Mrs. Eddy declares that "no human being or agency taught me the truths of Christian Science, and no human agency can overthrow it."[8] But there are published statements,[9] of the truth of which the writer offers to give legal proof, in which it is shown, by means of the "deadly parallel," that the essential ideas underlying her system are all plagiarized from the writings of an irregular practitioner to whom, many years ago, she went for treatment. Published accounts of her illness at that time present a picture of hysteria pure and simple. [Footnote 8: Science and Health.] [Footnote 9: The Arena, May, 1898.] Mrs. Eddy claims to possess healing powers nothing short of miraculous, yet the writer just mentioned declares that she has probably not been a well woman these forty years past. Certain it is she almost never appears in public, and only a few of her followers have ever seen her face except in copyrighted photographs. The medical profession is most stupidly reprobated by Mrs. Eddy and her associates, especially for its "mercenary motives." A specific statement may here be not malapropos. In the year 1895 there were 1,800,000 inhabitants in the lesser city of New York, and on the rolls of its hospitals and dispensaries were more than 793,000 names of people for the treatment of whom New York's medical men received practically no pecuniary reward whatever. It is declared that Christian Science is a religious system, that the treatment of the sick is a part of this system, and that, as the Constitution forbids interference by the States with religion, no laws can be enacted which could compel the healer to desist from his work. But there is a sharp distinction between religious liberty and license to commit, in the name of religion, unlawful acts. A man would not be justified in killing his child in obedience to a fanatical belief, as Abraham was about to do; but Christian Science has sacrificed the lives of little children upon the altar of its pseudo-religion. Had not these children rights which ought to have been safeguarded? If the Christian Scientist's position be admitted, a thug might, upon the same principles, be justified in committing murder, on the ground that murder is a practice required by his religion; and a Mormon might, on the same basis, practice polygamy. When a healer treats for hire a sufferer from typhoid fever, is he acting in a religious capacity? The observer will find in Christian Science much charlatanry (by which many honest fanatics are deceived), much to surprise reason and common sense, to offend good taste and the proprieties, to outrage justice and the law, and to mortify the pious. And in the last degree reprehensible will appear this cult's ghastly masquerade in the garb of Him that prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, "the pale, staggering Jew, with the crown of thorns upon his bleeding head," the tenderest, the divinest, the most mankind-loving personality the world has ever known.