Christian Science -- Controversial literature; Eddy, Mary Baker, 1821-1910
A little Far-Western girl of nine, equipped with an adult vocabulary,
states her age and says, “I thought I would write a demonstration to
you.” She had a claim, derived from getting flung over a pony's head and
landed on a rockpile. She saved herself from disaster by remembering to
say “God is All” while she was in the air. I couldn't have done it.
I shouldn't even have thought of it. I should have been too excited.
Nothing but Christian Science could have enabled that child to do that
calm and thoughtful and judicious thing in those circumstances. She came
down on her head, and by all the rules she should have broken it;
but the intervention of the formula prevented that, so the only claim
resulting was a blackened eye. Monday morning it was still swollen and
shut. At school “it hurt pretty badly--that is, it seemed to.” So “I was
excused, and went down to the basement and said, 'Now I am depending on
mamma instead of God, and I will depend on God instead of mamma.'” No
doubt this would have answered; but, to make sure, she added Mrs. Eddy
to the team and recited “the Scientific Statement of Being,” which
is one of the principal incantations, I judge. Then “I felt my eye
opening.” Why, dear, it would have opened an oyster. I think it is one
of the touchingest things in child-history, that pious little rat down
cellar pumping away at the Scientific Statement of Being.
There is a page about another good child--little Gordon. Little Gordon
“came into the world without the assistance of surgery or anaesthetics.”
He was a “demonstration.” A painless one; therefore, his coming evoked
“joy and thankfulness to God and the Discoverer of Christian Science.”
It is a noticeable feature of this literature--the so frequent linking
together of the Two Beings in an equal bond; also of Their Two Bibles.
When little Gordon was two years old, “he was playing horse on the bed,
where I had left my 'little book.' I noticed him stop in his play, take
the book carefully in his little hands, kiss it softly, then look about
for the highest place of safety his arms could reach, and put it there.”
This pious act filled the mother “with such a train of thought as I had
never experienced before. I thought of the sweet mother of long ago
who kept things in her heart,” etc. It is a bold comparison; however,
unconscious profanations are about as common in the mouths of the lay
member ship of the new Church as are frank and open ones in the mouths
of its consecrated chiefs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account