# The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy/Chapter 26

CHAPTER XXVI
TRAINING THE VINE—HOW MRS. EDDY HAS ORGANISED HER CHURCH—HER MANAGEMENT AND DISCIPLINE—THE CHURCH MANUAL—RECENT MODIFICATIONS IN CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PRACTICE—MEMBERSHIP OF THE CHURCH—PRACTICAL RESULTS OF MRS. EDDY'S LIFE-WORK
The years since 1892 Mrs. Eddy has spent in training her church in the way she desires it to go, in making it more and more her own, and in issuing by-law after by-law to restrict her followers in their church privileges and to guide them in their daily walk. Mrs. Eddy, one must remember, was fifty years of age before she knew what she wanted to do; sixty when she bethought herself of the most effective way to do it,—by founding a church,—and seventy when she achieved her greatest triumph—the reorganisation and personal control of the Mother Church. But she did not stop there. Between her seventieth and eightieth year, and even up to the present time, she has displayed remarkable ingenuity in disciplining her church and its leaders, and resourcefulness and energy in the prosecution of her plans.
Mrs. Eddy's system of church government was not devised in a month or a year, but grew, by-law on by-law, to meet new emergencies and situations. To attain the end she desired it was necessary to keep fifty or sixty thousand people working ​as if the church were the first object in their lives; to encourage hundreds of these to adopt church-work as their profession and make it their only chance of worldly success; and yet to hold all this devotion and energy in subservience to Mrs. Eddy herself and to prevent any one of these healers, or preachers, or teachers from attaining any marked personal prominence and from acquiring a personal following. The church was to have all the vigour of spontaneous growth, but was to grow only as Mrs. Eddy permitted and to confine itself to the trellis she had built for it.
Naturally, the first danger lay in the pastors of her branch churches. Mrs. Stetson and Mrs. Laura Lathrop had built up strong churches in New York; Mrs. Ewing was pastor of a flourishing church in Chicago; Mrs. Leonard of another in Brooklyn; Mrs. Williams in Buffalo; Mrs. Steward in Toronto; Mr. Norcross in Denver. These pastors naturally became leaders among the Christian Scientists in their respective communities, and came to be regarded as persons authorised to expound Science and Health and the doctrines of Christian Science. Such a state of things Mrs. Eddy considered dangerous, not only because of the personal influence the pastor might acquire over his flock, but because a pastor might, even without intending to do so, give a personal colour to his interpretation of her words. In his sermon he might expand her texts and improvise upon her themes until gradually his hearers would come to accept his own opinions for Mrs. Eddy's. The church in Toronto might come to emphasise doctrines which the church in Denver did not; here was a possible beginning of differing denominations.
​So, as Mrs. Eddy splendidly puts it, "In 1895 I ordained the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, as the Pastor, on this planet, of all the churches of the Christian Science Denomination." In the Journal of April, 1895, she announced, without previous warning, that there were to be no more preachers; that each church should have, instead, a First and a Second Reader, and that the Sunday sermon was to consist of extracts from the Bible and from Science and Health, read to the congregation. In the beginning the First Reader read from the Bible and the Second Reader from Mrs. Eddy's book. But this Mrs. Eddy soon changed. The First Reader now reads from Science and Health, and the Second reads those passages of the Bible which Mrs. Eddy selects as correlative. This service, Mrs. Eddy declares, was "authorised by Christ."
When Mrs. Eddy issued this injunction, every Christian Science preacher promptly and silently obeyed it. Many of them kissed the rod. L. P. Norcross, one of the deposed pastors, wrote humbly in the August Journal:
Did any one expect such a revelation, such a new departure would be given? No, not in the way it came. . . . . A former pastor of the Mother Church once remarked that the day would dawn when the current methods of preaching and worship would disappear, but he could not discern how. . . . Such disclosures are too high for us to perceive. To One alone did the message come.
Mrs. Eddy had no grudge against her pastors, and many of ​them were made Readers in the churches which they had built and in which they had formerly preached.
The "Reader" is well hedged in with by-laws and his duties and limitations are clearly defined:
He is to read parts of Science and Health aloud at every service.
He cannot read from a manuscript or from a transcribed copy, but must read from the book itself.
He is, Mrs. Eddy says, to be "well read and well educated," but he shall at no time make any remarks explanatory of the passages which he reads.
Before commencing to read from Mrs. Eddy's book "he shall distinctly announce its full title and give the author's name."
A Reader must not be a leader in the church. Besides these restrictions there is a by-law which provides that Mrs. Eddy can, without explanation, remove any reader at any time that she sees fit to do so.
In the same number of the Journal in which she dismissed her pastors and substituted Readers, Mrs. Eddy stated, in an open letter, that her students would find in that issue "the completion, as I now think, of the Divine directions sent out to the churches." But it was not the completion. By the summer of 1902 Septimus J. Hanna, First Reader of the Mother Church in Boston, had become, without the liberty to preach or to "make remarks," so influential that Mrs. Eddy made a new ruling that the Reader's term of office should be limited ​to three years, and, Mr. Hanna's term then being up, he was put into the lecture field. The highest dignity, then, that any Christian Scientist could hope for was to be chosen as Reader for three years at a comfortable salary.
Why, it has often been asked, did the more influential pastors—people with a large personal following, like Mrs. Stetson—consent to resign their pulpits in the first place and afterward to be stripped of privilege after privilege? Some of them, of course, submitted because they believed that Mrs. Eddy possessed "Divine Wisdom"; others because they remembered what had happened to dissenters before them. Of all those who had broken away from Mrs. Eddy's authority, not one had attained to anything like her success or material prosperity, while many had followed wandering fires and had come to nothing. Christian Science leaders had staked their fortunes upon the hypothesis that Mrs. Eddy possessed "divine wisdom"; it was as expounders of this wisdom that they had obtained their influence and built up their churches. To rebel against the authority of Mrs. Eddy's wisdom would be to discredit themselves; to discredit Mrs. Eddy's wisdom would have been to destroy their whole foundation. To claim an understanding and an inspiration equal to Mrs. Eddy's would have been to cheapen and invalidate everything that gave Christian Science an advantage over other religions. Had they once denied the Revelation and the Revelator upon which their church was founded, the whole structure would have fallen in upon them. If Mrs. Eddy's ​intelligence were not divine in one case, who would be able to say that it was in another? If they could not accept Mrs. Eddy's wisdom when she said "there shall be no pastors," how could they persuade other people to accept it when she said "there is no matter"? It was clear, even to those who writhed under the restrictions imposed upon them, that they must stand or fall with Mrs. Eddy's Wisdom, and that to disobey it was to compromise their own careers. Even in the matter of getting on in the world, it was better to be a doorkeeper in the Mother Church than to dwell in the tents of the "mental healers."
Probably it was harder for Mrs. Stetson to retire from the pastorship than for any one else. Mrs. Stetson had gone to New York when Christian Science was practically unknown there, and from poor and small beginnings had built up a rich and powerful church. But, when the command came, she stepped out of the pulpit she had built. She is to-day probably the most influential person, after Mrs. Eddy, in the Christian Science body. In 1907 the New York World published several interviews with persons who asserted that they believed Mrs. Eddy to be controlled by a clique of Christian Scientists who were acting for Mrs. Stetson's interests. In June Mrs. Stetson wrote Mrs. Eddy a letter which was printed in the Christian Science Sentinel and which read in part:
Boston, Mass., June 9, 1907.
My Precious Leader:—I am glad I know that I am in the hands of God, not of men. These reports are only the revival of a lie which I have not heard for a long time. It is a renewed attack upon me and my loyal students, to turn me from following in the footsteps of Christ by making another attempt to dishearten me and make me weary of the struggle to demonstrate my trust in God to deliver me from the "accuser of our ​brethren." It is a diabolical attempt to separate me from you, as my Leader and Teacher. . . .
Oh, Dearest, it is such a lie! No one who knows us can believe this. It is vicarious atonement. Has the enemy no more argument to use, that it has to go back to this? It is exhausting its resources and I hope the end is near. You know my love for you, beloved; and my students love you as their Leader and Teacher; they follow your teachings and lean on the "sustaining infinite." They who refuse to accept you as God's messenger, or ignore the message which you bring, will not get up by some other way, but will come short of salvation. . . .
Dearly beloved, we are not ascending out of sense as fast as we desire, but we are trusting in God to put off the false and put on the Christ. This lie cannot disturb you nor me. I love you and my students love you, and we never touch you with such a thought as is mentioned.
Lovingly your child,
Augusta E. Stetson.
But Mrs. Stetson's protestations of loyalty availed her nothing. She was more than ever kept under surveillance by Mrs. Eddy's directors, and when at last, in December, 1908, it be came known that Mrs. Stetson had formed elaborate plans to extend her church system in New York, Mrs. Eddy was acutely alarmed. Mrs. Stetson, with her church behind her, had, without consulting Mrs. Eddy it would seem, completed her plans for building a magnificent new church on Riverside Drive, New York. This church, so it was announced, was to "rival in beauty of architecture any other religious structure in America," and it was to be built by Mrs. Stetson, and managed by her and an advisory board. Although Mrs. Stetson explained that the proposed new church would be organised regularly as a branch of the Mother Church in Boston and in accordance with the regulations laid down by Mrs. Eddy in the Church Manual, it was evident that Mrs. Eddy regarded the plan as a scheme of Mrs. Stetson's to rival the great Boston temple and to build up a church system of her own.
​Mrs. Eddy lost not a moment in condemning the project. Her daily newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor of Boston, and her church organ, the Christian Science Sentinel, which reach the entire Christian Science membership, announced editorially that Mrs. Eddy was not pleased "with what purport to be plans of First Church of Christ Scientist of New York City, for she learned of this proposed rival to the Mother Church for the first time, from the daily press." "Three leading facts," continued the editorial, "remain immortal in the history of Christian Science, namely:
1. This Science is already established, and it has the support of all true Christian Scientists throughout the world.
2. Any competition or any rivalry in Christian Science is abnormal, and will expose and explode itself.
3. Any attempt at rivalry or superiority in Christian Science is unchristian; therefore it is unscientific. The great Teacher said: "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye."
Thoughtful Christian Scientists are profoundly grateful to their beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, because in her far-seeing wisdom she has ordained The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., already famous for originating reforms, as The Mother Church of Christian Science, and all other churches in the denomination as branches of the parent Vine. Says the Church Manual: "In its relation to other Christian Science churches, in its by-laws and self-government, The Mother Church stands alone; it occupies a position that no other church can fill" (Art. xxiii., Sec. 3). It is a fact of general observation that in proportion as branch churches adhere loyally to The Mother Church, and obey implicitly its by-laws, they bear abundant fruit in healing the sick and sinful.
Machinery was set in motion at headquarters to restrain and repress Mrs. Stetson's activities. In the summer of 1909 a new by-law was issued. It provided that teachers and practitioners could no longer maintain offices or rooms in the churches, in the reading-rooms, or in rooms connected therewith. It was ​known by those who understood the situation that this ruling was aimed directly at Mrs. Stetson. With other healers of her congregation she had maintained handsome offices in the First Church in New York, where she healed patients, instructed classes and individuals, and daily met her friends and co-workers. Mrs. Stetson obeyed this by-law. She merely retreated to her house, which adjoins her church and is connected with it by a covered passage, and conducted her work as before.
Mrs. Eddy, however, was not to be thus easily defeated. She was determined that Mrs. Stetson, whom she considered as an open rival, should be removed as such, and that her circle should be broken up. During the summer and early autumn of 1909 Mrs. Stetson was brought before the Mother Church directors in Boston and closely questioned, and many of her students were also examined before this court-martial. It was decided that Mrs. Stetson must be disciplined, and she was officially deprived of her rank as a healer and as a teacher. She was forbidden to teach or practise Christian Science until she had proved her fitness for such work. She was, therefore, placed on a three years' probation, at the conclusion of which, if her conduct has been exemplary and if she has met Mrs. Eddy's requirements as to loyalty, she may, if Mrs. Eddy sees fit, again be permitted to teach and practise. The reasons given by the directors for reducing Mrs. Stetson were: erroneous teaching of Christian Science; the exercise of undue influence over her students, which tended to hinder their moral and spiritual growth; turning the attention of her students to herself and away from Divine principle; teaching and practising contrary to Science and Health; and finally, that "Mrs. Stetson ​attempts to control and to injure persons by mental means, this being utterly contrary to the teachings of Christian Science."
It is interesting to note that, in dealing with the case of Mrs. Stetson, Mrs. Eddy once again resorted to the faithful weapon which had never failed her in all her executions of the past — the time-worn charge of mental malpractice.
Her pastors having been satisfactorily dealt with, the next danger Mrs. Eddy saw lay in her teachers and "academies." Mrs. Eddy had found, of course, that a great many Christian Scientists wished to make their living out of their new religion; that possibility, indeed, was one of the most effective advantages which Christian Science had to offer over other religions. In the early days of the church, while Mrs. Eddy was still instructing classes in Christian Science at her "college," teaching was a much more remunerative business than healing. Mrs. Eddy charged each student $300 for a primary course of seven lessons, and the various Christian Science "institutes" and "academies" about the country charged from $100 to $200 per student. So long as Mrs. Eddy was herself teaching and never took patients, she could not well forbid other teachers to do likewise. But after she retired to Concord, she took the teachers in hand. Mrs. Eddy knew that Christian Science was propagated and that converts were made, not through doctrine, but through cures. She had found that out in the beginning, when Richard Kennedy's cures brought her her first success. She knew, too, that teaching Christian Science was a much easier profession than healing by it, and that the teacher risked no encounter with the law. Since teaching was both ​easier and more remunerative it would be natural for teachers to multiply at the sacrifice of the healers, and Mrs. Eddy discouraged this by cutting down the teacher's fee, and limiting the number of pupils which one teacher might instruct in a year. By 1904 Mrs. Eddy had got the teacher's fee down to fifty dollars per student, and a teacher was not permitted to teach more than thirty students a year. From 1903 to 1906 all teaching was suspended under the by-law "Healing better than teaching."
In the fall of 1895 Mrs. Eddy issued her instructions to the churches in the form of a volume entitled the Church Manual of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass. The by-laws herein contained, she says, "were impelled by a power not one's own, were written at different dates, as occasion required." This book is among Mrs. Eddy's copyrighted works, and has now been through more than forty editions. Some of the by-laws in the earlier editions are perplexing.
We find that "Careless comparison or irreverent reference to Christ Jesus, is abnormal in a Christian Scientist and prohibited." It is probable that no Christian church had ever before found it necessary to make such a prohibition.
The Manual, however, is chiefly interesting as an exposition of Mrs. Eddy's method of church government and as an inventory of her personal prerogatives. Never was a title more misleadingly modest than Mrs. Eddy's title of "Pastor Emeritus" of the Mother Church.
Next to Mrs. Eddy in authority is the Board of Directors, who were chosen by Mrs. Eddy and who are subject to her in ​all their official acts. Any one of these directors can at any time be dismissed upon Mrs. Eddy's request, and the vacancy can be filled only by a candidate whom she has approved. All the church business is transacted by these directors,—no other members of the church may be present at the business meetings,—and at any time Mrs. Eddy's request will remove them. The members of this board are pledged to secrecy; they "shall neither report the discussions of this Board, nor those with Mrs. Eddy."
These directors are Mrs. Eddy's executive self, created by her and committed to silence. Their chief duties are to elect to office whomsoever Mrs. Eddy appoints, and to hold their peace.
The President of the church is annually elected by the directors, the election being subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval.
The First and Second Readers are elected every third year by the directors, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval, but she can remove a Reader either from the Mother Church or from any of the branch churches whenever she sees fit and without explanation.
The Clerk and Treasurer of the church are elected once a year by the directors, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval.
Executive Members: Prior to 1903 these were known as First Members. They shall not be less than fifty in number, nor more than one hundred. They must have certain qualifications (such as residing within five hundred miles of Boston), and they must hold a meeting once a year and special meetings at ​Mrs. Eddy's call. They have no powers and no duties and they are not allowed to be present at the business meetings of the church. The manner of their election is unusual. The by-laws state that a member can be made an Executive Member only after a letter is received by the directors from Mrs. Eddy requesting them to make said persons Executive Members; and then, "they shall be elected by the unanimous vote of the Board of Directors."
This "executive" board is a form only, and membership on it is merely a mark of Mrs. Eddy's personal favour. To her followers, however, this is sufficient reason for its existence, and they are proud to be called members of it.
Although Mrs. Eddy has made a by-law which says that the branch churches shall have "local self-government," she gives special instructions in the Manual as to what the branch churches may or may not do. The Church Manual is closely followed by all the branch churches, and as practically all the members of the branch churches are also members of the Mother Church, it is the duty of each to obey all the requirements of the Manual.
A branch church can only be organised by a member of the Mother Church.
A branch church may not use the article "the" in its title. Only the Mother Church may employ it.
No conference of branch churches shall be held except the annual conference at the Mother Church.
​A branch church may not have other church branches, nor shall it be organised with Executive Members.
Communion time for the branch churches is fixed by the Manual.
In laying its corner-stone, a branch church must not permit a "large gathering of people."
The services of the branch churches are definitely prescribed; they are to consist of music, Mrs. Eddy's prayer, and oral readings from Science and Health and the Bible.
Mrs. Eddy may appoint or remove—without explanation—the Readers of the branch churches at any time.
The branch churches may never have comments or remarks made by their Readers, either upon passages from Science and Health or from the Bible.
The branch churches may have lectures only by lecturers whom Mrs. Eddy has appointed in the usual way—through the "vote" of her Board of Directors. And the lecture must have passed censorship.
After listening to such a lecture, the members of the branch churches are not permitted to give a reception or to meet for social intercourse. Mrs. Eddy tells them to "depart in quiet thought." It seems probable that this by-law was devised for the spiritual good of the lecturer. If fêted or made much of after his discourse he might easily become puffed up with pride of place.
​Services in the branch churches, as in the Mother Church, are limited to the Sunday morning and evening readings from the Bible and Science and Health, the Wednesday evening experience meetings, and to the communion service. (In the Mother Church this occurs but once a year, in the branch churches twice.) There is no baptismal service, no marriage or burial service, and weddings and funerals are never conducted in any of the Christian Science churches.
Included in the Mother Church organisation are the Publication Committee, the Christian Science Publishing Society, the Board of Lectureship, the Board of Missionaries, and the Board of Education, all under Mrs. Eddy's personal control.
The manager of the Publication Committee, at present Mr. Alfred Farlow, is "elected" annually by the Board of Directors under Mrs. Eddy's instructions. His salary is to be not less than $5,000 a year. This Publication Committee is a press bureau, consisting of a manager with headquarters in Boston and of various branch committees throughout the field. It is the duty of a member of this committee, wherever he resides, to reply promptly through the press to any criticism of Christian Science or of Mrs. Eddy which may be made in his part of the country, and to insert in the newspapers of his territory as much matter favourable to Christian Science as they will print. In replying to criticism this bureau will, if necessary, pay the regular advertising rate for the publication of their statements. The members of this committee, after having written and published their articles in defence of Christian Science, are also ​responsible, says the Manual, "for having the papers containing these articles circulated in large quantities." This press agency has been extremely effective in pushing the interests of Christian Science, in keeping it before the public, and in building up a desirable legendry around Mrs. Eddy.
The Christian Science Publishing Society is conducted for the purpose of publishing and marketing Mrs. Eddy's works and the three Christian Science periodicals, the Christian Science Journal, the Christian Science Sentinel, and Der Christian Science Herald. It is managed and controlled by a Board of Trustees appointed by Mrs. Eddy, and the net profits of the business are turned over semi-annually to the treasurer of the Mother Church. The manager and editors are appointed for one year only, and must be elected or reëlected by a vote of the directors and "the consent of the Pastor Emeritus, given in her own handwriting." The Manual also states that a person who is not accepted by Mrs. Eddy as suitable shall in no manner be connected with publishing her books or editing her periodicals.
Until 1898 any Christian Scientist could give public talks or lectures upon the doctrines of his faith, but in January of that year Mrs. Eddy withdrew this privilege. She appointed a Board of Lectureship, carefully selecting each member and assigning each to a certain district. In this work she placed several of her most influential men, among whom was Septimus J. Hanna. As itinerant lecturers these men could not very well build up a dangerously strong personal following, and they could very ably set forth the Christian Science doctrines. These lecturers are elected annually, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval. ​Their representative lectures must be censored by the clerk of the Mother Church. The Manual stipulates that these lectures must "bear testimony to the facts pertaining to the life of the Pastor Emeritus."
Seven missionaries are elected annually by the Board of Directors, and their duties are to fill vacancies in pulpits and to "correctly propagate" Christian Science wherever it is most needed.
The Board of Education consists of three members, the President, Vice-President, and a teacher. Mrs. Eddy is the permanent President—unless, says the Manual, she sees fit to "resign over her own signature." The Vice-President and teacher are elected from time to time, "subject to the approval of the Pastor Emeritus."
It is not easy to become a member of the Mother Church. The applicant for admission must read nothing upon metaphysics or religion except Mrs. Eddy's books and the Bible, and his application must be countersigned by one of Mrs. Eddy's loyal students, who is made responsible for the candidate's sincerity. There are many things for which the new member may be expelled after he is once admitted into the church. He may not haunt the roads upon which Mrs. Eddy drives. He may not discuss, lecture upon, or debate upon Christian Science in public without permission from one of her representatives. He must not be a "leader" in the church and must never be called one. He may read only the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's books for religious instruction. He shall not "vilify" the Pastor Emeritus. He must go to Mrs. Eddy's home and serve her in person for one year if she requires it of him. He ​may not permit his children to believe in Santa Claus—Mrs. Eddy abolished Santa Claus by proclamation in 1904. He may not read or quote from Mrs. Eddy's books without first naming the author. Mrs. Eddy says, in explanation of this by-law: "To pour into the ears of listeners the sacred revelations of Christian Science indiscriminately, or without characterising their origin and thus distinguishing them from the writings of authors who think at random on this subject, is to lose some weight in the scale of right thinking."
A Christian Scientist "shall neither buy, sell nor circulate Christian Science literature which is not correct in its statement," etc., Mrs. Eddy, of course, determining whether or not the statement is correct. He "shall not patronise a publishing house or bookstore that has for sale obnoxious books."
A Christian Scientist may not belong to any club or society, which excludes either sex, Free Masons excepted, outside the Mother Church. Mrs. Eddy says that church organisations are ample for him.
It is indicative of Mrs. Eddy's influence over her followers that when this by-law was issued, less than twenty inquiries (so her secretary announced) were received at Pleasant View. Men resigned from their political, business, and social clubs, women from their literary and patriotic organisations, without a murmur and without a question.
No hymns may be sung in the Mother Church unless they have been approved by Mrs. Eddy, and Mrs. Eddy's hymns must be sung at stated intervals. "If a solo singer in the ​Mother Church shall either neglect or refuse to sing alone a hymn written by our Leader and Pastor Emeritus, as often as once each month, and oftener if the Directors so direct, a meeting shall be called and the salary of this singer shall be stopped."
Above all these lesser by-laws Mrs. Eddy holds one in which her supreme authority rests. A mesmerist or "mental malpractitioner" is to be excommunicated, and "if the author of Science and Health shall bear witness to the offence of mental malpractice, it shall be considered sufficient evidence thereof." The accused can make no defence, and has no appeal. In the matter of hypnotism, Mrs. Eddy's mere word is enough. She has, she says, an unerring instinct by which she can detect hypnotism in any creature:
I possess a spiritual sense of what the malicious mental practitioner is mentally arguing which cannot be deceived; I can discern in the human mind thoughts, motives, and purposes; and neither mental arguments nor psychic power can affect this spiritual insight.
Of late years Mrs. Eddy has shown a disposition to so modify the practice of Christian Science healing as not to conflict with the laws. Christian Scientists formerly treated all diseases, without regard to legal restrictions. But experience has shown Mrs. Eddy that an evasion of the law is regarded by the public as a defiance of the law, and forms a serious obstacle to the spread of Christian Science. It also has involved Christian Scientists constantly in lawsuits.
In March, 1901, Mrs. Eddy announced in the Journal that ​thereafter Christian Scientists must submit to vaccination, and report cases of contagion as required by law.
A year later the teaching and practice of obstetrics was dropped by order of Mrs. Eddy, who gave as the reason, "Obstetrics is not Science, and will not be taught." This was after obstetrics had been taught and practised as "Science" for thirty-two years.
An important change of practice was instituted when, in December, 1902, the Journal announced: "Mrs. Eddy advises, until the public thought becomes better acquainted with Christian Science, that Christian Scientists decline to doctor infectious or contagious diseases." On the same subject Mrs. Eddy wrote: "Christian Scientists should be influenced by their own judgment in the taking of a case of malignant disease, they should consider well their ability to cope with the case—and not overlook the fact that there are those lying in wait to catch them in their sayings; neither should they forget that in their practice, whether successful or not, they are not especially protected by law."
Christian Scientists are now permitted to consult with medical practitioners in certain cases. A by-law provides that, "if a member of this church has a patient that he does not heal; and whose case he cannot lawfully diagnose, he may consult with an M.D. on the anatomy involved. And it shall be the privilege of a Christian Scientist to confer with an M.D. on ontology, or the Science of Being."
Christian Scientists are no longer allowed to use the titles, "Reverend," or "Doctor," unless they have received these titles under the laws of the state.
​A practitioner is not permitted to sue a patient to recover payment for his services, and he is required to "reasonably reduce" his fee in chronic cases, and in cases where he has not effected a cure.
The result of Mrs. Eddy's planning and training and pruning is that she has built up the largest and most powerful organisation ever founded by any woman in America. Probably no other woman so handicapped—so limited in intellect, so uncertain in conduct, so tortured by hatred and hampered by petty animosities—has ever risen from a state of helplessness and dependence to a position of such power and authority. All that Christian Science comprises to-day—the Mother Church, branch churches, healers, teachers, Readers, boards, committees, societies—are as completely under Mrs. Eddy's control as if she were their temporal as well as their spiritual ruler. The growth of her power has been extensive as well as intensive.
In June, 1907, the membership of the Mother Church, according to the Secretary's report, was 43,876. The membership of the branch churches amounted to 42,846. As members of the branch churches are almost invariably members of the Mother Church as well, there cannot be more than 60,000 Christian Scientists in the world to-day, and the number is probably nearer 50,000.
In June, 1907, there were in all 710 branch churches. Fifty-eight of these are in foreign countries: twenty-five in the Dominion of Canada, fourteen in Great Britain, two in Ireland, four in Australia, one in South Africa, eight in Mexico, two in Germany, one in Holland, and one in France. There are ​also 295 Christian Science societies, not yet incorporated into churches, thirty of which are in foreign countries.
In reading these figures one must bear in mind the fact that thirty years ago the only Christian Science church in the world was struggling to pay its rent in Boston.
An effective element in the growth of the church is the fact that a considerable proportion of Christian Scientists make their living by their religion, and their worldly fortunes as well as their spiritual comfort are in their church; they must prosper or decline with Christian Science, and they prosecute the cause of their church with all their energies and with entire singleness of purpose. The perfect system under which the church is organised provides for the constant advertising, by the Publication Committee, of the religion, of the church, and of Mrs. Eddy; and this has been perhaps the greatest factor in the growth of the church. There is an impression to-day that the Christian Science church numbers its members by hundreds of thousands; and this impression was created and is continued by the exaggerated statements of Mrs. Eddy herself, and of her leading church officers, and by the insistent work of the Publication Committees.
Christian Science itself presents, superficially, an old and well-worn truth, besides much that is fallacious and absurd; and the secret of its popularity lies in the fact, not that it has played tricks with metaphysical platitudes, but that it has adapted them to the buoyant spirit of the times.
​What Mrs. Eddy has accomplished has been due solely to her own compelling personality. She has never been a dreamer of dreams or a seer of visions, and she has not the mind for deep and searching investigation into any problem. Her genius has been of the eminently practical kind, which can meet and overcome unfavourable conditions by sheer force of energy, and in Mrs. Eddy's case this potency has been accompanied by a remarkable shrewdness, which has had its part in determining her career. Her problem has been, not to work out the theory of mental healing, but to popularise it, and having popularised it, to maintain a personal monopoly of its principle; and the history of Christian Science shows how near she has come to doing this.
Not until Mrs. Eddy met Quimby had she ever known any serious purpose, and although she was superbly equipped by nature to blaze the way for new and bizarre ideas, and was always the first to take up with such irregular and passing notions as mesmerism, clairvoyance, writing-mediumship, etc., she had never produced an original idea on her own account. With Quimby came her opportunity, and once given an actual purpose, Mrs. Eddy, with her unequalled zeal for not letting go of a thing, was at once upon the highroad to success.
For herself, she has won what has always seemed to her most valuable, and what has been from the beginning a crying necessity of her nature: personal ease, an exalted position, and the right to exact homage from the multitude.
For Quimby, she has, and mainly by reason of her ingratitude toward her old benefactor, secured public attention to his theory ​of mental healing. Through Dr. Warren F. Evans and Mr. and Mrs. Julius A. Dresser the Quimby idea, previous to the Christian Science interpretation of it, had been slowly and laboriously coming into a limited practice; but with the entrance of Mrs. Eddy into the field, with her extravagant claims of miraculous revelation and her violent methods of procedure, the whole movement received a tremendous impetus; and unconsciously and very much against her will, she has been the most effective agent in promoting Quimbyism as well as Eddyism. For, although it has been one of Mrs. Eddy's chief cares to stem the progress of the rival school, and to raise an impassable barrier between her own cult and that of all other mental healers, it has not disturbed the fact that for practical purposes, Eddyism is simply Quimbyism, overlaid with superstition and ignorance; and the future of Mrs. Eddy's school depends largely upon the willingness of her followers to continue their self-deception on this point, which is the chief requirement of her religion.
Whatever there is of value to the world in Mrs. Eddy's system, lies in the practicality of its healing methods, and the foregoing chapters have shown that Mrs. Eddy realises this, ​for she has not only constantly stimulated the healing department of her church, but, year by year, she has restrained and modified its practice, until to-day Christian Science is scarcely more radical in its methods than are the regular schools of her best hated enemy, materia medica. Physicians have been forced to take into account, more and more, in their dealings with the sick, the condition of the patient's mind, and to use it as a co-operative force with their medical treatment; and in America this is largely owing to the stir made by Mrs. Eddy's healers in the sick world. In Europe this result has been obtained, not through mystery and revelation and quackery, but in the course of regular scientific study and experiment, and in the schools of the foremost European neurologists, psychical treatment for certain disorders has been for many years a recognised and established method.
There is now in America a benevolent attempt on the part of certain churches to introduce a kind of reformed Christian Science, and to establish "clinics" where sick cases may be diagnosed by regular school physicians, while the pastors in charge of the clinics administer the psychical treatment in an effort to aid in the cure. They aim, at these clinics, to conduct the treatment on as scientific a basis as is possible, and their failures as well as their successful cures are honestly recorded. These church movements are an indirect outcome of Mrs. Eddy's activities. Her own congregations are built up at the expense of those of the orthodox churches, and it is largely as a means of self-preservation, as well as owing to a laudable desire to increase the benefits of mental healing, that these churches are taking up the practical side of Christian Science, and are ​trying to make it "regular" and to conform to what is known of psychological causes and effects.
These various efforts to investigate the source and workings of an elusive healing principle are not without their value, even if the actual practice is more often based upon enthusiasm than upon any exact knowledge. They serve to emphasise both the benefits of psychical treatment and the harm which may rise from its ignorant or exclusive application in radical cases. But, from the nature of the subject, it is certain that the permanent value of suggestive therapeutics will ultimately be determined, not by the inexperienced or the overzealous in any walk of life, but through the slow and patient experiments of medical science; and this, too, will be the final test of the value of Mrs. Eddy's life-work.
* ↑ In a notice to the churches, 1897, Mrs. Eddy says: "The Bible and the Christian Science text-book are our only preachers. We shall now read scriptural texts and their co-relative passages from our text-book—these comprise our sermon. The canonical writings, together with the word of our text-book, corroborating and explaining the Bible texts in their denominational, spiritual import and application to all ages, past, present, and future, constitute a sermon undivorced from truth, uncontaminated or fettered by human hypotheses and authorised by Christ."
* ↑ For the text of these by-laws see Christian Science Manual (1904), Articles IV and XXIII.
* ↑ Mrs. Eddy stated in regard to this ruling that it was to have immediate effect only in the Mother Church, adding: "Doubtless the churches adopting this by-law will discriminate its adaptability to their conditions. But if now is not the time the branch churches can wait for the favoured moment to act on this subject."
* ↑ Church Manual (11th ed.), Article XXXII.
* ↑ Church Manual (43d ed.), Article I, Sec. 5.
* ↑ Ibid. (43d ed.), Article I, Sec. 2.
* ↑ Ibid. (43d ed.), Article I, Sec. 4. Ibid. (11th ed.), Article XXIII, Sec. 2.
* ↑ Ibid. (43d ed.), Article I, Sec. 3.
* ↑ Formerly the Executive Members were permitted to fix the salaries of the Readers, but in the last edition of the Manual this privilege has been withdrawn.
* ↑ Church Manual (43d ed.), Article VI.
* ↑ Ibid. (1904), Article XXVIII.
* ↑ Ibid. (1904), Article XXVIII.
* ↑ Ibid. (1904), Article XXVIII.
* ↑ Church Manual (1904), Article XXVIII.
* ↑ Ibid. (1904). Article XXVIII.
* ↑ Ibid. (1904), Article XXVIII.
* ↑ Ibid. (11th ed.), Article XXIII.
* ↑ Ibid. (43d ed.), Article IV.
* ↑ Ibid. (43d ed.), Article XXXIV.
* ↑ Ibid. (43d ed.), Article XXXIV.
* ↑ Ibid. (43d ed.), Article XXXIV.
* ↑ When the Boston church was holding its services in Chickering Hall, Mrs. Eddy baptised a class of children. No water was used in the ceremony. This was the only baptismal service ever held in a Christian Science church.
* ↑ Church Manual (11th ed.), Article XV.
* ↑ Ibid. (43d ed.), Article XXVI.
* ↑ Church Manual (43d ed.). Article XXII. Sec. 4.
* ↑ Christian Science History, by Mary B. G. Eddy (1st ed.), p. 16.
* ↑ In June, 1907, there were 3,515 authorised Christian Science "healers" in the world, 3,268, of whom are practising in the United States, 1 in Alaska, 63 in the Dominion of Canada, 5 in Mexico, 1 in Cuba, 1 in South Africa, 18 in Australia, 1 in China, 105 in England, 5 in Ireland, 9 in Scotland, 7 in France, 15 in Germany, 4 in Holland, 1 in India, 1 in Italy, 1 in the Philippine Islands, 1 in Russia, 1 in South America, 7 in Switzerland.
* ↑ The reader who is interested in Quimby's teaching and healing is referred to The True History of Mental Science, by Julius A. Dresser, published by George H. Ellis, 272 Congress Street, Boston. Dr Warren F. Evans, in his book, Mental Medicine, published three years before the first edition of Science and Health, said: Disease being in its root a wrong belief, change that belief and we cure the disease. By faith we are thus made whole. There is a law here which the world will sometime understand and use in the cure of the diseases that afflict mankind. The late Dr. Quimby, of Portland, one of the most successful healers of this or any age, embraced this view of the nature of disease, and by a long succession of the most remarkable cures, effected by psychopathic remedies, at the same time proved the truth of the theory and the efficiency of that mode of treatment. Had he lived in a remote age or country, the wonderful facts which occurred in his practice would now have been deemed either mythical or miraculous. He seemed to reproduce the wonders of Gospel history. But all this was only an exhibition of the force of suggestion, or the action of the law of faith, over a patient in the impressible condition."