A recently discovered sin against the First Commandment is the worship of Mrs. Eddy, and it is commonly called Christian Science.  This sacrilegious humbug was conceived in the brain of an old woman up in New Hampshire and, like the little demon of error that it is, it leaped forth, after a long period of travail, full-fledged and panoplied, and on its lips were these words:  “What fools these mortals be!” Dame Eddy gets good returns from the sacrilegio-comic tour of her progeny around the country.  Intellectual Boston is at her feet, and Boston pays well for its amusements.

It is remarkable for an utter lack of anything like Christianity or science.  It is as Christian as Buddhism and as scientific as the notions of our early forefathers concerning the automobile.  It is a parody on both and like the usual run of parodies, it is a success.

The average man should not attempt to delve down into the mysterious depths of mind and matter which form the basis of this system.  In the first place, it is an impossible task for an ordinary intelligence; then, again, it were labor lost, for even if one did get down far enough one could get nothing satisfactory out of it.  The force of Eddyism lies in its being mysterious, incomprehensible and contradictory.  These qualities would kill an ordinary system, but this is no ordinary system.  The only way to beat the Christian Scientist is to invite him to focus all the energy of his mind on a vulgar lamp-post and engrave thereon the name of the revered Eddy—­this to show the power of mind.  Then to prove the non-existence of matter, ask him to consent to your endeavoring to make a material impression on his head with an immaterial hammer.

Of course this is not what he meant; but what he did mean will become by no means clearer after the wearisome, interminable lengths to which he will go to elucidate.  The fact is that he does not know it himself, and no one can give what he does not possess.  True philosophy tells us to define terms and never to employ expressions of more than one meaning without saying in what sense we use them.  Contempt of this rule is the salvation of Christian Science, and that is where we lose.

Yet there is something in this fad after all.  Total insanity is never met with outside state institutions, and these people are at large.  The ravings of a delirious patient are often a monstrous mass of wild absurdities; but, if you question the patient when convalescent, you will sometimes be surprised to find they were all founded on facts which had become exaggerated and distorted.  There is no such thing as pure unadulterated error.  All of which is meant to convey the idea that at the bottom of all fraud and falsehood there is some truth, and the malice of error is always proportionate with the amount of truth it has perverted.