Did those people detect those changes?  We cannot know.  I think they must have noticed them, the wording of St. Luke’s verse being as familiar to all Christians as is the wording of the Beatitudes; and I think that the reason the new version provoked no surprise and no comment was, that the assemblage took it for a “Key”—­a spiritualized explanation of verse 53, newly sent down from heaven through Mrs. Eddy.  For all Scientists study their Bibles diligently, and they know their Magnificat.  I believe that their confidence in the authenticity of Mrs. Eddy’s inspirations is so limitless and so firmly established that no change, however violent, which she might make in a Bible text could disturb their composure or provoke from them a protest.

Her improved rendition of verse 53 went into the convention’s report and appeared in a New York paper the next day.  The (at that time) Scientist whom I mentioned a minute ago, and who had not been present at the convention, saw it and marvelled; marvelled and was indignant—­indignant with the printer or the telegrapher, for making so careless and so dreadful an error.  And greatly distressed, too; for, of course, the newspaper people would fall foul of it, and be sarcastic, and make fun of it, and have a blithe time over it, and be properly thankful for the chance.  It shows how innocent he was; it shows that he did not know the limitations of newspaper men in the matter of Biblical knowledge.  The new verse 53 raised no insurrection in the press; in fact, it was not even remarked upon; I could have told him the boys would not know there was anything the matter with it.  I have been a newspaper man myself, and in those days I had my limitations like the others.

The Scientist hastened to Concord and told Mrs. Eddy what a disastrous mistake had been made, but he found to his bewilderment that she was tranquil about it, and was not proposing to correct it.  He was not able to get her to promise to make a correction.  He asked her secretary if he had heard aright when the telegram was dictated to him; the secretary said he had, and took the filed copy of it and verified its authenticity by comparing it with the stenographic notes.

Mrs. Eddy did make the correction, two months later, in her official organ.  It attracted no attention among the Scientists; and, naturally, none elsewhere, for that periodical’s circulation was practically confined to disciples of the cult.

That is the tale as it was told to me by an ex-Scientist.  Verse 53 —­renovated and spiritualized—­had a narrow escape from a tremendous celebrity.  The newspaper men would have made it as famous as the assassination of Caesar, but for their limitations.