MRS. EDDY IN ERROR

I feel almost sure that Mrs. Eddy’s inspiration—­works are getting out of repair.  I think so because they made some errors in a statement which she uttered through the press on the 17th of January.  Not large ones, perhaps, still it is a friend’s duty to straighten such things out and get them right when he can.  Therefore I will put my other duties aside for a moment and undertake this helpful service.  She said as follows: 

“In view of the circulation of certain criticisms from the pen of Mark Twain, I submit the following statement: 

“It is a fact, well understood, that I begged the students who first gave me the endearing appellative ‘mother’ not to name me thus.  But, without my consent, that word spread like wildfire.  I still must think the name is not applicable to me.  I stand in relation to this century as a Christian discoverer, founder, and leader.  I regard self-deification as blasphemous; I may be more loved, but I am less lauded, pampered, provided for, and cheered than others before me—­and wherefore?  Because Christian Science is not yet popular, and I refuse adulation.

“My visit to the Mother-Church after it was built and dedicated pleased me, and the situation was satisfactory.  The dear members wanted to greet me with escort and the ringing of bells, but I declined, and went alone in my carriage to the church, entered it, and knelt in thanks upon the steps of its altar.  There the foresplendor of the beginnings of truth fell mysteriously upon my spirit.  I believe in one Christ, teach one Christ, know of but one Christ.  I believe in but one incarnation, one Mother Mary, and know I am not that one, and never claimed to be.  It suffices me to learn the Science of the Scriptures relative to this subject.

“Christian Scientists have no quarrel with Protestants, Catholics, or any other sect.  They need to be understood as following the divine Principle God, Love and not imagined to be unscientific worshippers of a human being.

“In the aforesaid article, of which I have seen only extracts, Mark Twain’s wit was not wasted In certain directions.  Christian Science eschews divine rights in human beings.  If the individual governed human consciousness, my statement of Christian Science would be disproved, but to understand the spiritual idea is essential to demonstrate Science and its pure monotheism—­one God, one Christ, no idolatry, no human propaganda.  Jesus taught and proved that what feeds a few feeds all.  His life-work subordinated the material to the spiritual, and He left this legacy of truth to mankind.  His metaphysics is not the sport of philosophy, religion, or Science; rather it is the pith and finale of them all.

“I have not the inspiration or aspiration to be a first or second Virgin-Mother—­her duplicate, antecedent, or subsequent.  What I am remains to be proved by the good I do.  We need much humility, wisdom, and love to perform the functions of foreshadowing and foretasting heaven within us.  This glory is molten in the furnace of affliction.”