The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-25
This Woman Ha. Pounded Religion.


 This Woman Has Founded a Religion.
 Christian Science. the only religious cult ever founded by a woman. has spread with more amazing rapidity than any other faith has spread in all the religious history of the race.
 When It's founder, poor New Hamp- shore farmers daughter, born Baker. christened Mary. and through marriage, bearing excessively the surnames Of Glover. Patterson and Eddy, was sew enty-four, and the edifice used by the mother church In Boston was dedicated, the Church of Christ tScientisD was scarcely known outside of New Eng land. Yet today there are almost thousand churches and societies using the Christian Science form of worship, and their membership is said to be nearly a million, scattered through seyenty-five of the worlds countries, though naturally the great majority live in America
 Mrs. Eddy was by no means a pioneer in mental healing. Indeed. her oppo- nents declare, she herself was treated in the middle sixties, at Portland, down in Maine. by one Dr, Quimby. profess sor of spiritual Science" In much the  since treated others. However that may be. it was Mrs. Eddy and no one else who gave the system body and permanence. 'The light of science" she says, came to her in 1866, just one year less than four decades ago. Ten years later. in 1876, she organized the first Christian Science Association In Lynn, Mass. She founded the first regular Church of Christ (scientist) In 1879.
 Meanwhile, ever since the death of pr. Ouimby. she had been healing" first In an obscure way, later In Lynn, where she called her system the "Sci- ence of Divine Metaphysical Healing, and still later in Boston, where, Tn 1881. at sixty, she established the Massnchu- setts Metaphysical College, from which, in its eight years of life. about 1000 healers were graduated. As her nominal fee was $500, some newspapers have figured that her gross receipts must have been $1.200.000 to say noth- ing of the sale of her books. Just how much she has profited, financially. from the institution and the various "Science" publications no one knows, but she is surely very rich woman. In Concord, N. H.. where she has lived in retirement since 1889. the newspa- pers rate her wealth at more than Si.- 000.0
 During all her career as T personal healer Mrs Eddys church grew slowly, but after she had given the costly plot of ground for the mother church and her followers had spent their money freely in putting up the edifice, the growth of Christian Science seemed as miraculous as her followers consider her headings; It's spread. indeed. sug- gests nothing so much as the flashing of fire through a mass of tow sprinkled with gunpowder, to which spark has been touched
 Concerning the future of Christian Science, who can speak with certainty Will it continue to increase. or will 1t dwindle under the guidance of the man as yet unidentified, who, she is reported to have said. will be the leader af- ter her? The pulpit has uttered It's thunders against her, the law has been invoked to stop her disciples from 'healIng," the medical profession has fought her, the newspapers have as- suned to expose her private fife and show her to be unworthy of confidence, many writers. including Mark Twain. have ridiculed her, but nothing has availed to check the steady progress of , her Science"
 Perhaps her death-and she is now eighty-four, according to an apparently authorized statement--may bring a space of peril to the cult. The trans- mission of supreme power within the