And yet I am sorry the lady told me, since a wound which brings me no
happiness has resulted. I am most willing to apply such salve as I can.
The best way to set the matter right and make everything pleasant and
agreeable all around will be to print in this place a description of the
shrine as it appeared to a recent visitor, Mr. Frederick W. Peabody, of
Boston. I will copy his newspaper account, and the reader will see that
Mrs. Eddy’s portrait is not there now:
“We lately stood on the threshold of the Holy of Holies of the Mother-
Church, and with a crowd of worshippers patiently waited for admittance
to the hallowed precincts of the ‘Mother’s Room.’ Over the doorway was a
sign informing us that but four persons at a time would be admitted; that
they would be permitted to remain but five minutes only, and would please
retire from the ‘Mother’s Room’ at the ringing of the bell. Entering
with three of the faithful, we looked with profane eyes upon the
consecrated furnishings. A show-woman in attendance monotonously
announced the character of the different appointments. Set in a recess
of the wall and illumined with electric light was an oil-painting the
show-woman seriously declared to be a lifelike and realistic picture of
the Chair in which the Mother sat when she composed her ‘inspired’ work.
It was a picture of an old-fashioned? country, hair cloth rocking-chair,
and an exceedingly commonplace-looking table with a pile of manuscript,
an ink-bottle, and pen conspicuously upon it. On the floor were sheets
of manuscript. ‘The mantel-piece is of pure onyx,’ continued the show-
woman, ‘and the beehive upon the window-sill is made from one solid block
of onyx; the rug is made of a hundred breasts of eider-down ducks, and
the toilet-room you see in the corner is of the latest design, with gold-
plated drain-pipes; the painted windows are from the Mother’s poem,
“Christ and Christmas,” and that case contains complete copies of all the
Mother’s books.’ The chairs upon which the sacred person of the Mother
had reposed were protected from sacrilegious touch by a broad band of
satin ribbon. My companions expressed their admiration in subdued and
reverent tones, and at the tinkling of the bell we reverently tiptoed out
of the room to admit another delegation of the patient waiters at the
door.”
Now, then, I hope the wound is healed. I am willing to relinquish the
portrait, and compromise on the Chair. At the same time, if I were going
to worship either, I should not choose the Chair.
As a picturesquely and persistently interesting personage, there is no
mate to Mrs. Eddy, the accepted Equal of the Saviour. But some of her
tastes are so different from His! I find it quite impossible to imagine
Him, in life, standing sponsor for that museum there, and taking pleasure
in its sumptuous shows. I believe He would put that Chair in the fire,
and the bell along with it; and I think He would make the show-woman go
away. I think He would break those electric bulbs, and the “mantel-piece
of pure onyx,” and say reproachful things about the golden drain-pipes of
the lavatory, and give the costly rug of duck-breasts to the poor, and
sever the satin ribbon and invite the weary to rest and ease their aches
in the consecrated chairs. What He would do with the painted windows we
can better conjecture when we come presently to examine their
peculiarities.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PASTOR-UNIVERSAL
When Mrs. Eddy turned the pastors out of all the Christian Science
churches and abolished the office for all time as far as human occupancy
is concerned–she appointed the Holy Ghost to fill their place. If this
language be blasphemous, I did not invent the blasphemy, I am merely
stating a fact. I will quote from page 227 of Science and Health
(edition 1899), as a first step towards an explanation of this startling
matter–a passage which sets forth and classifies the Christian Science
Trinity:
“Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune God, or triply divine
Principle. They represent a trinity in unity, three in one –the same in