That Mrs. Eddy wrote that amazing By-law with her own hand we have much better evidence than her word.  We have her English.  It is there.  It cannot be imitated.  She ought never to go to the expense of copyrighting her verbal discharges.  When any one tries to claim them she should call me; I can always tell them from any other literary apprentice’s at a glance.  It was like her to call America a “nation”; she would call a sand-bar a nation if it should fall into a sentence in which she was speaking of peoples, for she would not know how to untangle it and get it out and classify it by itself.  And the closing arrangement of that By-law is in true Eddysonian form, too.  In it she reserves authority to make a Reader fill any office connected with a Science church-sexton, grave-digger, advertising-agent, Annex-polisher, leader of the choir, President, Director, Treasurer, Clerk, etc.  She did not mean that.  She already possessed that authority.  She meant to clothe herself with power, despotic and unchallengeable, to appoint all Science Readers to their offices, both at home and abroad.  The phrase “or to appoint” is another miscarriage of intention; she did not mean “or,” she meant “and.”

That By-law puts into Mrs. Eddy’s hands absolute command over the most formidable force and influence existent in the Christian Science kingdom outside of herself, and it does this unconditionally and (by auxiliary force of Laws already quoted) irrevocably.  Still, she is not quite satisfied.  Something might happen, she doesn’t know what.  Therefore she drives in one more nail, to make sure, and drives it deep: 

“This By-law can neither be amended nor annulled, except by consent of the Pastor Emeritus.”

Let some one with a wild and delirious fancy try and see if he can imagine her furnishing that consent.

MONOPOLY OF SPIRITUAL BREAD

Very properly, the first qualification for membership in the Mother-Church is belief in the doctrines of Christian Science.

But these doctrines must not be gathered from secondary sources.  There is but one recognized source.  The candidate must be a believer in the doctrines of Christian Science “according to the platform and teaching contained in the Christian Science text-book, ’Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,’ by Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy.”

That is definite, and is final.  There are to be no commentaries, no labored volumes of exposition and explanation by anybody except Mrs. Eddy.  Because such things could sow error, create warring opinions, split the religion into sects, and disastrously cripple its power.  Mrs. Eddy will do the whole of the explaining, Herself—­has done it, in fact.  She has written several books.  They are to be had (for cash in advance), they are all sacred; additions to them can never be needed and will never be permitted.  They tell the candidate how to instruct himself, how to teach others, how to do all things comprised in the business—­and they close the door against all would-be competitors, and monopolize the trade: