The Indianapolis journal., 1903-04-27

To the Editor of the Indianapolis Journal:
In recent issue your paper reproduces
from an Eastern magazine. by which he has
been employed to write several articles
against Christian Science, some utterances
of Mark Twain, which are so flagrantly
unveracious and absurdly inconsequential
that they deserve correction.
His assertion that Mrs. Eddy, the Chris
t'an Science leader, has claimed that she is
of ''divine origin is wholly unjustifled.
except as we are the spiritual children of
God, by anything she has ever said or writ
ten. His assertion that she claims that
she is gifted with supernatural powers"
and that her followers worship her as a di-
vine one, is so Numerically opposed to the
very rudiments of Christian Science that
they expose his inexcusable ignorance of his
subject and can only serve to illustrate how
a gifted writer can suffer himself TO become
so obfuscated by his zeal as debater as
to mistake downright falsehood for facts.
Scientists feel towards Mrs. Eddy as
strong, great, uplifting and pure from
doubt. envy, exaction, fault seeking" He
wholly overlooks the natural inference from
this that such sentiments could not be In
spired except by conduct and character
unusually great and lovabe. He overlooks
the fact that Christian Scientists have the
right to cherish such sentiments for the
reason that they. and those dear TO them,
have been snatched from the edge of the
grave and have been uplifted into regions
priceless ministry of Mrs Eddy's teachings.
And when he proceeds to aff1rm that IL is
not as a human being. but .as super
followers worship Mrs. Eddy Mark
Twain simply excites himself into rhetorical
Mysteries and imputes to us what We re-
pudiate as foolish and blasphemous. And
when he gets into beginning epithets call
ing Mrs. Eddy a "self-seeking enslaver,
pope" ETC., ad nauseam, he permits his
pen to forget its manners, and fails to re-
member that vituperation can injure no one
except the person who stoops to use II.
Mark Twain's wit and humor have often
delighted me, as they have delighted mil
lions. But he made mistake when he per-
mitted the foes of Christian Science to en-
ploy his talents for field for which he has
proven himself to be wholly untitled. A
humorist may be expected to draw on his
imagination for many of his facts and TO
exaggerate and dstort the subjects of
his sportiveness in order to excite laugh
ter. He holds up before us convex mirrors
in which we see things so grotesquely dis
torted out of their true shapes and proper
tions that we are amused by the ridiculous
presentments. But when a humorist at
tempts to masquerade as a serious logician
and holds up his convex mirrors before us,
pretending that they are truth-telling ones.
he ceases to be humorous and becomes
When Mark Twain gets himself into such
state OF rhetorical effervescence that he
seriously tries 10 1rlgnten MS readers. and
really seems to frighten himself with his
talk about thrones 'popes," ETC., he is
like the foolish little boy who hollows out
a pumpkin, cuts holes in ii for the big
eyes of ogre, puts a lighted candle in
side OF 1t when night comes. and then is
the first one to become frightened at the
faring-eyed, yellow-faced monster he has
himself created Perhaps his fears have
| been inflamed too much by the terrifying
| lines Of our Hoosier poet Riley:
THE gobble-uns'll git you
Ef-you-don't-watch-
Anent beloved Riley, he has some
other lines which are very appropriate
when we consider the position in which
| poor Mark has put himself by his ineffec-
| tual efforts to restrain the morning ra-
| dance of thought which is encircling
| the earth. Notwithstanding Mark has prom
| ised to his readers that he has written his
last words respecting Christian Science. /
| hope 1t is not ungeperous to apply to his
predicament the following from Riley:
IT'S curious like said the tree toad.
I've twittered for rain all day;
And | got up soon,
And hollered tel noon,
But the sun, hit blazed away
Tel / jest clum down in a crawfsh hole
| Weary at hart, and sick at soulr"
| CLARENCE A BUSKIRK.
| Indianapolis, April Is.