Time will test the Science’s claim.  If time shall make it good; if time shall prove that the Science can heal the persecuted spirit of man and banish its troubles and keep it serene and sunny and content—­why, then Mrs. Eddy will have a monument that will reach above the clouds.  For if she did not hit upon that imperial idea and evolve it and deliver it, its discoverer can never be identified with certainty, now, I think.  It is the giant feature, it is the sun that rides in the zenith of Christian Science, the auxiliary features are of minor consequence [Let us still leave the large “if” aside, for the present, and proceed as if it had no existence.]

It is not supposable that Mrs. Eddy realized, at first, the size of her plunder. (No, find—­that is the word; she did not realize the size of her find, at first.) It had to grow upon her, by degrees, in accordance with the inalterable custom of Circumstance, which works by stages, and by stages only, and never furnishes any mind with all the materials for a large idea at one time.

In the beginning, Mrs. Eddy was probably interested merely in the mental-healing detail, and perhaps mainly interested in it pecuniary, for she was poor.

She would succeed in anything she undertook.  She would attract pupils, and her commerce would grow.  She would inspire in patient and pupil confidence in her earnestness, her history is evidence that she would not fail of that.

There probably came a time, in due course, when her students began to think there was something deeper in her teachings than they had been suspecting—­a mystery beyond mental-healing, and higher.  It is conceivable that by consequence their manner towards her changed little by little, and from respectful became reverent.  It is conceivable that this would have an influence upon her; that it would incline her to wonder if their secret thought—­that she was inspired—­might not be a well-grounded guess.  It is conceivable that as time went on the thought in their minds and its reflection in hers might solidify into conviction.

She would remember, then, that as a child she had been called, more than once, by a mysterious voice—­just as had happened to little Samuel.  (Mentioned in her Autobiography.) She would be impressed by that ancient reminiscence, now, and it could have a prophetic meaning for her.

It is conceivable that the persuasive influences around her and within her would give a new and powerful impulse to her philosophizings, and that from this, in time, would result that great birth, the healing of body and mind by the inpouring of the Spirit of God—­the central and dominant idea of Christian Science—­and that when this idea came she would not doubt that it was an inspiration direct from Heaven.

CHAPTER XI

[I must rest a little, now.  To sit here and painstakingly spin out a scheme which imagines Mrs. Eddy, of all people, working her mind on a plane above commercialism; imagines her thinking, philosophizing, discovering majestic things; and even imagines her dealing in sincerities—­to be frank, I find it a large contract But I have begun it, and I will go through with it.]