The people's journal. (Pickens, S.C.) 1891-1903, 1899-11-16
FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN sCIE\CE
Mrs. Eddy Declared to Be an Imposter
and n Most Prosperous HumDug.

ana n MOST prosperous Humbug.
Worcester, Mass, Beacon.
When some weeks since, we COM
mcnced our Investigation OF tho life,
reputation and character of the So
called discOverer and founder of Chris
tian Science, we had no idea we should
wind up In bog and quagmire. We
had assumed Mrs. Eddy to be o person
OF some culture, Of pure and spiritual
life aspirations, sincere In her belief,
and nothing worse than fanatic. We
not proce eded far before we became
doubtful Of the accuracy Of our pro-
conceived opinion. TO be sure, we
had no facts upon which to base an in
telligent opinion, and were disposed to
be, 80 far as her claims did not exceed
the limits of credibility. We believed
her, in brief, to be womaa OF good
character and rather exception al
hypnotic power.
We close our investigation, which
has been very thorough and entirely
judicial in character, not with doubt Of
the accuracy OF our earlier views, but
with confidence that we entirely mis-
judged the woman known rs Mary
Baker G. Eddy, and that she, while
definitely claiming to be the equal in
in almost everything his precise op-
posite, is insincere, dishonest, full OF
deceit and falsehOod, unclean Of heart,
impure Of life, venomous to the last de-
gree, despotic and arbitrary almost be-
yOnd belief,-an exceptionally clever
charlatan, who has built an immense
fortune upon the credulity OF hosts of
innocent dupes.
We had no other purpose in looking
into the character and antccedents OF
Mrs. Eddy than.the discovery of the
truth, and 1t would have aifC"7 : -
genuine pleasure to have been anIc 70
say, as the result OF our inquiries, bat
she is the sanity, immaculate, even
divine person her followers believe.
1t is with regret, but with entire con-
fdence, that we affirm her to be none
of these things.
We allege nothing that is not sus-
ceptible Of legal proof when we say
that years ago Mrs. Eddy WAS u spiri-
tualist, taking a prominent pa:t in the
spread of spiritualistic views (she
denies this now, but her denial is an
untruth); that she received the ideas,
upon which her so-called Christian
Science Is based, from a man named
Quimby, TO whom she has very def
nllciy dui upC9 ulFoCaoly IlLHC anu az Sln
credited them over her own signature,
greatest men the world had ever pro-
duced (she now repudiates her former
repeated statements and maligns the
man whom she formerly praised j:
that her claim to revelation Of absO-
lutte truth from God which she en-
bodied in her book Science and
Health Is wholly fraudulent, and
known to her to be so that the book
Ia o perfect mosaic Of the thoughts OF
others, having been written largely
with scissors and been thoroughly
revised, punctuated, rendered gram.
mstical and consistent with itself as
mucn so, at least, as her stubborn igno-
rance would per:ni; 5y literary skill,
purchased and paid for,-pages of i:
written by other hands and published
unaltered that for years she has been
addicted to the use Of morphine, tax
ing it regularly in substantial doses !;
that falsely, pretending to be in good
faculties in perfect condition, she is,
in fact, in the most feeble health, with
faculties greatly impaired that her
pretended religion is merely the basis
of religio-commercial enterprise con-
Quoted upon strictly business princi-
Piles, and has made her very rich wo-
man; that pretending to love her
enemies, she hates with unspeakable
hatred those, who, having yielded to
her influence, dare to throw it off and
disregard her wishes that holding
completely subservient TO her will o
large number Of men and women
through the use of the fortune thus
traudulently accumulated, through
their belief In her supposed powor to
punish her enemies by means of mon
tai Influences exerted in collusion with
others, she terrihes into silence those
who could Of their own knowledge dis
close her absolute depravity of char
acter and the fraudulent nature of her
claims.
TO such an extent does this fear 20
that many believe Mrs. Eddy to have
punished her enemies by causing their
death, or the de4th OF some member OF
their family. One Of her former be,
levers, at one time most intimately in
her confidence, has recently told us,
with bated breath, OF folr death she
believed to have been caused by Mrs
Eddy's mental power exerted upon
people she believed to be hostile tc
her, or upon some one dear to them
whose death would inflict pain. We
are astounded, simply astounded a,
the absolute terror with which some
people regard this supposed power
of Mrs. Eddy. She claims to be able
| to raise from the dead, and her fol
| lowers believe she has restored to life
and If she possesses the power to make
alive, it logically follows, as these pco
pie believe, she possesses the power t(
destroy life. We havo never in the
course Of our experience encountered
| hatefulness so intense as that Of this
false feminine messiah, who, proclaim
ing love Of her enemies and having
founded o religion upon the principle
of love, "treats" her enemies in The
frantic and hideous hope OF her making
them feel the pangs OF hell.
The whole thing is explainable t,
us only as q busincss enterprise. The
fraud pays 1t pays most substantially
People are most easily gulled by ap
pealing to high sentiments, by tn,
vague use OF meaningless terms.
we have varied in opinion regarding
Mrs. Eddy since the commencement .
our investigation, ,-feeling at one tim
that she must bo insane and irrespon
sible, and at another that she is Onl
insane as abnormal depravity coupled