"KEY" TO THE EDDY SCRIPTURE, SCIENCE AND HEALTH.

Mrs. Eddy's Un-Christian Non-Science may be summarized as a caricature of her early "New England Orthodoxy," crazily combined with New England Transcendentalism, coated with a kind of free-thought permissible only to her own "divine Science," all overlying Dr. Quimby's "Science of Health," and carefully put under copyright.

Let us now see a few moonstone gems from her "precious volume"—just enough to illustrate our criticism of it and not infringe on her monopolized territory.

It may be explained, by the way, that the United States statute governing copyright precludes the reproduction and sale of books and pamphlets, as wholes, without permission of the authors; and protects even parts of dramas, pictures, and other "works of art"—the intent being, of course, to protect, also, one of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not steal." But, if an untrue and injurious book could not be analyzed, and a dozen extracts taken from it in proof of criticism, no literary quack could be exposed, in protection of the truth and the public. In that case, the Copyright Law would be worse than the old "Fugitive Slave Bill," and it would be a sacred duty to get into jail, if necessary, for violating it. Fortunately there is no such need. The law was not drawn in the interest of charlatans and malefactors, and has never been interpreted against the decencies of justice.

Following "Mother" Eddy's example in connection with our quotations from her Science and Health, we shall interpret them in a strictly "scientific" light, as she, with miraculous nerve, in her Key to the Scriptures, has done with other sacred writings. Thus we shall illumine Science and Health in the same way that she has illumined Genesis and The Apocalypse.

Science and Health, 7.[35]—"In the year 1866 I discovered the Science of Metaphysical Healing, and named it Christian Science. God had been graciously fitting me, during many years, for the reception of a final revelation of the absolute Principle of Scientific Mind-healing."

Interpretation "in Science."—History reveals to us, for sure, that "Mother Eddy," has always claimed to have discovered and founded the only genuine and original Christian Science. Though she was once a patient of Dr. P. P. Quimby, and at that time one Mary M. Patterson said that Quimby cured disease by mental truth—"the truth that Christ taught"—this miserable episode has nothing to do with the case. Mrs. Eddy has told us that the Patterson woman was a creature "ignorant" of "Science," whom Dr. Quimby used to "mesmerize." He cured her of a seven-years' complaint in the mortal body, but so addled her head that she had no knowledge of what she talked about. Thus, Mrs. Patterson's impression that Dr. Quimby was the modern founder of mind-healing has no weight. The truth was not in her. But Mother Eddy, notwithstanding she herself was once that same Mrs. Patterson, discovered all truth and all science, without regard to any of her previous statements.

Science and Health, 453.—"A Christian Scientist needs my work on Science and Health for his textbook, and so do all his students and patients.... It is the voice of Truth to this age, and contains the whole of Christian Science, or the Science of healing through Mind.... It was the first published book containing a statement of Christian Science.... It registered this revealed Truth, uncontaminated with human hypotheses. Other works, which have borrowed from this book without giving it credit, have adulterated the Science."

Interpretation "in Science."—It is evident that everybody "in Science" should buy its real Bible, Science and Health; for the Old and the New Testament, while it is policy to use them in the Church Scientist, are in dreadful need of exegesis by Mary Baker G. Eddy. She is the one religious person, altogether scientific, that now exists in the world. She is "uncontaminated truth," and anything that interferes with her abets larceny and spreads leprosy. Moreover, it is a financial crime against her, conducive to heart-disease. Let it again be stated that "the precious volume," Science and Health, is cheap for cash, ranging from only $3.18 to $6.

Science and Health, Pref. VIII.—"The question, What is Truth? is answered by demonstration—by healing disease and sin."

Interpretation "in Science."—That truth can only be set on its absolute end by curing megrims and other unhealthiness, has been incontrovertibly settled by the religious experience of "Mother Eddy" herself. When she rose into the revelation that matter is nothing—not even a phenomenal condition of anything—the truth instantly spliced her broken spine. It was this "demonstration by healing" that transformed the ignorant, deluded, mesmerized Mary M. Patterson, into our holy, scientific, infallible Lady of the "Precious Volume."

Science and Health, 2 and 3, passim.—"The divine Spirit, testifying through Christian Science, unfolded to me the demonstrable fact that matter possesses neither sensation nor life.... Human experiences show the falsity of all material things.... My discovery that erring, mortal, misnamed mind, produces all the organism and action of the mortal body, led up to my demonstration that Mind is All, and matter is naught, as the leading factor in Mind-Science.... The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually, and apparently through divine power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: 'Unto us a child is born ... and his name shall be Wonderful.'"

Interpretation "in Science."—That there is absolutely nothing in anything you see, feel, hear, taste or smell, is eternally laid down as "the leading factor in Mind-Science." Though the ideas of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy are all wonderful, this is the most surpassingly wonderful of all. But Mother Eddy herself is much more wonderful than even her ideas. As little Mary Baker she was wonderful in her likeness to little Samuel; as Mary M. Patterson, she was more wonderful as a mesmerized victim of Dr. Quimby; and, as Mary Baker G. Eddy, she is most wonderful, as the Ark of the Covenant of the only true Medicinal Religion. All Mother Eddy's writings point, all the time, to this beautiful lesson.

Science and Health, 5.—"No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of Agnosticism, or Millenarianism, and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the divine Mind, expressed through Divine Science."

Interpretation "in Science."—All the ancient and modern "isms," except Eddyism, we must sit on and blot out. The most of them are unpopular, and don't bring us in anything. But he who opposes Eddyism contradicts the Divine Mind, expressed through Divine Science, which, logically, must be the production of our Divine Mother.

Science and Health, 8.—"The phrase mortal mind implies something untrue, and, therefore, unreal."

Interpretation "in Science."—This truth is to be taken as infallible on all occasions. Still, the unreality, mortal mind, is a thing to be healed by Christian Science, and there is money in the metaphysical pills.

Science and Health, 21.—"There is no physical science, inasmuch, as all true Science proceeds from divine Intelligence."

Interpretation "in Science."—Shut up your arithmetic, geometry, physics, and astronomy. They amount to nothing. There is no truly scientific book except Science and Health.

Science and Health, 25.—"Must Christian Science come through the Christian churches, as some insist? This Science has come already, and come through the one whom God called."

Interpretation "in Science."—Christian Science, my beloved, is copyrighted property, and can only spread through the owner and her deputies. The "one whom God called" is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy.

Science and Health, 244, 245, 473, 284.—"The act of describing disease makes the disease. Warning people against disease frightens them into it. This obnoxious habit ought to cease.... The unscientific practitioner says: 'You are ill; you must rest.' Science objects to all this.... Mind controls the body and brain.... A cup of tea is not the equal of Truth.... A material body is a mortal belief.... The medicine of Science is divine Mind."Interpretation "in Science."—Your doctor is a fool, whether he be allopathic, homeopathic, magnetic, or even of any unauthorized school of mind-healing. Dismiss him, and send for a Christian Science M. D., authorized to practise by Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. If he can't cure you, it will not be his fault; it will be simply because your mind, or the minds around you, or both, are out of tune with Science and Health and its Key to the Scriptures.

Science and Health, 259, 480, 475.—"Electricity, the offspring of finite mind, is unreal.... The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals. Physical force and mortal mind are one.... Matter is neither self-existent nor a product of Spirit. An image of mortal thought, reflected on the retina, is all the eye beholds."

Interpretation "in Science."—That a force like electricity has no reference to any principle or power but finite mind, will always be hard for an unscientized person to believe. But Mother Eddy knows, and her word must go. Still, the unreality of electricity is not quite so to people "out of science." If one toys with a trolley-wire before he has read and understood Science and Health, he may experience a slight shock of reality, if he lives long enough. But one who has purchased Mrs. Eddy's great work, and who reads it constantly, need have no fear of electrocution, or anything else. His mortal mind has pretty nearly departed from him. His "physical universe" is hardly a picture of "conscious thoughts," and his "unconscious thoughts," whatever such things may be, will never lead him into much danger.

Science and Health, 487.—"Science reveals material man as a dream at all times, and never as the real Being."

Interpretation "in Science."—Mortals are nothing. The One and Only Being is the Father-and-Mother God of Christian Science. Our Mother is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy.

Science and Health, 411.—"The Scientist knows there can be no hereditary disease, since matter cannot transmit good or evil intelligence to man, and Mind produces no pain in matter."

Interpretation "in Science."—On the ground that mind and matter are absolutely unconnected, there can be no doubt of there being no hereditary disease. On the same ground there can be no heredity itself, and no world for heredity to exist in. How true it is, "in Science," that all actuality has no actuality in it!

Science and Health, 28.—"The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science."

Interpretation "in Science."—We know, too, from Mrs. Eddy's "precious volume," that Christian Science, in addition to being the Logos, is the Holy Comforter. Thus her copyrighted religion is two-thirds of the Trinity.

Science and Health, 411.—"The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural or necessary than would be the process of taking a fish out of water every day, and covering it with dirt, in order to make it thrive more vigorously thereafter in its native element.... Water is not the natural habitat of humanity."

Interpretation "in Science."—Don't take the trouble to wash the baby. His body is only an expression of mortal mind, and is thus so mussed up with error and nothingness that water will never get him clean. His proper habitat is "Science." Scrub his "conscious and unconscious thoughts" with Christian Science, and never mind the rest of him.

We shall make but one more quotation, here, from Mrs. Eddy's "Divine comedy," Science and Health. There is no use of being too serious with it. History will soon take it as mostly a "grim joke" on metaphysics, theology, and medicine. But one thing must give us pause. On approaching the Lord's Prayer, one feels himself on solemn ground, if such ground there be anywhere in life, and for once, if never before, puts on the mantle of conservatism. But, to Mrs. Eddy, the words of Jesus in devotion and supplication—at once the simplest and grandest words ever uttered—require her "spiritual interpretation." What, in her index to Science and Health, she terms the "Spiritualized version" of the Lord's Prayer is this:

"Our Father and Mother God, all-harmonized, Adorable One. Ever present and Omnipotent. Thy Supremacy appears as matter disappears. Give us grace for to-day; Thou fillest the famished affections; and Love is reflected in love. And leavest us not in temptation, but freest us from sin, disease and death; for Thou art all Substance, Life, Truth, and Love, forever.—So be it."

The author of the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers tells of a poet who

"Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke,
And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch;
And, undisturbed by conscientious qualms,
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the psalms."

Let any one not "in Science" ask himself if Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy has not gone farther and done worse.