the actual sum of that achievement ? This, I think : that
it has restored to life a subject who had essentially died ten
deaths a year for thirty years, and each of them a long and
painful one. But for its interference that man would have
essentially died thirty times more, in the three years which
have since elapsed. There are thousands of young people
in the land who are now ready to enter upon a life-long
death similar to that man s. Every time the Science
captures one of these and secures to him life-long immunity
from : imagination-manufactured disease, it may plausibly
claim that in his person it has saved 300 lives. Meantime
it will kill a man every now and then ; but no matter, it
will still be ahead on the credit side.
VIII
* We consciously declare that " Science and Health with
Key to the Scriptures," was foretold as well as its author,
Mary Baker Eddy, in Revelation x. She is the " mighty
ungel," or God s highest thought to this age (verse i),
giving us the spiritual interpretation of the Bible in the
AND THE BOOK OF MRS, EDDY 133
" little book open " (verse 2). Thus we prove that
Christian Science is the second coming of Christ Truth
Spirit. Lecture by Dr. George Tomkins, D.D.^ C.S.
There you have it in plain speech. She is the mighty
angel ; she is the divinely and officially sent bearer of God s
highest thought. For the present, she brings the Second
Advent. We must expect that before she has been in her
grave fifty years she will be regarded by her following as
having been herself the Second Advent. She is already
worshipped, and we must expect this feeling to spread terri
torially, and also to deepen in intensity. 1
Particularly after her death ; for then, as anyone can
foresee, Eddy-worship will be taught in the Sunday-schools
and pulpits of the cult. Already whatever she puts her trade
mark on, though it be only a memorial spoon, is holy and
is eagerly and passionately and gratefully bought by the
disciple, and becomes a fetish in his house. I say bought,
for the Boston Christian-Science Trust gives nothing away ;
everything it has is for sale. And the terms are casli ; and
not cash only but cash in advance. Its god is Mrs. Eddy
first, then the Dollar. Not a spiritual Dollar, but a real
one. From end to end of the Christian-Science literature
not a single (material) thing in the world is conceded to be
real, except the Dollar. But all through and through its
advertisements that reality is eagerly and persistently recog
nised. The hunger of the Trust for the Dollar, its adora-
o f
1 After raising a dead child to life, the disciple who did it writes an
account of her performance to Mrs. Eddy, and closes it thus : My prayer
daily is to be more spiritual, that I may do more as you would have
me do. ... and may we all love you more and so live it that the world
may know that the Christ is conn;. Printed in ill,: Coaccrd, A".//.,
Independent Statesman, March 9, 1899. If this is no worship, it is a
good imitation of it.
134 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
tion of the Dollar, its lust after the Dollar, its ecstasy in the
mere thought of the Dollar there has been nothing like it
in the world in any age or country, nothing so coarse,
nothing so lubricous, nothing so bestial, except a French
novel s attitude towards adultery.
The Dollar is hunted down in all sorts of ways; the
Christian-Science Mother-Church and Bargain-Counter in
Boston peddles all kinds of spiritual wares to the faithful,
always at extravagant prices, and always on the one
condition cash, cash in advance. The Angel of the
Apocalypse could not go there and get a copy of his own
pirated book on credit. Many, many precious Christian-
Science things are to be had there for cash : Bible Lessons ;
Church Manual ; C. S. Hymnal ; History of the building
of the Mother-Church ; lot of Sermons ; Communion
Hymn, * Saw Ye My Saviour, by Mrs. Eddy, half a
dollar a copy, * words used by special permission of Mrs. Eddy?
Also we have Mrs. Eddy s and the Angel s little Bible-
Annex in eight styles of binding at eight kinds of war-
prices : among these a sweet thing in levant, divinity circuit,
leather lined to edge, round corners, gold edge, silk sewed,
each, prepaid, $6, and if you take a million you get them a
shilling cheaper that is to say, prepaid, 5.75. Also we
have Mrs. Eddy s Miscellaneous Writings, at noble big
prices, the divinity-circuit style heading the extortions,
shilling discount where you take an edition. Next comes
* Christ and Christmas, by the fertile Mrs. Eddy a poem
I would God I could see it price $3, cash in advance.
Then follow five more books by Mrs. Eddy at highway
men s rates, as usual, some of them in leatherette covers,
some of them in pebbled cloth, with divinity circuit, com
pensation balance, twin screw, and the other modern
improvements : and at the same bargain counter can be had
AND THE BOOK OF MRS. EDDY 135
the * Christian Science Journal. I wish it were in refined
taste to apply a rudely and ruggedly descriptive epithet to
that literary slush-bucket, so as to give one an accurate idea
of what it is like. I am moved to do it, but I must not : it
is better to be refined than accurate when one is talking
about a production like that.
Christian- Science literary oleomargarine is a monopoly of
the Mother Church Headquarters Factory in Boston ; none
genuine without the trade-mark of the Trust. You must
apply there, and not elsewhere ; and you pay your money
before you get your soap-fat.
The Trust has still other sources of income. Mrs.
Eddy is president (and perhaps proprietor ?) of the Trust s
Metaphysical College in Boston, where the student who has
practised C.S. healing during three years the best he knew
how perfects himself in the game by a two weeks course,
and pays one hundred dollars for it ! And I have a case
among my statistics where the student had a three weeks
course and paid three hundred for it.
The Trust does love the Dollar when it isn t a spiritual
one.
In order to force the sale of Mrs. Eddy s Bible- Annex,
no healer, Metaphysical College-bred or other, is allowed to
practise the game unless he possess a copy of that holy
nightmare. That means a large and constantly augment
ing income for the Trust. No C.S. family would consider
itself loyal or pious or pain-proof without an Annex or two
in the house. That means an income for the Trust in
the near future of millions : not thousands millions a
year.
No member, young or old, of a Christian-Scientist
church can retain that membership unless he pay capita
tion tax to the Boston Trust every year. That means
136 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
an income for the Trust in the near future of millions
more per year.
It is a reasonably safe guess that in America in 1910
there will be 10,000,000 Christian Scientists, and 3,000,000
in Great Britain ; that these figures will be trebled by
1920 ; that in America in 1910 the Christian Scientists
will be a political force, in 1920 politically formidable, and
in 1930 the governing power in the Republic to remain
that, permanently. And I think it a reasonable guess that
the Trust (which is already in our day pretty brusque in
its ways) will then be the most insolent and unscrupulous
and tyrannical politico-religious master that has dominated
a people since the palmy days of the Inquisition. And
a stronger master than the strongest of bygone times,
because this one will have a financial strength not dreamed
of by any predecessor ; as effective a concentration of irre
sponsible power as any predecessor has had ; in the railway,
the telegraph, and the subsidised newspaper, better facilities
for watching and managing his empire than any predecessor
has had ; and after a generation or two he will probably
divide Christendom with the Catholic Church.
The Roman Church has a perfect organisation, and it
has an effective centralisation of power but not of its
cash. Its multitude of Bishops are rich, but their riches
remain in large measure in their own hands. They collect
from 200,000,000 of people, but they keep the bulk of the
result at home. The Boston Pope of by-and-by will draw
his dollar-a-head capitation-tax from 300,000,000 of the
human race, and the Annex and the rest of his book-shop
stock will fetch in double as much more ; and his Meta
physical Colleges, the annual pilgrimage to Mrs. Eddy s
tomb, from all over the world admission, the Christian-
Science Dollar (payable in advance) purchases of con-
AND THE BOOK OF MRS. EDDY 137
secrated glass beads, candles, memorial spoons, aureoled
chromo-portraits and bogus autographs of Mrs. Eddy, cash
offerings at her shrine no crutches of cured cripples re
ceived, and no imitations of miraculously restored broken
legs and necks allowed to be hung up except when made
out of the Holy Metal and proved by fire-assay ; cash
for miracles worked at the tomb : these money-sources,
with a thousand to be yet invented and ambushed upon the
devotee, will bring the annual increment well up above
a billion. And nobody but the Trust will have the
handling of it. No Bishops appointed unless they agree to
hand in 90 per cent, of the catch. In that day the Trust
will monopolise the manufacture and sale of the Old and
New Testaments as well as the Annex, and raise their
price to Annex rates, and compel the devotee to buy (for
even to-day a healer has to have the Annex and the
Scriptures or he is not allowed to work the game), and
that will bring several hundred million dollars more. In
those days the Trust will have an income approaching
$5,000,000 a day, and no expenses to be taken out of it ;
no taxes to pay, and no charities to support. That last
detail should not be lightly passed over by the reader ; it is
well entitled to attention.
No charities to support. No, nor even to contribute
to. One searches in vain the Trust s advertisements and
the utterances of its pulpit for any suggestion that it spends
a penny on orphans, widows, discharged prisoners, hospitals,
ragged schools, night missions, city missions, foreign mis
sions, libraries, old people s homes, or any other object that
appeals to a human being s purse through his heart. 1
I have hunted, hunted, and hunted, by correspondence
1 In the past two years the membership of the Established Church of
England have given voluntary contributions amounting to $73,000,000 to
138 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
and otherwise, and have not yet got upon the track of a
farthing that the Trust has spent upon any worthy object.
Nothing makes a Scientist so uncomfortable as to ask him
if he knows of a case where Christian Science has spent
money on a benevolence, either among its own adherents
or elsewhere. He is obliged to say no. And then one
discovers that the person questioned has been asked the
question many times before, and that it is getting to be a
sore subject with him. Why a sore subject ? Because he
has written his chiefs and asked with high confidence for
an answer that will confound these questioners and the
chiefs did not reply. He has written again and then
again not with confidence, but humbly, now, and has
begged for defensive ammunition in the voice of supplication.
A reply does at last come to this effect : We must have
faith in Our Mother, and rest content in the conviction
that whatever She l does with the money it is in accordance
with orders from Heaven, for She does no act of any kind
without first " demonstrating over " it.
That settles it as far as the disciple is concerned. His
Mind is entirely satisfied with that answer ; he gets down
his Annex and does an incantation or two, and that
mesmerises his spirit and puts that to sleep brings it peace.
Peace and comfort and joy, until some inquirer punctures
the old sore again.
Through friends in America I asked some questions,
and in some cases got definite and informing answers ; in
other cases the answers were not definite and not valuable.
From the definite answers I gather that the capitation-
the Church s benevolent enterprises. Churches that give have nothing to
hide.
1 I may be introducing the capital S a little early still it is on its
way.
AND THE BOOK OF MRS. EDDY 139
tax is compulsory, and that the sum is one dollar. To
the question, Does any of the money go to charities ? the
answer from an authoritative source was : No, not in
the sense usually conveyed by this word. (The italics are
mine.) That answer is cautious. But definite, I think
utterly and unassailably definite although quite Chris-
tian-scientifically foggy in its phrasing. Christian Science
is generally foggy, generally diffuse, generally garrulous.
The writer was aware that the first word in his phrase
answered the question which I was asking, but he could
not help adding nine dark words. Meaningless ones, unless
explained by him. It is quite likely as intimated by him
that Christian Science has invented a new class of objects
to apply the word charity to, but without an explanation
we cannot know what they are. We quite easily and
naturally and confidently guess that they are in all cases
objects which will return five hundred per cent, on the
Trust s investment in them, but guessing is not knowledge ;
it is merely, in this case, a sort of nine-tenths certainty
deducible from what we think we know of the Trust s
trade principles and its sly and furtive and shifty ways.
Sly ? Deep ? Judicious ? The Trust understands
business. The Trust does not give itself away. It defeats
all the attempts of us impertinents to get at its trade secrets.
To this day, after all our diligence, we have not been able
to get it to confess what it does with the money. It does
not even let its own disciples find out. All it says is, that
the matter has been demonstrated over. Now and then
a lay Scientist says, with a grateful exultation, that Mrs-
Eddy is enormously rich, but he stops there ; as to whether
any of the money goes to other charities or not, he is
obliged to admit that he does not know. However, the
Trust is composed of human beings ; and this justifies the
140 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
conjecture that if it had a charity on its list which it did
not need to blush for, we should soon hear of it.
( Without money and without price. Those used to be
the terms. Mrs. Eddy s Annex cancels them. The motto
of Christian Science is The labourer is worthy of his hire.
And now that it has been demonstrated over, we find its
spiritual meaning to be, Do anything and everything your
hand may find to do ; and charge cash for it, and collect
the money in advance. The Scientist has on his tongue s
end a cut-and-dried, Boston-supplied set of rather lean
arguments whose function is to show that it is a Heaven-
commanded duty to do this, and that the croupiers of the
game have no choice but to obey.
The Trust seems to be a reincarnation. Exodus
xxxii. 4.
I have no reverence for Mrs. Eddy and the rest of the
Trust if there is a rest but I am not lacking in reverence
for the sincerities of the lay membership of the new Church.
There is every evidence that the lay members are entirely
sincere in their faith, and I think sincerity is always
entitled to honour and respect, let the inspiration of the
sincerity be what it may. Zeal and sincerity can carry a
new religion further than any other missionary except fire and
sword, and I believe that the new religion will conquer the
half of Christendom in a hundred years. I am not intend
ing this as a compliment to the human race, I am merely
stating an opinion. And yet I think that perhaps it is a
compliment to the race. I keep in mind that saying of an
orthodox preacher quoted further back. He conceded
that this new Christianity frees its possessor s life from frets,
fears, vexations, bitterness, and all sorts of imagination-pro
pagated maladies and pains, and fills his world with sunshine
and his heart with gladness. If Christian Science, with this
AND THE BOOK OF MRS. EDDY 141
stupendous equipment and final salvation added cannot
win half the Christian globe, I must be badly mistaken in
the make-up of the human race.
I think the Trust will be handed down like the other
papacy, and will always know how to handle its limitless
cash. It will press the button ; the zeal, the energy, the
sincerity, the enthusiasm of its countless vassals will do the
rest.
IX
The power which a man s imagination has over his
body to heal it or make it sick is a force which none of us
is born without. The first man had it, the last one will
possess it. If left to himself a man is most likely to use
only the mischievous half of the force the half which
invents imaginary ailments for him and cultivates them :
and if he is one of these very wise people he is quite likely
to scoff at the beneficent half of the force and deny its
existence. And so, to heal or help that man, two imagina
tions are required : his own and some outsider s. The out
sider, B, must imagine that his incantations are the healing
power that is curing A, and A must imagine that this is so.
It is not so, at all ; but no matter, the cure is effected, and
that is the main thing. The outsider s work is unquestion
ably valuable ; so valuable that it may fairly be likened to
the essential work performed by the engineer when he
handles the throttle and turns on the steam : the actual
power is lodged exclusively in the engine, but if the engine
were left alone it would never start of itself. Whether the
engineer be named Jim, or Bob, or Tom, it is all one his
services are necessary, and he is entitled to such wage as he
can get you to pay. Whether he be named Christian
i 4 2 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Scientist, or Mental Scientist, or Mind Curist, or Lourdes
Miracle- Worker, or King s-Evil Expert, it is all one, he
is merely the Engineer, he simply turns on the same old
steam and the engine does the whole work.
O
In the case of the cure-engine it is a distinct advantage
to clothe the engineer in religious overalls and give him a
pious name. It greatly enlarges the business, and does no
one any harm.
The Christian-Scientist engineer drives exactly the
same trade as the other engineers, yet he out-prospers the
whole of them put together. Is it because he has captured
the takingest name ? I think that that is only a small part
of it. I think that the secret of his high prosperity lies
elsewhere :
The Christian Scientist has organised the business. Now
that was certainly a gigantic idea. There is more intellect
in it than would be needed in the invention of a couple of
millions of Eddy Science-and-Health Bible Annexes.
Electricity, in limitless volume, has existed in the air and
the rocks and the earth and everywhere since time began
and was going to waste all the while. In our time we
have organised that scattered and wandering force and set it
to work, and backed the business with capital, and concen
trated it in few and competent hands, and the results are as
we see.
The Christian Scientist has taken a force which has been
lying idle in every member of the human race since time
began, and has organised it, and backed the business with
capital, and concentrated it at Boston headquarters in the
hands of a small and very competent Trust, and there are
results.
Therein lies the promise that this monopoly is going to
extend its commerce wide in the earth. I think that if the
AND THE BOOK OF MRS. EDDY 143
business were conducted in the loose and disconnected
fashion customary with such things, it would achieve but
little more than the modest prosperity usually secured by
unorganised great moral and commercial ventures ; but I
believe that so long as this one remains compactly organised
and closely concentrated in a Trust, the spread of its
dominion will continue.
VIENNA : May i, 1899.
144 IS HE LIVING OR IS HE DEAD?
IS HE LIVING OR IS HE DEAD?
I WAS spending the month of March 1892 at Mentone, in
the Riviera. At this retired spot one has all the advantages,
privately, which are to be had publicly at Monte Carlo and
Nice, a few miles farther along. That is to say, one has
the flooding sunshine, the balmy air and the brilliant blue
sea, without the marring additions of human pow-wow and
fuss and feathers and display. Mentone is quiet, simple,
restful, unpretentious ; the rich and the gaudy do not come
there. As a rule, I mean, the rich do not come there.
Now and then a rich man comes, and I presently got
acquainted with one of these. Partially to disguise him I
will call him Smith. One day, in the Hotel des Anglais, at
the second breakfast, he exclaimed :
Quick ! Cast your eye on the man going out at the
door. Take in every detail of him.
Why ?
Do you know who he is ?
1 Yes. He spent several days here before you came.
He is an old, retired, and very rich silk manufacturer from
Lyons, they say, and I guess he is alone in the world, for
he always looks sad and dreamy, and doesn t talk with any
body. His name is Theophile Magnan.
I supposed that Smith would now proceed to justify the
large interest which he had shown in Monsieur Magnan,
IS HE LIVING OR IS HE DEAD: 145
hut, instead, he dropped into a brown study, and was
apparently lost to me and to the rest of the world during
some minutes. Now and then he passed his fingers through
his flossy white hair, to assist his thinking, and meantime he
allowed his breakfast to go on cooling. At last he said :
No, it s gone ; I can t call it back/
Can t call what back ?
It s one of Hans Andersen s beautiful little stories.
But it s gone from me. Part of it is like this . A child has
a caged bird, which it loves but thoughtlessly neglects.
The bird pours out its song unheard and unheeded ; but, in
time, hunger and thirst assail the creature, and its song
grows plaintive and feeble and finally ceases the bird dies.
The child comes, and is smitten to the heart with remorse :
then, with bitter tears and lamentations, it calls its mates,
and they bury the bird with elaborate pomp and the tenderest
grief, without knowing, poor things, that it isn t children
only who starve poets to death and then spend enough on
their funerals and monuments to have kept them alive and
made them easy and comfortable. Now
But here we were interrupted. About ten that evening
I ran across Smith, and he asked me up to his parlour to
help him smoke and drink hot Scotch. It was a cosy place,
with its comfortable chairs, its cheerful lamps, and its
friendly open fire of seasoned olive-wood. To make every
thing perfect, there was a muffled booming of the surf
outside. After the second Scotch and much lazy and
contented chat, Smith said :
Now we are properly primed I to tell a curious
history and you to listen to it. It has been a secret for
many years a secret between me and three others ; but
I am going to break the seal now. Are you comfortable ?
Perfectly. Go on.
L
146 IS HE LIVING OR IS HE DEAD?
Here follows what he told me :
( A long time ago I was a young artist a very young
artist, in fact and I wandered about the country parts of
France, sketching here and sketching there, and was
presently joined by a couple of darling young Frenchmen
who were at the same kind of thing that I was doing. We
were as happy as we were poor, or as poor as we were happy
phrase it to suit yourself. Claude Frere and Carl
Boulanger these are the names of those boys ; dear, dear
fellows, and the sunniest spirits that ever laughed at poverty
and had a noble good time in all weathers.
At last we ran hard aground in a Breton village, and
an artist as poor as ourselves took us in and literally saved
us from starving Francois Millet
What ! the great Franois Millet ?
Great ? He wasn t any greater than we were, then.
He hadn t any fame, even in his own village ; and he was
so poor that he hadn t anything to feed us on but turnips,
and even the turnips failed us sometimes. We four became
fast friends, doting friends, inseparables. We painted away
together with all our might, piling up stock, piling up
stock, but very seldom getting rid of any of it. We had
lovely times together j but, O my soul ! how we were
pinched now and then !
For a little over two years this went on. At last, one
day, Claude said :
1 " Boys, we ve come to the end. Do you understand
that ? absolutely to the end. Everybody has struck
there s a league formed against us. I ve been all around the
village and it s just as I tell you. They refuse to credit us
for another centime until all the odds and ends are paid up."
This struck us cold. Every face was blank with
dismay. We realised that our circumstances were desperate,