It is calculated to strikingly impress a person accustomed to Moody and Sankey and Sam Jones revivals; accustomed to brain-turning appeals to the unknown and unendorsed sinner to come forward and enter into the joy, etc.—­“just as he is”; accustomed to seeing him do it; accustomed to seeing him pass up the aisle through sobbing seas of welcome, and love, and congratulation, and arrive at the mourner’s bench and be received like a long-lost government bond.

No, there is nothing of that kind in Mrs. Eddy’s system.  She knows that if you wish to confer upon a human being something which he is not sure he wants, the best way is to make it apparently difficult for him to get it—­then he is no son of Adam if that apple does not assume an interest in his eyes which it lacked before.  In time this interest can grow into desire.  Mrs. Eddy knows that when you cannot get a man to try—­free of cost—­a new and effective remedy for a disease he is afflicted with, you can generally sell it to him if you will put a price upon it which he cannot afford.  When, in the beginning, she taught Christian Science gratis (for good reasons), pupils were few and reluctant, and required persuasion; it was when she raised the limit to three hundred dollars for a dollar’s worth that she could not find standing room for the invasion of pupils that followed.

With fine astuteness she goes through the motions of making it difficult to get membership in her Church.  There is a twofold value in this system:  it gives membership a high value in the eyes of the applicant; and at the same time the requirements exacted enable Mrs. Eddy to keep him out if she has doubts about his value to her.  A word further as to applications for membership: 

“Applications of students of the Metaphysical College must be signed by the Board of Directors.”

That is safe.  Mrs. Eddy is proprietor of that Board.

Children of twelve may be admitted if invited by “one of Mrs. Eddy’s loyal students, or by a First Member, or by a Director.”

These sponsors are the property of Mrs. Eddy, therefore her Church is safeguarded from the intrusion of undesirable children.

Other Students.  Applicants who have not studied with Mrs. Eddy can get in only “by invitation and recommendation from students of Mrs. Eddy.... or from members of the Mother-Church.”

Other paragraphs explain how two or three other varieties of applicants are to be challenged and obstructed, and tell us who is authorized to invite them, recommend them endorse them, and all that.

The safeguards are definite, and would seem to be sufficiently strenuous —­to Mr. Sam Jones, at any rate.  Not for Mrs. Eddy.  She adds this clincher: 

“The candidates be elected by a majority vote of the First Members present.”

That is the aristocracy, the aborigines, the Sanhedrin.  It is Mrs. Eddy’s property.  She herself is the Sanhedrin.  No one can get into the Church if she wishes to keep him out.