Two words spell the name of this so-called "health religion"—"Christian" and "Science." Let us see if there is anything scientific about Christian Science. To begin with, men of science never try to suppress inquiry, because inquiry only helps to advance their cause, which can advance in no other way.

Science is investigation. Eddyism, on the other hand, is a dogma.

Science is knowledge, verified, classified, and placed within the reach of all. Eddyism is a copyrighted cult.

Science is free; in science we do not have to secure permission before observing, studying, inventing, or teaching. But Mrs. Eddy reads out of church the independent thinker or practitioner.

Science is open to new truths. Christian Science claims to be a final revelation. For any man or woman to profess to be the custodian of the last word on religion, and then to copyright the same, is not only the negation of all science, which means increasing research and unhampered discovery, but it is also the most objectionable kind of monopoly.

Science always accepts truth for authority, and never authority for truth. Christian Science, on the contrary, rests on the sole authority of Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

The fundamental difference between Mrs. Eddy and a scientist like Charles Darwin, for example, is that, while the latter confines himself to such statements as are investigable, Mrs. Eddy puts forth claims which defy investigation. Let me give an example. The founder of Christian Science solemnly declares that even the price she should charge for a course of instruction in metaphysics was dictated to her by the Deity himself: "When God impelled me to set a price on Christian Science—mind healing—I was led to name $300 as the price." And she adds: "This amount greatly troubled me. I shrank from asking it, but was finally led by a strange providence to accept this fee." It must have been a strange providence, indeed! But can a claim of that nature be verified? If we desired to make sure whether the Supreme Being, with the destinies of ten thousand worlds upon His mind, found the time to fix also the dividend rate upon Mrs. Eddy's investment in Christian Science, how would he go about it? How shall we make sure that the Deity did not, on the contrary, plead with her to be satisfied with a more moderate profit?

While in Salt Lake City I enjoyed the opportunity of an interview with a prominent Mormon. Finding me willing to listen, the gentleman told me how Joseph Smith had received a visit from the angels who delivered to him the originals from which were copied the articles of the Mormon belief. When I expressed a desire to see the "heavenly" documents, my informant replied that Joseph Smith had returned them to the angels. Is such a statement investigatable? And what is not investigable lies outside the province of science. Neither Mrs. Eddy nor Joseph Smith can be put in the same class with Charles Darwin, who advances no propositions which forbid verification.