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 exceptional 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 utilized 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 she had learned that this science must be demonstrated 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 “religion,” was not to be given to the world until it could be published 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 “revelation,” Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Glover, published 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, Amesbury, 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, and a change was speedily made to the permanently-adopted system of “cash in advance.”

It appears that, as to teaching, there was a progressive 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 litigations 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 consideration 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:

“I do not find any instruction given by her nor any explanations of her ‘science’ or ‘method of healing,’ which are intelligible to ordinary comprehension, or which could in any way be of value in fitting the defendant as a competent and successful practitioner 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 healers. Her adopted son and husband, with herself, constituted the faculty of this remarkable institution, 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 metaphysical healing includes twelve lessons. Class convenes 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 fifteen years after God had, by revelation, as she says, 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, “Retrospection and Introspection,” has perpetrated one the funniest passages to be found in all literature:

“When God impelled me to set a price on Christian Science mind healing,” she says, “I could think of no financial equivalent for the impartation of a knowledge of that divine power which heals; but I 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 asking it, but was finally led by a strange Providence to accept this fee. God has since shown me in multitudinous ways the wisdom of this decision.”

The idea of setting a price on Christian Science mind healing 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, 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 diffident person by the divine command, that she positively 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 herself, 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 realize 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 that the wisdom, the commercial wisdom, of her decision, whether shown by God or not, was quite clearly demonstrated, as Mrs. Eddy says that “during 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 compensation 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 comfortably 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.’”

God had decided that three hundred dollars was a financial equivalent for the teaching; but the grateful students deemed its value beyond financial computation. 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 recover than he who withholds the slight 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 treatment!

President Mary Baker G. Eddy and her faculty, which, when it did not consist of herself alone, included 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 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 credulity, 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 standing by His side and holding the Saviour’s hand, as illustrative of equality and “Christian Unity”; and 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 payment 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 income from healing, and one thousand dollars 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 generation 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, 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. Acting 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 consummated 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 the publication, outside the covers of her copyrighted books, of even so much as her so-called spiritual interpretation 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 considerable 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 purchase and perusal thereof.

The organization of the Massachusetts Metaphysical 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, 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 Christian Science healers must keep a stock of the books on hand and sell them to their patients, who are made to believe, or to try to believe, Mrs. Eddy’s absurd pretension 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 joyful memory, “There’s millions in it”!!!

It would be difficult to convince any one of the boundless audacity employed by Mrs. Eddy to promote the sale of this worthless book, if the authoritative evidence over her own signature were not available; 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 teachings complete the teachings of Jesus; that her “religion” 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 knowledge may be obtained through the teachings of Jesus, complete knowledge of the Father is attainable only through Jesus and her. She has established and organized The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, 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 a student of Christian Science for one year, commencing 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 thousand members, resident and non-resident, of this church, and every one of them was by this decree required 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 concoctions 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 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 frequent “revised” editions of her great work, “Science and Health,” with the announcement of additions to its text necessary to growth in “Science.” Everybody must buy a new book and add a new profit to Mrs. Eddy’s coffers.

In February, 1908, over her signature, she published 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 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 said 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 little intelligence, who buys that book in consequence of Mrs. Eddy’s notice and reads this paragraph, 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 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 lines 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 line 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 requires, 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 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 successor 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. Woodbury, 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 different firms of lawyers to represent her, three prominent Boston firms and the leading firm in New Hampshire, 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 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 Scientists. Do not give me on, before, or after the forthcoming 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 appropriate 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 garments would be received in response to her statement 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 “Beloved” 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 contributions 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 thousand 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 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 really 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 sufficiently, 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 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 sufficiently 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 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, utilizing the old gag of the dissemination of Truth to promote even the sale of spoons. The following is her command to the faithful:

“Christian Science Spoons?—?On each of these most beautiful spoons is a motto in bas-relief 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 partakers 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 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 Washington, 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 Mark Twain 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 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?