Modern Religious Cults and MovementsAtkins, Gaius Glenn
Religion
Modern Religious Cults and Movements
Atkins, Gaius Glenn
Christian Science; New Thought; Religion; Spiritual healing
There were corresponding changes in her personality and even her
physique. She began to give lessons, safeguarding her instructions from
the very first in such ways as to make them uncommonly profitable. Her
pupils paid $100 for the course and agreed also to give her a percentage
of the income from their practice. In the course of litigation which
afterward follows, the courts pronounced that they did not find in her
course of instruction anything which could be "in any way of value in
fitting the defendant as a competent and successful practitioner of any
intelligible art or method of healing the sick." The court, therefore,
was of the opinion that "consideration for the agreement had wholly
failed." In a sense the court was mistaken. Mrs. Eddy was giving her
disciples something which, whether it fitted them to be competent and
successful practitioners of any intelligible art or method of healing
the sick, or no, was of great financial advantage both to them and to
their teacher. She afterward raised her tuition fee to $300 and stated
that God had shown her in multitudinous ways the wisdom of this
decision.
_Early Phases of Christian Science_
Everything was, to begin with, a matter of personal relationship between
Mrs. Eddy and her students. They constitute a closely related group, the
pupils themselves extravagant in their gratitude to their teacher. There
were, of course, schisms, jealousies, recriminations, litigation, but
none the less, the movement went on. The first attempt at organization
was made at Lynn in 1875. A hall was rented, meetings were held in the
evening, the society was known as the "Christian Scientists" and as an
organization Christian Science came into the world. The first edition of
"Science and Health" was also published in 1875. There was difficulty in
finding a publisher; those who assisted Mrs. Eddy financially were
losers in the enterprise. They were never reimbursed, though "Science
and Health" afterward became the most remunerative single publication in
the world. Two years later Mrs. Glover (for after her divorce from
Patterson she had taken her earlier married name) married Gilbert Eddy
and so took the name by which she is best known to the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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