opinion of the intellectual giant Gladstone is neutralized by the
negative opinion of the intellectual giant Newman–no decision is
reached. Opinions that prove nothing are, of course, without value any
but a dead person knows that much. This obliges us to admit the truth of
the unpalatable proposition just mentioned above –that, in disputed
matters political and religious, one man’s opinion is worth no more than
his peer’s, and hence it followers that no man’s opinion possesses any
real value. It is a humbling thought, but there is no way to get around
it: all opinions upon these great subjects are brass-farthing opinions.
It is a mere plain, simple fact–as clear and as certain as that eight
and seven make fifteen. And by it we recognize that we are all insane,
as concerns those matters. If we were sane, we should all see a
political or religious doctrine alike; there would be no dispute: it
would be a case of eight and seven–just as it is in heaven, where all
are sane and none insane. There there is but one religion, one belief;
the harmony is perfect; there is never a discordant note.
Under protection of these preliminaries, I suppose I may now repeat
without offence that the Christian Scientist is insane. I mean him no
discourtesy, and I am not charging–nor even imagining–that he is
insaner than the rest of the human race. I think he is more
picturesquely insane than some of us. At the same time, I am quite sure
that in one important and splendid particular he is much saner than is
the vast bulk of the race.
Why is he insane? I told you before: it is because his opinions are not
ours. I know of no other reason, and I do not need any other; it is the
only way we have of discovering insanity when it is not violent. It is
merely the picturesqueness of his insanity that makes it more interesting
than my kind or yours. For instance, consider his “little book”; the
“little book” exposed in the sky eighteen centuries ago by the flaming
angel of the Apocalypse, and handed down in our day to Mrs. Mary Baker G.
Eddy, of New Hampshire, and translated by her, word for word, into
English (with help of a polisher), and now published and distributed in
hundreds of editions by her at a clear profit per volume, above cost, of
seven hundred per cent.!–a profit which distinctly belongs to the angel
of the Apocalypse, and let him collect it if he can; a “little book”
which the C.S. very frequently calls by just that name, and always
enclosed in quotation-marks to keep its high origin exultantly in mind; a
“little book” which “explains” and reconstructs and new-paints and
decorates the Bible, and puts a mansard roof on it and a lightning-rod
and all the other modern improvements; a “little book” which for the
present affects to travel in yoke with the Bible and be friendly to it,
and within half a century will hitch the Bible in the rear and
thenceforth travel tandem, itself in the lead, in the coming great march
of Christian Scientism through the Protestant dominions of the planet.
CHAPTER VI
“Hungry ones throng to hear the Bible read in connection with the text-
book of Christian Science, Science and Health, with Key to the
Scriptures, by Mary Baker G. Eddy. These are our only preachers. They
are the word of God. “Christian Science Journal”, October, 1898.
Is that picturesque? A lady has told me that in a chapel of the Mosque
in Boston there is a picture or image of Mrs. Eddy, and that before it
burns a never-extinguished light. Is that picturesque? How long do you
think it will be before the Christian Scientist will be worshipping that
picture or image and praying to it? How long do you think it will be
before it is claimed that Mrs. Eddy is a Redeemer, a Christ, and Christ’s
equal? Already her army of disciples speak of her reverently as “Our
Mother.”
How long will it be before they place her on the steps of the Throne
beside the Virgin–and, later, a step higher? First, Mary the Virgin and