“It distresses me a little to hear you talk about ‘sanity in the affairs of men.’ So far as I know, men have never shown any noticeable degree of sanity in their affairs, and to me it seems rather large flattery to intimate that they are capable of it. “See them get down and worship that old creature. A century hence, they’ll all be at it. Sanity—in the human race! This is really fulsome.” There is no other possible explanation than this of Mrs. Eddy’s success. It is based, as Mark Twain says, upon the irresistible propensity of the human race to make an ass of itself every time it gets a chance. It is astounding, but it is a fact, that by many thousands of people in the United States in the year of grace 1910 this aged, illiterate, unprincipled, vulgar woman is regarded as the agent and representative of the Almighty God. I do not know how many times I have been told that because I have endeavored to make the people of the country understand that Christian Science is based wholly upon Mrs. Eddy’s falsehoods, I am therefore irreverently assailing the Almighty upon His throne. I confess I am not much disturbed by this particular criticism, because I feel that, if it be a fact, the Almighty will deal with me indulgently, knowing the integrity of my motives, and that, however aggressive I may become, the Almighty is in no danger. The more I have studied and learned of the life of this strange creature and the more closely I have observed her effect upon the lives of those who come under her sway, the more strongly I am convinced of the harmfulness of her influence. It is literally derationalizing thousands of people, it is turning multitudes from the pursuit of knowledge and steeping them in a superstition worse than that of the Middle Ages. It is remorselessly separating husband and wife, parent and child. It is the mother and promoter of a new-old witchcraft which has so taken possession of the minds and lives of people that they live in constant terror of its supposed baneful work. This Christian Science witchcraft has reached the proportion amongst the faithful almost of panic, and of it more hereafter. But of all of the harmful influences of this alleged medical science, which is an unmitigated nonsense or deviltry, and of this alleged religion which, so far as its founder is concerned, is the very quintessence of irreverence and hypocrisy, of all of the evil consequences of the life and work of this monumental imposture, the unrelieved suffering of helpless children is the worst.