely,
finally, — with Divine Science. This immaculate?
idea, represented first by man and last by woman,
will baptize with fire," etc.
By "Divine Science," Mrs. Eddy, of course, means
Christian Science, as the terms are used interchang-'
ably with her, and with characteristic modesty she
places herself by the side of the Master — He being
the first and masculine, and she the last and feminine,
representative of the "immaculate idea."
What marvelous presumption! What ineffable
audacity !
The Mary Baker G. Eddy, who in speaking of a
woman she disliked savagely exclaimed, "I'd Uke to

PRETENCE OF EQUALITY WITH JESUS 55
tear her heart out and trample it under my feet!"
who, at Lynn, because of her abuse of her husband
and violent outbursts of temper, was known as the
"she devil"; who, four years after the time of her
pretended selection by God for a divine mission, be
ing denied hospitality she had abused in the Went-
worth household at Stoughton, left in a fury of
passion after having, with obvious intent, put
live coals from her stove upon a heap of news
papers in the closet; who figured first as a spiritualist
medium, giving public stances for money, and later
as the president of a bogus medical college issuing
illegal degrees; who unfeelingly abandoned the only
child born to her, and looked with unflinching eyes
upon the detached heart of her deceased husband;
who has become the champion fraud and impostor of
the age; who in the livery of heaven has for forty
years wrought in the direct interest of hell, — this
Mrs. Eddy, the self-constituted representative with
Jesus of the immaculate idea! this woman and the
immaculate Jesus mentioned in the same breath !

/ CHAPTER IV
The Faked Revelation
BACK in 1877 Mrs. Eddy placed her mission, as
I have said, above that'of Jesus. In a personal|
letter to a friend, she said, "I know the crucifixion!
of one who presents Truth in its higher aspect will
be this time through a bigger error, through mortal
mind instead of its lower strata or matter, showing|
that the idea given of God this time is higher, clearer, ;
and more permanent than before." But of late years
she has contented herself with claiming only equaUty,"
in all respects, with Jesus, and has not hesitated boldly '
and in so many words to declare her teachings to
-have been expressly "authorized by Christ."
We must go into this matter with some partial- :
larity, and I crave indulgence while I present certain
essential details. I want to leave no doubt in any
orderly mind as to just what Mrs. Eddy claims to be,
and shall then show, with an abundance of evidence'
that will not permit of the slightest doubt, just
exactly the manner of woman she has been and is.
When the most corrupt tree in the orchard brings
forth the sweetest and most beautiful fruit of all,
it will be believed that Mary Baker G. Eddy can be
the channel through which God has revealed Himself
to mankind, and it will not be believed until then.
56

THE FAKED REVELATION 57
I am of those who believe that there can be no
reUgion but a religion based upon revelation. Either
God reveals himself to us, or He remains unknown
and unknowable. "No man by searching can find
out God." Reason alone cannot attain unto Him.
God hides Himself from the wise, and the mightiest
intellect approaches no nearer to Him than the simple
mind of a child.
This great truth has been and is the common
belief of mankind, and every unprincipled person,
who has appealed to human credulity along religious
lines, knowing mankind to so believe, has faked a
revelation from God. Mrs. Eddy has put herself- in
a class by herself by the boldness, the irreverence,
the recklessness, the blasphemy of her pretended
intimacy with God.
In express terms, the founder of Christian Science1"
claims to have received from the Almighty a revela
tion which she has incorporated in her book entitled
"Science. and Health, with Key to the Scriptures."
Speaking of this book, in January, 1901, she said:
" I should blush to write of ' Science and Health, with
Key to the Scriptures' as I have, were it of human
origin and I, apart from God, its author, but as I I
was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of Heaven |
in divine metaphysics, I cannot be super-modest of j
the Christian Science Text-book."
Nothing could be plainer or more unequivocal'
than that. There is a distinct avowal that the book
entitled "Science and Health" was the work of
Almighty God, and, preposterous as the claim may

58 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
seem to any rational being who has ever undertaken
to read the book, slanderous as it is upon Omnis
cience, some thousands of people in the United States
["today believe it precisely as made. They believe
I that God literally dictated the contents of this book
| to Mrs. Eddy, and that it is in every part as much the
word of God as the most devout Christian believes
tthe Bible to be in any part the word of God.
This is the sacrilegious lie upon which Mary Baker
G. Eddy has reared her whole fraudulent super-
jscructure, which she had denominated Christian
(Science, and which has become the religious belief
iof thousands. It is because of this Ue that Christian
Science flourishes like a green bay tree; that the old
faith does not hold its believers; that real scientific
knowledge in medicine is losing the confidence it
ought to enjoy. It is because of this Ue that Chris
tian Science wives separate themselves from their
husbands; that Christian Science mothers abandon
their children; that young women believers put
marriage behind them as lustful and unclean and in
consistent with true spirituality of life and character.
It is because of this lie, this cruel and wicked he,
that children are permitted needlessly to suffer and
needlessly to die without any intelUgent perception
that they are suffering, and after a resolute with
holding by their deluded parents of trained medical
skill that would alleviate suffering and save Ufe. And
this odious lie, I purpose, while strength abides with
me, to hold up to the enduring detestation of mankind.
I am going to show, with absolute conclusiveness,

THE FAKED REVELATION 59
that Mrs. Eddy's claim to revelation is wholly false.
And when I have shown that, I shall have shown that
the "religious" phase of Christian Science is a fraud
and a sham ; I shall have shown that it is a veritable
parody upon reUgion, a caricature upon Christianity;
I shall have shown that every beautiful temple
erected for the worship of the Christian Science God
is a monument to Mrs. Eddy's success in imposing
upon mankind, and that all of the thousands upon
thousands of pure and simple-minded people, who
acclaim her God's messenger, are the victims of a
mercenary old schemer who has amazed herself at
the gullibility of her worshipers.
I am not dealing in exaggeration. I am not
speaking without knowledge when I say that no
sane person can follow me through this narrative
and not agree with me that Christian Science as a
reUgion is a sham, as a healing system is a fraud;
that itjkjlls_the sweetest and^tenderest emotions in
the human heart by rooting out sympathy and
chanty~aTrd— tiOmpaiiion ; thatTthere is no other
Hatred and vindlctiveness equal to the hatred and
vindictiveness of its founder and her leading vo
taries; that there is no other cruelty, no other greed
that can be compared with theirs, and that the
"inspired" teaching of Mary Baker G. Eddy regard
ing the most sacred institution established amongst
men, I refer to the institution of marriage, is so low
and so vile that decent people, when they come to
understand it, must repudiate the woman and the
thing from overwhelming shame.

60 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
Insanity is not responsible for indecency, but
those Christian. Scientists who have not parted with
their sanity, and are not Christian Scientists for
revenue only, will turn with horror from the woman
and her work when they know what they are.
I say that Mrs. Eddy's claim to having received
an inspiration from God is fraudulent. Now, what
are the facts? 5
That God had nothing to do with Mrs. Eddy's|
book is abundantly proven by the book itself, to
any person of sufficient understanding to be at large
outside of Bedlam. Who but a person of weak or
disordered mind could believe that God is the author
of this, "The condition of the stomach, bowels, food,J
clothing, etc., is of no serious import to your child"?
I Can any not absolutely insane parent beUeve that
(God communicated that "absolute truth" to Mrs.
Eddy? Again: "The less we know of or think about1
Hygiene, the less we are predisposed to sickness."
That is to say, the more we know about how to
keep well and how to avoid conditions breeding!
disease, the more likely we are to be sick.
Agajn: "Treatises on anatomy, physiology and
health sustained by what is termed material law, are
the promoters of sickness and disease. It is prover-^
bial that as long as you read medical works you
will be sick."
We have all observed the truth of this inspired
utterance in the fact that the physicians, as a body,:;
are almost constantly in bed of one disease or another.;!

THE FAKED " REVELATION " 61
The wonder is that any of them ever surivive the
courses of preparatory study.
Again: "Not because of muscular exercise, but
because of the blacksmith's faith in muscle, his
arm becomes stronger."
All one has to do to develop his biceps is to have
faith that his biceps will develop, if Mrs. Eddy really
speak by inspiration of God.
Again: "You say or think because you have par'
taken of salt fish that you are thirsty, and you are
thirsty accordingly; while the opposite belief would
produce the opposite result."
That is to say, you may partake of all the salt
fish you please; but if you persistently say and
believe it cannot cause thirst, thirst is the last sensa
tion that will afflict you.
Again: "Question. Do not brains think and
nerves feel, and is there no intelligence in matter?
Answer. Not if God be true and mortal man a
liar." In other words, if God be true, brains do not
think and nerves do not feel. That brains do not
think, Mrs. Eddy, when she contemplates her foolish
following, may have some reason to believe; but she
will have some difficulty in satisfying the rest of us
that brains do not possess the function of thought.
I think, therefore I am not a Christian Scientist.
Again: "The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have
nothing to do with Ufe."
When this impressive passage was first presented
to my darkened mind, I was inclined to beUeve it to

62 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
/Contain no element of truth; but I am persuaded|
ithat there is a grain of truth in it. I have sat in a
Christian Science church repeatedly and have seen some
thousands of people with open mouths and ecstatic
iexpi-essions listening to material from the platform-,
wholly unintelligible to those who read it and wholly;
unintelligible to every person in the building who
heard it; and I have come slowly, very slowly and
regretfully, to the conviction that it is true, that
amongst large masses of people there are times when
the brain has absolutely nothing to do with Ufe.
As to the blood, heart and lungs, I am still of my
early prejudice that they have something to do with
life, notwithstanding Mrs. Eddy's affirmation that
God has informed her to the contrary.
Again: "Gender also is a quality, a characteristic
of mind and not of matter."
It is all in your mind. You are a man or a
woman according as you think you are a man or a
woman, and not otherwise. If a man thinks he
is a woman, and if a woman thinks she is a man, that
settles it; they are.
Again: "The less mind there is manifested in
matter, the better. When the unthinking lobster
loses his claw, it grows again. If the science of
life were understood, it would be found that the
senses of mind are never lost and that matter has
no sensation. Then the human limb would be
replaced as readily as the lobster's claw."
This makes it plain that, from Mrs. Eddy's stand
point, the less mind, the better; the less mind, the

THE FAKED REVELATION 63
more Christian Scientists; the more Christian Scien
tists, the more revenue; the more revenue, the greater
glory for impostors and charlatans. And, oh, wonder
of wonders! God here informs us, if Mrs. Eddy speak
the truth, that the loss of a human leg will be but
a temporary inconvenience when man has advanced
to the high stage attained by the wholly mindless
lobster! Again: "Man is the same after, as before, a bone
is broken or a head chopped off."
And so, the head follows the lungs, and the blood,
and the heart, and the brains, and the stomach, and
the bowels, as useless members of the human body,
if Mrs. Eddy speak the words of truth and inspiration.
Again: "That life is sustained by food, drink, air,
etc., that it is organic or in the least dependent upon
matter or sustained by it, is a myth."
Mrs. Eddy teaches that there is no reality in
matter. When she sits down at her table three
times a day and puts into her immaterial and non
existent stomach unrealities in the shape of bread
and butter and beef steak and tea and coffee, and
so on, life is sustained by the belief that the food
sustains life, and not by the food itself. It would
be interesting to have Mrs. Eddy demonstrate in her
own daily life that the partaking of what we grosser
persons regard as food indispensable to the survival
of the physical organism could be wholly dispensed
with and life, notwithstanding, continue.
And, finally, and I commend this precious gem of
truth to those of my readers who are parents, be they

64 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
fathers or mothers, and who agree with me that the
loveliest of all lovely things in the world is the whole
some baby enjoying his morning bath: "The daily
ablutions of an infant are no more natural or necessary
than would be the process of taking a fish out of
the water every day and covering it with dirt, in
order to make it thrive more vigorously thereaftefj
in its native element."
To bathe a baby is the same thing as to grab a
fish out of the water and rub it all over with mud!*
If it were of mere "human origin," Mrs. Eddy would;?
"blush" to deliver herself of that beautiful and
"absolute" truth.
This twaddle inspired of God! And these selec-5
tions, taken at random from Mrs. Eddy's book of
which, she says, not she but God was author, are of
a piece with the thing as a whole.
I am told, as I have said, that there are intelli-'
gent persons in Mrs. Eddy's following, and yet such -
things as those I have quoted slap intelUgence in the
face from every page of her book; and her friends,
nevertheless, persist in affirming, "Lo, the Lord's^
anointed, God's voice to this age!"
"I cannot see," says Mark Twain, "how any one
contemplating Mrs. Eddy's career can deny to the
Divine Being the possession of a sense of humor."
God is so amused by Mrs. Eddy's accomplishments
that He is provoked to laughter, and Christian
Science thus escapes the consuming fire of Divine
wrath.

CHAPTER V
The Fiction of God's Authorship
GOD, we are told, is without variableness or
shadow of turning, and yet, if He were the
author of Mrs. Eddy's book, He would be as change
able as a weathercock, for the book, throughout its
numerous editions, has in the past thirty-five years
undergone continuous change and revision at the
hands of the literary expert, and the final product is
so unlike the original as to be almost unrecognizable.
Chapters have been dropped, chapters have been
added and chapters have been shifted about from
one place to another, and the book has been as
coherent at the end as at the beginning of the process.
Early editions, with compromising contents, have
been suppressed at great expense, and the book, as
now published, is Mrs. Eddy's work only in part.
She says herself that read backward it has, in part,
as much meaning as read forward; and those of you,
who have attempted to read it forward, have dis
covered that, so read, it has precisely as little mean
ing as if read backward.
James Henry Wiggin, an ex-Unitarian minister,
recently deceased, was for years Mrs. Eddy's literary
expert, putting all her productions, including her
book, into good English, and into as coherent a form
65

66 the religio-medical masquerade
as she would permit. He wrote a sermon for Mrs.
Eddy to preach, which she preached as her own, and
subsequently incorporated, with some easily per
ceptible additions that conspicuously marred Mr.
Wiggin's work, in her God-inspired book, as a chapter
entitled "Wayside Hints." This chapter is left out
of the latest editions, but it was given to the world
with the rest in the "thirty-sixth" edition, as of
God's authorship.
Mr. Wiggin's story of the manner in which a
sermon of his became a part of her inspired volume
is not a little amusing.
While acting as Mrs. Eddy's literary friend and
guide and helper, an edition of "Science and Health"
was prepared for pubUcation, completely written and
completely set up in type and electrotyped ; but as it
contained a chapter that Mr. Wiggin regarded as in
the nature of a libel upon several Uving persons,
who were referred to and attacked by name, he
endeavored to prevent the publication until that
chapter had been eliminated. As the whole book
had been electrotyped, the fifteen pages composing;
this chapter could not be taken out, unless fifteen
others were inserted in their place, without involv
ing new plates of all the succeeding pages, and a
large consequent expense. So the publication was
withheld, until in some manner fifteen pages could
be furnished in substitution for the objectionable!
chapter. Just at this time it happened that Mr. Wiggin!
prepared a sermon for Mrs. Eddy to preach. He"

the fiction of god's authorship. 67
attended the service at which the sermon was de
livered by Mrs. Eddy as her own/composition, al
though she read it from a manuscript furnished by
him. As Mrs. Eddy attempted to read without
spectacles, which she never used in public and always
used in her private intercourse with Mr. Wiggin, her
rendering of the sermon was, in Mr. Wiggin's opinion,
halting and ineffective, and it irritated him not a
little that a production of his should be subjected
to such handling in public. But after the service
was over, Mr. Wiggin, walking down the aisle to speak
with Mrs. Eddy, on every hand heard exclamations
of approval in more or less superlative terms. ' ' Wasn't
it grand ! Wasn't she inspired today ! How beautiful
her sermons are!" and so on, until Mr. Wiggin's
irritation was quite allayed, and he concluded Mrs.
Eddy had not done badly after all. Reaching the
platform, Mrs. Eddy leaned over and whispered,
"How did it go off?" "Splendidly," said Mr.
Wiggin, "I have an idea." "What is it?" inquired
Mrs. Eddy. "This sermon is just what we need
for those fifteen pages. All of these people have
heard you preach it today, it will be assumed that
you wrote it, and it will just about fill the space we
want to fill in the book, and the publication need be
no longer delayed." "Fine idea!" said the preacher
of Mr. Wiggin's sermon. "Will you make it fit in
those fifteen pages, so it can just take their place?"
He said he would. He did, and it appeared as a
chapter entitled "Wayside Hints," in the thirty-sixth.
and some later editions.

68 the religio-medical masquerade

Many a time have I heard Mr. Wiggin say, with
a chuckle of amusement, that it was a source of much/
mirth to him to hear from time to time Mrs. Eddy's
devotees exclaim, with pious earnestness, that the
chapter he had written, at so much per word, was
the very most divinely-inspired portion of the divine
volume. Mrs. Eddy does not hesitate to declare herself the
authorized interpreter of the Bible, authorized ex
pressly by Christ himself. The rules of the Christian
Science organization and the "Mother Church" were
all formulated by Mrs. Eddy as under divine guid-f
ance, and she reaches so far into the proceedings of
the so-called branch churches all over the land as
to dictate every detail of the religious services, and
has required- that every so-called sermon in a Chris
tian Science church shall be preceded by the follow-!
ing declaration: "The canonical writings, together
with the word of our text-book [her book "Science
and Health"], corroborating and explaining the, Bible
tests in their spiritual import and application to all
ages, past, present and future, constitute a sermon
undivorced from truth, uncontaminated and un
fettered by human hypotheses, and authorized by
Christ." That is either true or false. If it is true, all man
kind should know it. If it is false, it is as wicked a
falsehood as was ever told.
Having lectured to immense crowds upon Chris
tian Science from one . end of this country to the
other, I have repeatedly had occasion to demand of

the fiction of god's authorship 69
official Christian Scientists in the audience, especially
first readers, so called, in Mrs. Eddy's churches, who
as such had read the declaration I have just quoted,
standing face to face with them, that they arise
and give some scintilla of warrant or authority for
the making of the declaration that Mrs. Eddy's
book was "authorized by Christ" as an interpreta
tion of the Bible; but I have never had the slightest
response, for the reason, of course, that no evidence
can in any form be produced of the truth of this
declaration falsely formulated and by her sacrile
giously required to be publicly read at every Sunday
service in every Christian Science Church. All of
"these official Christian Scientists know that this
declaration is without warrant, all of them know
it is utterly false; and Mrs. Eddy herself makes it,
deliberately knowing it to be untrue, knowing that
she has and can produce no scrap of any kind of
warrant for it, and she makes it and compels its
repetition in her churches only to carry out her fraud
and imposition that there is a sacred character to,
and a Christian warrant for, her utterly bogus
"religion." This, I think, is one of the most audacious things
this utterly unprincipled woman in her whole career
has dared to do; and I cannot conceive of any real
Christian entertaining toward her, because of it,
feelings other than those of pronounced resentment
and indignation.
Nothing but an insane mind, a degenerate mind
or a mind possessed of an overmastering passion to

70 the religio-medical masquerade
perpetrate a monstrous fraud upon the human race
could, with the aid of the literary expert, have
written "Science and Health," and then have de
clared God to be its author; and no one but an
utterly irreligious, irreverent, wicked person could
invent the fiction of Christ's authorization and. compel ;»
its promulgation at "reUgious" services. But Mrs.
Eddy has done precisely these things and her fol
lowers believe her irreverent and audacious claims.
Truly, "The absurdity the human race can't
swallow, hasn't been invented yet!"
After Eddyism it may be assumed, I think, that
man's greatest ingenuity is unequal to the invention
of an absurdity so immense as to exceed human
gulpability. The more monstrous it is, the more
eagerly it is clutched; and the more unintelligible it
is, the greater is the certainty that it must have
emanated from the All-wise.
But let me do Mrs. Eddy full justice. I think
I have read everything she has written, and one
sentence does indeed stand out vividly by itself,
a solitary and perfect star of purest ray serene.
Apropos of her basic contention (upon which the
whole Christian Science superstructure rests, and
without which it would fall to the ground) that
there is no sensation in matter, she deprecates the
spanking of children, because, she wisely says, "the
use of the rod is virtually a declaration to the child's
mind, that sensation belongs to matter."
Impossible as I have found it to reach the under
standing of Christian Scientists by arguments ad-

THE FICTION OF GOD'S AUTHORSHIP 71
dressed to their intelligence, I strongly incline to the
idea that the spanking process would be likely to
induce more or less vague impressions that sensation
does actually reside in the material of which these
living bodies are composed; and I respectfully sub
mit that it would seem to follow that the most
effective way of reaching Mrs. Eddy's childish follow
ers and curing them of their strange distemper would
be the considerate, not too vigorous, application, all
around, after the manner of the old woman who
lived in a shoe, of the corrective maternal slipper.

CHAPTER VI
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 dis
covery, 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 originaUty are
wholly fictitious.
Let it be remembered, always, that on the first
page of her book, "Science and Health," as pub
lished 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
i 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.
72

A SHAM "RELIGION" 73
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, abso
lutely 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.
i 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 treat
ment, with the result described by herself over her

74 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
own signature in the Portland Evening Courier, of
November 7, 1862, as follows:
"Three weeks ago I quitted my nurse and sick
room en route for Portland. The belief of my re
covery 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 Ught, is no longer in
disease."
¦"""^This was Mrs. Patterson-Eddy's professed under
standing 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;

A SHAM "RELIGION" 75
effects the same alleged "cure." Every "Scientist"
will at once recognize the A B C of "divine science. "j
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 off
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 1
healer whose scribbUngs she put into grammatical 1
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 fesus, 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,

76 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
"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 argu
ment 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 trem:
bier, 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."

A SHAM "RELIGION" 77
Can anything Mrs. Eddy says be believed, after
this? Could ingenuity contrive a more violent con
tradiction 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 con
clusiveness 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

78 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
endorsed and approved by her as an authorize^
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 feE
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 five.
Finding no hope and no help on earth, she Ufted her
heart to God. On the third day, calUng 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 Intro
spection," she says:
"It was in Massachusetts, February, 1866, and
after the death of the magnetic doctor, Mr. P. P.
Quimby, whom spiritualists would associate there
with, but who was in no wise connected with this
event, that I discovered the science of Divine Meta
physical 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

A SHAM "RELIGION" 79
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 at
tended 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~7
fortunately for the truth of history, Dr. Alvin M. /
Cushing, the physician who attended Mrs. Eddy, ori
Patterson, upon this particular occasion, is still I
living and as an honored member of the profession I
is now practising in Springfield, Mass. Dr. Cushing '
expressly, and under oath, denies that he at any time
beUeved or said that Mrs. Patterson was in a critical j
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 re
covered or been healed, or that, discovering or per-1
ceiving the truth of the power employed by Christj
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 of1
the same year called upon her four or five times and t
gave her medicine. — ¦<

80 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
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 re
covery, 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 in
ventive faculty has ever been more remarkable^
than her memory, and what she has forgotten con
tradicts 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.

A SHAM "RELIGION" 81
"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 / 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 ad
ministration of chloroform and ether to an un
conscious 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 pecuUar or miraculous features are con
cerned. It is clear that Mrs. Eddy did not discover
Christian Science in the manner claimed.

82 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
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 suppUed
us with a form of proof especially convincing. It is
conceivable that a claim to revelation, however
intrinsically idiotic, might be made, the legal dis
proof 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 i
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 ad
missions 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 reported5!

A SHAM "religion" 83
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. Went-
worth 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. Went
worth, "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 Writ
ings." I glanced through the manuscript and dis
covered that it was copiously corrected and interlined
in Mrs. Eddy's handwriting and contained an intro- ,
duction signed by her name. Perusal of it showed
it to be in every particular precisely the same thing i
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
pubUshed accounts, have detailed the Stoughton

84 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
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 Patter- ,
son, 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 announce
ments 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 Went
worth, 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

A SHAM "RELIGION" 85
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 heal
ing, 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 teach
ing 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. Went
worth, 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.

86 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
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 childl
hood.'" 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 J
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

A SHAM 'RELIGION 87
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 proceed
ing 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 every
body and she tried so hard that it gave her gracious-
ness 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 bef pre I die.'
"Well, this tiresome iteration, always with the
same emphasis and the same exaggerated gracious-
ness, 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 em
phasized, and wearing a fixed smile.
"I know it was an awful thing to do," added Mrs,

88 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
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. ^ AnywayJ
you see how it has fixed it on my memory."
Mrs. Clapp well remembered seeing Mrs. Went-3
worth copy Mrs. Glover's copy of Dr. Quimby's
writing. "I once went to the Wentworths' to get some
thing," 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 lockingf
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 pubUca
tion. This manuscript contained the first expres
sion 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. Went
worth copying it — she was Mrs. Wentworth's niece
— and also from seeing Mrs. Glover take it out to

A SHAM RELIGION" 89
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, con
sulting 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
talcing a fish out of water every day and covering it
with dirt to make it thrive more vigorously there
after 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

90 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
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 hfe,
to keep this no longer to myself. I desire only that
people who take themselves and their helpless chil
dren 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 teach- J
ing 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

A SHAM "RELIGION" 91
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, cover
ing about thirty large pages, and are labeled, "Ques
tions 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 bis 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 manu
script 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 dis
tribution of her profit-yielding, copyrighted and,
"inspired" writings.

92

THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE

It may be here remarked that, at the outset,
Mrs. Eddy especially deprecated the giving to
Quimbyism, or Christian Science, a religious char
acter, 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 sub
sequent invention.
Quimbyism, as contained in Mrs. Wentworth's
copy of Mrs. Glover's copy of Dr. Quimby's "Scieneejj
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:
From Quimby's "Sci
ence of Man," as Ex
pounded 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 my
self?"

From Mrs. Eddy's "Sci
ence and Health,"
the Text-Book of the
"Christian Science"
She now Claims to have
Discovered in 1866.
"Disease being a be
lief, a latent delusion of
mortal mind, the sensa
tion would not appear if
this error was met and de-

A sham religion

93

"Disease being made
by our belief or by our
parents' belief or by pub
lic opinion, there is no
one formula of argument
to be adopted; but every
one must fit in their par
ticular case. Therefore it
requires great shrewdness
or wisdom to get the bet
ter of the error." ....

stroyed by Truth." — Page
61, edition of 1898.

"Science not only re-"
veals the origin of all
disease as wholly mental,
but it also declares that
all disease is cured by
mind." — Page 62, edi
tion of 1898.

"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."

"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 condi
tions can prevent us from
healing the sick and de
stroying error through
Truth." — Page 367, edi
tion of 1898.
"We classify disease
as error, which nothing
but Truth or Mind can
heal." — Page 427, edi
tion of 1898.
"Discord is the noth
ingness of error. Har
mony is the something-
ness' of Truth." — Page
172, edition of 1898.

94 the religio-medical masquerade
"The patient's disease j "Sickness is part of
is in his belief." / the error which Tmth
/ casts out." — Page 478,
"Error is sickness, i edition of 1898.
Truth is health." *- — „

"In this science the
names are given; thus
God is Wisdom. This
Wisdom, not an Individ
uality but a principle,
embraces every idea form,
of which the idea, man,
is the highest, — hence
the image of God, or the
Principle."

"Understanding is
God."

"All sciences are part
of God."

^TruthisGod." "There is no other
Truth but God."
"God is Wisdom."
"God is Principle."

"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, edi
tion of 1898.
"Man is the idea of
divine principle." — Page
471, edition of 1898.
"What is God? Je
hovah is not a person.
God is principle." — Page
169, edition of 1881.
"Understanding is a
quality of God." — Page
449, edition of 1898.
"All science is of
God." — Page 513, edi
tion of 1898.
"Truth is God." — ,
Page 183, edition of 1898.
"Truth, God, is not
the Father of error." —
Page 469, edition of 1898.

A SHAM "RELIGION'

95

"Wisdom, Love and
Truth are the Principle."

"Error is matter."
"Matter has no intelli
gence." "To give intelligence
to . matter is an error
which is sickness."
"Matter has no in
telligence 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 mat
ter, we would not be in
fluenced by the opinions
of man, but held to the
workings only of a prin
ciple, Truth, in which
there are no inharmonies
of sickness, pain, or sin."
"For matter is an er
ror, there being no sub-

"How can I most
rapidly advance in the
understanding of Chris
tian Science ? Study
thoroughly the letter and
imbibe the spirit. Ad
here to its divine Prin
ciple, and follow its be
hests, abiding steadily in
Wisdom, Love, and
Truth." — Page 491, edi
tion of 1898.
"Matter is mortal er
ror," — Page 169, edition
of 1881. "The fundamental er
ror of mortal man is the
belief that matter is in-
telUgent." — 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, edi
tion of 1881.
"There is no life,
truth, intelligence, or sub
stance in matter." — Page
464, edition of 1898.
[It will be seen that
every idea contained in

96 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
stance, which is Truth in this last passage, Mrs.
a thing which changes Eddy's famous "scien-
and is only that which tific statement of being,!'
belief makes it." the mental repetition of
which constitutes Chris-
" Christ was the Wis- tian Science "treat-
dom that knew Truth ment," is taken from Dr.
dwelt not in opinion and Quimby's writings.]
that matter was but opin
ion 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."

This paralleling of Eddyism, or Christian Science,
j with Quimbyism shows that, as late as 1870, Mrs.
i Eddy professed to have learned from Quimby, that
< error is sickness ; that belief is sickness ; that discord,!
lis sickness; that there is no life, truth, intelligence,
or substance in matter; that matter is error; that the
jbelief 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 dis-
jease 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."

A SHAM "RELIGION" 97
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 follow
ing at this point be pertinently propounded: If Mrs.
Patterson, or Mrs. Glover, afterwards Mrs. Eddy, in
1868, 1869 and 1870 openly avowed that the "scien
tific 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 in
vented by hypocrisy and greed.
The only person living who can meet this testi
mony and answer it is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy.
Her newspaper puppets of the "Publication Com
mittee " 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

98 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
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 heaUng 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 resi
dents 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 reUgiodj
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

A SHAM "RELIGION" 99
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 propor
tions 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 adjudi
cated 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 andjHealth" 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

100 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
may seem a little peculiar that Mrs. Eddy should;
insist upon exclusive rights to pubUsh 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-power-,'
ful, 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 utiUzing'
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 revela
tion from God, she clearly has no warrant for pre
tending it to be a religion. As a religion, Christian^
Science is the shallowest fraud and imposture. It

A SHAM "RELIGION" 101
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, charitv
and compassion; that there is no other hatred and J
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 asi
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 funda
mental 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

102 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
it, must repudiate it from overwhelming shame. In
sanity 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 adveflfl
turess, this mercenary charlatan! It is difficult to
think of them without impatience; it is impossible
to speak of them without anger.

CHAPTER VII
A Bogus Healing System
OF course the successor to and equal of Jesus
must perform miracles, and Mrs. Eddy has a
stock of miracles on hand suited to the large, the very
large, the extraordinarily large, swallowing capacity
of those who ache for somethng real hard to take in
and digest. Nothing could be too hard for her
worshipers, and she gives free rein to her inventive
faculty in suiting the miracle to the need.
Mrs. Eddy has ever been noted for her modesty,
her retiring disposition and proneness to under
estimate herself and her powers. "Has Mrs. Eddy
lost her power to heal?" she asks, and with charac
teristic bashfulness and self-depreciation she replies,
"Has the sun forgotten to shine and the planets to
revolve around it?" Sooner shall the light of the
sun pale, sooner the planets fly from their orbits,
than Mrs. Eddy part with her power to heal!
So great was the healing influence that radiated
from her personaUty that she sometimes healed un
consciously. "It was not an uncommon occurrence in my own
church," she says, "for the sick to be healed by my
sermons. Many pale cripples went into the church
leaning on crutches, who went out carrying them on
their shoulders." 103

104 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
'*"" What an inestimable blessing it would be, if a
person possessing such power should make a visit
to the hospital in Boston for crippled children, and
preach a little sermon there to the young unfortu
nates! Mrs. Eddy has but to step into her automo
bile and in twenty minutes she may be at this hospital,
and by putting forth the power she says she has and
healing the pale little cripples, as she says she has
healed others, bring the whole world to her feet.
In a letter to a friend written in March, 1896, she
says over her autograph, but speaking of herself, as
she often does, in the third person:
"While Mrs. Eddy was in a suburban town of
Boston she brought out one apple blossom on an
apple tree in January, when the ground was covered
with snow; and in Lynn demonstrated in the floral
line some such small things."
That isn't so remarkable as if an orange blossom
had been brought out on the apple tree (as it would
doubtless have been if Mrs. Eddy had thought of it),
butitwas quite an accomplishment, nevertheless. Mrs.
Eddy's "treatment," probably of the "absent" variety,
sent a summer's warmth through the earth's frozen
surface and tingling with animation the sap in the roots
sent it by leaps and bounds through the trunk into the
ice-laden branches, and, presto! a tender, pink-white
blossom, pushing its way through the ice, appeared.
Mrs. Eddy is too reticent and too diffident. Why
does she not tell us of the other equally well authenti
cated occasion upon which she brought out a few
stars in the sky when the sun was at high noon, and

A BOGUS HEALING SYSTEM 105
"demonstrated" in the astronomical line some such
large things.
I have called certain of Mrs. Eddy's representa
tions lies, and the word "lie" is a very disagreeable
word. It is bad enough to have to use it in character
ization of the utterances of a man; but it is still
worse to apply it in all its brutality to a woman.
I have endeavored to find another word, meaning
precisely the same thing, that isn't so intrinsically
offensive; but there is no other word that suits my
purpose and the occasion as does this word "lie," and
so I am compelled to adhere to it, even at the risk
of being charged with lack of gallantry in my atti
tude toward a woman. Gallantry really has nothing
to do with my undertaking. Truth and lies are
sexless, and the only question is, has Mrs. Eddy
told the truth?
But further word about lies. There are some
lies that are not so bad as other lies, and there have
been lies that have called forth commendation. I
recall in that wonderful story, Victor Hugo's "Les
Miserables," the incident of the lie told by the Sister
Superior of the convent in order to save from the
brutal grasp of the law incarnate, as represented by
Javert, the sublime personality of the transformed
ex-convict, and Hugo's beautiful eulogy of that lie
and that woman:
" Oh, holy woman, it is many years since you were
upon this earth; you have rejoined in the light you sis
ter, the virgins, and your brothers, the ahgels; may
that falsehood be placed to your credit in Paradise!"

106 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
There are lies arising merely out of a tactful wish
to spare people's feelings, and there are the little white
lies of social life that nobody especially reprobates;;:
but there are lies that are intrinsically of an infamous
character, and I can conceive of no falsehood more
infamous than that which, proceeding from a wholly
mercenary motive, is deliberately planned and
put forth in order to alienate people from a religion
in which is the hope of salvation and immortality,
and from a scientific medical system in which is the
hope of bodily health and life. These are the precise
kind of lies of which this woman is most prolific, and
which she distributes most lavishly.
The passage I am now to quote is taken from a
communication signed by Mrs. Eddy and pubUshed
by her in the New York Sun for December 16, 1898,
and it contains the boldest and wickedest of these
,.rnost bold and most wicked lies.
In this letter Mrs. Eddy said:
"I challenge the world to disprove what I hereby :
declare. After my discovery of Christian Science, P
healed consumption in its last stages, that the
M.D.'s, by verdict of the stethoscope and the schools,
declared incurable, the lungs being mostly consumed.
I healed malignant tubercular diphtheria and carious
bones that could be dented by the finger, saving them
when the surgeon's intruments were lying on the
table ready for their amputation. I have healed at
one visit a cancer that had so eaten the flesh of the
neck as to expose the jugular vein so that it stood
out like a cord."
She manufactured new lungs, offhand. She healed

A BOGUS HEALING SYSTEM 107
carious bones, instantaneously. She put forth the
divine power God had conferred upon her, and at
one' visit healed that most frightful of all diseases,
a malignant cancer.
This statement is either true or false. If it is
true, the whole world should know it, for its truth
would prove Mrs. Eddy to have the power to triumph
over death, and when the king, or the queen, of death
shall come to earth, all knees will touch the ground.
No one can love another very much and not be willing
to go upon his knees before the man or the woman
who can protect that loved one forever from the hand
of death; and I should want to be the very first to
prostrate myself in all humility and gratitude before
the conqueror of death. And if, on the other hand,
Mrs. Eddy's statement is false, absolutely false, a
fiction made out of whole cloth, then it is important
that such falsity should be clearly shown, and shown
throughout the world that all mankind may know
the wickedness of her falsification. I affirm, and shall
show, it to be false in every particular.
Mrs. Eddy's statement gives no names, dates/
locaUties, nor any substantial thing to enable any one\
to investigate any of these professed miracles, and^
every effort to induce her to particularize ended, as
always, in failure. There would have been as much,
and as little, sense in a challenge to the world to
disprove the green-cheese hypothesis of the structural
composition of the moon. _,
In the issue of the Sun of January 1, 1899, Dr.
Charles A. L. Reed, a prominent physician of Cin-

108 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
cinnati, published a challenge to Mrs. Eddy to prove.
the truth of her miraculous cures. He offered to
furnish her cases identical with those she said she
had healed, and he said that, if she would heal any
one of them, he would proclaim her omnipotence
from the housetops; and if she would cure all or
half of them, he would cheerfully crawl upon
his knees that he might but touch the hem of her
garment. But dumbness possessed Mrs. Eddy from that
time forth. Probably she didn't want to be glorified
from the housetops; she didn't wish to have any mere
medical man crawling at her feet.
As Mrs. Eddy furnishes no specifications, it is
impossible, of course, to meet her allegations in the
ordinary way ; but I purpose, nevertheless, to satisfy
every intelligent mind that there is not an atom of
truth in her professed miracles.
If you have the power over life and death here
claimed by Mrs. Eddy, when do you employ it?
You employ it, do you not, when some one you
greatly love is suffering, when some one dear to you
is approaching the grave? If you have the power
to save human life, you save the life, first of all, of
those whom you most love; and if you know those
you dearly love to be suffering torture from frightful
disease and that, if the progress of the disease is not
stopped, the hand of death will inevitably snatch
them, if you know these things and put forth no
particle of power, make no effort to allay the suffer
ing or stay the progress of the disease, then it becoi

A BOGUS HEALING SYSTEM 109
clear that you have no such power, or that you are
a monster of inhumanity, does it not?
This is the case with Mrs. Eddy. If she has had
the power she claims, she has the most unfeeling heart
that ever beat in a human breast; for she has never
put forth the power to save those she most loved
as they stood on the very edge of the grave.
In the summer of 1902, there died in the city of
Boston, after seven years of illness, Mrs. Mary Ann
Baker, the widow of Mrs. Eddy's deceased brother,
Samuel Baker. The relations between the sisters-
in-law had, for years, been most cordial, and I have
seen and read Mrs. Eddy's autograph letters in which
she professed, only a few days before her sister's
death, the greatest affection for her.
Mrs. Baker's disease, of which Mrs. Eddy from
the beginning to the end was fully informed, was
cancer of the breast, and her suffering during the
seven years of illness from that awful disease may
be better imagined than described. -o
At Mrs. Eddy's request, Mrs. Baker had sub
mitted to Christian Science "treatment," the healer
selected by Mrs. Eddy being Mrs. Janette E. Weller,
a close friend of Mrs. Eddy and her confidential
representative in Boston ; but Mrs. Baker derived no
benefit from it whatever, and died in the care of
Dr. H. S. Dearing of Boston. ^_
Frqm one end of. the country to the other I have
asked Christian Scientists this question:
If Mrs. Eddy, for hire, had healed, at one sitting,
ta cancer that had so eaten into the neck of a strange?

110 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
that the jugular vein stood out Uke a cord, why,'
I ask, why in the name of God, did she not, for her
love's sake, stay the progress of the loathsome disease;
that for seven years ate into the breast of the sister
she loved? Until Mrs. Eddy or one of her professed!
disciples has answered that question, let her not look
for followers amongst people who know of this in
cident and have hearts; for she hadn't the power or
she hadn't the wish to save her sister, and the want
of power would prove the baseness of her falsehoods,
as the want of a wish would prove the adamantine -:
quality of her heart. '*
If Mrs. Eddy possessed this miraculous power,
why did she permit her third husband to die of
heart disease by her side, when one treatment of
hers would have saved him? Why did she not
reach out her all-powerful hand and save her own
granddaughter, the child of her only son, when
piteous appeal to her was made by the child's father? ;,-¦
Why, instead of putting forth the sUghtest personal-
effort, did she recommend the employment of a
Boston healer, so called, a retired sea captain, one
Joseph Eastaman by name, to give absent treatment^
in Boston to the poor girl dying in South Dakota?
Imagine a retired sea captain sitting in his office in
Boston, closing his eyes, placing his aged hand upon
his vacant forehead and trying to think health and
Ufe. into Mrs. Eddy's granddaughter nearly two
thousand miles away! If Mrs. Eddy could have'
saved her own flesh and blood and did not, what
must have been the condition of that thing Mrs.

A BOGUS HEALING SYSTEM 111
Eddy calls her heart? Who that has human feeling
in his heart would not give his life for his child or
his grandchild? and this woman, posing as the suc
cessor to and as Uke unto Him who said, "Suffer
Uttle children to come unto me and forbid them not,
for of such is the kingdom of Heaven," and claiming
to have performed miracles equal to any ascribed to
Him in the Gospels, did absolutely nothing to save
the Ufe of her granddaughter !
If Mrs. Eddy had been the miracle worker she
claims to have been, why did she turn poor, devoted
Mrs. Leonard, herself a renowned healer of the cult,
who had slaved in her household for years, and had
for months and years been dying of diabetes under
her very eyes — why did Mrs. Eddy turn Mrs. Leon
ard out of the house at Concord, New Hampshire,
shortly before her death of that distressing disease?
Was it because Mrs. Eddy didn't wish the striking
discredit of her professed powers that would follow
Mrs. Leonard's death upon the Eddy premises?
Having the power to save her life, as she claims, all
Mrs. Eddy did for Mrs. Leonard was to ask her,
when death became imminent, to be so good as to
go away and die elsewhere.
Mrs. Eddy estimates values in terms of dollars
and cents, and yet, possessing the mastery over
death, she put forth no effort to save the life of
Joseph Armstrong, her close friend of many years,
a director in her church from its foundation, her
personal business manager who had made a fortune
for her, and yet departed this life of pleurisy with

112 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
effusion in the summer or fall of 1907. If Mrs. Eddy
could save any human life, she would have saved this
one, so pecuniarily precious above all other Uves to her.
If she had such marvelous power, why did she
allow her personal coachman, the man who had sat
on the seat of her carriage as she took her daily
drive, to die in her house of a disease of which he
had been "completely cured" by Christian Science?
Why did she let her close, personal friend, her leading
lecturer and proselyter, Edward E. Kimball, die in
the prime of life and at the height of his usefulness
to her cause ? Why has she turned a deaf ear to the
prayers that have been addressed to her by broken
hearted parents whb have so often journeyed to her
home to beg her to exert her God-Uke power to save
from the grave their dying child? Why has she for
thirty years and more refused to even try to heal
any one, to attempt to allay any pain however:,
fearful, or save any human life however beautiful
and however precious ?
If Mary Baker G. Eddy has the power she boldly
| claims to have, and if she has wrought the miracles
| she says she has wrought, she has that power, then,
jl say, she has the heart of a very fiend; for hot once
/ in thirty years has she consented to try, out of ordi-
t nary humanity, to prevent suffering or to save life.
The truth is, Mrs. Eddy's miraculous cures are
| all frauds, every one of them, and the failure of at
tempted healings would prove them to be frauds,
and she does not wish to so discredit herself. -She
never healed any one of any serious disease. She

A BOGUS HEALING SYSTEM 113
never in her life had any curative power whatever,!
and she has been wise indeed not to advertise thei
fact by attempting to cure. Her man, Alfred FarlowJ
the official, highly paid and carefully coached spokes
man of her cult, and its leading press agent, admitted,
in response to my questioning and when testifying
recently under oath and subject to cross examination,
that he did not know of any cure ever having been
made by Mrs. Eddy of any organic disease in her life,
but stiff leg; and he said that, in his understanding
as a high practitioner of the Christian Science art of
healing, a stiff leg is an organic disease.
When I entered upon my investigation of the
matter, I believed in the reality of some of the pro
fessed cures of Christian Science, even of organic
disease, but closer acquaintance with the subject has
satisfied me that they are, without exception, false
pretensions or honest delusions. I have known of
the most honest, but erroneous, belief in cure by
Christian Science, I have known people so resolutely
to deny to themselves the reality of disease, that
they have come to believe in its unreality; and I
one case has come to my notice of a poor woman's in
sistence with her dying breath that she had been healed
of an incurable disease and was then perfectly well,
while her death within a few hours was the sad
witness to the delusive character of her "cure."^J
Perhaps the most impressive case of this delusive
cure of incurable disease is that of the Earl of Dun-
more. He was Christian Science's show convert.
His personality was always in the foreground, he

114 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
always sat in the front row upon the platform and
his name was always in the papers.
In March, 1907, he published in the Cosmopolitan
Magazine an account of his conversion to Christian
Science, which was due, he said, to his having been
j healed by it of a disease an eminent London surgeon
i had pronounced incurable. The Earl of Dunmore,
when he pubUshed that article, doubtless believed
it was true. He was perfectly sincere, but his death,
within a few weeks after the pubUcation of his con
version through cure, his death of the very disease
pronounced incurable by the London doctor, was
pathetic and convincing testimony to his mistaken
opinion that he had been cured and to the accuracy
of the medical diagnosis that his disease was incurable.
Again and again the most persistent effort has
been made to induce Christian Science healers to
give some reasonable proof of their powers; but they
as persistently refuse to submit any alleged cures to
anything like scientific scrutiny. There has never
been a scientifically established Christian Science
cure. The "healers" confess that they are, nay even
boast that they are, incompetent to diagnose disease.
If they can't determine the presence of disease, how
then can they determine its cure ? Mrs. Eddy herself
goes so far as to say that ignorance of all departments
of the science of medicine is an aid in the cure of
disease, according to her system. What value then
is to be attached to anything any of them say about
disease, if they are completely ignorant concerning
it? And it being a fundamental article of their

A BOGUS HEALING SYSTEM 115
faith to deny the reality of disease, how can they
admit its reality, however manifest in their patients,
without stultifying themselves? Is it not superla
tively absurd to be in the slightest degree influenced
by anything any of these monomaniacs, or fakers, can
possibly say upon a subject of which they openly
profess to know, and boast that they know, abso
lutely nothing?
Besides, and let me emphasize this statement,
there is not a Christian Science healer, in good and
regular standing anywhere in the world, who tells
the truth, or tries to tell the truth, or could tell the
truth if he tried. They know that suffering is real,
they know disease is real, they know that death is
the most positive of all realities, and yet they per
petually affirm the unreality of all these things.
Every former healer, who has reformed, or recovered
his sanity and given up pretending to heal by denying
the reality of a condition he is attempting to change,
will tell you he lied perpetually when practising so-
called Christian Science; for to admit the reality of
disease or suffering or death, however confident of
its existence, is t'o deny the faith and pronounce Mrs.
Eddy to be a fraud.
Let me here, parenthetically, call attention to
another phase of this thing. Not only are these
unrealities proclaimed, but the reaUty of sin is in
like manner denied. If sin is unreal, to commit sin
is nothing, and no iniquity is so great as to be morally
reprehensible. There is no such thing as morality or
immorality, if sin is unreal; and any one who pro-

116 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
claims the unreality of sin, if he have any influence
in the community, is about as harmful a member of
society as can exist.
The denial of suffering and death, the denial of
poverty and sin, have had a markedly observable
effect in Christian Science circles in drying up the
springs of the sweetest and tenderest of human feel
ings. If none of these things really exist, there can
be no occasion for charity, for compassion, for sym
pathy, and to give expression to any of these senti
ments is to admit the reality of the things Mrs. Eddy
affirms to be unreal. One cannot be a Christian
Scientist and have in his heart the Christ-like emotions
of sympathy and charity and compassion. It is said
that the faces of Christian Scientists wear a perpetual
smile. It is the stereotyped smile of affected cheer
fulness and it covers a heart from which the most
humane and attractive quaUties have been, as nearly
as may be, rooted out. But to return to the healers.
I know a woman who was a successful healer for
fifteen years and as conscientious as any of them,
and she is now frank enough to say, that she never
healed any one of any real disease or serious indis
position in all that time, and doesn't know of any
other healer who did. They simply fool them
selves and their patients by denying the reality
of disease so long as there is breath in the body,
and when death occurs and actually confronts
them, they deny the reality of death. Could ab
surdity further go ?
Perhaps it is due to their belief in the unreality of

A BOGUS HEALING SYSTEM 117
death, that they permit no funerals in their churches;
perhaps, also, it may be due to their unwillingness,
from a business standpoint, to admit that Christian
Scientists, young and old, die just as do the benighted
people who have not bowed down to Mrs. Eddy.
Surely, if the healings of Christian Scientists were
reaUties, once a convert would mean always a con
vert; but it is a fact that people are coming out of
Christian Science as rapidly as they are going in, and
the more intelligence they have the more quickly
they abandon the thing when they come to under
stand what it is. If you are all right in the region
of the brain and all right in the region of the heart,
you won't tarry very long in the Christian Science
camp, I know many ex-Christian Scientists who de
nounce it as roundly as I do and declare it to be a
fraud in all its aspects. I could name hundreds of
people, formerly zealous followers of Mrs. Eddy, who
now, repudiate her with scorn and contumely. Would
they do this if she were in fact the miracle worker
she claims to be, and if Christian Science were in fact
the sovereign antidote to sickness, sin and death?
The following is taken from a letter recently
received from a gentleman of exceptional intelligence:
"I have been connected with that church for five
years and have lately had my eyes opened to the
most cold-blooded skin game conceivable under the
guise of a religion. Having conducted a Christian
Science sanitarium for three years, I am in possession
of facts unknown to any but Christian Scientists, and
to only a few of the inner circle of grafters. I was a

118 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
student of medicine at Harvard in the 70s, am a
B.A. of the University of New Brunswick, Canada,
and ought to have known better — but there are
others." Christian Science is a "skin game" and the
powers that be in Christian Science are the "inner
circle of grafters"! Strange language this to be
applied to a "religion" and its leading officials by a
former believer; but it is precisely as former Christian
Scientists, men and women, speak of the thing and
the people they have repudiated.
Cures of real or imaginary illness are sometimes
effected in very extraordinary ways. Being recently
in San Francisco, I talked with a friend, a lawyer,
there who had gone' through the experience of the
earthquake. The house in which he was born and
in which he lived was burned to the ground after its
contents had been dragged out and heaped up upon
a vacant lot, and he turned from his law office, his
library shelves crowded with books, no one of which
he had an opportunity to save from the devastating
flames. The experience was an intensely distressing
and exhausting one. For two days and two nights
he did not get a wink of sleep. Prior to the earth
quake and fire, he had been a constant sufferer from
the most excruciating headaches. Not a headache
has he had since! Cured by earthquake!
I talked with another gentleman, and he told me
that his mother-in-law had been bedridden for five
years, and not once in that time had put her foot
upon the floor. She had not attempted to walk

A BOGUS HEALING SYSTEM 119
because she was positive she was unable to walk and
her death was daily expected. As the flames ap
proached the region of her residence, my friend and
his wife started off in different directions to find some
form of conveyance to carry their mother to a place
of safety, and when they returned, in about an hour,
she had vanished. Unaided, she had gotten up,
dressed herself, and walked between two and three
miles! Cured by conflagration!
Marvelous cures these, almost in the nature of
miracles; and yet even a Christian Scientist would
smile disdainfully if earthquake and conflagration
were seriously prescribed for headache and paralysis^
No doubt people have recovered of illness while
under Christian Science treatment; just as they have
when under no treatment; but the Christian Science
inane treatment was no more the cause of the re
covery than was the absence of treatment of any
kind. There is a great deal of delusive sickness, which is
easily cured by a putting away of the delusion, and
there was never yet any, but a delusive, cure by
Christian Science of an organic disease — not one^_
Will Mrs. Eddy and all her healers and followers
throughout the world be able to add one moment,
one breath, to the life of Mrs. Eddy herself, when the
hour of her death has arrived? No, deny the reality
of disease and death as they may, it comes to them
one and all, just as to others, when the angel of death
approaches and beckons from the darkness that
closes upon their drooping eyes.

120 THE RELIGld-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
I am sure that there can be no doubt in any
honest, clear-thinking mind that has followed me
thus far, that all of these monstrous and irreverent
pretensions of the leader and founder of Christian
Science are wholly false, and I am equally confident
that I shall establish in the mind of those who go
with me to the end of my showing, that Mrs. Eddy's
frauds have had their incentive in a purely mercenary
motive; that she has claimed to have received a
revelation from God and equality with Jesus and the
performance of miracles for the purpose alone of
fooling people into placing an extraordinary value
upon her valueless teachings for which she has made
extortionate charges; that she has claimed to be the
fulfilment of Biblical prophecy, "the woman clothed
with the sun," and that her book, "Science and
Health, " was the little book held in the hand of the
angel, that she is herself the feminine impersonation,
•as Jesus was the masculine impersonation, of the
immaculate idea, and that, not she, but God was the
author of her book, solely and only that she might
build up a powerful organization and a large fortune.
Money and power are the explanations of Mrs. Eddy's
frauds, her lies, her blasphemies, I will even say of
her crimes, for when crime could, as she believed, be
accomplished through mental effort, maliciously em
ployed for the destruction of her enemies, she has not
hesitated so to seek its accomplishment, and her
whole career, for thirty or forty years past, has been
the crime of obtaining money by false pretenses.

CHAPTER VIII
Immeasurable Greed
LET us now go with some particularity into these
charges that I make against Mrs. Eddy. I
charge that she has been and is wholly mercenary;
that her pretended revelation, her pretended excep
tional character as successor to Jesus, her pretended
marvelous curative powers, are dishonestly invented
and put forth, first, as a means of making money, and
then as a means of acquiring despotic power.
First, as to the mercenary motive.
Mrs. Eddy's activity as a teacher of Christian
Science began in the year 1870, after leaving Stoughton
and going to Lynn, Massachusetts. She was then in
her fiftieth year, and from the time of her marriage to
Glover in 1843 had been extremely poor. Christian
Science, at the very outset, took on a money-
making character. Her familiarity with Quimby's
teachings, transformed into a discovery of her own,
and then into a revelation from God, became
with her a business asset to be utiUzed for revenue
only. In the introduction to her "Science and Health, "
published in 1898, Mrs. Eddy says that her "first
pamphlet on Christian Science was copyrighted in
1870, but it did not appear in print until 1876, as
121

122 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE,
she had learned that this science must be demon
strated by healing before a work on the subject
could be profitably published." I emphasize the
word "profitably." At the very start there was the
resolution in the woman's heart that this "science,"
ultimately to become a "reUgion," was not to be
given to the world until it could be pubUshed with
profit to her, and from the beginning, until now,
profit has been her first and main consideration.
In the Banner of Light, the organ of the
spiritualists, of July 4, 1869, and three years after
the date she now claims as the time of the "revela
tion," Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Glover, pubUshed the
following advertisement:
"Any person desiring to learn how to heal the
sick can receive of the undersigned instruction that
will enable them to commence healing on a principle
of science with success far beyond any of the present
modes. No medicine, electricity, physiology or
Hygiene required for unparalleled success in the most
difficult cases. No pay is required unless the skill
is obtained. Address Mrs. Mary B. Glover, Ames-
bury, Mass., Box 61."
One is reminded of the flaunting advertisements
of the cut-rate drug stores, guaranteeing a cure by a
liberal use of patent medicines or a return of the
money. Mrs. Eddy started out with the guarantee system,
no skill imparted, no money required; but it may be
believed that the guarantee system was speedily
abandoned. There was no money in a guarantee of
skill to heal disease through Mrs. Eddy's teachings,

IMMEASURABLE GREED 123
and a change was speedily made to the permanently-
adopted system of "cash in advance."
It appears that, as to teaching, there was a pro
gressive scale of charges. First it was whatever she
could get; then $100 in advance, with ten per cent
royalty on the students' subsequent income from
practice, and $1,000 if, having learned the system,
he did not care to practise it; then $300 for twelve
lessons, cash "strictly in advance," and ultimately
$300 for seven lessons, "cash strictly in advance."
I have examined the court record in two litiga
tions instituted by Mrs. Eddy (years after God had,
as she says, selected her for her divine mission), for
the recovery of money alleged by her to be due upon
a contract reading as follows:
"We, the undersigned, do hereby agree, in con
sideration of instructions and manuscripts received
from Mrs. Mary B. Glover, to pay her $100 in advance,
and ten per cent annually on the income that we
receive from practicing or teaching the same. We
also do hereby agree to pay the said Mary B. Glover
$1,000 in case we do not practice or teach the science
she has taught us."
The Banner of Light advertisement was dated
July 4, 1869, and one of the contracts is dated August
17, 1870, so it will be seen how brief was the duration
of Mrs. Eddy's guarantee system of operating.
I think, in all her lawsuits for the recovery of
tuition Mrs. Eddy never prevailed after a hearing upon
the merits, and in one of them, the Judge, who tried
her case, after having heard her testimony in full, said:

124 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
"I do not find any instruction given' by her nor
any explanations of her ' science ' or ' method of heal
ing,' which are intelligible to ordinary comprehen
sion, or which could in any way be of value in fitting
the- defendant as a competent and successful practi
tioner of any intelligible art or method of healing
the sick. And I am of opinion that the consideration
for the agreement has wholly failed, and I so find."
This finding of the court is interesting as a judicial
estimate, based upon her own sworn testimony, of
the value of Mrs. Eddy's Christian Science, which has
never been any more intelligible to any one else than
it was to the learned Judge.
In 1881, Mrs. Eddy established what she called the
Massachusetts Metaphysical College, which was an
institution for the turning out of Christian Science
Jasalers. Her adopted son and husband, with her
self, constituted the faculty of this remarkable in
stitution, and the entire college course consisted of
twelve lessons. The following is taken from an
advertisement in the Christian Science Journal,
Mrs. Eddy's personal organ, for September, 1886,
under the heading, "Massachusetts Metaphysical
College, Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, President,
571 Columbus Ave., Boston, Mass.":
"The collegiate course in Christian Science meta
physical healing includes twelve lessons. Class con
venes at 10 a.m. The first week, six consecutive lessons.
The term continues about three weeks. Tuition, three
hundred dollars. Tuition for all strictly in advance."
, Remember that this was Mrs. Eddy's charge
I fifteen years after God had, by revelation, as she says,

IMMEASURABLE GREED 125
freely imparted to her what she was here advertising to
sell at the rate of twenty-five dollars per lesson,
cash "strictly in advance." Mrs. Eddy's was a~
strictly cash business, no trust, no "revelation"
C.O.D., or on the installment plan, and no money
returned however dissatisfied with the purchase.
Referring to this charge of three hundred dollars
for twelve lessons, Mrs. Eddy, in her book, "Re
trospection and Introspection," has perpetrated one
of the funniest passages to be found in all literature:
"When God impelled me to set a price on Chris
tian Science mind healing," she says, "7 could think
of no financial equivalent for the impartation of a
knowledge of that divine power , which heals ; but
7 was led to name three hundred dollars as the price
for each pupil in one course of lessons at my college ;
a startling sum for tuition lasting barely three weeks.
This amount greatly troubled me. I shrank from ask
ing it, but was finally led by a strange Providence to
accept this fee. God has since shown me in multi
tudinous ways the wisdom of this decision."
The idea of setting a price on Christian Science
mind heaUng never occurred to Mrs. Eddy until God
¦called it to her attention and impelled her to it.
Unaided, it was impossible for her to have thought
of or wished to establish a financial equivalent for the
impartation of a knowledge of that "divine power
which heals," but, led by Divine Providence, she
finally consented to name three hundred dollars as
the price. God, from his seat at the center of the
universe, turning His attention from the laws that
hold the spheres in their orbits, leaning earthward,

126 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
whispered in the attentive woman's ear, "Mary, a
price should be charged for my word. It is a private
snap, all your own, and three hundred dollars is
about the proper figure. So troubled was this diffi
dent person by the divine command, that she posi
tively shrank, retreated before it with. her hands
clasped tight behind her. How persistent must the
Almighty have been to have overcome such hesitancy!
How He must have labored to convince the woman that,
His revelation was expressly designed for her pecuniary
profit. But God triumphed and Mrs. Eddy yielded,
and subsequently in multitudinous ways Providence
demonstrated to her the wisdom of her decision —
multitudinous ways — and multitudinous dollars.
So shrinkingly did Mrs. Eddy prevail upon her
self, finally, to accept this God-ordained financial
equivalent for "impartation of the divine power that
heals" to those who could afford to pay in advance
for it at the rate of twenty-five dollars per hour, that
a large imagination may possibly conceive of the
struggle with herself necessary to enable her to bring
suit in the courts to recover from those she had been
foolish enough to trust, notwithstanding her noble
resolution to carry on a strictly cash business; and
surely it will be quite impossible for any one, however
gifted with imaginative faculty, to reaUze what
the poor creature must have suffered to overcome the
"shrinking" that possessed her modest soul so far
as to enable her to increase her charge by almost a
hundred per cent, as she did in a couple of years.
If we may judge by results, it must be admitted

IMMEASURABLE GREED 127
that the wisdom, the commercial wisdom, of her
decision, whether shown by God or not, was quite
clearly demonstrated, as Mrs. Eddy says that "dur
ing seven years some four thousand students were
taught by me (her) in this college." Four thousand
students, at three hundred dollars per student, for a
"college" course of twelve lessons! Four thousand
times three hundred equals one million two hundred
thousand, and one million two hundred thousand
dollars may be said to be fairly reasonable compen
sation for instruction,' even in Christian Science,
covering a period of seven years, especially as it was
all in the family. A family of three, even three
adults, as frugal and thrifty as these, could comfort
ably provide themselves with the necessaries of life
upon an income of one hundred and seventy thousand
dollars a year.
Mrs. Eddy has put herself to some trouble to show
that she got the full three hundred dollars from every
one of the four thousand students. I don't think she
did, but I have no doubt she tried to. However,
she says she did, in these words:
"I wrote 'Science and Health, with Key to the
Scriptures,' taught students for a tuition of $300
each and seldom taught without having charity
scholars, sometimes a dozen or upwards in one class.
Afterwards, with touching tenderness, those very
students sent me the full tuition money. However,
I returned this money with love; but it was again
mailed to me in letters begging me to accept it,
saying, 'Your teachings are worth much more to
me than money can be.' "

128 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
God had decided that three hundred dollars was a
financial equivalent for the teaching ; but the grateful
students deemed its value beyond financial computa
tion. Presumably the payment of the large tuition
was, in itself, a means of grace and power, just as those
who have paid the healers' bills most promptly have
recovered most speedily.
According to its founder, "Christian Science
demonstrates that the patient who pays whatever
he is able to pay for being healed is more apt to re
cover than he who withholds the sUght equivalent
for health." Pay well, extremely well, for teaching
if you aim to become a great healer; and impress upon
your patients the pronounced curative properties of
prompt and liberal payment of their bills for treat
ment! President Mary Baker G. Eddy and her faculty,
which, when it did not consist of herself alone, in
cluded her third husband and adopted son, do not
seem to have needed a bargain counter for marked
down educations. Marked up educations in Christian
Science were the ones that sold best, as Mrs. Eddy
wisely foresaw. So, after only a couple of years of
the God-established rate of three hundred dollars for
twelve lessons, Mrs. Eddy and her learned faculty
concluded to set aside God's judgment and raise the
rates. They thriftily, and "shrinkingly," of course,
resolved that three hundred dollars for so many as
twelve lessons, although advised by God, was in truth
not a fair "financial equivalent for an impartation of
a knowledge of that divine power which heals," and

IMMEASURABLE GREED 129
in the Christian Science Journal for December, 1888,
twenty-two years after God had, as she says, freely
revealed it to her, Mrs. Eddy published the following
notice: "Having reached a place in teaching where my
students in Christian Science are taught more during
seven lessons in the primary class than they were
formerly in twelve, and taught all that is profitable
at one time, hereafter the primary class will include
seven lessons only. As this number of lessons is of
more value than twice this number in times past, no
change is made in the price of tuition, three hundred
dollars. Mary Baker G. Eddy."
Three hundred dollars for seven lessons, forty-two
dollars per lesson, from each person in the primary
class of unalloyed humbug, by a rank impostor! Over
two thousand dollars for each single lesson to classes
of fifty, and thousands of people living in the most
enlightened portion of the world, in the latter part of
the nineteenth century, willing to pay it! Verily there
is ground for humbleness of spirit in such a display
of creduUty, not to say imbecility, or, as Mark Twain
would say, asininity, in this so-called enlightened
age! Does not, in all sincerity, I ask, does not Mrs.
Eddy's "shrinking" suggest in an impressive and
beautiful way the chaste hesitancy of the hungry
pig as he scrambles on all fours into the replenished
trough! Recall the picture of the haloed Mrs. Eddy stand
ing by His side and holding the Saviour's hand, as
illustrative of equality and "Christian Unity"; and

130 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
imagine, if imagination be equal to the task, Jesus
availing Himself of His communion and kinship
with the Father to accumulate money. Fancy His
Sermon on the Mount being imparted, after the pay
ment to Him by each disciple of a financial equivalent
of the proportions of the Eddy exaction. See Him
crowding into the courts those poor unfortunates who
were unable to pay, and by the employment of legal
process seeking to wrest it from them. Imagine His
requiring all His disciples to sign a contract to pay so
much in advance, such a percentage of their annual in
come from healing, and one thousand doUars forfeit
if they were indisposed to heal after having been
taught. Hear Him instructing His disciples to go
into all the world, teach the gospel to every creature
for cash strictly in advance, to lay hands upon the
sick and assure them that they would be more likely
to be healed after having paid whatever they were
able to pay for the service.
Again, may we hear the burst of divine indignation
at the impious and infamous pretensions of this sordid
creature! Again the words, "Ye serpents, ye genera
tion of vipers! How can ye escape the damnation
of hell"! But teaching was not Mrs. Eddy's only bonanza,
and her income from teaching was only a fraction of
her total income.
In 1875, or thereabouts, Mrs. Eddy had a book on
her hands that she had most laboriously written, and
for which she must create a market. The book was
the veriest rubbish and, with only her name to back it,

IMMEASURABLE GREED 131
was utterly without value to any one. In course of
time, it not selling readily, the idea seems to have
dawned upon her that, if she could make people
believe that this book, this crude, incoherent jumbling
together of meaningless terms, was in very deed the
Word of God, the Infallible, the All- wise, and that
its mere perusal would cure disease, a market would
be created for it and her fortune would be made. Act
ing upon this theory, little by little she advanced the
idea that the contents of the book came to her by
revelation, and she soon reached a point where she
did not hesitate to declare that it is, in its details and
in its completeness, the "Word of God" in precisely
the same sense and to precisely the same extent that
the Christian believes the Scriptures to be the word
of God. She would blush, she says, to speak of "Science
and Health" as she does, "were it of human origin"
and she " apart from God its author," and "No human
pen or tongue taught me the Science contained in this
book and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it;"
and she boldly affirms it to have been expressly
"authorized by Christ" as an interpreter of the Bible.
Referring to its curative properties, she said, "The
perusal of the author's publications heals sickness. "
With these affirmations the humbug was consum
mated and the book placed upon a parity with, nay,
upon a higher plane than,, the Bible, for I think it has
never been said that the mere reading of the Bible
cures disease ; but never for a moment did the shrewd
woman relax her hold upon her copyright or permit

132 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
the publication, outside the covers of her copyrighted
books, of even so much as her so-called spiritual in
terpretation of the Lord's Prayer or the tenets of the
faith. Everybody must pay her a royalty for access
even to her prayers and her creed. Mrs. Eddy has
been wise in her day and generation. She knew how
large a part of the public likes to be fooled all the
time, and she has fooled and now fools a very con
siderable part to the very top of its bent.
Many hundreds of thousands of copies of this
book have been sold at three dollars and upwards
per copy. It is entitled, "Science and Health, with
Key to the Scriptures," although the only parts of the
Scriptures touched upon by the alleged "Key" are
the first chapter of the Old Testament and the last
chapter of the New, Genesis and Revelation. To
the intervening goodly portions God does not, through
Mrs. Eddy, appear to have furnished us any "Key."
"A Christian Scientist," says Mrs. Eddy "requires
my work ' Science and Health ' for his text book, as do
all his students and patients;" the soul's salvation
and body's health being dependent upon the pur
chase and perusal thereof.
The organization of the Massachusetts Meta
physical College, so called, which, let me again affirm,
was a sham affair from start to finish, without college
building, classrooms, faculty, curriculum or entrance
or graduating examinations, this institution was a
valuable agency for the distribution of Mrs. Eddy's
inspired and curative and copyrighted and costly
writings, and so have been the First Church of Christ,

IMMEASURABLE GREED 133
Scientist, in Boston, the Mother Church, so called,
and all the other Christian Science churches, of which
the book itself has been, by her decree, constituted
the impersonal "pastor." Every member of every
church and every student at the "college " must have
a copy of the inspired "Science and Health," at three
dollars per copy, for the cheapest editions. (There
is good profit in three dollars for a book costing not
over fifty cents to publish — five hundred per cent
profit.) Every teacher of Christian Science and
every teacher's student must have a copy of "Science
and Health" properly to teach and to understand
Mrs. Eddy's "Science."
Every one of the five thousand advertising Chris
tian Science healers must keep a stock of the books on
hand and sell them to their patients, who are made to
beUeve, or to try to believe, Mrs. Eddy's absurd pre
tension that its mere perusal cures disease, at prices
ranging from three to six dollars, according to binding.
And, finally, chapters having been transposed, the
most trivial additions made or a different picture of
the author inserted, all hands are invited, no matter
how many copies may already be upon their shelves,
to again step up and buy another copy, the revised
edition, containing matter said to be of the greatest
importance to their bodily and spiritual welfare, and
all obediently accept the invitation.
In the words of our friend, Colonel Sellers of joy
ful memory, "There's millions in it " ! ! !
It would be difficult to convince any one of the
boundless audacity employed by Mrs. Eddy to pro-

134 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
mote the sale of this worthless book, if the authorita
tive evidence over her own signature were not avail
able; but she has convicted herself, has proven in
her own hand over her own signature that the author
of this book, the founder of this alleged religion and
the pretended successor to Jesus is the arch impostor
of all time.
Before I quote the grabber of money against the
"founder" of a "religion," let me remind you that it
was and is a part of Mrs. Eddy's claim that her teach
ings complete the teachings of Jesus; that her "re
ligion" completes the religion of Christ; that, as
Jesus said, "No man cometh unto the Father but by
Me," so Mrs. Eddy, in effect, says, "No man cometh
.unto the Father but by Jesus, and me." To come
unto the Father is to obtain knowledge of the Father,
and, according to Mrs. Eddy, while incomplete knowl
edge may be obtained through the teachings of Jesus,
complete knowledge of the Father is attainable only
through Jesus and her. She has estabUshed and or
ganized The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Bos
ton, ostensibly to lead into complete knowledge of the
Father those who seek Him in spirit and in truth.
Bearing this in mind, note what follows, taken from
the March, 1897, Christian Science Journal, signed
by Mary Baker G. Eddy, and published just as her
book, "Miscellaneous Writings," was placed upon
the market and for the sole purpose of promoting
its sale. She says: "Christian Scientists in the United
States and Canada are hereby enjoined not to teach

IMMEASURABLE GREED 135
a student of Christian Science for one year, com
mencing on March 14, 1897.
"Miscellaneous Writings is calculated to prepare
the minds of all true thinkers to understand the
Christian Science text book more correctly than a
student can.
"The Bible, 'Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures,' and my other published works, are the
only proper instructors for this hour. It shall be
the duty of all Christian Scientists to circulate and to
sell as many of these books as they can.
"If a member of The First Church of Christ,
Scientists, shall fail to obey this injunction, it will
render him liable to lose his membership in this church.
Mary Baker G. Eddy."
At this time there were upwards of twenty thou
sand members, resident and non-resident, of this
church, and every one of them was by this decree re
quired to become a canvasser for the sale of Mrs.
Eddy's books. Twenty thousand unpaid vendors of
her worthless patent medicine, upon which there was
a profit of five hundred per cent! Is it not enough
to make other manufacturers of proprietary concoc
tions turn green with envy !
This compulsory sale of her books was in 1897,
when Mrs. Eddy was seventy-six, but she is the same
woman today, at eighty-eight years of age. With"
only a few steps between her and the grave, she j
reaches out her withered, palsied hand to grab, grab, {
grab. One of her latter-day schemes for bleeding the
faithful has been, as I have indicated, to publish fre
quent "revised" editions of her great work, "Science

136 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
and Health," with the announcement of additions to
its text necessary to growth in "Science." Every
body must buy a new book and add a new profit to
Mrs. Eddy's coffers.
In February, 1908, over her signature, she pub
lished this:
"Take Notice
"I request Christian Scientists universally to read
the paragraph beginning at line thirty of page 442 in
the edition of 'Science and Health,' which will be
issued, February 29. I consider the information
there given to be of great importance at this stage of
the workings of animal magnetism, and it will greatly
aid the students in their individual experiences.
"Mary Baker G. Eddy."
Shortly after the time of the publication of this
notice (the litigation brought by her sons being still
pending) Senator Chandler, their senior counsel with
whom I was associated, happened to be in Boston.
As the Senator was particularly interested in keeping
tabs on Mrs. Eddy's mental attitude toward so-called
"animal magnetism," he asked me if I would procure
for him a copy of this edition, as her notice seemed to
indicate a possible change in her point of view on that
subject. After protesting mildly that I hated to put
any good money into that fake enterprise, I went to
the publication office in Boston and asked for a copy
of the edition of "Science and Health" published on
February 29. The clerk in attendance informed me
that the edition was completely exhausted, but that
another edition containing those alterations and others

IMMEASURABLE GREED 137
could be had. Insisting that no other edition than
the one of February 29 would answer my purpose, a
somewhat worn copy was finally produced as the only
one in the place and I was told I could have it, if I
didn't object to its condition. Turning to page 442
and running my eye down to line thirty, where there
was a little paragraph of two lines, I returned the
book to the clerk and saic| it was not what I wanted, as
it didn't appear to contain the new matter of "great
importance" referred to by Mrs. Eddy's published
notice. Upon his assurance, however, that it was
the volume published on February 29 and that the
paragraph of two lines, at line thirty, page 442, was
the paragraph referred to in Mrs. Eddy's notice, I
tucked the little gold brick under my arm, reluctantly
parted with my three good dollars and, returning to
the Parker House, handed it to Senator Chandler
without a word.
Turning to page 442, the Senator paused at line
thirty long enough to read the paragraph of two lines,
and then, looking up, exclaimed:
"What a swindle! Do you suppose any one can be
of so Uttle intelligence, who buys that book in con
sequence of Mrs. Eddy's notice and reads this para
graph, that he does not feel, as we feel, that he has
been swindled?"
I assured the Senator that, in my judgment, Mrs.
Eddy's following was largely made up of people who
dearly loved to hand their money over to her, that
nothing else gave them quite such joy and that they
would be only too delighted and satisfied to be told

138 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
by Mrs. Eddy that they must be a law unto themselves
in order to be protected, sleeping or awake, from the
foul fiend of animal magnetism. As Mrs. Eddy says
her students said of her teachings for which they had
rapturously parted with three hundred dollars, "it was
worth more to them than money could possibly be."
What was this information, of "great importance,"
which "would greatly aid the students" and which
Christian Scientists "universally" must buy a new
book to read? It was just two Unes inserted in a blank
space at the end of a chapter and necessitated the
change of no other plate of a single page in the book.
"Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves, that
mental malpractice can harm you neither when asleep
nor when awake."
Only this and nothing more. It is senseless, and yet
it cost many thousands of Christian Scientists from
three to six dollars apiece to find out, if they could
find anything out, that the "revelator" had sold them
a "gold brick." And even since the edition of
February, 1908, another edition, with only one Une
added, has been foisted upon the faithful.
What is the meaning of these things? Here is a
woman claiming the succession to Jesus, claiming to
have received an exclusive revelation from Almighty
God necessary to salvation, and, having organized a
church ostensibly to lead unto the Father, she re
quires, as a condition of continued membership in the
church, that its members shall "circulate and sell" as
many of her copyrighted books, upon which there is

IMMEASURABLE GREED 139
a profit of five hundred per cent, "as they can"; and,
year in and year out, she palms off upon the believers
new editions of the old stuff upon the false pretense of
new material important to their spiritual growth.
Nobody ever went at a thing in a more round
about, indirect fashion, and nobody ever resorted to
trickery more shamelessly than has the Reverend
Mary Baker G. Eddy. Nobody ever assumed with
so much boldness the complete asininity of the human
race, as has this woman who professes to be the suc
cessor to Jesus Christ.
In the fall of 1899 suits were brought (as explained
in the Introduction) against Mrs. Eddy and some of
her leading supporters for the libel upon Mrs. Wood
bury, in which damages, approximating half a million
dollars, were asked. Mrs. Eddy and her friends were
much alarmed and prepared for the most strenuous
defence that could possibly be made. It was denied
that Mrs. Woodbury was in any way referred to in
the passage complained of; but numerous lawyers
were retained to contest her endeavor to show that
the denial was false. Mrs. Eddy retained four dif
ferent firms of lawyers to represent her, three promi
nent Boston firms and the leading firm in New Hamp
shire, where she then lived. She thus found herself
involved in enormous and unexpected expense, and
money became the burning question of the hour.
Mrs. Eddy well knew, from experience, that all she
had to do to procure the money necessary, was to ask
the faithful to give it to her; but she, naturally, didn't
care to make an open appeal for it. She resorted, as

140 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
I believe, to the strangest and most audacious trick
ever employed by any human being to get money out
of honest and trusting people.
Four days before Christmas, 1899, when it was
safe to assume that the customary Christmas offerings
were in the mail on their way to her, she published
in the Christian Science Sentinel the following:
"A Card.
"Beloved: I ask this favor of all Christian Scien
tists. Do not give me on, before, or after the forth
coming holidays, aught material except three tea
jackets. All may contribute to these. One learns to
value material things only as one needs them, and
the costliest things are those that one needs least.
Among my present needs material are these three
jackets. Two of darkish heavy silk, the shade ap
propriate to white hair. The third of heavy satin,
lighter shade, but sufficiently sombre. Nos. 1 and 2
to be common sense jackets for Mother to work in, and
not over trimmed by any means. No. 3 for best, such
as she can afford for her drawing room.
"Mary Baker Eddy."
When this "Card" was published Mrs. Eddy must
have believed that there were upwards of a million
Christian Scientists, for years before she .had said,
"In 1883 a million of people acknowledge and attest
the blessings of this mental system of treating disease."
So she must have expected approximately a million
people to make some response to her request.
It will be noted that the "Card" doesn't ask for
tea jackets; it asks for contributions for tea jackets.
Mrs. Eddy had no expectation that a million or more

IMMEASURABLE GREED 141
garments would be received in response to her state
ment that she needed two of heavy silk, the shade
appropriate to white hair, and one of heavy satin
lighter shade but sufficiently sombre. If she had
wanted the tea jackets and not contributions, she
would have given waist and bust measurements, with
length of sleeve and skirt. No, there was no room
for doubt that what she wanted from all her "Be
loved" was contributions and not jackets, and as she
hadn't designated anyone to receive the contributions,
all were asked to make for Mother's benefit, there was
nothing to do but send the contributions straight to
Mother. All had contributed many times and all
were given another precious chance to show how
"easy" they were.
There was never any publicity given to contribu
tions received for the two common sense jackets for
Mother to work in, and the more elaborate one such
as she could afford for her drawing-room; but who,
that has any familiarity with the exceeding eagerness
of Mrs. Eddy's followers to contribute, can have any
doubt that none would think of sending her less than
five dollars.
How lovely ! There were not more than fifty thou
sand Christian Scientists at this time, but, if each
chipped in five dollars toward Mother's jackets, two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars dropped into her
lap. I am only giving my interpretation of Mrs. Eddy's
strange request, when I say that clearly what she
wanted was not tea jackets, but money to finance her

142 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
very elaborate and expensive preparations to contest
Mrs. Woodbury's suits. She wanted money, she
wanted it at once, and so she asked for it immediately.
The request was made for a Christmas present, and it
was made four days before Christmas.
My understanding that what Mrs. Eddy was after
was money and not tea jackets, is confirmed by her
own subsequent statement that she didn't reaUy want
the garments after all. She gave her "Beloved" a whole
week to decide how much the contribution should be
and to make it. A minute was time enough, and she
graciously gave them a whole week; and then she
withdrew the request altogether.
On December 28, 1899, a week after the publication
of the first "Card," Mrs. Eddy published another,
which is a perfect gem of characteristic ambiguity. It
follows: A Card.
Beloved: I accept most gratefully your purpose
to clothe me, and when God has clothed you suffi
ciently, He will make it easy for you to clothe one of
his little ones. Give yourselves no more trouble to
get the three garments called for by me through last
week's Sentinel.
Mary Baker Eddy.
Pleasant View, Concord, N.H., Dec. 25, 1899.
Mother had asked for contributions for three tea
jackets, and now accepts most gratefully the purpose
of her "Beloved" to clothe her; and modestly puts it
by. When God has clothed them sufficiently, He will
make it easy for them to clothe one of His little ones.
There speaks the oracle for you with true Delphic

IMMEASURABLE GREED 143
vagueness. "Give yourself no more trouble to get
the garments called for by me through last week's
Sentinel." One thing, at least, is plain. She hadn't called for
jackets, but for contributions for jackets; and a week
had been accorded her dear followers to contribute.
After everybody from whom a contribution could
be expected, had sent it along, they are informed
that the tea jackets were not wanted and that when
God had sufficienty clothed them, He would make
it easy for them to clothe one of His little ones.
Mother concluded that the common-sense jackets
were not necessary to her work and that she could
sufficiently grace her drawing-room without the help
of the Beloved ; but it has not appeared that any of
the solicited contributions were returned.
I cannot say what an impression the loyal Christian
Scientists may have received from this performance
on the part of their leader ; but I am very certain that
any man of common sense, who had sent money in
response to Mrs. Eddy's first card, when he perused
the second would speedily come to the conclusion
that he had been buncoed.
I cannot leave this subject without giving one
more illustration of Mrs. Eddy's commercial spirit.
Those of us who were brought up in the old school of
medical practice do not forget the utility of spoons
in that connection; and I vividly recall being made,
in the spring-time, to stand in line with my numerous
brothers and sisters and to march unflinchingly upon
a spoon overloaded with sulphur and molasses. But

144 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
what earthly connection there can be between the
purely mental treatment of Christian Science and
the purely physical thing, spoon, is not at first glance
perceptible. It is plain, however, that spoons were
a feature of Mrs. Eddy's business. She was engaged
in the exploitation of revelations and spoons, and,
pursuant to her successful method of extorting money,
made an appeal to the credulity of her people, utiUzing
the old gag of the dissemination of Truth to promote
even the sale of spoons. The following is her com
mand to the faithful:
"Christian Science Spoons — On each of these
most beautiful spoons is a motto in bas-reUef that every
person on earth needs to hold in thought. Mother
requests that Christian Scientists shall not ask to be
informed what this motto is, but each Scientist shall
purchase at least one spoon, and those who can afford
it, one dozen spoons, that their families may read this
motto at every meal and their guests be made par
takers of its simple truth.
"Mary Baker G. Eddy."
This, it will be seen, is not an appeal, a request or
a suggestion, but a command. "Each Scientist
shall purchase at least one spoon, and those who
can afford it, one dozen spoons." There is a motto
on the spoon, of whose simple truth, with their
meals, it is urged that the families of the faithful may
be given an opportunity to partake, and "Mother"
especially requests that Christian Scientists shall not
ask to be informed what this motto is. To be
informed of the motto, would enable her following
to partake of its simple truth without purchasing one

10 J
ml

IMMEASURABLE GREED 145
dozen spoons or even a solitary spoon; and the sale
of spoons, and not the consumption of truth, was
the plain purpose of Mrs. Eddy's command.
The price of spoons was three dollars apiece for
the plain silver and five dollars apiece for those with
gold plated bowls ; and I know a gentleman in Wash
ington, D.C., then a professed Christian Scientist, who
parted with sixty good American dollars for one dozen
Christian Science spoons.
Truly, are not Mrs. Eddy's followers the very
easiest "easy marks" that any bunco-steerer ever
went up against!
How naturally we fall into the slang of the street
or into the language in which the operations of common
swindlers are characterized, when we discuss this
"religion" and its high priestess!
Is there any possible doubt of the basic motive of
this woman? Did any one ever hear of anything
approaching the audacity of this brazen creature?
Is it now clear, beyond possibility of cavil, that all
of Mrs. Eddy's absurd and irreverent pretensions have
been merely unique business methods utilized to the
utmost to give a fictitious value to her foolish and
harmful teachings, and to extend the sale of her foolish
and harmful writings ?
Is the founder of Christian Science in very truth
anything more than a peddler of "revelations;" a
huxter, who makes a commodity of "religion"; as
MarkTwain says, a shameless old swindler who reaches
out her irreligious hand and grabs the sacred name of
Jesus the more easily to cheat and rob poor confiding

146 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
creatures while looking to her for health to their
aching bodies and peace to their troubled souls? Is
there a blasphemy, a mendacity, a cruelty, beyond
that of Mary Baker G. Eddy? Is there a greed
that approaches hers?

CHAPTER IX
The Eddy Autocracy.
MONEY and power are the explanations of Mrs.
Eddy's life. We have seen how greedily she_
has accumulated wealth. Let us, for a moment, con
sider the way in which she has extended her power.
Nearly twenty years ago, Mrs. Eddy established
the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, which
is called the " Mother Church " and stands in the rela
tion to the other churches, as she says, of the vine
to the branches. It has been Mrs. Eddy's repeatedly
expressed wish that all Christian Scientists everywhere
should belong to the Mother Church, and Mr. Hanna,
then her chief representative in the organization, ar
gued at length that this expressed wish of Mrs. Eddy's
was the revealed will of God; and no real Christian
Scientist hesitates to do God's will, as revealed
through Mrs. Eddy.
Of course, membership in anything or connection
with anything in Christian Science costs money, and
every member, resident or non-resident, of the First
Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, is required to
pay an annual tax of at least one dollar. The present
total membership of this church, resident and non
resident, in which Mrs. Eddy's arbitrary will is abso
lute law, is upwards of fifty thousand, and embraces
147

148 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
all of the really devout and loyal Eddyites everywhere
in the world. Here is, in itself, an income of some
fifty thousand dollars annually of the First Church
in Boston. If to this be added pew rents, church
collections, the voluntary offerings of the faithful
and the profits on the official periodicals, the aggre
gate will doubtless reach a total of considerably over
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum.
Can any other church in the country show such reve
nues? Truly, the Church of St. Bunco, as Mr. Gordon
Clark has happily named it, is a paying institution!
Mrs. Eddy is the head of this church. She con
stituted and calls herself pastor emeritus; but her
relation to the organization is the reverse of what
her title implies. Instead of being honorary merely,
it is most positive and active. She has been the final
authority on all matters in the church, dictated all
its actions and ceremonies and formulated its rules
and by-laws. By these rules and by-laws, which Mrs.
Eddy has made, she has conferred upon herself the
power to remove from office any officer of her church
in Boston, without cause, and to excommunicate
forever, without assigned cause, any of the fifty
thousand members. By these rules, which Mrs. Eddy
has made, she has conferred upon herself the power
to remove the readers — the first and second readers,
who take the place of ministers — of all Christian
Science churches in the United States and foreign
nations. No member excommunicated from the
First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, may hold
a membership in any other Christian Science church

THE EDDY AUTOCRACY 149
anywhere in the world and is cut off from fellowship
with the faithful, and cast into outer darkness
forever. By these rules and by-laws, which Mrs. Eddy has
made, she has provided that the president and direct
ors of the church may only be appointed subject to
her approval; that no board of trustees of the church
may ever be constituted except by her, and that the
first members, or governing body, of the church may
be appointed only with her approval. Indeed, only
recently, with one stroke of her pen and without a
word of explanation, she swept this governing body,
the first or executive members, completely out of
existence. No sermons shall ever be read in the
churches, no original work of any first reader or minis
ter is permitted (it would detract somewhat from Mrs.
Eddy's own writings) and the service is limited, by
Mrs. Eddy's rules, to the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's pub
lished and copyrighted and profit-yielding works,
announcements of the name of the author of the latter
always being required while publicly read. Hypno
tists, so called, must be excluded upon her complaint;
and the editors and publishers of the Christian Sci
ence Journal and the other organs of the sect and the
president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College
may be only persons of whom she expressly approves.
Any teacher who dares to take a student of Mrs.
Eddy's into her class without Mrs. Eddy's written
consent "shall be" (not may be) "shall be excom
municated from the church."
Mrs. Eddy's rule, conferring upon Mrs. Eddy the

150 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
power to remove officers of all Christian Science
churches, is as follows:
"The pastor emeritus of the Mother Church (Mrs.
Eddy) shall have the right, through a letter addressed
to the individual and the church of which he is a
reader, to remove a reader from this office in any
Church of Christ, Scientist, both in America and
foreign nations, or to appoint the reader to fill any
office belonging to the Christian Scientists denomi
nation." This by-law is followed by the further provision
that it can neither be amended nor annulled except by
Mrs. Eddy's consent.
Mrs. Eddy's rules provide that membership of the
church is only possible to those familiar with Mrs.
Eddy's copyrighted, five hundred per cent profit
earning publications; that the Bible and her book
shall be the pastor — • the impersonal pastor — of the
Mother Church; that every member of the church,
when publicly reading or quoting from the books of
Mrs. Eddy, must first announce the name of the au
thor; that teachers shall instruct their students how
to defend themselves against mental malpractice, the
witchcraft of Christian Science; that a degree of the
Massachusetts Metaphysical College is a necessary
preliminary to the teaching of Christian Science (and
these degrees cost money) ; that any member of the
church, working against what Mrs. Eddy believes
advantageous to the church and the cause of Christian
Science, shall, upon her complaint, be dropped forever
from membership ; that a member of the church who

THE EDDY AUTOCRACY 151
shall use written formulas, or permit his patients or
his students to use them, shall be excommunicated;
that any member daring to give advice on church
matters, outside of the meetings, shall be dropped from
membership, and so on, as Mark Twain says, "more
ways to get out than to stay in" — the autocrat, the
egotist, and the tradesman in every line.
And this woman, who has accumulated a fortune
by the methods stated, and imposed upon the credu-
Uty of many thousands of reUgious people to build up
a powerful organization of which she has made her
self the whimsical and imperious autocrat, is the
woman, forsooth, whom the Creator of the universe
selected to be the successor to Jesus !
I lately stood at the threshold of the Holy of
HoUes of the "Mother Church," and with a crowd of
worshipers patiently waited for admittance to the
hallowed precincts of the "Mother's Room." Over
the doorway was assign "informing us that but four
persons" at a time would be admitted ; that they would
be permitted to remain five'minutes only, and would
please retire from the "Mother's Room" at the ringing
of the bell. Entering with four of the faithful, I
looked with profane eyes upon the consecrated furnish
ings. A show-woman in attendance monotonously
announced the character of the different appointments.
Set in a recess of the 'wall and illumined with electric
light was an oil painting the show-woman seriously
declared to be a life-like and realistic picture of the
chair in' which the "Mother" sat when she composed
her "inspired" work. It was a picture of an old-

152 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
fashioned, country, haircloth rocking chair, and an
exceedingly commonplace-looking table with a pile
of manuscript, an ink-bottle and pen conspicuously
upon it. On the floor were sheets of manuscript.
"The mantelpiece is of pure onyx, "continued the show-
woman, "and the bee-hive upon the window sill is made
from one solid stone. The rug is made of a hundred
breasts of eider-down ducks, and the toilet room you
see in the corner is of the latest design, with gold-
plated drain pipes. The painted windows are from
the Mother's poem, ' Christ and Christmas,' and that
case contains complete copies of all the Mother's
books." The chairs, upon which the sacred person of
the Mother had reposed, were protected from sacri
legious touch by a broad band of satin ribbon. My
companions expressed their admiration in subdued and
reverent tones, and at the tinkling of the bell we rever
ently tiptoed out of the room to admit another dele
gation of the patient waiters at the door.
There are no other proselyters like the Christian
Scientist; for there is no other "religion" that is at
the same time a source of large revenue to its pro
moters. The more money that comes into the coffers
of the central organization in Boston, the more liberal
salaries may be voted to the workers. The organiza
tion publishes the periodicals, and there is a corps of
salaried lecturers constantly distributed over the
country. The Christian Science Journal, a monthly
periodical, and the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly
periodical, were for many years the only organs of
the cult ; but lately a more pretentious effort has been

THE EDDY AUTOCRACY 153
made and a daily newspaper has been established in
Boston, called the Christian Science Monitor. The
Journal and the Sentinel reach practically all of the
sixty or sixty-five thousand Christian Scientists, and
large numbers of them are regular subscribers to the
daily newspaper. Of course, outside of Boston the
paper cannot reach its subscribers in time to be any
thing but stale as a news agency. But what of that!
To buy it helps the cause ; and to help the cause puts
money into the capacious pockets of the managers.
All over the country copies of these various publica
tions are distributed free, and in nearly every rail
road station and waiting room throughout the length
and breadth of the land copies of the weekly and
monthly periodicals may be found in conspicuous
places. The newspaper has Uttle or no paid circula
tion outside the ranks of the believers, but many,
many thousands of copies are daily delivered to people
who pay nothing whatever for it. Of course, all of
this costs a great deal of money, and the money comes
out of the pockets of the believers, and goes into the
pockets of the exploiters.

CHAPTER X
The "String" on the "Gifts"
"1% /fR. FARLOW, Mr. Hanna and other paid agents
J^y _|_ of Mrs. Eddy from time to time meet these vari
ous accusations with the response that, while Mrs .Eddy
has made a great deal of money, she has given away
a great deal; and, while she possesses the powers afore
said, she lives in retirement, at Concord, N.H., and
lets the organization run itself. Let us see what there
is in these defenses.
11 Has Mrs. Eddy given away many thousands of
dollars? Mr. Hanna quotes Mrs. Eddy as having said,
"I could have been worth many milUons of money.
My college alone was an annual income of forty thou
sand dollars; but I managed to give away enough to
balance my account with conscience." It may be
inferred from this that, but for what Mrs. Eddy has
given away, she would today be worth many millions;
[consequently that she has given away millions. She
I has given away money, with reservations, but when
ever she has so given it, it has been to enhance her
comfort, to extend her power, or to add to her glory;
and again and again, by herself and her chosen repre
sentatives, by Mr. Hanna and Mr Farlow, have false
representations been made of the amounts given by
her. This is important. Let me give a view of
154

THE "STRING" ON THE GIFTS 155
Mrs. Eddy's character as displayed in these business
transactions. Much has been made of Mrs. Eddy's gift of the
land upon which the First Church of Christ, Scientist,
in Boston, stands. In her book entitled "Pulpit
and Press," copyrighted by Mrs. Eddy, and published
in 1895, is the statement that the cost of the First
Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, "is two hun
dred and twenty-one thousand dollars, exclusive of the
land, a gift from Mrs. Eddy, which is valued at some
forty thousand dollars." Valued at some forty thou
sand dollars! Mrs. Eddy, of course, here intends to
convey an impression that this gift of the land was
a gift by her of some forty thousand dollars' worth of
real estate. In none of her many published references
to this peculiar transaction has Mrs. Eddy told the
truth, or any material part of the truth.
The land upon which the church stands was origi
nally owned by a society known as The Church of
Christ, Scientist, in Boston, and it was originally
mortgaged for nine thousand dollars to Mr. Nathan
Matthews. This original society, by contributions,
fairs, etc. , raised enough money to reduce the amount
of the mortgage to about five thousand dollars, when,
according to Mrs. Eddy's statement in her book " Pul
pit and Press," "Owing to a heavy loss, they were
unable to pay the mortgage; therefore I paid it, and
through trustees gave back the land to the church."
Mrs. Eddy did not pay the mortgage. She did
not give back the land to the church. What she did
was quite other than what she says she did Through

156 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
her agents, she took an assignment of the mortgage
for the balance of five thousand dollars due upon it,
foreclosed it, crowded out all of the original contrib
utors, members of the Church of Christ, Scientist,
acquired the title herself, and gave it to trustees for
a new organization, The First Church of Christ, Scien
tist, reserving to herself a right to re-enter and re
possess herself of the land with any church, that
"might be constructed upon it. And this cost Mrs.
.Eddy five thousand dollars, not forty thousand, as
\she would have us understand, and as Mr. Farlow
jhas represented; nor even twenty thousand, as the
pipre modest Hanna intimates.
Real-estate men in Boston would wonder how it
was possible for Mrs. Eddy legally to acquire, for the
sum of five thousand dollars, by the proper foreclos
ure of a mortgage, property upon which Mr. Nathan
Matthews had been willing to lend nine thousand
dollars. Indeed, it is remarkable that Mrs. Eddy
should, at an open foreclosure sale, have been able
to buy for five thousand dollars a property hundreds
of men in the city of Boston would have been only too
glad to have paid, at the time, upwards of ten thou
sand dollars for. Was this foreclosure regular, or
was it fraudulent, as were so many of Mrs. Eddy's
transactions? To one who has delved into her meth
ods, as I have, it would seem as if everything that she
touched became tainted with fraud or false pretense;
and it is simply incredible that here in the city of Bos
ton, after due advertisement, and at a legal public
auction, a piece of real estate could be purchased for

THE STRING" ON THE GIFTS 157
but little more than half the money so sagacious an
investor as Mr. Matthews was willing to lend upon it.
And what of the owners of the equity in this land,
who were Mrs. Eddy's own friends and followers, and
whom she thus despoiled? They had contributed
about $7,000 and were left nothing, while Mrs. Eddy
for $5,000 acquired all.
Mrs. Eddy, herself, says, "the property was trans
ferred in a circuitous and novel way, the wisdom of
which a few persons have since scrupled," and that
her intent, while "spiritually inalienable," was "ma
terially questionable." It is interesting to note that
the instruments employed by Mrs. Eddy for the
executing of the "materially questionable" trans
action were two Boston lawyers who have since been
disbarred. Again, in the Christian Science Journal for Feb
ruary, 1898, is an editorial statement, evidently pre
pared by Editor Hanna under Mrs. Eddy's direction,
in which an effort is made to meet the criticism upon
Mrs. Eddy's mercenary methods, he refers to three
instances which he calls "evidences of a generosity
and self-sacrifice that appeal to our deepest sense of
gratitude, even while surpassing our comprehension.'^
Now, what are these evidences of this extraordi
nary "generosity and self-sacrifice"?
The first is the gift of the land to the church.
"Years ago," says Mr. Hanna, "she donated a lot of
ground in Boston, on which to erect the Mother
Church, that was then valued at twenty thousand
dollars, and now estimated to be worth more than

158 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
double that sum." Mr. Hanna, it should be observed,
does not say, "which cost her five thousand dollars,"
but which "was then valued at twenty thousand dol-
dars"; and he does not say anything about the re
served right to re-enter and repossess herself of the
land and all the buildings that might be constructed
upon it, which right she secured for not more than
$5,000. If it was "then valued at twenty thousand
dollars," as Hanna says, or at forty thousand dollars,
as Mrs. Eddy's book says, how did Mrs. Eddy get it
for five? Perhaps Mr. Hanna can tell. Mr. Hanna
can tell many things, if he will. He has sworn that —
so help him God ! — he is completely ignorant of the
beUef of the members of the church of which he was
the first reader, or minister, regarding the founder of
the alleged religion he pretends to profess and pro
fesses to expound, so we may not ask him anything
about that; but he may be able to tell us how his
"generous" and "self-denying" leader secured for
five thousand dollars Boston real estate worth twenty
or forty thousand. It is a trick some of our real-estate
speculators would be glad to learn.
Another of these evidences of a "generosity and
self-sacrifice" surpassing Mr. Hanna's comprehension
is a conveyance in perpetuity to the First Church of
Christ, Scientist, in Boston, of the real estate of the
Christian Science Publishing Society ; to wit, the lots
and buildings known as 95 and 97 Falmouth Street,
"valued," says Mr. Hanna, at "not less than twenty-
two thousand dollars."
Again the wily Hanna gives us what he calls the

THE "STRING" ON THE GIFTS 159
value and not the cost to Mrs. Eddy; and again, Uke
a true disciple of his cautious teacher, he suppresses
the fact that the property in question was conveyed
to Mrs. Eddy three days before she conveyed it to the
church, by the Christian Science Publishing Society,
for the nominal sum of one dollar. Mrs. Eddy always
reserves very substantial rights, and here she reserved
to herself the right to use and occupy as much room,
conveniently and pleasantly located, as she might re
quire for her own publishing business. If, at any
time, she shall require the whole of the premises
for her publishing business, she has the right, under
her deed, to occupy the whole, and this right she ac
quired for one dollar, and did not part with. Mr.
Hanna is a great stickler for values when contending
for Mrs. Eddy's great generosity. It sounds rather
better, and makes a better showing for his patron,
to say that her gift (to which she reserves, if she
wishes it, the exclusive use) is valued at $22,000, than
to state the cold truth that it cost her the sum of
one dollar.
Another of these evidences of unselfishness on Mrs.
Eddy's part, too great for Mr. Hanna's understanding,
is the transfer to the church in perpetuity of the
Christian Science Journal, Quarterly, and all the
literary publications of the society, and every right
and privilege 'whatsoever connected therewith, saving
only the right to copyright the Journal in her own
name ; and these properties the astute Hanna again
"values" at fifty thousand dollars. Again he says
nothing about what they cost Mrs. Eddy, and again

160 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
he says nothing about the right she reserved to herself.
These properties, as in the case of the real estate,
were acquired three days before she gave them to the
church, by Mrs. Eddy, from the Christian Science
Publishing Society, for the large sum of one dollar,
and she reserved not only the right to coypright the
Christian Science Journal, which was the only value
the Journal possessed, but she reserved the right to
withdraw the Journal from the trust and from the
church at any time she pleased. In other words,
she procured title to the Journal, with a subscription
list of 20,000 and over, for $1.00 and did not give the
Journal to the church or the society at all. What she
did give to the church, according to the official record,
cost her nothing, and what she acquired was a pros
perous periodical with a paying subscription Ust of
20,000 or more.
These wonderful beneficences, which fairly startle
Mr. Hanna, and which cost Mrs. Eddy $5,002, and
Hanna says were "worth" $90,000, left her with a
right, under certain circumstances, to take absolute
possession of the land and the church, which cost her
nothing and cost others over two hundred thousand
dollars, guaranteed to her pleasant and permanent
business quarters without expense of any kind, gave
her complete control, amounting to ownership, of
the Christian Science Journal, and made her the dicta
tor and authoritative head, if she wishes to be, of the
business end of Christian Science as conducted at
the headquarters of the Christian Science Publishing
Society in Boston. This was Mrs. Eddy's own benefit

THE STRING" ON THE GIFTS 161
from her outlay of $5,002, and yet the Honorable Septi
mus J. Hanna, with upturned eyes, piously exclaims:
"Let us endeavor to lift up our hearts in thank
fulness to God for His goodness to us and our cause
and to His servant, our Mother in Israel, for these
evidences of a generosity and self-sacrifice that appeal
to our deepest sense of gratitude, even while surpass
ing our comprehension."
In a published statement, Mr. Farlow has said:
"As to Mrs. Eddy's wealth, I want to say she has
given away, during the past five years, more than dou
ble the sum total of the entire profits from the sale of her
books from their first publication to the present time."
I denounce this statement of Mr. Alfred Farlow's
as utterly false, and I defy him to name the benefi
ciaries of these hundreds of thousands of dollars he
says his employer has given away. I challenge this
official prevaricator of Mrs. Eddy's religio-commercial
enterprise to give the public the particulars of these
alleged gifts. He cannot give them. They do not
exist, and his falsehood is only one of many fabrica
tions boldly put forth to bolster the tottering struc
ture that has so long afforded him and his colleagues
in fraud a comfortable financial refuge.
The public will be wise if it decline to accept,
without verification, any statement that Mrs. Eddy
or Mr. Hanna or Mr. Farlow may make. Mrs. Eddy,
it would seem, cannot tell the truth, and Messrs.
Hanna and Farlow, it would seem, are paid to tell lies.
But the story is only half told, and what follows is
more damning than what has gone before.

CHAPTER XI
The Eddy Ban on Marriage
I HAVE said that Mrs. Eddy's influence as the
founder of Christian Science is not confined to the
religious activities of her followers, but extends into
their domestic and marital relations and even their
business affairs. One of the harmful results of Mrs.
Eddy's "inspired" teachings consists in the es
trangement so frequently caused between husband
and wife where either one or the other of them is a
Christian Scientist. If both happen to be fast in the
faith, the occasion for disharmony between them is
not so great ; for then the marital relation is suspended
by mutual consent.
I cannot say that I have found very much sym
pathy on the part of husbands, even nominal Christian
Science husbands, with Mrs. Eddy's views upon the
marriage relation; but I do know of many cases in
which they have so influenced wives as to lead to the
complete destruction of anything like real marriage.
Mrs. Eddy disapproves of marriage altogether.
"These words of St. Matthew," she says, "have special
application to Christian Science, namely, 'It is not
good to marry.'"
In the first place, St. Matthew never said anything
of the kind; and, in the second place, if he had said
162

THE EDDY BAN ON MARRIAGE 163
it, it would have been only so much to his discredit.
No sane and sincere person has ever denounced mar
riage ; and not only did St. Matthew not disapprove of
it, but, in his Gospel, Jesus is quoted as having said:
"For th'is cause shall a man leave his father and
mother and shall cleave to his wife: and, they twain
shall be one flesh." And the beautiful aJection of
Jesus for children is sufficient evidence of his high
approval of marriage.
Mrs. Eddy, having been married three or four'
times, now emphatically disapproves of marriage,
and a marriage between Christian Scientists is de
cidedly objectionable. There has never been a marriage
in a Christian Science church. There is no Christian
Science marriage ceremony and no Christian Science
official authorized to perform a marriage. The mar
riage relation, as such, is regarded as sensuous and
impure, and the marriage of an official of the church
in any part of the country would mean instant loss of
power and influence together with his office and its
emoluments. "Is marriage nearer right than celibacy?" asks
Mrs. Eddy. "Human knowledge inculcates that it
is, while science indicates that it is not." Science is
thus distinguished from human knowledge. Mrs.
Eddy' science is a thing imparted to her by Omnis
cience, and Omniscience, she says, indicates that
marriage is not nearer right than celibacy. It is a
part of Mrs. Eddy's teaching and the teaching of her
students, that a woman cannot be an effective healer,
if she really love a man and be a true wife, and that

164 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
a man cannot accomplish the best results in healing
through Christian Science if he really love a woman
and be a true husband.
With this objection to marriage goes also the
objection to children, so that the birth of children
in Christian Science families is of rare occurrence and
is regarded as evidence of unspiritual living and is
decidedly discrediting. "Sensual and mortal beliefs,
material suppositions of life," Mrs. Eddy calls chil
dren. The effect of this teaching is shown in the dif
ference between Christian Science Sunday Schools and
Christian Sunday Schools. The membership of the
Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian Sunday Schools
is about the same as their church membership; while
in Christian Science Sunday Schools there is but one
child for every five church members.
Mrs. Eddy's objection to children does not appear
to be to children themselves, but simply to children
begotten and born as they have been from the be
ginning of man's existence until now and will be until
the end. It is a part of Mrs. Eddy's inspired doctrine
that, when Christian Science has made a conquest of
the world and the "spiritual creation is discerned,"
there will be no more marriage and the human race
be propagated without regard to sex. "Until it be
learned," she says, "that generation rests on no
sexual basis, let marriage continue," and "until time
matures human growth, marriage and progeny will
continue unprohibited in Christian Science," and "To
abolish marriage at this period and maintain morality

THE EDDY BAN ON MARRIAGE 165
and generation, would put ingenuity to ludicrous
shifts, yet this is possible in Science." Insane as
this teaching is, Mrs. Eddy's alleged "intelligent"
following believe it to be the teaching of Infinite
Wisdom, and as such make it the desire of their
lives. Charming doctrine this for civilized people to
make the regulator of their lives! Oh, charming!
But Mrs. Eddy goes further and denounces marriage
in the roundest and almost unprintable terms.
The most impressive and conspicuous incident in
Christian Science history was the dedication in June,
1906, of the "Mother Church" in Boston, a beautiful
building that cost upwards of two million dollars.
In order to get her views regarding marriage before
the faithful, in the most impressive manner, Mrs.
Eddy incorporated them in her message which was
read at the church dedication ceremonies. She took
the bit in her teeth, as it were, and notwithstanding
efforts to dissuade her or induce her to modify her
statement, insisted upon getting her views before her
following in their most extreme and obnoxious form,
characterizing marriage as "synonymous with legalized
lust." It has been denied by Mrs. Eddy's press agents
that she gave utterance to this opinion of marriage;
but it will be found in her dedication message
as published in the Christian Science Sentinel for
June 16, 1906, and the Chrstian Science Journal for
July, 1906.
To one not insane or degenerate, to all noble souls,

166 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
marriage is the sweetest and purest relationship imagin
able and fatherhood and motherhood are nothing less
than divine ; but this three-or-four-times-married wo
man gives us to understand that, so far as she knows
it, marriage is "legalized lust." I should think a so
much married woman would deUberate a long time
before she would give public utterance to such a view
of the marriage relation. Far be it from me to dispute
her own experience. Her whole teaching regarding
the institution shows that it is impossible for her to
conceive of what marriage means to a noble man
and a noble woman who have found unity in its sacred
bond; and when she applies that vile epithet to so
ciety's fundamental institution, I tell her, though she
pretend to voice God Himself, that she Ues and the
truth is not in her. How is it possible for a husband
who loves and respects his wife, or a wife who loves
and respects her husband, or parents who adore their
children, to have anything but contempt for this
woman and her odious teachings ?
If Mrs. Eddy's God were, in fact, the true God,
and if Christian Science were a revelation from Him,
and if all the miracles they pretend to have performed
had been performed, I should still not bow down to
their God nor worship him ; I should not prostrate my
self at their shrines nor have fellowship with them,
so long as the attempt is made to place the stigma of
impurity upon the purest of all pure things in the
world to me, my child.
Yes, this is the twentieth century. No, we'are not
living in the year 500 nor yet in the year 1000. The

THE EDDY BAN ON MARRIAGE 167
ideas and doctrines, the beliefs and practices of Mrs.
Eddy's Christian Science belong to the darkest period
of the dark ages, but they are very real and very potent
things in the lives of many thousands of people upon
whom the light of the world's highest civilization
shines.

CHAPTER XII
Christian Science Witchcraft
LET us now pass to consideration of another phase
of Mrs. Eddy's influence, more astounding, per-
haps.than any we have considered, and more discredit
able, if possible, to the age in which we live. I refer to
the belief in what I have called the new-old witchcraft ;
that is to say, to the belief, taught by Mrs. Eddy as
inspired truth, and accepted by her followers as re
vealed of God, that a maliciously disposed person has
the power, by absent treatment, through his or her
mind to cause any form of sickness, the most horrible
of deaths, and complete domestic, social or business
disaster to others. I shall quote somewhat liberally
from Mrs. Eddy's own statements in this regard, in
order that there may be no question that I represent
her correctly, and of these statements I invite
thoughtful consideration.
In her first edition of "Science and Health," pub
lished in 1875, Mrs. Eddy said, on page 123:
"In coming years the person or mind that hates
his neighbor will have no need to traverse his fields,
to destroy his flocks and herds, and spoil his vines;
or to enter his house to demoralize his household ; for
the evil mind will do this through mesmerism; and
not in propria persona be seen committing the deed.
Unless this terrible hour be met and restrained by
168

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 169
science, mesmerism, that scourge of man, will leave
nothing sacred when mind begins to act under direc
tion of conscious power."
On page 382, Mrs. Eddy says:
"The silent argument used in his own behalf, as
he manipulates the head, the malpractioner would
blush to make audibly. Suppose he has a juror for a
patient, and establishes the mesmeric connection be
tween them, he can influence more than law or evi
dence, the verdict of that honest juror."
(Possibly this accounts for the presence in the
court-room, at the trial of a case in which Mrs. Eddy
was defendant, of a large number of the most potent
Christian Science hypnotists.)
On page 177 of the 13th edition of "Science and
Health," Vol. II, Mrs. Eddy says:
"Mesmerism is practiced both with and without
manipulation; but the evil deed without a sign is
also done by the manipulator and mental malprac
tioner. "The secret mental assassin stalks abroad, and
needs to be branded to be known in what he is doing."
On page 175, Mrs. Eddy says:
"If the right mental practice can restore health,
as is proven beyond a question, it is self-evident that
a mental malpractice can impair the health of those
ignorant of the cause and how to treat it."
On page 179, Mrs. Eddy says:
"The evidence of the power that Mind exercises
o/er the body has accumulated in weight and clear-

170 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
ness until it culminates, at this period, in scientific
statement and proof. Our courts recognize the evi
dence that goes to prove the committal of a crime;
then, if it be clear that the so-called mind of one mortal
has killed another, is not this mind proved a murderer,
and shall not the man be sentenced whose mind, with
malice aforethought, kills? His hands, without mor
tal mind to aid them, could not murder; but it is
proven that this mind, without the aid of his hands,
has killed."
In "Science and Health," thirty -sixth edition,
published in 1888, Mrs. Eddy says, on page 220:
"It is hoped that eventually our laws will take
a cognizance of mental crime."
On page 515, she says:
"This malicious animal-power (of which the Dra
gon is the type) seeks to kill his fellow-mortals, mor
ally and physically, and then to charge the innocent
with his crimes."
On page 516, she says:
"The highest degree of human depravity, which
is to be found in this propulsive will power, or Animal
JVlagnetism." In "Miscellaneous Writings," published in 1897,
on page 222, Mrs. Eddy says:
"The crimes committed under this new regime of
mind-power, when brought to light, will make stout
hearts quail. Its mystery protects it now, for it is not
jet known." ,

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 171
In a long article entitled "Malicious Animal Mag
netism," written by Mrs. Eddy and published as hers
in the Christian Science Journal for February, 1889,
when the Journal was her property, she lays down her
inspired teaching on that subject with unwonted
clearness. She says:
" One of the greatest crimes practiced in, or known
to, the ages is mental assassination. A mind, liberated
from the beliefs of sense, to do good, by perverting
its power becomes warped into the lines of evil without
let or hindrance. A mind taught its power to touch
other minds by the transference of thought, for the
ends offcxestoration from sickness, or, grandest of all,
the reformation and almost transformation into the
living image and likeness of God — this mind, by
misusing its freedom, reaches the degree of total
moral depravity.
"Does the community know this criminal? He
sits at the friendly board and fireside ; he goes to their
places of worship ; he takes his victim by the hand, and
all the time claims the power and carries the will
to stab to the heart, to take character and life
from this friend who gives him his hand in full
trust, and has, perhaps, toiled and suffered to ben
efit and bless him. . . .
"It is no longer possible to keep still concerning
these things — nay, it is criminal to hold silence and
to cover crime that grows bolder and picks off its vic
tims as sharpshooters pick off the officers of an at
tacking force. ,
"These secret, heaven-defying enormities must be
proclaimed, or we become guilty before God as acces
sory after the fact. If a friend were fallen upon and
maltreated or murdered before our eyes, should we
hold ourselves guiltless, should we count ourselves

172 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
men and women, if we buried the secret of the vio
lence and our knowledge of the assassins?
"Are we such cowards, knowing the facts that we
do know, as to turn and run? Shall we see the evil,
the deadly danger that threatens our brother, and, to
hide ourselves, flee away not warning him?
"The Science of mind uncovers to Scientists
secret sin, even more distinctly than so-called physical
crimes are visible to the personal senses; crime is
always veiled in obscurity, but Science fastens guilt
upon its author through mind, with the certainty and
directness of the eye of God Himself.
"Human laws will eventually be framed for these
criminals that now go unwhipped of human justice.
Human law even now recognizes crime as mental,
for it seeks always the motive. Rude counterfeit
as it is of Divine Justice, it metes out punishment or
pardons according as it finds, or finds not, the evil
intent, the mental element. The time has come for
instructing human justice so that these secret criminals
shall tremble before the omnipotent finger that points
them out to the human executioner."
If that isn't witchcraft, I don't know what witch
craft is. The Omnipotent finger will point out these
criminals, who operate through silent and invisible
mental influences, and justice will be meted out to
them by the human executioner!
In a personal letter to a student Mrs. Eddy said:
"The mental malpractitioners or mesmerists em
ploy the argument of poison to kill people. They
cause you or your patients to suffer from arsenical
poison in the blood or stomach, mercurial poison,
morphine or any other form of mineral, vegetable or
animal poison which they may name in their ar
guments."

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 173
In the latest editions of her book, and in formal
communications to her followers, Mrs. Eddy reaffirms
her belief in this malicious power of mind, and again
warns her followers against it. Her personal teaching
to her students was even more extravagant than the j
language of her published works, and it was a com
mon occurrence for her to frighten young girls and
children nearly into fits with the dreadful fear that a
malicious mind was seeking to cause them unspeak-|
able disaster. She has taught that the malicious!
action of mind alone might, of itself, cause, and had
caused, the pregnancy of woman, with consequences
I must leave to your imagination. And all thisj
damnable doctrine is accepted and believed by Mrs.
Eddy's "intelligent" followers as the truth revealed
by God through the founder of Christian Science — be
lieved with a belief that trembles.
I have talked with a gentleman who, years ago,
with his family, lived for some six months in the house
with Mrs. Eddy ; and he said to me with great earnest
ness: "I lived there six months, and I tell you, sir,
I would rather spend ten years in hell than another
six/months in Mrs. Eddy's company. She nearly
drove my children into frenzy with her malicious
inimal magnetism business." Malicious animal mag-^
fcietism is the name by which Mrs. Eddy now calls
EeTTPtTtChcraft. It has been also a regular part of the teachings of
that bogus institution, the Massachusetts Metaphys
ical College, of which Mrs. Eddy was president, that
malicious minds may, and today are, causing sickness,

174 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
death and disaster to Christian Scientists and their
families. I know it to be a fact that the lecturer there
literally taught that Mrs. Josephine C. Woodbury,
whom he named, possessed this power, and used it to
the detriment of Christian Scientists and the cause;
and to such an extent has this teaching regarding
this particular lady spread that I think it would be
hard to find a Christian Scientist in the United States
who did not, or had not, believed Mrs. Woodbury
had possessed and had exercised this power.
A Christian Scientist healer, guilty of an unpardon
able impropriety with young lady patients, is called
to account by their father, arid, acknowledging his
offence, says that he can only account for it on the
ground that Mrs. Woodbury made him do it, by ma
licious animal magnetism. An aged lady, a Christian
Scientist in a distant city, having fallen unaccountable
several times upon the street, explains to her daughter
that the cause of it is "that vile Mrs. Woodbury of
Boston." The child of a member of the First Church
of Christ, Scientist, dies, and the grief-stricken mother
entertains the firm conviction that Mrs. Woodbury
killed it. The husband of a member of Mrs. Eddy's
church has been sick for years here in Boston, and for
years, without having known or seen Mrs. Woodbury,
such has been the teaching at the Church of Christ,
Scientist, in Boston and of the alleged " College," that
she has had no doubt that Mrs. Woodbury caused her
husband's illness, and she has continually sought to
protect her husband by a mental effort to throw the
illness back upon Mrs. Woodbury. Meantime Mrs.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 175
Woodbury is, of course, utterly unconscious of all of
these happenings and entirely innocent of any such
criminal purposes and deeds.
And all this deviltry as revealed by God! All
this medieval witchcraft in the name of Christ!
Out upon it! I say. Let it no longer be tolerated
amongst us!
Three hundred years ago, some nineteen or twenty
estimable people in the town of Salem in the Common
wealth of Massachusetts, because of the finding of a
Court that they were witches, were legally hanged by
the neck until they were dead. And should the in
spired and infallible founder of Christian Science pre
vail in her benevolent intention of "instructing human
justice so that these secret criminals shall tremble be
fore the omnipotent finger that points them out to
the human executioner," the supposed offences of
malicious animal magnetism, the invention of her
disordered imagination, would be atoned upon the
gibbet or at the stake.
In her pubUshed work Mrs. Eddy has expressly
justified the employment of this alleged power for
retaliation or defense. She says:
" It was years after we were personally attacked by
mental malpractice before we defended ourselves or
taught our students self defence. Until this attack
was aimed at our life, we never resisted or even in
vestigated it thoroughly and so discovered the full
purpose and extent of a mental malpractice. But
we gave our attention to it and found how to save the
scattering remnants of our Christian students that
had been mown down like grass. We resolved in

176 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
the strength of God to save them and others from
the hands of these murderers and to find, as sure de
fence, the ever present help. Since God has shown
us our way in Christian healing, our mind often heals
involuntarily. The malpractitioners know this and
often have asked us about their patients to direct
our thoughts to them, knowing the benefit therefrom.
They know, as well as we, that it is impossible for
science to produce sickness, but science makes sin
punish itself. They should have feared for their own
lives in their attempts to kill us. God is Supreme and
the penalties of their sins they cannot escape. Turn
ing the attention of the sick to us for the benefit they
may receive from us, is another milder form or species
of malpractice that is not safe; for if we feel their
sufferings, not knowing the individual, we shall de
fend ourselves and the result is dangerous to the in
truder." The retaliatory method of mental treatment de
vised by Mrs. Eddy consisted in an endeavor mentally
to hurl cancer back upon the person she believed to
be attempting to afflict her with cancer, or tumor upon
the person attempting mentally to transmit tumor to
her, or consumption upon the evil one thinking
consumption at her, and the various forms of chemical
poison upon those endeavoring to think mercurial,
arsenical or other forms of poison into her organism.
"She told her students that she had the power of dis
cerning such malicious mental activity on the part
of those she believed to be her enemies, and that the
way to protect her was to hurl the malicious thoughts
backward and cause them, as it were, to recoil upon
and destroy their authors.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 177
When Mrs. Augusta Stetson of New York was
accused of attempts at mental murder, she justified
or tried to justify such endeavors on the ground that
they were defensive and, as such, taught and sanc
tioned by Mrs. Eddy. Whatever Mrs. Stetson and
other Christian Scientists know about the power to
cbmmit murder by mental means, they have learned
from Mrs. Eddy; and if it be an offence against the
Christian Science Church, as was decided in the case
of Mrs. Stetson, to attempt to cause disease and to
kill through the employment of mental powers, then
Mrs. Eddy herself should follow Mrs. Stetson into
exile from the communion of the saints.
Mrs. Stetson's excommunication is an interesting
sequel to an incident that occurred in Concord, N.H.,
in April of 1907. Mrs. Eddy was then living at
Concord, and the litigation by the sons had been com
menced in the preceding month. It had been the
talk of the newspapers, from time to time, that Mrs.
Stetson was nourishing an ambition to succeed Mrs.
Eddy in the leadership of Christian Science upon
Mrs. Eddy's demise, and it had even been said that,
expecting Mrs. Eddy's death to occur at a particular
time, Mrs. Stetson had come to Boston prepared with
a most magnificent costume for attendance upon Mrs.
Eddy's ascension.
It was pretty generally known in Christian Science
circles that Mrs. Stetson was maneuvering to succeed
Mrs. Eddy as the official head of the movement, and
doubtless the report reached Mrs. Eddy's ears. At
-,;his time one Herman S. Herring was the first reader

178 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
of Mrs. Eddy's church at Concord and H. CorneU
Wilson was acting as one of her secretaries at her
home at Pleasant View. By some means, through the
New York World, possession was obtained of a letter
written by Herring to Wilson, dated April 27, 1907,
in which he asked Mr. Wilson if "it would not be
well to protect Mrs. Eddy from the Stetson argu
ment specifically, or are the workers doing so?"
.The meaning of this, of course, is that Herring
assumed Mrs. Stetson was, by maUcious mental en
deavor, operating adversely to Mrs. Eddy, either to
cause Mrs. Eddy to designate Mrs. Stetson as her suc
cessor, or to hasten Mrs. Eddy's departure, by ascen
sion or otherwise, from the world; and the "workers"
referred to are the corps of Christian Science mental
practitioners always maintained by Mrs. Eddy at her
home by concentrated mental effort to erect and
maintain a mental bulwark around her that shall be
impenetrable by Mrs. Stetson's or any other mali
cious mental bullets.
"It has troubled me," said Herring, "but helped
me, to hear that Frye was a channel for that diabo
lism." Mrs. Eddy has always contended that She
herself was so immaculate that malicious anirrjal
magnetism could not immediately approach her; tjit
injury to her might be effected through some less pv jre
personality close to her. As no one was closer thcJp
Frye.it appears that he was believed to be the mediuin
through which Mrs. Stetson was supposed to be opt
erating, or attempting to operate, against Mrs. Eddy J

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 179
The newspaper reports of the Stetson trial and
excommunication did not, so far as they came to my
attention, contain any intimation that judgment had
fallen upon Mrs. Stetson because of her mental attacks
upon Mrs. Eddy; but there can be no doubt that Mrs.
Eddy believes she had been the target of such attacks,
and that the excommunication was Mrs. Eddy's own
act of retaliation upon Mrs. Stetson.
"The highest degree of Jiuman depravity," Mrs.
Eddy calls this alleged power to cause sickness and
to cause death, which, when successfully employed,
should be expiated upon the scaffold; and, deliberately
and solemnly, with full understanding of the meaning
of my language, I affirm and I charge that Mary
Baker G. Eddy, the founder of Christian Science and
the pretended successor to, and equal of, Jesus, has
again and again and again sought to exercise it; that
she, herself, has repeatedly thus sought to cause sick
ness, sought to cause death, and this, as everything
else I have alleged, I will prove by legal evidence when
ever Mrs. Eddy may be pleased to require it.
To bring out clearly the effect upon Mrs. Eddy's
daily life of her genuine belief in this diabolical thing
she calls malicious animal magnetism, and her efforts
to avail herself of the supposed power of mind to cause
disease and death, the following letter, received from
a gentleman, now a practising physician, who in his
earlier manhood was attracted to Mrs. Eddy and her
teachings, is incorporated here:
"I lived in the 'College' with Mrs. Eddy and her
family for nearly a year, and had ample opportunity

180 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
to observe all the things I now tell you; I shall not
make a statement without knowing that it is ab
solutely true.
"As you desire information in regard to her teach
ings of malicious animal magnetism, I will confine
myself mostly to that subject.
"Nearly two-thirds of the time of her class lectures
was taken up with teaching us how to 'meet the
enemy,' as she called Richard Kennedy, Edward
Arnes, Clara Choate, and her mother, Mrs. Childs.
[We were taught that Richard Kennedy, especially,
was the 'Arch Enemy ' of Christian Science, and of Mrs.
Eddy herself; that he had learned the art of using
'malicious animal magnetism' on Mrs. Eddy and her
students ; that he had ' secret service ' men and women
who watched every movement of Mrs. Eddy, and of
each one living with her; that we could not go out
without some one following, and watching us, report
ing to ' the ring of enemies, ' namely, Kennedy
Arnes, Choate and Childs. We were taught that by
being aware of all our movements — just how we
looked, and who our patients were — they had the
mental power to so mesmerize our minds as to cause
us to meet with defeat in all our attempts to heal;
that they were informed of the diseases and weak-
nesses'from which we had been healed, and by ma
licious thoughts and concentration upon us could
cause us to relapse into our old forms of disease.
L— "Mrs. Eddy was constantly having attacks of ill
ness (always in the night) We were often called up
about eleven o'clock at night to treat her, and were
obliged to remain up until about two o'clock a.m.
These attacks, we were told, were brought on by the
'enemy,' working through us, as her students. She
claimed that the only way the 'enemy' could reach
her was through her students, she being so strong and
so pure that their 'malicious animal magnetism ' could

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 181
not reach her in any other way. So we used to go
into the parlor, after breakfast and supper, each day,
and mentally 'take up the enemy.' We were taught
to recognize the error, and treat ourselves and the
'enemy,' so that they ('the enemy') could have no
power over us, or our patients; and every time we
gave the treatments we were taught to first 'treat
the enemy.' __
"The result of all this was, that Mrs. Eddy was
always full of fear; as the 'enemy' were supposed to
have power to prevent all kinds of desired results,
not only in healing, but in business, as well "
"I was taught that the postal clerks were so mes
merized that letters to and from the College would
never reach their destination unless certain conditions
were compUed with ; also that the telegraph operators
were so under this malicious influence that a message
sent by telegraph would not reach the person to
whom it was sent unless certain precautions were
taken. I was once sent from her house to West
Newton to forward a telegraph message to Chicago,
so that it would be sent by way of Worcester, instead
of Boston, as all Boston operators were supposed to be
so mesmerized by the ' enemy ' that no message from
Mrs. Eddy could reach its destination, if sent through
their hands. And so I might run on for hours, giving
you facts about such things.
"I was told to treat the ' enemy ' (Kennedy, Arnes,
Choate and Childs) to cause their 'old beliefs' to re
turn, 'and prostrate them at once!' 'Old beliefs' meant
former diseases, from which they had been healed, in
some cases even tumors and cancers.
"I could write pages of things said and done, to
show that insane idea of the power of maUcious men
and women to nearly, if not quite, kill people. We
were taught that they had killed several students of
Mrs. Eddy. I was taught that Kennedy and Arnes

182 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
knew how to treat people in a way to cause 'sixty
symptons of arsenic poisoning.'
"I was often called in the night to treat Mrs. Eddy,
as she was sick. 1 have been sent to the homes of
other students to call them in the night to help her
out of her fears and spasms.
"I was sent in the month of May, 1884, at two
o'clock a.m., to call lawyer Roberts to make her will,
as it seemed she could not live till morning — all
caused by 'malicious animal magnetism, ' or 'M.A.M.'
as we were in the habit of abbreviating it.
"I found Mrs. Eddy a strong-willed, obstinate, and
arbitrary woman. Her business was obliged to be
conducted as she dictated, whether right or wrong.
•'I was one of four students told by Mrs. Eddy to
treat certain clergymen of Boston to come into her
classes and endorse Christian Science.
"The following incident might be of interest at
this time:
"In the summer of 1884, Mrs. Eddy taught her first
class in Chicago. For several weeks before going there
she was constantly in a state of worry, or fear, that
Mrs. Choate would 'prostrate her, ' and so prevent her
from going there, as she thought that Mrs. Choate
herself wished to go and teach a class. Calvin A.
Frye had purchased Mrs. Eddy's ticket, and engaged
a private compartment for her, and a berth for him
self (to accompany her to Chicago), when, the night
before she was to start, she was taken very ill (the
work of Mrs. Choate, she believed it to be) and was
_not able to go the next day, as she had intended to do.
She called in her students, at the College with her, to
treat against Mrs. Choate, to prevent her mesmerism
from prostrating her (Mrs. Eddy), and by the second
day she was able to go to Chicago. We afterwards
learned that at the same identical time, Mrs. Choate
was ill, and thought that Mrs. Eddy was sending;

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 183
"malicious animal magnetism' to prostrate her, and!
called in a former student of the college to treat
against Mrs. Eddy's mesmerism. —
"So you see how fear controlled Mrs. Eddy
(even at that distant day) and every one connected
with her, and has continued to control every one
taught by her, who has not escaped from the bondage
of that teaching.
"This is only a fragment of what I might tell you
in regard to Mrs. Eddy and her teachings at the time
I was with her; but it is enough to show you what she
taught and practised then, as well as now. ' '
Could anything be more insane than the condition
of Mrs. Eddy's household as indicated in this letter?
Or could anything be more diabolical than her at
tempt, to which this gentleman and others are wilUng
to make oath whenever they are called upon, by
concerted mental operations to afflict her enemies
with tumor and cancer?
But to be somewhat more specific. Some years
ago Mrs. Eddy regarded Mr. Daniel H. Spofford, who
had been one of her students and friends, as an enemy,
and it was her determined and expressed purpose
that he should in some manner be disposed of. The
cause of Mrs. Eddy's violent antipathy to Spofford
is not quite clear, except perhaps upon the theory
that all of her antipathies have been violent. It may
be in some measure due to his unwilUngness to pay
her money he did not beUeve was due her, and to the
failure of various Utigatioris brought against him by
her. Mrs. Eddy brought suit against Spofford upon
one of her early contracts for $100 for teachings,

184 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
ten per cent royalty on income, and $1,000 for omission
to utilize the teachings; and she failed to recover in
the courts. She actually caused a suit in equity to
be brought against Spofford in the Superior Court at
Salem, Mass., in which the court was asked to issue an
injunction to restrain Spofford from using his mind
to cause the illness of her patient, who was said to
suffer physically from his malicious mental activity.
, It is interesting to note that this singular pro
ceeding was brought in the same jurisdiction in which.
some hundreds of years ago, certain individuals were
arraigned and tried for the crime of witchcraft, found
guilty and hanged by the neck until they were dead.
Mrs. Eddy acted as attorney in fact for the plain
tiff in this suit and the power of attorney is still of
record in the case. The strange bill of complaint is
as follows: "Humbly complaining, the plaintiff, Lucretia L. S.
Brown of Ipswich, in said County of Essex, showeth
unto your Honors, that Daniel H. Spofford, of New-
buryport, in said County of Essex, the defendant in
the above entitled action, is a mesmerist and practises
the art of mesmerism and by his said art and power
of his mind influences and controls the minds and bod
ies of other persons and uses his said power and art
for the purpose of injuring the persons and property
and social relations of others and does by said means
so injure them.
"And the plaintiff further showeth that the said
Daniel H. Spofford has, at divers times and places since
the year eighteen hundred and seventy-five, wrong
fully and maliciously and with intent to injure the
plaintiff, caused the plaintiff by means of his said

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 185
power and art great suffering of body and mind and
severe spinal pains and neuralgia and a temporary
suspension of mind, and still continues to cause the
plaintiff the same. And the plaintiff has reason to
fear and does fear that he will continue in the future
to cause the same. And the plaintiff says that said
injuries are great and of an irreparable nature and
that she is wholly unable to escape from the control
and influence he so exercises upon her and from the
aforesaid effects of said control and influence."
Naturally Mrs. Eddy could find no lawyer suffi
ciently besotted, or shameless, to argue this case for
her when it came up for hearing. She was present
and such argument as was made was by one of her then
dear friends, who afterwards became, as she believed,
one of her dearest foes; but upon the filing of the
demurrer by Mr. Spofford's lawyer, raising the legal
point that the bill of complaint did not set forth any
cause of action, the court sustained the demurrer and
threw the case out, declaring with a smile that it was
not within the province of the court by its writ of in
junction to control the operations of Mr. Spofford's
mind. Whatever may have been the cause of Mrs. Eddy's
hatred of Spofford, she wished. him killed, and to that
end instructed her students to sit together daily, at
noon and in the evening, and by concerted mental con
centration hurl disease into Mr. Spofford.
I do not contend that Mrs. Eddy, or Christian
Scientists or others, ever killed or can kill or afflict
with disease any other person by absent mental treat
ment, and one of my strong reasons for this confident

186 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
belief is that I am still permitted to walk the earth.
I only seek to show the murderous purpose in the
heart of the woman who is pretending to be the voice
,of God to this age and the equal of Jesus Christ.
Failing in her effort mentally to dispose of Spof
ford, did this vindictive woman endeavor to accom
plish her purpose by any other method? I cannot
precisely say , but what I can say is this : In December,
1878, after a hearing in the PoUce Court in Boston
(in which one of the witnesses testified she had heard
Mrs. Eddy say Spofford was a bad man and ought to
be put out of the way) , by which they were held for the
grand jury in $3,000 bail, and after an examination
by the Suffolk grand jury of some six or eight
witnesses, one Edward J. Arens, and one Asa G.
Eddy, third husband of Mary Baker G. Eddy, and
then living with her as her husband, were duly
indicted for a conspiracy to commit murder. To
commit murder upon whom? Upon Daniel H. Spof
ford, the same Spofford Mrs. Eddy had soUcited her
followers to kill by mental means.
There were two counts in the indictment.
The first read: "That Edward J. Arens and Asa
G. Eddy of Boston aforesaid, on the 28th day of July
in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred
and seventy-eight, Boston, aforesaid, with Force and
Arms, being persons of evil minds and dispositions
did then and there unlawfully conspire, combine and
agree together feloniously, wilfully, and of their mal
ice aforethought, to procure, hire, incite and soUcit,
one James L. Sargent, for a certain sum of money, to
wit, the sum of five hundred doUars, to be paid to said

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 187
Sargent by them, said Arens and Eddy, feloniously,
wilfully, and of his, said Sargent's malice aforethought,
in some way and manner and by some means, instru
ments, and weapons, to said jurors unknown, one,
Daniel H. Spofford, to kill and murder. Against the
law, peace and dignity of said Commonwealth. ' '
What connection there was between the failure of]
Mrs. Eddy's efforts to kill Spofford or to have him
killed by mental means and her husband's alleged
efforts to have him killed by physical means, I do not
positively know. I did not hear Mrs. Eddy say to
Mr. Eddy: Asa, we have tried and tried and tried to
kill that man Spofford, but he is a tough proposition,.
and we have made no progress. Now you pay Sar
gent $500 to lie in wait for him with a club and we
will see if that won't settle him. That was the charge
against Eddy. Nothing mental about the club form
of treatment! I did not hear Mrs. Eddy say that to.
Eddy, but I very much doubt if he would have found
himself in the position in which he was placed, if his
dominating helpmeet had offered any objection to>
the thing of which he was accused. I do not know
that Mrs. Eddy knew anything about Asa G. Eddy's.
undertaking to have Spofford killed; but I do know
that what I have stated is true, and I do know that
the human mind necessarily makes deductions from
circumstances ; and I do not doubt every human mind
that believes the facts to be as I have stated
them, will make the same deduction that my mind
makes. For some unexplained reason this indictment was

188 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
never prosecuted; but, upon the payment of costs by
Eddy, was nol prossed. There was no disproof of.
the sworn testimony given in the PoUce Court. Eddy
never asked for a hearing, he never insisted upon the
vindication only a trial could give. He put his hand
into his pocket and paid a considerable sum to escape
a trial ; and Mrs. Eddy and her friends call that a vindi
cation. Does an innocent man accused of serious
crime pay money to escape a trial, or does he demand
a full hearing and establish his innocence ?
And Spofford is not the only assumed enemy the
good "Mother" of Christian Science has sought to
dispose of by mental murder. Richard Kennedy and
Clara E. Choate, both now living in Boston, and
Edward J. Arens, also fell under the ban and at Mrs.
Eddy's instigation received so-called mental treat
ment designed to relieve them of the burden of the
flesh by divers diseases.
Another one of her early friends, whom Mrs. Eddy
ceased to love and grew to hate, was Richard Kennedy.
He had been one of her earliest pupils, studying with
her when she lived at the Wentworth house in Stough
ton in the sixties; and they had carried on a sort of co
partnership at Lynn, Mrs. Eddy doing the teaching
and Kennedy the healing.
But she had had a falling out with Kennedy as
with her other early friends, Spofford and Arens, and
she had dragged him into court as she had dragged
them. Kennedy was a young man and an easy vic
tim. He gave Mrs. Eddy his promissory note for a
thousand dollars for her teachings, and after he had

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 189
paid two hundred and fifty dollars on account she
brought suit against him for the balance, seven
hundred and fifty dollars, but again she lost her case.
After a time, somehow or other, the strange notion
got into Mrs. Eddy's head that Kennedy was the most
malicious and satanic of all her enemies, who were, by
mental means, seeking her destruction. He was the
very incarnation of the mind's hellish power in its
most malignant and effective form; and she denounced
him in the following lurid language:
"The Nero of today, regaling himself through a
mental method with the tortures of individuals, is
repeating history and will fall upon his own sword
and it shall pierce him through. Let him remember
this when, in the dark recesses of thought, he is rob
bing, committing adultery, and killing; when he is at
tempting to turn friend away from friend, ruthlessly
stabbing the quivering heart ; when he is clipping the
thread of life, and giving to the grave youth and its
rainbow hues; when he is turning back the reviving
sufferer to her bed of pain, clouding her first morning
after years of night; and the Nemesis of that hour
shall point to the tyrant's fate, who falls at length
upon the sword of justice."
And in one of the editions of her book Mrs. Eddy
went so far as to expressly accuse Kennedy of the
crime of murder in the following extraordinary lan
guage: "The husband of a lady who was the patient of
this malpractitioner poured out his grief to us and
said: ' Dr. K  has destroyed the happiness of my
home, ruined my wife,' etc. ; and, after that, he finished
with a. double crime by destroying the health of that

190 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
wronged husband so that he died. We say that he
did these things because we have as much evidence of
it as ever we had of the existence of any sin. The
symptoms and circumstances of the cases, and the
diagnosis of their diseases proved the unmistakable
fact. His career of crime surpasses anything that
minds in general can accept at this period. We ad
vised him to marry a young lady whose affection he
had won, but he refused; subsequently she was wedded
to a nice young man, and then he aUenated her affec
tions from her husband."
All of this, of course, by absent mental treatment!
It is a matter of record in the Superior Court of the
State of New Hampshire, by sworn testimony, that
Mrs. Eddy sought to reUeve herself of the imagined
malicious mental treatment of Mr. Kennedy by in
structing her friends to sit together at stated times
daily and, holding his lungs in a diseased condition
in their minds, hurl consumption at him with aU
the power of concentrated malevolent thought.
Kennedy, who is living today, and with whom
I am weU acquainted, is as gentle and kindly a person
as can be imagined; and, while Mrs. Eddy was working
herself into a frenzy over his supposed malignity, and
having consumption mentally hurled at him, was pur
suing the even tenor of his way without thought of her
except as an occasional memory of a bitter experience.
Mrs. Eddy hated Kennedy as she hated Spofford, and
she wanted Kennedy killed as she wanted Spofford
killed; and, as in the case of Spofford, she solicited
her friends and students to undertake by mental
cooperation to terminate his mundane career.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 191
It may reUeve the minds of some to know that Mrs.
Eddy's kindly purpose did not succeed with any of
the persons whose illness was sought, as I have re
lated. Spofford, Kennedy and Mrs. Choate did not
succumb to the maUcious absent treatment, but are
stiU present with us in the flesh. Arens died, I am
told, but some time after Mrs. Eddy had given him
up as hopelessly tenacious of life.
But one more incident and I have done — I have
kept the worst until the last.
A sad and tragic episode in connection with the
Utigation instituted by her sons- in reference to Mrs.
Eddy's mental condition, was the suicide at the Parker
House, in Boston, on April 20, 1907, of Miss Mary C.
TomUnson, sister of Irving C. Tomlinson, a former
UniversaUst minister, but then and now a Christian
Science healer, and of Rev. Vincent Tomlinson, a
UniversaUst minister of Worcester, Mass. Miss Tom
Unson had lived with her brother Irving at Concord,
N.H., and had been a Reader in the Christian Science
Church there and an ardent disciple of Christian
Science and of Mrs. Eddy, being much in company
with her and absolutely devoted to her service. After
the lawsuit by Mrs. Eddy's sons began, all the closest
friends of Mrs. Eddy in Concord (as well as elsewhere)
were called upon to defend her from the attack, and,
by the peculiar method of absent and silent mental
treatment, both Mr. Glover and his senior counsel, Mr.
Chandler, were pressed by the so-called " workers " to
the utmost of the powers they supposed themselves
to possess.

192 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
Miss Mary C. Tomlinson was not in the least degree
unwilling to exercise her powers of absent treating of
persons in order to repel the Stetson argument; nor
even unwilling to treat Glover and Chandler in the
ordinary way, trying to make them abandon the
lawsuit ; but when the decision was made at Concord,
to treat Mrs. Eddy's own son and his lawyer in hostile
fashion — by sending arsenical poison into their veins,
or otherwise putting them to death, Miss TomUnson's
whole nature revolted. She had impUcit faith in
Christian Science, she worshiped Mrs. Eddy, she
believed in the existence of maUcious animal magnet
ism and its devilish power and in the methods of
counter- working to prevent its evil work; but she had
never before seen an attempt made to use absent
treatment diabolically — by putting to death the
enemies of the Church of Christ, Scientist. When she
opened her eyes to the enormity to be practised in the
name of a revengeful church, her mind revolted. She
determined to leave Concord, to renounce Mrs. Eddy
and all her works and to denounce the system to
which she had been so earnest a servant. Indeed the
intense revulsion of feeling seems to have upset her
mental balance. Following up her determination,
she went to Boston on April 19 and wandered about,
uncertain what to do with herself, at last finding her
way to the Parker House in the hands of a Christian
Scientist, where her two brothers, being telegraphed
for, came to take charge of her.
Here the tragedy begins. The Parker House
manager wished her to be seen by Dr. Payne, the hotel

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 193
physician; but did not succeed in getting him admis
sion to her rooms. He did, however, send to her a
nurse from Boothby Hospital, a Miss Telfair, who
arrived about nine p. m. Later, Mr. Vincent TomUnson,
the UniversaUst minister, came and with the nurse
took charge of his sister.
About eleven o'clock Mr. Irving C. Tomlinson, the
Christian Science healer, arrived and at once took
controlUng charge of Miss Tomlinson — saying that
he understood the case and knew what to do. Mr.
Vincent Tomlinson left the rooms and took a room
down the corridor which his brother had engaged.
The nurse was not allowed to stay in the room with
Miss Tomlinson but was placed out in the corridor,
while Mr. Irving TomUnson took off his shoes and
coat and laid down in a connecting room. About
one o'clock in the morning there was the sound of a
window being raised in Miss TomUnson's room and
the nurse entered quickly from the corridor as Irving
came in from his room. They found she had opened
the window, and she said to Irving, when he remon
strated, that she wanted to look out. They induced
her to go back to bed and Irving then locked on the
inside the door from her room into the corridor and
took out the key and kept it. Miss Telfair went into
the corridor again and Irving went into his own room.
About three a.m., Miss Telfair heard the door connect
ing with Irving's room shut and locked by Miss Tom
Unson. Again she heard the window opened, but,
having been locked out, could not get to Miss Tom
linson. She called for the porter and they finally got

194 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
into Miss TomUnson's room by breaking down the
door connecting it with Irving's. They found the
window wide open and the room empty. Miss Tom
Unson had thrown herself down four stories to the
street. She was brought back to her room, but
never spoke, and died about five a.m.
She had worshiped Mrs. Eddy. She had been
one of the most devoted of her disciples, and when
she came to a reaUzation of the infamies being prac
tised in the name of Christ, life lost every ray of
light and every particle of charm, and she dashed
herself to death upon the stones of the streets of
Boston. Small matter for wonder that, when the bruised
and mangled body had been carried to the chamber
Miss Tomlinson had occupied, the UniversaUst minis
ter, standing by his dead sister, should solemnly say
to his brother, the renegade UniversaUst minister,
the Christian Science healer, " Irving, the blood of our
sister is upon the skirts of Mrs. Eddy!"
The story is now completely told. Of those who
have followed me to the end, I ask, was it incumbent
upon me, knowing the facts as I know them and as I
have here presented them, to crowd them down into
my soul and by suppressing them become a party to
Mrs. Eddy's monstrous imposition? Just because the
author of all of this fraud, falsehood, hypocrisy, blas
phemy and attempted crime is a woman, now an aged
woman, should I therefore stand silently by and per
mit her longer to masquerade before mankind as Uke
unto the pure and holy Jesus? I think not. That

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 195
has not seemed to me to be my duty in the matter.
I have done my duty as I have seen it, and I will
stand by the position taken and the facts affirmed.
Is it possible for any decent person, man or woman,
to peruse this book and then acknowledge himself or
herself a disciple of Mary Baker G. Eddy ? Is it con
ceivable that any sane man or woman, with full
knowledge of the facts of her life, can honestly pro
fess beUef in her disgusting imposture ? Can any one
who feels, as I do, that Jesus is the common glory of
all who bear a human heart, without resentment and
without anger witness the endeavor of this vulgar
creature to place herself by His side ? Can any devout
Christian have any other feeUng than one of abhor
rence for the blasphemous woman and the bunco
game she dares to say is "authorized by Christ"?
If I have made good, if I have accomplished what
I set out to accompUsh, I ask every man and every
woman who reads this book to lose no opportunity to
show this hateful thing, miscalled Christian Science,
in its true Ught to those with whom they come in con
tact. Let it have no quarter. Hit it every time you
have a chance and hit it as hard as you can. It is not
entitled to respectful treatment. Nothing is more
impossible than to love Jesus, even a little, and to have
the sUghtest, the very slightest, tolerance for Mrs.
Eddy and her frauds.
A Christian Science speaker recently, in a suburb
of Boston, in concluding an address exhorted her
hearers to "follow Mrs. Eddy, as Mrs. Eddy follows
the Saviour." Not follow the Saviour, but follow

196 THE RELIGIO-MEDICAL MASQUERADE
Mrs. Eddy in Mrs. Eddy's way of following the
Saviour. As Mrs. Eddy follows the Saviour.
By faking a revelation from God? By stealing
the ideas of another and ascribing them to God's
voice in her private ear? By putting on the cloak of
religion in order to pick the pockets of those whose
hands are clasped in prayer? By copyrighting a "re
Ugion," and suing those who infringe her copyright?
By fixing, under the pretended guidance of God, upon
the extortionate sum of three hundred dollars for twelve
lessons in "the divine power that heals"? By in
voking the aid of the courts to compel poor creatures
to pay her, at the rate of twenty-five dollars per hour,
for telling them of God, and His Christ? By organiz
ing a church in which membership is made dependent
upon activity in the sale of her puerile and profitable
wares? By denouncing as vile debauchery the
sweetest and purest and noblest relation of men and
women? By declaring the children, in whom our
souls delight, to be the offspring of "legaUzed lust"?
By refusing to put forth her professed Godlike power
to soothe any pain, even that of the sister she loved,
to save any life, even that of her own grandchfld?
By constituting herself the veritable autocrat of the
Bedlamites and reigning with despotic sway over the
multitudes of her self -abased dupes? By never
telling the truth, unless there was money in it, and
never hesitating at a lie that would add one simple
soul to the number of her victims or one soiled dollar
to her bulging exchequer? By living a Ufe of un-

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WITCHCRAFT 197
varying deception and uncleanness, and professing,
with eyes rolled heavenward, to be "as pure as the
angels"? By seeking, with Satanic zeal and hatred,
the destruction of her fancied enemies, through the
attempted mental infliction of disease and suffering
and death?
As Mrs. Eddy follows the Saviour?
Not thus, not thus, O Saviour of mankind! not
thus have followed in the royal road which thou hast
trod ages of worshipers!

YALE UNIVERSITY

]

ir,. .jJJP-^iP.?.8.8^!^ J.