But let me do Mrs. Eddy full justice. I think I have read everything she has written, and one sentence does indeed stand out vividly by itself, a solitary and perfect star of purest ray serene. Apropos of her basic contention (upon which the whole Christian Science superstructure rests, and without which it would fall to the ground) that there is no sensation in matter, she deprecates the spanking of children, because, she wisely says, “the use of the rod is virtually a declaration to the child’s mind, that sensation belongs to matter.” Impossible as I have found it to reach the understanding of Christian Scientists by arguments addressed to their intelligence, I strongly incline to the idea that the spanking process would be likely to induce more or less vague impressions that sensation does actually reside in the material of which these living bodies are composed; and I respectfully submit that it would seem to follow that the most effective way of reaching Mrs. Eddy’s childish followers and curing them of their strange distemper would be the considerate, not too vigorous, application, all around, after the manner of the old woman who lived in a shoe, of the corrective maternal slipper. Chapter VI A Sham “Religion” Mrs. Eddy describes herself, and has made her followers believe her to be, the “discoverer and founder of Christian Science.” It is very easy to disprove her claim to discovery, and to show her foundation stones to have been theft and falsehood and fraud. As a pretended “religion” it is all hers, and no one else lays claim to it; as a mental healing system, it is none of it hers and her pretensions to originality are wholly fictitious. Let it be remembered, always, that on the first page of her book, “Science and Health,” as published in 1898, and in many other editions, Mrs. Eddy makes her claim to originality and revelation in the following unequivocal terms: “In the year 1866 I discovered the science of metaphysical healing and named it Christian Science. God had been graciously fitting me during many years for a final _revelation_ of the absolute principle of scientific mind healing.” If, prior to 1866, God had been “graciously fitting” her during many years for the “final revelation,” it appears that, years afterwards, God’s work was not quite completed and her character entirely sublimated. Some of her friends in Lynn, in 1881, fifteen years after the date of her alleged revelation, became of the opinion that she was not, even then, absolutely perfect and withdrew from her church there, giving, in writing, as their reason, “her departure from the straight and narrow road which alone leads to growth of Christ-like virtue, made manifest by frequent ebullitions of temper, love of money and the appearance of hypocrisy.” How accurate was this early estimate of the woman as shown by every known act of her life!