gratis (for good reasons), pupils were few and reluctant, and required
persuasion; it was when she raised the limit to three hundred dollars for
a dollar’s worth that she could not find standing room for the invasion
of pupils that followed.
With fine astuteness she goes through the motions of making it difficult
to get membership in her Church. There is a twofold value in this
system: it gives membership a high value in the eyes of the applicant;
and at the same time the requirements exacted enable Mrs. Eddy to keep
him out if she has doubts about his value to her. A word further as to
applications for membership:
“Applications of students of the Metaphysical College must be signed by
the Board of Directors.”
That is safe. Mrs. Eddy is proprietor of that Board.
Children of twelve may be admitted if invited by “one of Mrs. Eddy’s
loyal students, or by a First Member, or by a Director.”
These sponsors are the property of Mrs. Eddy, therefore her Church is
safeguarded from the intrusion of undesirable children.
Other Students. Applicants who have not studied with Mrs. Eddy can get
in only “by invitation and recommendation from students of Mrs. Eddy . .
. or from members of the Mother-Church.”
Other paragraphs explain how two or three other varieties of applicants
are to be challenged and obstructed, and tell us who is authorized to
invite them, recommend them endorse them, and all that.
The safeguards are definite, and would seem to be sufficiently strenuous
–to Mr. Sam Jones, at any rate. Not for Mrs. Eddy. She adds this
clincher:
“The candidates be elected by a majority vote of the First Members
present.”
That is the aristocracy, the aborigines, the Sanhedrin. It is Mrs.
Eddy’s property. She herself is the Sanhedrin. No one can get into the
Church if she wishes to keep him out.
This veto power could some time or other have a large value for her,
therefore she was wise to reserve it.
It is likely that it is not frequently used. It is also probable that
the difficulties attendant upon getting admission to membership have been
instituted more to invite than to deter, more to enhance the value of
membership and make people long for it than to make it really difficult
to get. I think so, because the Mother. Church has many thousands of
members more than its building can accommodate.
AND SOME ENGLISH REQUIRED
Mrs. Eddy is very particular as regards one detail curiously so, for her,
all things considered. The Church Readers must be “good English
scholars”; they must be “thorough English scholars.”
She is thus sensitive about the English of her subordinates for cause,
possibly. In her chapter defining the duties of the Clerk there is an
indication that she harbors resentful memories of an occasion when the
hazy quality of her own English made unforeseen and mortifying trouble:
“Understanding Communications. Sec. 2. If the Clerk of this Church
shall receive a communication from the Pastor Emeritus which he does not
fully understand, he shall inform her of this fact before presenting it
to the Church, and obtain a clear understanding of the matter–then act
in accordance therewith.”
She should have waited to calm down, then, but instead she added this,
which lacks sugar:
“Failing to adhere to this By-law, the Clerk must resign.”
I wish I could see that communication that broke the camel’s back. It
was probably the one beginning: “What plague spot or bacilli were gnawing
at the heart of this metropolis and bringing it on bended knee?” and I
think it likely that the kindly disposed Clerk tried to translate it into
English and lost his mind and had to go to the hospital. That Bylaw was
not the offspring of a forecast, an intuition, it was certainly born of a
sorrowful experience. Its temper gives the fact away.
The little book of By-laws has manifestly been tinkered by one of Mrs.
Eddy’s ” thorough English scholars,” for in the majority of cases its
meanings are clear. The book is not even marred by Mrs. Eddy’s peculiar
specialty–lumbering clumsinesses of speech. I believe the salaried
polisher has weeded them all out but one. In one place, after referring