Chapter M: B. G. Eddy (1)

After Mrs. Eddy retired to Pleasant View, neither her son nor his family were permitted to visit her, and, when they came East, they experienced a good deal of difficulty in seeing her at all. Mr. Glover believed that his letters to his mother were sometimes answered by Mr. Frye, and that some of his letters never reached his mother at all. Mr. Glover states that he finally sent his mother a letter by express, with instructions to the Concord agent that it was to be delivered to her in person, and to no one else. He was notified that Mrs. Eddy could not receive the letter except through her secretary, Calvin Frye.

JANUARY 26, 1908. MRS. EDDY LEFT HER OLD HOME AT CONCORD AND CAME TO HER NEW HOUSE AT NEWTON ON A SPECIAL TRAIN, WITH THREE ENGINES TO INSURE HER SAFE CONDUCT]

January 2, 1907, Mr. Glover and his daughter, Mary Baker Glover, were permitted a brief interview with Mrs. Eddy at Pleasant View. Mr. Glover states that he was shocked at his mother's physical condition and alarmed by the rambling, incoherent nature of her conversation. In talking to him she made the old charges and the old complaints: "people" had been stealing her "things" (as she used to say they did in Lynn); people wanted to kill her; two carriage horses had been presented to her which, had she driven behind them, would have run away and injured her--they had been sent, she thought, for that especial purpose.

After this interview Mr. Glover and his daughter went to Washington, D. C., to ask legal advice from Ex-Senator William E. Chandler. While there Mr. Glover received the following letter from his mother:

Pleasant View,
Concord, N. H., Jan. 11, 1907.

MY DEAR SON: The enemy to Christian Science is by the
wickedest powers of hypnotism trying to do me all the harm
possible by acting on the minds of people to make them lie
about me and my family. In view of all this I herein and
hereby ask this favor of you. I have done for you what I
could, and never to my recollection have I asked but once
before this a favor of my only child. Will you send to me by
express all the letters of mine that I have written to you?
This will be a great comfort to your mother if you do it.
Send all--ALL of them. Be sure of that. If you will do this
for me I will make you and Mary some presents of value, I
assure you. Let no one but Mary and your lawyer, Mr. Wilson,
know what I herein write to Mary and you. With love.

Mother, M. B. G. Eddy.

Mr. Glover refused to give up his letters, and on March 1, 1907, he began, by himself and others as next friends, an action in Mrs. Eddy's behalf against some ten prominent Christian Scientists, among whom were Calvin Frye, Alfred Farlow, and the officers of the Mother Church in Boston. This action was brought in the Superior Court of New Hampshire. Mr. Glover asked for an adjudication that Mrs. Eddy was incompetent, through age and failing faculties, to manage her estate; that a receiver of her property be appointed; and that the various defendants named be required to account for alleged misuse of her property. Six days later Mrs. Eddy met this action by declaring a trusteeship for the control of her estate. The trustees named were responsible men, gave bond for $500,000, and their trusteeship was to last during Mrs. Eddy's lifetime. In August Mr. Glover withdrew his suit.

This action brought by her son, which undoubtedly caused Mrs. Eddy a great deal of annoyance, was but another result of those indirect methods to which she has always clung so stubbornly. When her son appealed to her for financial aid, she chose, instead of meeting him with a candid refusal, to tell him that she was not allowed to use her own money as she wished, that Mr. Frye made her account for every penny, etc., etc. Mr. Glover made the mistake of taking his mother at her word. He brought his suit upon the supposition that his mother was the victim of designing persons who controlled her affairs--without consulting her, against her wish, and to their own advantage--a hypothesis which his attorneys entirely failed to establish.

This lawsuit disclosed one interesting fact, namely, that while in 1893 securities of Mrs. Eddy amounting to $100,000 were brought to Concord, and in January, 1899, she had $236,200, and while in 1907 she had about a million dollars' worth of taxable property, Mrs. Eddy in 1901 returned a signed statement to the assessors at Concord that the value of her taxable property amounted to about nineteen thousand dollars. This statement was sworn to year after year by Mr. Frye.

_Mrs. Eddy's Removal to Newton_

About a month after Mr. Glover's suit was withdrawn, Mrs. Eddy purchased, through Robert Walker, a Christian Scientist real-estate agent in Chicago, the old Lawrence mansion in Newton, a suburb of Boston. The house was remodeled and enlarged in great haste and at a cost which must almost have equaled the original purchase price, $100,000. All the arrangements were conducted with the greatest secrecy and very few Christian Scientists knew that it was Mrs. Eddy's intention to occupy this house until she was actually there in person.

On Sunday, January 26, 1908, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Eddy, attended by nearly a score of her followers, boarded a special train at Concord. Extraordinary precautions were taken to prevent accidents. A pilot-engine preceded the locomotive which drew Mrs. Eddy's special train, and the train was followed by a third engine to prevent the possibility of a rear-end collision--a precaution never before adopted, even by the royal trains abroad. Dr. Alpheus B. Morrill, a second cousin of Mrs. Eddy and a practising physician of Concord, was of her party. Mrs. Eddy's face was heavily veiled when she took the train at Concord and when she alighted at Chestnut Hill station. Her carriage arrived at the Lawrence house late in the afternoon, and she was lifted out and carried into the house by one of her male attendants.

Mrs. Eddy's new residence is a fine old stone mansion which has been enlarged without injury to its original dignity. The grounds cover an area of about twelve acres and are well wooded. The house itself now contains about twenty-five rooms. There is an electric elevator adjoining Mrs. Eddy's private apartments. Two large vaults have been built into the house--doubtless designed as repositories for Mrs. Eddy's manuscripts. Since her arrival at Chestnut Hill, Mrs. Eddy, upon one of her daily drives, saw for the first time the new building which completes the Mother Church and which, like the original modest structure, is a memorial to her.

There are many reasons why Mrs. Eddy may have decided to leave Concord. But the extravagant haste with which her new residence was got ready for her--a body of several hundred laborers was kept busy upon it all day, and another shift, equally large, worked all night by the aid of arc-lights--would seem to suggest that even if practical considerations brought about Mrs. Eddy's change of residence, her extreme impatience may have resulted from a more personal motive. It is, indeed, very probable that Mrs. Eddy left Concord for the same reason that she left Boston years ago: because she felt that malicious animal magnetism was becoming too strong for her there. The action brought by her son in Concord last summer she attributed entirely to the work of mesmerists who were supposed to be in control of her son's mind. Mrs. Eddy always believed that this strange miasma of evil had a curious tendency to become localized: that certain streets, mail-boxes, telegraph-offices, vehicles, could be totally suborned by these invisible currents of hatred and ill-will that had their source in the minds of her enemies and continually encircled her. She believed that in this way an entire neighborhood could be made inimical to her, and it is quite possible that, after the recent litigation in Concord, she felt that the place had become saturated with mesmerism and that she would never again find peace there.

_Mrs. Eddy at Eighty_

The years since 1890 Mrs. Eddy has spent in training her church in the way she desires it to go, in making it more and more her own, and in issuing by-law after by-law to restrict her followers in their church privileges and to guide them in their daily walk. Mrs. Eddy, one must remember, was fifty years of age before she knew what she wanted to do; sixty when she bethought herself of the most effective way to do it,--by founding a church,--and seventy when she achieved her greatest triumph--the reorganization and personal control of the Mother Church. But she did not stop there. Between her seventieth and eightieth year, and even up to the present time, she has displayed remarkable ingenuity in disciplining her church and its leaders, and adroit resourcefulness and unflagging energy in the prosecution of her plans.

Mrs. Eddy's system of church government was not devised in a month or a year, but grew, by-law on by-law, to meet new emergencies and situations. To attain the end she desired it was necessary to keep fifty or sixty thousand people working as if the church were the first object in their lives; to encourage hundreds of these to adopt church-work as their profession and make it their only chance of worldly success; and yet to hold all this devotion and energy in absolute subservience to Mrs. Eddy herself and to prevent any one of these healers, or preachers, or teachers from attaining any marked personal prominence and from acquiring a personal following. In other words, the church was to have all the vigor of spontaneous growth, but was to grow only as Mrs. Eddy permitted and to confine itself to the trellis she had built for it.

_Preaching Prohibited_

Naturally, the first danger lay in the pastors of her branch churches. Mrs. Stetson and Laura Lathrop had built up strong churches in New York; Mrs. Ewing was pastor of a flourishing church in Chicago, Mrs. Leonard of another in Brooklyn, Mrs. Williams in Buffalo, Mrs. Steward in Toronto, Mr. Norcross in Denver. These pastors naturally became leaders among the Christian Scientists in their respective communities, and came to be regarded as persons authorized to expound "Science and Health" and the doctrines of Christian Science. Such a state of things Mrs. Eddy considered dangerous, not only because of the personal influence the pastor might acquire over his flock, but because a pastor might, even without intending to do so, give a personal color to his interpretation of her words. In his sermon he might expand her texts and infinitely improvise upon her themes until gradually his hearers accepted his own opinions for Mrs. Eddy's. The church in Toronto might come to emphasize doctrines which the church in Denver did not; here was a possible beginning of differing denominations.

So, as Mrs. Eddy splendidly puts it, "In 1895 I ordained the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, as the Pastor, on this planet, of all the churches of the Christian Science Denomination." That is what Mrs. Eddy actually did. In the _Journal_ of April, 1895, she announced, without any previous warning to them, that her preachers should never preach again; that there were to be no more preachers; that each church should have instead a First and a Second Reader, and that the Sunday sermon was to consist of extracts from the Bible and from "Science and Health," read aloud to the congregation. In the beginning the First Reader read from the Bible and the Second Reader from Mrs. Eddy's book. But this she soon changed. The First Reader now reads from "Science and Health" and the Second reads those passages of the Bible which Mrs. Eddy says are correlative. This service, Mrs. Eddy declares, was "authorized by Christ."[5]

When Mrs. Eddy issued this injunction, every Christian Science preacher stepped down from his pulpit and closed his lips. There was not an island of the sea in which he could lift up his voice and sermonize; Mrs. Eddy's command covered "this" planet. Not one voice was raised in protest. Whatever the pastors felt, they obeyed. Many of them kissed the rod. L. P. Norcross, one of the deposed pastors, wrote humbly in the August _Journal_:

"Did any one expect such a revelation, such a new departure
would be given? No, not in the way it came.... A former
pastor of the Mother Church once remarked that the day would
dawn when the current methods of preaching and worship would
disappear, but he could not discern how.... Such disclosures
are too high for us to perceive. _To One alone did the
message come._"

_The "Reader" Restricted_

Mrs. Eddy had no grudge against her pastors; she did not intend that they should starve, and many of them were made Readers and were permitted to read "Science and Health" aloud in the churches which they had built and in which they had formerly preached.

The "Reader," it would seem, was a safe experiment, and he was so well hedged in with by-laws that he could not well go astray. His duties and limitations are clearly defined:

He is to read parts of "Science and Health" aloud at every service.

He cannot read from a manuscript or from a transcribed copy, but must read from _the book itself_.

He is, Mrs. Eddy says, to be "well read and well educated," but he shall at no time make any remarks explanatory of the passages which he reads.

Before commencing to read from Mrs. Eddy's book "he shall distinctly announce its full title and give the author's name."

A Reader must not be a leader in the church.

Lest, under all these restrictions, his incorrigible ambition might still put forth its buds, there is a saving by-law which provides that Mrs. Eddy can without explanation remove any reader at any time that she sees fit to do so.[6]

Mrs. Eddy herself seems to have considered this a safe arrangement. In the same number of the _Journal_ in which she dismissed her pastors and substituted Readers, she stated, in an open letter, that her students would find in that issue "the completion, as I now think, of the Divine directions sent out to the churches." But it was by no means the completion. By the summer of 1902 Septimus J. Hanna, First Reader of the Mother Church in Boston, had become, without the liberty to preach or to "make remarks," by the mere sound of his voice, it would seem, so influential that Mrs. Eddy felt the necessity to limit still further the Reader's power. Of course she could have dismissed Mr. Hanna, but he was far too useful to be dispensed with. So Mrs. Eddy made a new ruling that the Reader's term of office should be limited to three years,[7] and, Mr. Hanna's term then being up, he was put into the lecture field. Now the highest dignity that any Christian Scientist could hope for was to be chosen to read "Science and Health" aloud for three years at a comfortable salary.

_Why the Readers Obeyed_

Why, it has often been asked, did the more influential pastors--people with a large personal following, like Mrs. Stetson--consent to resign their pulpits in the first place and afterward to be stripped of privilege after privilege? Some of them, of course, submitted because they believed that Mrs. Eddy possessed "Divine Wisdom"; others because they remembered what had happened to dissenters aforetime. Of all those who had broken away from Mrs. Eddy's authority, not one had attained to anything like her obvious success or material prosperity, while many had followed wandering fires and had come to nothing. Christian Science leaders had staked their fortunes upon the hypothesis that Mrs. Eddy possessed "divine wisdom"; it was as expounders of this wisdom that they had obtained their influence and built up their churches. To rebel against the authority of Mrs. Eddy's wisdom would be to discredit themselves; to discredit Mrs. Eddy's wisdom would have been to destroy their whole foundation. To claim an understanding and an inspiration equal to Mrs. Eddy's, would have been to cheapen and invalidate everything that gave Christian Science an advantage over other religions. Had they once denied the Revelation and the Revelator upon which their church was founded, the whole structure would have fallen in upon them. If Mrs. Eddy's intelligence were not divine in one case, who would be able to say that it was in another? If they could not accept Mrs. Eddy's wisdom when she said "there shall be no pastors," how could they persuade other people to accept it when she said "there is no matter"? It was clear, even to those who writhed under the restrictions imposed upon them, that they must stand or fall with Mrs. Eddy's Wisdom, and that to disobey it was to compromise their own career. Even in the matter of getting on in the world, it was better to be a doorkeeper in the Mother Church than to dwell in the tents of the "mental healers."

_Mrs. Stetson and Mrs. Eddy_

Probably it was harder for Mrs. Stetson to retire from the pastorship than for any one else; indeed, it was often whispered that the pastors were dismissed largely because Mrs. Stetson's growing influence suggested to Mrs. Eddy the danger of permitting such powers to her vice-regents. Mrs. Stetson had gone to New York when Christian Science was practically unknown there, and from poor and small beginnings had built up a rich and powerful church. But, when the command came, she stepped out of the pulpit she had built. She is to-day probably the most influential person, after Mrs. Eddy, in the Christian Science body. Rumors are ever and again started that Mrs. Stetson is not at all times loyal to her Leader, and that she controls her faction for her own ends rather than for Mrs. Eddy's. Whatever Mrs. Stetson's private conversation may be, her public utterances have always been humble enough, and she annually declares her loyalty. In 1907 the New York _World_ published several interviews with persons who asserted that they believed Mrs. Eddy to be controlled by a clique of Christian Scientists who were acting for Mrs. Stetson's interests. In June Mrs. Stetson wrote Mrs. Eddy a letter which was printed in the _Christian Science Sentinel_ and which read in part:

"Boston, Mass., June 9, 1907.

"MY PRECIOUS LEADER:--I am glad I know that I am in the
hands of God, not of men. These reports are only the revival
of a lie which I have not heard for a long time. It is a
renewed attack upon me and my loyal students, to turn me
from following in the footsteps of Christ by making another
attempt to dishearten me and make me weary of the struggle
to demonstrate my trust in God to deliver me from the
'accuser of our brethren.' It is a diabolical attempt to
separate me from you, as my Leader and Teacher....

"Oh, Dearest, it is such a lie! No one who knows us can
believe this. It is vicarious atonement. Has the enemy no
more argument to use, that it has to go back to this? It is
exhausting its resources and I hope the end is near. You
know my love for you, beloved; and my students love you as
their Leader and Teacher; they follow your teachings and
lean on the 'sustaining infinite.' They who refuse to accept
you as God's messenger, or ignore the message which you
bring, will not get up by some other way, but will come
short of salvation....

"Dearly beloved, we are not ascending out of sense as fast
as we desire, but we are trusting in God to put off the
false and put on the Christ. This lie cannot disturb you nor
me. I love you and my students love you, and we never touch
you with such a thought as is mentioned.

"Lovingly your child,

"AUGUSTA E. STETSON."

_The Teachers Disciplined_

Her pastors having been satisfactorily dealt with, the next danger Mrs. Eddy saw lay in her teachers and "academies." Mrs. Eddy soon found, of course, that a great many Christian Scientists wished to make their living out of their new religion; that possibility, indeed, was one of the most effective advantages which Christian Science had to offer over other religions. In the early days of the church, while Mrs. Eddy herself was still instructing classes in Christian Science at her "college," teaching was a much more remunerative business than healing. Mrs. Eddy charged each student $300 for a primary course of seven lessons, and the various Christian Science "institutes" and "academies" about the country charged from $100 to $200 per student. So long as Mrs. Eddy was herself teaching and never took patients, she could not well forbid other teachers to do likewise. But after she retired to Concord, she took the teachers in hand. Mrs. Eddy knew well enough that Christian Science was propagated and that converts were made, not through doctrine, but through cures. She had found that out in the very beginning, when Richard Kennedy's cures brought her her first success. She knew, too, that teaching Christian Science was a much easier profession than healing by it, and that the teacher risked no encounter with the law. Since teaching was both easier and more remunerative, the first thing to be done in discouraging it was to cut down the teacher's fee, and to limit the number of pupils which one teacher might instruct in a year. By 1904 Mrs. Eddy had got the teacher's fee down to fifty dollars per student, and a teacher was not permitted to teach more than thirty students a year. Mrs. Eddy's purpose is as clear as it was wise: she desired that no one should be able to make a living by teaching alone. It was healing that carried the movement forward, and whoever made a living by Christian Science must heal. From 1903 to 1906 all teaching was suspended under the by-law "Healing better than teaching."

In the fall of 1895 Mrs. Eddy issued her instructions to the churches in the form of a volume entitled the "Church Manual of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass." The by-laws herein contained, she says, "were impelled by a power not one's own, were written at different dates, as occasion required." This book is among Mrs. Eddy's copyrighted works,--a source of revenue, like the rest,--and has now been through more than forty editions. Some of the by-laws in the earlier editions are perplexing.

We find that "Careless comparison or irreverent reference to Christ Jesus, is abnormal in a Christian Scientist and prohibited."[8] It is probable that no Christian church had ever before found it necessary to make such a prohibition.

Again, the by-laws state that "Any member of this church who is found living with a child improperly, or claiming a child not legally adopted, or claiming or living with a husband or a wife to whom they have not been legally married, shall immediately be excommunicated," etc.[9] This seems a strange subject for especial legislation.

The Manual, however, is chiefly interesting as an exposition of Mrs. Eddy's method of church government and as an inventory of her personal prerogatives. Never was a title more misleadingly modest than Mrs. Eddy's title of "Pastor Emeritus" of the Mother Church.

_How the Mother Church is Organized_

Next to Mrs. Eddy in authority is the Board of Directors, who were chosen by Mrs. Eddy and who are subject to her in all their official acts. Any one of these directors can at any time be dismissed _upon Mrs. Eddy's request_, and the vacancy can be filled only by a candidate whom she has approved. All the church business is transacted by these directors,--no other members of the church may be present at the business meetings,--and if at any time one of them should refuse to carry out Mrs. Eddy's instructions, or should grumble about carrying them out, her request would remove him. The members of this board, in addition to their precarious tenure, are pledged to secrecy; they "shall neither report the discussions of this Board, _nor those with Mrs. Eddy_."[10]

These directors are Mrs. Eddy's machine; they are her executive self, created by her breath, dissolved at a breath, and committed to silence. Their chief duties are two--to elect to office whomsoever Mrs. Eddy appoints, and to hold their peace.

The President of the church is annually elected by the directors, the election being subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval.[11]

The First and Second Readers are elected every third year by the directors, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval, but she can remove a Reader either from the Mother Church or from any of the branch churches whenever she sees fit and without explanation.[12]

The Clerk and Treasurer of the church are elected once a year by the directors, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval.[13]

Executive Members: Prior to 1903 these were known as First Members. They shall not be less than fifty in number, nor more than one hundred. They must have certain qualifications (such as residing within five hundred miles of Boston), and they must hold a meeting once a year and special meetings at Mrs. Eddy's call, but they have no powers and no duties.[14] The manner of their election is especially unusual. The by-laws state that a member can be made an Executive Member only after a letter is received by the directors from Mrs. Eddy requesting them to make said persons Executive Members; and then, Mrs. Eddy adds, "they shall be elected by the _unanimous vote of the Board of Directors_."[15]

What, one might ask, is the purpose in having an "executive" body which can do nothing--they are not even allowed to be present at the business meetings of the church--elected by a Board of Directors who have to elect "unanimously" whomsoever Mrs. Eddy names? Why go through the form of "electing" them, when they are simply appointed? Why, indeed, elect the church officers, since, behind this brave showing of boards and bodies, Mrs. Eddy, in reality, simply appoints?

One reason is that Mrs. Eddy likes the play of making boards and committees; she loves titles and loves to distribute them. Another reason is that her followers are proud to be placed upon these boards, however limited their sphere of action may be.

_How Mrs. Eddy Controls the Branch Churches_

With the branch churches the case is much the same. Mrs. Eddy starts out bravely by saying that they are to have "local self-government." But on reading the Manual we find that they are pretty well provided for.

A branch church can be organized only by a member of the Mother Church.[16]

The services of the branch churches are definitely prescribed; they are to consist of music, Mrs. Eddy's prayer, and oral readings from "Science and Health" and the Bible.

Mrs. Eddy may appoint or remove--without explanation--the Readers of the branch churches at any time.[17]

The branch churches may never have comments or remarks made by their Readers, either upon passages from "Science and Health" or from the Bible.[18]

The branch churches may have lectures only by lecturers whom Mrs. Eddy has appointed in the usual way--through the "vote" of her Board of Directors.[19] And the lecture must have passed censorship.[20]

After listening to such a lecture, the members of the branch churches are not permitted to give a reception or to meet for social intercourse. Mrs. Eddy tells them that it will be much better for them to "depart in quiet thought."[21] (It seems more than probable that this by-law was devised for the spiritual good of the lecturer. Mrs. Eddy had no idea that these gentlemen should be fêted or made much of after their discourse and thus become puffed up with pride of place.)

Since the branch churches, then, have nothing to say about their services, Readers, or lecturers, there seems to be very little left for them to do with their powers of local self-government.

Services in the branch churches, as in the Mother Church, are limited to the Sunday morning and evening readings from the Bible and "Science and Health," the Wednesday evening experience meetings, and to the communion service. (In the Mother Church this occurs but once a year, in the branch churches twice.) There is no baptismal service, no marriage or burial service, and weddings and funerals are never conducted in any of the Christian Science churches.

_The Publication Committee_

Included in the Mother Church organization are the Publication Committee, the Christian Science Publishing Society, the Board of Lectureship, the Board of Missionaries, and the Board of Education, all absolutely under Mrs. Eddy's control.

The manager of the Publication Committee, at present Mr. Alfred Farlow, is "elected" annually by the Board of Directors under Mrs. Eddy's instructions. His salary is to be not less than $5,000. This Publication Committee is simply a press bureau, consisting of a manager with headquarters in Boston and of various branch committees throughout the field. It is the duty of a member of this committee, wherever he resides, to reply promptly through the press to any criticism of Christian Science or of Mrs. Eddy which may be made in his part of the country, and to insert in the newspapers of his territory as much matter favorable to Christian Science as they will print. In replying to criticism this bureau will, if necessary, pay the regular advertising rate for the publication of their statements. The members of this committee, after having written and published their articles in defense of Christian Science, are also responsible, says the Manual, "for having the papers containing these articles circulated in large quantities." This press agency has been extremely effective in pushing the interests of Christian Science, in keeping it before the public, and in building up a desirable legendry around Mrs. Eddy.

_The Publishing Society_

The Christian Science Publishing Society is conducted for the purpose of publishing and marketing Mrs. Eddy's works and the three Christian Science periodicals, the _Christian Science Journal_, the _Christian Science Sentinel_, and _Der Christian Science Herold_. It is managed and controlled by a Board of Trustees, appointed by Mrs. Eddy, and the net profits of the business are turned over semi-annually to the treasurer of the Mother Church. The manager and editors are appointed for but one year, and must be elected or reëlected by a vote of the directors _and_ "the consent of the Pastor Emeritus, given in her own handwriting." The Manual also states that a person who is not accepted by Mrs. Eddy as suitable shall _in no manner_ be connected with publishing her books or editing her periodicals--not a compositor, not the copy-boy, not the scrubwoman.

_Christian Science Lectures_

Until 1898 any Christian Scientist could give public talks or lectures upon the doctrines of his faith, but in January of that year Mrs. Eddy prudently withdrew this privilege. She appointed a Board of Lectureship, carefully selecting each member and assigning each to a certain district. In this work she placed several of her most influential men, among whom was Septimus J. Hanna. Her idea seems to have been that as itinerant lecturers these men could not build up a dangerously strong personal following. These lecturers are elected annually, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval. Their representative lecture must be censored by the clerk of the Mother Church. The Manual stipulates that these lectures must "bear testimony to the facts pertaining to the life of the Pastor Emeritus."

_Missionaries_

Seven missionaries are elected annually by the Board of Directors--Mrs. Eddy's usual way of appointing. Indeed, one finds that the elections of these various boards are simply confirmations of appointments made by Mrs. Eddy; not, certainly, because her appointments need confirmation, but rather because it seems to give these boards pleasure to vote "unanimously" when they are bidden. To all intents and purposes the Manual might just as well state that every committee and officer is appointed by the Pastor Emeritus, and the phrase "elected by the Board of Directors" seems used merely for variety of expression.

_Board of Education_

The Board of Education consists of three members, the President, Vice-President, and a teacher. Mrs. Eddy is the permanent President--unless, says the Manual, she sees fit to "resign over her own signature." The Vice-President and teacher are elected from time to time, "subject to the approval of the Pastor Emeritus."

_Obligations of the Individual Christian Scientist_

It is not easy to become a member of the Mother Church. In the first place, the applicant for admission must read nothing upon metaphysics or religion except Mrs. Eddy's books and the Bible. In the second place, his application must be countersigned by one of Mrs. Eddy's loyal students, who is made responsible for the candidate's sincerity. There are so many things for which the new member may be expelled after he is once admitted into the church, that it would seem as if he can remain there only by very special grace. He is hedged about by a number of by-laws which seem to relate chiefly to his personal attitude toward Mrs. Eddy. He may not haunt the roads upon which Mrs. Eddy drives. He may not discuss, lecture upon, or debate upon Christian Science in public without especial permission from one of her representatives. He must not be a "leader" in the church and must never be called one. He may read only the Bible and Mrs. Eddy for religious instruction. He shall not "vilify" the Pastor Emeritus. He is in duty bound to go to Mrs. Eddy's home and serve her in person for one year if she requires it of him. He may not permit his children to believe in Santa Claus--Mrs. Eddy abolished Santa Claus by proclamation in 1904. She brooks no petty rivals. He may not read or quote from Mrs. Eddy's books or from her "poems" without first naming the author. She says, in explanation of this by-law: "To pour into the ears of listeners the sacred revelations of Christian Science indiscriminately, or without characterizing their origin and thus distinguishing them from the writings of authors who think at random on this subject, is to lose some weight in the scale of right thinking."[22]

A Christian Scientist "shall neither buy, sell nor circulate Christian Science literature which is not correct in its statement," etc., Mrs. Eddy, of course, determining whether or not the statement is correct. He "shall not patronize a publishing house or bookstore that has for sale obnoxious books."

A Christian Scientist may not belong to any club or society, Free Masons excepted, outside the Mother Church. His connection with the Mother Church must be sufficient for all his social and intellectual needs, and his interest is not to be diverted from its one proper channel. Mrs. Eddy says that church organizations are ample for him.[23]

It is indicative of Mrs. Eddy's influence over her followers that when this by-law was issued, less than twenty inquiries (so her secretary announced) were received at Pleasant View. Men resigned from their political, business, and social clubs, women from their literary and patriotic organizations, without a murmur and without a question.

No hymns may be sung in the Mother Church unless they have been approved by Mrs. Eddy, and Mrs. Eddy's own hymns must be sung at stated intervals. "If a solo singer in the Mother Church shall either neglect or refuse to sing alone a hymn written by our Leader and Pastor Emeritus, as often as once each month, and oftener if the Directors so direct, a meeting shall be called and the salary of this singer shall be stopped."

_Supreme Authority_

But far above all these lesser by-laws Mrs. Eddy holds one in which her supreme authority rests. A mesmerist or "mental malpractitioner" is, of course, to be excommunicated, and "if the author of Science and Health shall bear witness to the offense of mental malpractice, it shall be considered sufficient evidence thereof."[24] The accused can make no defense, has no appeal. If any Christian Scientist offends Mrs. Eddy, if he writes a letter to the _Journal_ and uses a phrase which does not please her, if he is too popular in his own community, if it is rumored that he reads upon philosophy or metaphysics, or medicine, if he in any way wounds her vanity, Mrs. Eddy can expel him from the church by a word, without explanation, and he can make no effort to vindicate himself. In the matter of hypnotism Mrs. Eddy's mere word is enough. She has, she says, an unerring instinct by which she can detect hypnotism in any creature:

"I possess a spiritual sense of what the malicious mental practitioner is mentally arguing which cannot be deceived; I can discern in the human mind thoughts, motives, and purposes; and neither mental arguments nor psychic power can affect this spiritual insight."[25]

_Actual Size of Mrs. Eddy's Following_

The result of Mrs. Eddy's planning and training and pruning is that she has built up the largest and most powerful organization ever founded by any woman in America. Probably no other woman so handicapped--so limited in intellect, so uncertain in conduct, so tortured by hatred and hampered by petty animosities--has ever risen from a state of helplessness and dependence to a position of such power and authority. All that Christian Science comprises to-day--the Mother Church, branch churches, healers, teachers, Readers, boards, committees, societies--are as completely under Mrs. Eddy's control as if she were their temporal as well as their spiritual ruler. The growth of her power has been extensive as well as intensive.

In June, 1907, the membership of the Mother Church, according to the Secretary's report, was 43,876. The membership of the branch churches amounted to 42,846. As members of the branch churches are almost invariably members of the Mother Church as well, there cannot be more than 60,000 Christian Scientists in the world to-day, and the number is probably nearer 50,000.

In June, 1907, there were in all 710 branch churches. Fifty-eight of these are in foreign countries: 25 in the Dominion of Canada, 14 in Great Britain, 2 in Ireland, 4 in Australia, 1 in South Africa, 8 in Mexico, 2 in Germany, 1 in Holland, and 1 in France. There are also 295 Christian Science societies not yet incorporated into churches, 30 of which are in foreign countries.[26]

In reading these figures one must bear in mind the fact that twenty-nine years ago the only Christian Science church in the world was struggling to pay its rent in Boston.

One very effective element in the growth of the church has been the fact that a considerable proportion of Christian Scientists--probably about one tenth--make their living by their faith, and their worldly fortunes as well as their spiritual comfort are in their church; they must prosper or decline, rise or fall, with Christian Science, and they prosecute the cause of their church with all their energies and with entire singleness of purpose. Again, any religion must experience a great impetus and stimulus from the living presence of its founder or prophet, and when that presence is as effective as Mrs. Eddy's, it is a force to be reckoned with. Furthermore, Christian Science is a novel and sensational presentation of one of the oldest accepted truths in human thinking, and converts a few time-worn metaphysical platitudes into mysterious incantations which are quite as effective by reason of their incoherence and misapplication as because of the relative truths which they originally conveyed. Optimism is the cry of the times, and of all the voices which declare it, this is the most strident and insistent, proclaiming the shortest of all the short roads to happiness, declaring the secret of a contentment as impervious of total anaesthesia.

[Note: The next article will deal with Mrs. Eddy's book,
"Science and Health," and will complete this history.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This communion was originally observed once each quarter and then twice a year. Since 1899 it has been observed but once a year, on the second Sunday in June. No "material" emblems, such as bread and wine, are offered, and the communion is one of silent thought. On Monday the directors meet and transact the business of the year, and on Tuesday the officers' reports are read. As most members of the branch churches are also members of the Mother Church, thousands of Christian Scientists from all over the United States visit Boston at this time.

[2] At the 1898 communion there was no invitation from Mrs. Eddy, but a number of communicants went up to Concord to see her house and to see her start out upon her daily drive. In June, 1899, Mrs. Eddy came to Boston and briefly addressed the annual business meeting of the church. In 1902 and 1903 there were no formal pilgrimages, although hundreds of Christian Scientists went to Concord to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Eddy upon her drive.

[3] February, 1899.

[4] Calvin Frye.

[5] In a notice to the churches, 1897, Mrs. Eddy says:

"The Bible and the Christian Science text-book are our only preachers. We shall now read scriptural texts and their co-relative passages from our text-book--these comprise our sermon. The canonical writings, together with the word of our text-book, corroborating and explaining the Bible texts in their denominational, spiritual import and application to all ages, past, present and future, constitute a sermon undivorced from truth, uncontaminated or fettered by human hypotheses and authorized by Christ."

[6] For the text of these by-laws see Christian Science Manual (1904), Articles IV and XXIII.

[7] Mrs. Eddy stated in regard to this ruling that it was to have immediate effect only in the Mother Church, adding: "Doubtless the churches adopting this by-law will discriminate its adaptability to their conditions. But if now is not the time the branch churches can wait for the favored moment to act on this subject."

[8] Church Manual (11th ed.), Article XXXII.

[9] Ibid. (3d ed.), Article VIII, Sec. 5.

[10] Church Manual (43d ed.), Article I, Sec. 5.

[11] Ibid. (43d ed.), Article I, Sec. 2.

[12] Ibid. (43d ed.), Article I, Sec. 4. Ibid. (11th ed.), Article XXIII, Sec. 2.

[13] Ibid. (43d ed.), Article I, Sec. 3.

[14] Formerly the Executive Members were permitted to fix the salaries of the Readers, but in the last edition of the Manual this privilege seems to have been withdrawn.

[15] Church Manual (43d ed.), Article VI.

[16] Church Manual (43d ed.), Article XXVIII.

[17] Ibid. (11th ed.), Article XXIII.

[18] Ibid. (43d ed.), Article IV.

[19] Ibid. (43d ed.), Article XXXIV, Sec. 1.

[20] Ibid. (43d ed.), Article XXXIV, Sec. 2.

[21] Ibid. (43d ed.), Article XXXIV, Sec. 4.

[22] Church Manual (11th ed.). Article XV.

[23] Ibid. (43d ed.), Article XXVI.

[24] Church Manual (43d ed.), Article XXII, Sec. 4.

[25] "Christian Science History," by Mary B. G. Eddy (1st ed.), page 16.

[26] In June, 1907, there were 3,515 authorized Christian Science "healers" in the world; 3,268 of these are practising in the United States, 1 in Alaska, 63 in the Dominion of Canada, 5 in Mexico, 1 in Cuba, 1 in South Africa, 18 in Australia, 1 in China, 105 in England, 5 in Ireland, 9 in Scotland, 7 in France, 15 in Germany, 4 in Holland, 1 in India, 1 in Italy, 1 in the Philippine Islands, 1 in Russia, 1 in South America, 7 in Switzerland.

IN CHARGE OF TRUSTY

BY LUCY PRATT

ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERIC DORR STEELE

There was a dramatic arrival at the Whittier School one Monday morning.

The children were gathered in their class-rooms, looking particularly good and hopeful just after their morning exercises, and Miss Doane was on the platform in the Assembly Room, when she became aware of a slight confusion in the outside hall. But, since visitors of distinction always came in from that particular hall, Miss Doane merely waited for whatever special form of distinction this might be. There was a thump on the door, and then, after some slight parleying and continued confusion on the other side, it opened and two visitors made their entrance. One was a very large and rather ancient-looking colored man, the other was a very small colored boy. They both looked somewhat spent and breathless, and when the man had deposited the boy before him, with a threatening wave of the stick, he took out a large bandana and wiped the sweat of honest toil from his brow. Miss Doane, somewhat uneasy, approached her visitor.

"Yer see, Miss," he explained, with a gesture of triumph toward the small heap on the floor, "he's ser bad, I'se jes 'blige whup 'im all de way ter school ter git 'im yere fer sho!"

Miss Doane made some response to the effect that it certainly was an unusual way of making sure that a child came to school, to which he joined in:

"Ya-as, Miss, ya-as, _Miss_! Cert'nly is so! Jes 'blige drap all my wuk 'n' run 'im clean yere. Now, ain't yer 'shame, boy, fer de lady ter see yer ser bad 'n' hard-haided?"

He was not too ashamed to grumble out an unintelligible answer; but he looked quite disgusted with life in general, and twisted his head around in all sorts of directions, and sniffed, and rubbed his coat-sleeve across his face, and appeared generally ill at ease.

"What is his name?" questioned Miss Doane.

"Trusty--Trusty 'is name," explained the parent. "Trusty Miles. W'y doan't yer speak up, boy, an' tell de lady yer name?"

Trusty grunted.

"He doesn't seem very glad to be here," suggested Miss Doane mildly.

"No, Miss, dat's de trufe," agreed the parent cordially, "dat's de trufe! Yer see, he ain't r'ally used ter w'ite folks' school, 'counten allays gwine ter Miss Pauline Smiff's. Yas'm. He ain't r'ally used ter w'ite folks, an' he jes seem ter natchelly balk at de idea fum de fus."

"I see," returned Miss Doane modestly, producing a reader by way of tactful diversion.

Miss Pauline Smith's ex-pupil looked at it a bit askance, and Miss Doane proceeded in a somewhat harrowing attempt to discover and lay bare anything in the least suggestive of knowledge--as such.

"I see," she concluded finally, when there was positively nothing more left to discover; "I see. Will you follow me, please?"

With unexpected docility, Trusty turned and, with his eyes fixed on a closed door toward which Miss Doane led the way, followed, he knew not where.

"Miss North," began Miss Doane, when the door had opened and closed again, "Miss North, I have a new pupil for you."

Miss North tried to look as if this were the most unexpected bit of good fortune which could possibly come to her, and glanced around for an appropriate seat. The children looked pleased at the slight diversion, and Ezekiel, sitting in a corner seat of the front row, looked both pleased and intelligent.

"Dat's Trusty," he began smilingly in a low voice to Miss North, "dat's Trusty Miles, Miss No'th"; and, feeling the cheerful superiority of former acquaintance, he beamed delightedly on Trusty.

"Yes; and I think you may sit right here," explained Miss North, after brief consideration.

In lack of anything else to do, Trusty accepted the offered seat.

"And now," continued Miss North, when the children had once more settled themselves and Miss Doane had gone back to her waiting visitor, "we will go on with the lesson. Yes, we had just decided that we all had _bodies_."

Ezekiel glanced at the new pupil, who seemed to be somewhat taken by surprise at this unexpected development, and was looking curiously around the room with evident hope of disputing the statement.

"Yes, that is true, is it not, that we all have _bodies?_"

They _all_ looked around rather doubtfully, as if they did not feel quite so sure on this point; but, as no disembodied spirit spoke up in denial of the assertion, it was gradually accepted.

"Yes; and these bodies have a great many different _parts_, haven't they?"

"Yas'm," came, rather faintly.

"Why, yes, indeed," went on Miss North, quite gaily, "a great many different _parts_. Now, what are some of these parts, children? Who can think?"

There was a moment of tremendous concentration, and then a dozen hands went up.

"Well, Alphonso Jones--and make a nice sentence, Alphonso."

"Yer haid is part uv yer body," stated Alphonso, as though he were not in the habit of being contradicted.

"Yes, very true. Your head is part of your body. And now, as different parts of the head, we have--" putting her fingers suggestively to her ears----

"Ears!" shouted a tremendous chorus.

"Yes; and--" closing her eyes, and just touching the lids lightly, as the most delicate hint possible----

"Eyes!" shouted a yet more tremendous chorus.

"Yes; and now, since the eyes are such a very important part of the head, let us think how we can take very good _care_ of the eyes."

This sounded rather complicated, and there was another moment of awful concentration. Even Trusty appeared to be thinking warmly on the subject.

"Well, Ezekiel, what do you say?"

"Not pick no holes in 'em wid no pin," suggested Ezekiel pleasantly.

"Why, Ezekiel, certainly not! Of course we shouldn't want to pick holes in them with a pin; but--well, what do you say, Tommy?"

"Not pick no holes in 'em wid no needle!" explained Tommy, his face all aglow with enthusiasm.

"Why, no, indeed! Of course not--why, of course _not_. But that isn't just what I mean, because of course you would never think of doing that anyway, would you, Tommy?"

Hands were waving madly in all directions now; but when young Charles Sumner Scott raised his with its usual effect of poise and precision, Miss North considered the situation saved. Charles usually saved the situation.

"How must we treat the eyes if we want to keep them nice and strong, Charles?"

"Not pick no holes in 'em wid no _hat_-pin!" announced Charles.

"Hands down!" ordered Miss North.

Hands down, indeed!

"Hezzy Cones, did you hear what I said?"

"Yath'm! Not pick no holthe in 'em wid no _hair_-pin!" shouted Hezzy, not to be walked over so easily, and jubilant at this slight variation.

The new pupil had waked up, too.

"Not pick no holes in 'em wid no _knittin'-needle_!" he sang loudly, in a perfect burst of inspiration.

This was a stroke of genius, and they all looked around on the new-comer admiringly, and looked a little doubtful, for a moment, as to whether anything more could be said on the subject.

Ezekiel fairly radiated at his friend's success.

"Now, wait, children!" said Miss North, with emphasis amounting almost to severity. "Our answers are getting wild--very wild. And I do not wish to hear anything more about _pins_ or _needles_ or _hat-pins_ or _knitting-needles_. I should like to see you all _very straight_ in your seats."

There was a tremendous effort at straightening up, whereupon Miss North proceeded to make a few valuable suggestions in regard to the treatment of the eyes.

"Now," said Miss North, as if she were propounding a theory of rare and striking originality, "_who_ can tell me another part of the body?"

The pause was long; they were evidently feeling somewhat sore over their last setback.

"Well?" encouraged Miss North.

"Yer laigs," mumbled a stuffy voice from the back of the room.

"Yes, your legs, Samuel; that is quite right. And perhaps you can tell me what your legs are for, Samuel. But wait; we will _think_ before answering."

"Ter se' down with," answered Samuel comfortably.

"No, Samuel; you evidently did _not_ think; they are for nothing of the kind," returned Miss North shortly.

Trusty's hand was waving with unmistakable interest. Miss North was painfully aware that he must be encouraged.

"Well, Trusty," she ventured, "what are your legs for?"

"_Ter hole yer feet on!_" shouted Trusty, in a perfect spasm of joyous interest.

Miss North essayed to collect her thoughts.

"Well, hardly, hardly for--_that alone_, are they, Trusty? Tell me what else they are for."

But Trusty failed to find any other use to which he could put the legs, and Miss North again took the floor; whereupon Trusty's interest immediately subsided.

Later on, she attempted, somewhat cautiously, to draw him out once more; but the day went on, and not once again did Trusty deign to come to the front.

* * * * *

The next morning Miss Doane was at school early. She had been working for some moments at her desk in the Assembly Room, when she became aware that again an unusual sort of demonstration was taking place in the outside hall. To the hall Miss Doane went; and there, once more, she was met by the large colored man and the small colored boy.

"Jes 'blige ter 'ply de same kine o' coaxin', Miss! Whup 'im all de way yere! Ain't I, Trusty?"

Poor Trusty appeared almost too spent even to reply; and Miss Doane looked at him and suggested that he go to his seat and rest.

"M-m-m--ain' gwine no seat 'n' res'!" he growled.