“Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves, that mental malpractice can harm you neither when asleep nor when awake.” Only this and _nothing more_. It is senseless, and yet it cost many thousands of Christian Scientists from three to six dollars apiece to find out, if they could find anything out, that the “revelator” had sold them a “gold brick.” And even since the edition of February, 1908, another edition, with only one line added, has been foisted upon the faithful. What is the meaning of these things? Here is a woman claiming the succession to Jesus, claiming to have received an exclusive revelation from Almighty God necessary to salvation, and, having organized a church ostensibly to lead unto the Father, she requires, as a condition of continued membership in the church, that its members shall “_circulate_ and _sell_” as _many_ of her copyrighted books, upon which there is a profit of five hundred per cent, “as they _can_”; and, year in and year out, she palms off upon the believers new editions of the old stuff upon the false pretense of new material important to their spiritual growth. Nobody ever went at a thing in a more round-about, indirect fashion, and nobody ever resorted to trickery more shamelessly than has the Reverend Mary Baker G. Eddy. Nobody ever assumed with so much boldness the complete asininity of the human race, as has this woman who professes to be the successor to Jesus Christ. In the fall of 1899 suits were brought (as explained in the Introduction) against Mrs. Eddy and some of her leading supporters for the libel upon Mrs. Woodbury, in which damages, approximating half a million dollars, were asked. Mrs. Eddy and her friends were much alarmed and prepared for the most strenuous defence that could possibly be made. It was denied that Mrs. Woodbury was in any way referred to in the passage complained of; but numerous lawyers were retained to contest her endeavor to show that the denial was false. Mrs. Eddy retained four different firms of lawyers to represent her, three prominent Boston firms and the leading firm in New Hampshire, where she then lived. She thus found herself involved in enormous and unexpected expense, and money became the burning question of the hour. Mrs. Eddy well knew, from experience, that all she had to do to procure the money necessary, was to ask the faithful to give it to her; but she, naturally, didn’t care to make an open appeal for it. She resorted, as I believe, to the strangest and most audacious trick ever employed by any human being to get money out of honest and trusting people. Four days before Christmas, 1899, when it was safe to assume that the customary Christmas offerings were in the mail on their way to her, she published in the _Christian Science Sentinel_ the following: “A Card.