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 inseparable, identical. They have arisen and they 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 mankind 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 representations and Mrs. Eddy’s character. If everything 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 healing 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, notwithstanding, 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 religion 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 believe 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 fraudulent 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 children, 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 healing 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.

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 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 following. The fact that she has some thousands of followers does not, of itself, prove the truth of any of her teachings or pretensions. There was never any religious pretender yet, who could not, with slight effort, obtain 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 belief, 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 perambulated into the adjoining town, naked as they came into the world. A police officer, who encountered them upon the street, with averted eyes hustled them into a van and carted them off to the 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 converts, and that the first person he converts is usually the first he encounters.

I am continually met with the inquiry, “If Christian Science is an absolute fraud, how do you account for the fact that so many intelligent people are Christian Scientists?”

In the first place, many people may be intelligent enough about the ordinary affairs of life, and utterly imbecile upon religious matters. History has again 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, published 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 deducted 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 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 notwithstanding 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 Key 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, convinced, as every sincere and honest person, who retains 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 than my own. Mr. Frisbie tells me that 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 himself 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 would be 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 subordinate 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 point, 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 estimators of human qualities. I refer, of course, to Mark Twain. His opinion of why Mrs. Eddy has so many followers is most informing. In a letter to me some few years ago, Mr. Clemens said:

“Have I given you the impression that I was combating Xn Science? or that I am caring how the Xn Scientists ‘hail’ my articles? Relieve 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. At bottom I suppose I take a private delight 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 thereafter.

“It distresses me a little 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, unprincipled, vulgar woman is regarded as the agent and 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 irreverently 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 Almighty 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 convinced 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 supposed baneful work. This Christian Science witchcraft 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 and hypocrisy, of all of the evil consequences of the life and work of this monumental imposture, the 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 sickness, 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 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. Meantime the sickness of the child is real, the suffering terribly real, and after protracted suffering it dies without the turning of a hand to relieve its pain or to save its life. Those sane parents who have endured 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 little fellow, take off his clothes and put him to bed and tell him the good doctor would 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 you 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 yourself, run away and play, and don’t bother me any more.”

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 families 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 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 death.

Who has not, for years past, read such items as 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. Public 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, Christian 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-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Quimby, Christian Scientists, allowed to die of malignant diphtheria without attendance 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 ministrations. As they doubtless average many more 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 mortality 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 somewhat 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 1857, when the Cheeneys moved to Enterprise, Minnesota, 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 like an old ewe sheep that would not own its lamb.”

Mrs. Eddy now pretends that she was obliged 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 abandonment 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 little more than a baby, cannot be expected to give herself 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 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 punishment 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 children 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.