echo could get over thirty dollars a week in a side-show. Many
impresarios would rather have him than a cow with four tails. If we
allow that this present scribe was setting down the “harmonies of
Heaven”–and certainly that seems to have been the case then there was
only one way to do it that I can think of: listen to the music and put
down the notes one after another as they fell. In that case Mrs. Eddy
did not invent the tune, she only entered it on paper. Therefore
dropping the metaphor–she was merely an amanuensis, and furnished
neither the language of Science and Health nor the ideas. It reduces her
to eight per cent. (and the dividends on that and the rest).
Is that it? We shall never know. For Mrs. Eddy is liable to testify
again at any time. But until she does it, I think we must conclude that
the Deity was Author of the whole book, and Mrs. Eddy merely His
telephone and stenographer. Granting this, her claim as the Voice of God
stands-for the present–justified and established.
POSTSCRIPT
I overlooked something. It appears that there was more of that utterance
than Mr. Peabody has quoted in the above paragraph. It will be found in
Mrs. Eddy’s organ, the Christian Science Journal (January, I901) and
reads as follows:
“It was not myself . . . which dictated Science and Health, with Key
to the Scriptures.”
That is certainly clear enough. The words which I have removed from that
important sentence explain Who it was that did the dictating. It was
done by
“the divine power of Truth and Love, infinitely above me.”
Certainly that is definite. At last, through her personal testimony, we
have a sure grip upon the following vital facts, and they settle the
authorship of Science and Health beyond peradventure:
1. Mrs. Eddy furnished “the ideas and the language.”
2. God furnished the ideas and the language.
It is a great comfort to have the matter authoritatively settled.
CHAPTER V
It is hard to locate her, she shifts about so much. She is a shining
drop of quicksilver which you put your finger on and it isn’t there.
There is a paragraph in the Autobiography (page 96) which places in
seemingly darkly significant procession three Personages:
1. The Virgin Mary
2. Jesus of Nazareth.
3. Mrs. Eddy.
This is the paragraph referred to:
“No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No person
can compass or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No
person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the
discoverer and founder of Christian Science. Each individual must fill
his own niche in time and eternity.”
I have read it many times, but I still cannot be sure that I rightly
understand it. If the Saviour’s name had been placed first and the
Virgin Mary’s second and Mrs. Eddy’s third, I should draw the inference
that a descending scale from First Importance to Second Importance and
then to Small Importance was indicated; but to place the Virgin first,
the Saviour second, and Mrs. Eddy third, seems to turn the scale the
other way and make it an ascending scale of Importances, with Mrs. Eddy
ranking the other two and holding first place.
I think that that was perhaps the intention, but none but a seasoned
Christian Scientist can examine a literary animal of Mrs. Eddy’s creation
and tell which end of it the tail is on. She is easily the most baffling
and bewildering writer in the literary trade.
Eddy is a commonplace name, and would have an unimpressive aspect in the
list of the reformed Holy Family. She has thought of that. In the book
of By-laws written by her–“impelled by a power not one’s own”–there is
a paragraph which explains how and when her disciples came to confer a
title upon her; and this explanation is followed by a warning as to what
will happen to any female Scientist who shall desecrate it:
“The title of Mother. Therefore if a student of Christian Science shall
apply this title, either to herself or to others, except as the term for