of the times, and perceives that “the idea of Church unity is in the
air.”
Now, then, is not Mrs. Eddy profoundly wise in forbidding, for all time,
all explanations of her religion except such as she shall let on to be
her own?
I think so. I think there can be no doubt of it. In a way, they will be
her own; for, no matter which member of her clerical staff shall furnish
the explanations, not a line of them will she ever allow to be printed
until she shall have approved it, accepted it, copyrighted it, cabbaged
it. We may depend on that with a four-ace confidence.
THE NEW INFALLIBILITY
All in proper time Mrs. Eddy’s factory will take hold of that
Commandment, and explain it for good and all. It may be that one member
of the shift will vote that the word “all” means all; it may be that ten
members of the shift will vote that “all” means only a percentage; but it
is Mrs. Eddy, not the eleven, who will do the deciding. And if she says
it is percentage, then percentage it is, forevermore –and that is what I
am expecting, for she doesn’t sell all herself, nor any considerable part
of it, and as regards the poor, she doesn’t declare any dividend; but if
she says “all” means all, then all it is, to the end of time, and no
follower of hers will ever be allowed to reconstruct that text, or shrink
it, or inflate it, or meddle with it in any way at all. Even to-day–
right here in the beginning–she is the sole person who, in the matter of
Christian Science exegesis, is privileged to exploit the Spiral Twist.
The Christian world has two Infallibles now.
Of equal power? For the present only. When Leo XIII. passes to his
rest another Infallible will ascend his throne; others, and yet others,
and still others will follow him, and be as infallible as he, and decide
questions of doctrine as long as they may come up, all down the far
future; but Mary Baker G. Eddy is the only Infallible that will ever
occupy the Science throne. Many a Science Pope will succeed her, but she
has closed their mouths; they will repeat and reverently praise and adore
her infallibilities, but venture none themselves. In her grave she will
still outrank all other Popes, be they of what Church they may. She will
hold the supremest of earthly titles, The Infallible–with a capital T.
Many in the world’s history have had a hunger for such nuggets and slices
of power as they might reasonably hope to grab out of an empire’s or a
religion’s assets, but Mrs. Eddy is the only person alive or dead who has
ever struck for the whole of them. For small things she has the eye of a
microscope, for large ones the eye of a telescope, and whatever she sees,
she wants. Wants it all.
THE SACRED POEMS
When Mrs. Eddy’s “sacred revelations” (that is the language of the By-
laws) are read in public, their authorship must be named. The By-laws
twice command this, therefore we mention it twice, to be fair.
But it is also commanded that when a member publicly quotes “from the
poems of our Pastor Emeritus” the authorship shall be named. For these
are sacred, too. There are kindly people who may suspect a hidden
generosity in that By-law; they may think it is there to protect the
Official Reader from the suspicion of having written the poems himself.
Such do not know Mrs. Eddy. She does an inordinate deal of protecting,
but in no distinctly named and specified case in her history has Number
Two been the object of it. Instances have been claimed, but they have
failed of proof, and even of plausibility.
“Members shall also instruct their students” to look out and advertise
the authorship when they read those poems and things. Not on Mrs. Eddy’s
account, but “for the good of our Cause.”
THE CHURCH EDIFICE
1. Mrs. Eddy gave the land. It was not of much value at the time, but
it is very valuable now.