“Then for a branch Church to assume such position would be disastrous to
Christian Science,
“Therefore–”
Therefore no branch Church is allowed to have branches. There shall be
no Christian Science St. Peter’s in the earth but just one –the Mother-
Church in Boston.
“NO FIRST MEMBERS”
But for the thoughtful By-law thus entitled, every Science branch in the
earth would imitate the Mother-Church and set up an aristocracy. Every
little group of ground-floor Smiths and Furgusons and Shadwells and
Simpsons that organized a branch would assume that great title, of “First
Members,” along with its vast privileges of “discussing” the weather and
casting blank ballots, and soon there would be such a locust-plague of
them burdening the globe that the title would lose its value and have to
be abolished.
But where business and glory are concerned, Mrs. Eddy thinks of
everything, and so she did not fail to take care of her Aborigines, her
stately and exclusive One Hundred, her college of functionless cardinals,
her Sanhedrin of Privileged Talkers (Limited). After taking away all the
liberties of the branch Churches, and in the same breath disclaiming all
official control over their affairs, she smites them on the mouth with
this–the very mouth that was watering for those nobby ground-floor
honors–
“No First Members. Branch Churches shall not organize with First
Members, that special method of organization being adapted to the Mother-
Church alone.”
And so, first members being prohibited, we pierce through the cloud of
Mrs. Eddy’s English and perceive that they must then necessarily organize
with Subsequent Members. There is no other way. It will occur to them
by-and-by to found an aristocracy of Early Subsequent Members. There is
no By-law against it.
“THE”
I uncover to that imperial word. And to the mind, too, that conceived
the idea of seizing and monopolizing it as a title. I believe it is Mrs.
Eddy’s dazzlingest invention. For show, and style, and grandeur, and
thunder and lightning and fireworks it outclasses all the previous
inventions of man, and raises the limit on the Pope. He can never put
his avid hand on that word of words–it is pre-empted. And copyrighted,
of course. It lifts the Mother-Church away up in the sky, and
fellowships it with the rare and select and exclusive little company of
the THE’s of deathless glory–persons and things whereof history and the
ages could furnish only single examples, not two: the Saviour, the
Virgin, the Milky Way, the Bible, the Earth, the Equator, the Devil, the
Missing Link –and now The First Church, Scientist. And by clamor of
edict and By-law Mrs. Eddy gives personal notice to all branch Scientist
Churches on this planet to leave that THE alone.
She has demonstrated over it and made it sacred to the Mother-Church:
“The article ‘The’ must not be used before the titles of branch
Churches–
“Nor written on applications for membership in naming such churches.”
Those are the terms. There can and will be a million First Churches of
Christ, Scientist, scattered over the world, in a million towns and
villages and hamlets and cities, and each may call itself (suppressing
the article), “First Church of Christ. Scientist”–it is permissible,
and no harm; but there is only one The Church of Christ, Scientist, and
there will never be another. And whether that great word fall in the
middle of a sentence or at the beginning of it, it must always have its
capital T.
I do not suppose that a juvenile passion for fussy little worldly shows
and vanities can furnish a match to this, anywhere in the history of the
nursery. Mrs. Eddy does seem to be a shade fonder of little special
distinctions and pomps than is usual with human beings.
She instituted that immodest “The” with her own hand; she did not wait
for somebody else to think of it.
A LIFE-TERM MONOPOLY
There is but one human Pastor in the whole Christian Science world; she
reserves that exalted place to herself.
A PERPETUAL ONE
There is but one other object in the whole Christian Science world
honored with that title and holding that office: it is her book, the
Annex –permanent Pastor of The First Church, and of all branch Churches.