essence, though multiform in office: God the Father; Christ the type of
Sonship; Divine Science, or the Holy Comforter. . .
“The Holy Ghost, or Spirit, reveals this triune Principle, and (the Holy
Ghost) is expressed in Divine Science, which is the Comforter, leading
into all Truth, and revealing the divine Principle of the universe–
universal and perpetual harmony.”
I will cite another passage. Speaking of Jesus–
“His students then received the Holy Ghost. By this is meant, that by
all they had witnessed and suffered they were roused to an enlarged
understanding of Divine Science, even to the spiritual interpretation .
. . of His teachings,” etc.
Also, page 579, in the chapter called the Glossary:
“HOLY GHOST. Divine Science; the developments of Life, Truth, and Love.”
The Holy Ghost reveals the massed spirit of the fused trinity; this
massed spirit is expressed in Divine Science, and is the Comforter;
Divine Science conveys to men the “spiritual interpretation” of the
Saviour’s teachings. That seems to be the meaning of the quoted
passages.
Divine Science is Christian Science; the book Science and Health is a
“revelation” of the whole spirit of the Trinity, and is therefore “The
Holy Ghost”; it conveys to men the “spiritual interpretation” of the
Bible’s teachings. and therefore is “the Comforter.”
I do not find this analyzing work easy, I would rather saw wood; and a
person can never tell whether he has added up a Science and Health sum
right or not, anyway, after all his trouble. Neither can he easily find
out whether the texts are still on the market or have been discarded from
the Book; for two hundred and fifty-eight editions of it have been
issued, and no two editions seem to be alike. The annual changes–in
technical terminology; in matter and wording; in transpositions of
chapters and verses; in leaving out old chapters and verses and putting
in new ones–seem to be next to innumerable, and as there is no index,
there is no way to find a thing one wants without reading the book
through. If ever I inspire a Bible-Annex I will not rush at it in a
half-digested, helter-skelter way and have to put in thirty-eight years
trying to get some of it the way I want it, I will sit down and think it
out and know what it is I want to say before I begin. An inspirer cannot
inspire for Mrs. Eddy and keep his reputation. I have never seen such
slipshod work, bar the ten that interpreted for the home market the “sell
all thou hast.” I have quoted one “spiritual” rendering of the Lord’s
Prayer, I have seen one other one, and am told there are five more. Yet
the inspirer of Mrs. Eddy the new Infallible casts a complacent critical
stone at the other Infallible for being unable to make up its mind about
such things. Science and Health, edition 1899, page 33:
“The decisions, by vote of Church Councils, as to what should and should
not be considered Holy Writ, the manifest mistakes in the ancient
versions: the thirty thousand different readings in the Old Testament and
the three hundred thousand in the New–these facts show how a mortal and
material sense stole into the divine record, darkening, to some extent,
the inspired pages with its own hue.”
To some extent, yes–speaking cautiously. But it is nothing, really
nothing; Mrs. Eddy is only a little way behind, and if her inspirer lives
to get her Annex to suit him that Catholic record will have to “go ‘way
back and set down,” as the ballad says. Listen to the boastful song of
Mrs. Eddy’s organ, the Christian Science Journal for March, 1902, about
that year’s revamping and half-soling of Science and Health, whose
official name is the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, and who is now the
Official Pastor and Infallible and Unerring Guide of every Christian
Science church in the two hemispheres, hear Simple Simon that met the
pieman brag of the Infallible’s fallibility:
“Throughout the entire book the verbal changes are so numerous as to
indicate the vast amount of time and labor Mrs. Eddy has devoted to this
revision. The time and labor thus bestowed is relatively as great as