help—­“echoing” throws no light upon “scribe.”  A rock can reflect an echo, a wall can do it, a mountain can do it, many things can do it, but a scribe can’t.  A scribe that could reflect an echo could get over thirty dollars a week in a side-show.  Many impresarios would rather have him than a cow with four tails.  If we allow that this present scribe was setting down the “harmonies of Heaven”—­and certainly that seems to have been the case then there was only one way to do it that I can think of:  listen to the music and put down the notes one after another as they fell.  In that case Mrs. Eddy did not invent the tune, she only entered it on paper.  Therefore dropping the metaphor—­she was merely an amanuensis, and furnished neither the language of Science and Health nor the ideas.  It reduces her to eight per cent. (and the dividends on that and the rest).

Is that it?  We shall never know.  For Mrs. Eddy is liable to testify again at any time.  But until she does it, I think we must conclude that the Deity was Author of the whole book, and Mrs. Eddy merely His telephone and stenographer.  Granting this, her claim as the Voice of God stands-for the present—­justified and established.

POSTSCRIPT

I overlooked something.  It appears that there was more of that utterance than Mr. Peabody has quoted in the above paragraph.  It will be found in Mrs. Eddy’s organ, the Christian Science Journal (January, 1901) and reads as follows: 

“It was not myself . . . which dictated Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures.”

That is certainly clear enough.  The words which I have removed from that important sentence explain Who it was that did the dictating.  It was done by

“the divine power of Truth and Love, infinitely above me.”

Certainly that is definite.  At last, through her personal testimony, we have a sure grip upon the following vital facts, and they settle the authorship of Science and Health beyond peradventure: 

1.  Mrs. Eddy furnished “the ideas and the language.” 2.  God furnished the ideas and the language.

It is a great comfort to have the matter authoritatively settled.

CHAPTER V

It is hard to locate her, she shifts about so much.  She is a shining drop of quicksilver which you put your finger on and it isn’t there.  There is a paragraph in the Autobiography (page 96) which places in seemingly darkly significant procession three Personages: 

1.  The Virgin Mary 2.  Jesus of Nazareth. 3.  Mrs. Eddy.

This is the paragraph referred to: 

“No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary.  No person can compass or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth.  No person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science.  Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity.”