The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1899-11-08
FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SOLE CE
Mrs Eddy Declared to Be an Imposter
ana Most Prosperous Humbug.

and Most Prosperous Humbug.
Worcester, Mass, Beacon.
When some weeks since, we com
menced our Investigation NJ tho liz
reputation and character of the an
called discoverer and founder of Chris
tlan science, we had 20 idea VIC shoull
~lnu up In bog and quagmire. w,
mad assumed Mrs. Eddy to be a perso,
Ui some culture, OF pure and spiritua
iiie aspirations, sincere In her belief
anu nothing worse than fanatic. ",
not proce eded far before we became
doubtful OF the accuracy of our pre
conceived opinion. TO be sure, We
@ nau no iacts upon which to base an in
seillgent opinion, and were disposed tc
oe' so lar as her claims did not exceed
tne limits OF credibility. We believed
hef, In brief, to be woman of GOOD
character and rather exceptional
hypnotic power.
we close our investigation, which
nas been very thorough and entirely
Juulclal In character, not with doubt oi
tne accuracy OF our earlier views. but
win confidence that we entirely mis-.
Judged the woman known IA MARY
Baker G. Eddy, and that she, while
aehnltely claiming to be the eoual in
nature and in power of Jesus Christ is
IN almost everything his precise op-
| Poslte, Is lrsincere, dishonest, full of
| aecelt and 'alSehood, unclean of heart,
IMPURE Oh lie, Venomous to the last de-
gree aesPotlc 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 otner purpose ia looking
into the character and antecedents of
MRS. Eddy than the discovery of the
truth, and 1t would have afforded us
genuine pleasure to have been able To
say, as the result OF our inquiries, that
she Is the sanity, immaculate even
divine person her followers believe.
IL ls with regret, but with entire con-
ndence, that we affirm her to be none
of these things.
we allege nothing that is not sus.
ceptl6le of legal proof when we say
mat years ago Mrs. Eddy was q spiri-
IuallsG' taxing prominent past in the
spread OF spiritualistic views (she
denies this now, but her denial il an
untruth); that she received the ideas,
upon which her so.called Christian
Science ls based, from man named
Qulmby, to whom she has very def.
n1tely and upequivocably time and again
credited them over her own signature,
and whom she extolled as one of the
greatest men the world had ever pro.
duced (she now repudiates her former
repeated d 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
- a i,< h. IL 2
-ers, having been written largely
With scissors and been thoroughly
revised, punctuated, rendered gram.
matical and consistent with itself as
much so, at least, as her stubborn igno-
rance would permit by 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
health and possessed o! the use of
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 ieligio-commercial enterprise con-
Piles, and has made her very rich wo-
man I; 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
large number OF men and women
through the use of the fortune thus
fraudulently accumulated, through
their belief In her supposed power to
punish bor enemies by means OF men,
tai Influences eXerteu - collusion with
others, she terrifes into silence those
who could of their own knowledge die
close her absolute depravity of char
acter and the fraudulent nature Of her
claims.
To such an extent does this fear 90
that many believe Mrs. Eddy to have
punished her enemies by causing their
death, or the death 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 four death she
believed to have been caused by Mrs.
Eddy's mental power exerted upon
people she believed to be hostile to
her, or upon some one dear to them,
whose death would inhict pain. We
are astounded, simply astounded at
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 IL she possesses the power to make
alive, 1t logically follows, as these peo-
pie believe, she possesses the power to
destroy life. We have never in the
course Of our experience encountered
hatefulness 80 intense as that of this
false feminine messiah, who, proclaim
ing love OF her enemies and having
founded 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 to
us only as business enterprise. The
fraud pays 1t pays most substantially.
People are most easily gulled by APP
pealing to high sentiments, by the
vague use OF meaningless terms. II
we have varied in opinion regarding
Mrs. Eddy since the commencement OF
| our investigatiOn,-fee at one time
that she must be insane and irrespon-
sible, and at another that she is only
| insane as abnormal depravity coupled
| with unusual shrewdnsss is insanity
we have finally arrived at the fixed
conviction that not insanity, but wick
edness alone explains her. Greed
true love OF money, the love OF power,
vanity and utter lack OF scruple in the
accomplishment OF her ends, these