in those days I had my limitations like the others.
The Scientist hastened to Concord and told Mrs. Eddy what a disastrous
mistake had been made, but he found to his bewilderment that she was
tranquil about it, and was not proposing to correct it. He was not able
to get her to promise to make a correction. He asked her secretary if he
had heard aright when the telegram was dictated to him; the secretary
said he had, and took the filed copy of it and verified its authenticity
by comparing it with the stenographic notes.
Mrs. Eddy did make the correction, two months later, in her official
organ. It attracted no attention among the Scientists; and, naturally,
none elsewhere, for that periodical’s circulation was practically
confined to disciples of the cult.
That is the tale as it was told to me by an ex-Scientist. Verse 53–
renovated and spiritualized–had a narrow escape from a tremendous
celebrity. The newspaper men would have made it as famous as the
assassination of Caesar, but for their limitations.
To return to the Claim. I find myself greatly embarrassed by Mrs. Eddy’s
remark: “I regard self-deification as blasphemous.” If she is right
about that, I have written a half-ream of manuscript this past week which
I must not print, either in the book which I am writing, or elsewhere:
for it goes into that very matter with extensive elaboration, citing, in
detail, words and acts of Mrs. Eddy’s which seem to me to prove that she
is a faithful and untiring worshipper of herself, and has carried self-
deification to a length which has not been before ventured in ages. If
ever. There is not room enough in this chapter for that Survey, but I
can epitomize a portion of it here.
With her own untaught and untrained mind, and without outside help, she
has erected upon a firm and lasting foundation the most minutely perfect,
and wonderful, and smoothly and exactly working, and best safe-guarded
system of government that has yet been devised in the world, as I
believe, and as I am sure I could prove if I had room for my documentary
evidences here.
It is a despotism (on this democratic soil); a sovereignty more absolute
than the Roman Papacy, more absolute than the Russian Czarship; it has
not a single power, not a shred of authority, legislative or executive,
which is not lodged solely in the sovereign; all its dreams, its
functions, its energies, have a single object, a single reason for
existing, and only the one–to build to the sky the glory of the
sovereign, and keep it bright to the end of time.
Mrs. Eddy is the sovereign; she devised that great place for herself, she
occupies that throne.
In 1895, she wrote a little primer, a little body of autocratic laws,
called the Manual of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and put those
laws in force, in permanence. Her government is all there; all in that
deceptively innocent-looking little book, that cunning little devilish
book, that slumbering little brown volcano, with hell in its bowels. In
that book she has planned out her system, and classified and defined its
purposes and powers.
MAIN PARTS OF THE MACHINE
A Supreme Church. At Boston.
Branch Churches. All over the world
One Pastor for the whole of them: to wit, her book, Science and Health.
Term of the book’s office–forever.
In every C.S. pulpit, two “Readers,” a man and a woman. No talkers, no
preachers, in any Church-readers only. Readers of the Bible and her
books–no others. No commentators allowed to write or print.
A Church Service. She has framed it–for all the C.S. Churches–
selected its readings, its prayers, and the hymns to be used, and has
appointed the order of procedure. No changes permitted.
A Creed. She wrote it. All C.S. Churches must subscribe to it. No
other permitted.
A Treasury. At Boston. She carries the key.
A C.S. Book–Publishing House. For books approved by her. No others
permitted.
Journals and Magazines. These are organs of hers, and are controlled by
her.
A College. For teaching C.S.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE MACHINE’S POWERS AND DIGNITIES
Supreme Church.
Pastor Emeritus–Mrs. Eddy.