Christian Science -- Controversial literature; Eddy, Mary Baker, 1821-1910
Every proper Christian Scientist has to buy and own (and canvass for)
Science and Health (one hundred and eighty thousand words), and he must
also own a Bible (one million words). He can buy the one for from three
to six dollars, and the other for fifteen cents. Or, if three dollars is
all the money he has, he can get his Bible for nothing. When the Supreme
Being disseminates a saving Message through uninspired agents--the New
Testament, for instance--it can be done for five cents a copy, but when
He sends one containing only two-thirds as many words through the shop
of a Divine Personage, it costs sixty times as much. I think that
in matters of such importance it is bad economy to employ a wild-cat
agency.
Here are some figures which are perfectly authentic, and which seem to
justify my opinion.
“These [Bible] societies, inspired only by a sense of religious duty,
are issuing the Bible at a price so small that they have made it the
cheapest book printed. For example, the American Bible Society offers an
edition of the whole Bible as low as fifteen cents and the New Testament
at five cents, and the British Society at sixpence and one penny,
respectively. These low prices, made possible by their policy of selling
the books at cost or below cost,” etc.--New York Sun, February 25, 1903.
CHAPTER IX
We may now make a final footing-up of Mrs. Eddy, and see what she is, in
the fulness of her powers. She is:
The Massachusetts Metaphysical College Pastor Emeritus; President; Board
of Directors; Board of Education; Board of Lectureships; Future Board of
Trustees, Proprietor of the Publishing-House and Periodicals; Treasurer;
Clerk; Proprietor of the Teachers; Proprietor of the Lecturers;
Proprietor of the Missionaries; Proprietor of the Readers; Dictator of
the Services; sole Voice of the Pulpit; Proprietor of the Sanhedrin;
Sole Proprietor of the Creed. (Copyrighted.); Indisputable Autocrat
of the Branch Churches, with their life and death in her hands; Sole
Thinker for The First Church (and the others); Sole and Infallible
Expounder of Doctrine, in life and in death; Sole permissible
Discoverer, Denouncer, Judge, and Executioner of Ostensible Hypnotists;
Fifty-handed God of Excommunication--with a thunderbolt in every hand;
Appointer and Installer of the Pastor of all the Churches--the Perpetual
Pastor-Universal, Science and Health, “the Comforter.”
CHAPTER X
There she stands-painted by herself. No witness but herself has been
allowed to testify. She stands there painted by her acts, and decorated
by her words. When she talks, she has only a decorative value as
a witness, either for or against herself, for she deals mainly in
unsupported assertion; and in the rare cases where she puts forward a
verifiable fact she gets out of it a meaning which it refuses to furnish
to anybody else. Also, when she talks, she is unstable, she wanders,
she is incurably inconsistent; what she says to-day she contradicts
tomorrow.
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account