Mrs. Eddy next disorganised the Association. At her request it was voted “to set aside the official organisation and the constitution and by-laws of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College Association, and to meet in the future as a voluntary association of Christians to promote growth in spirituality.” The Journal, in its announcement, continues: “What was embraced under the name of ‘business’ was thus dispensed with. Nothing valuable of the purposes of the organisation had been lost and a new realisation that all is mind and of union in love had been gained.” The effect of this disorganisation, the Journal said, would be “to lift them from the material sensual plane to that of voluntary association or love,” and to eliminate “rivalry, jealousy, envy, and stir of personality.”

  While she was moving about and experimenting, Mrs. Eddy was also engaged in preparing the new edition of Science and Health, which appeared in 1891; and her chief difficulty in getting the book on the market was, as always, mesmerism. She had fled from Boston to escape it, but it was ever on her track and it throve in Concord as well as in Boston and Vermont and Roslindale. The ordinary delays which occur in the best-regulated of pressrooms and binderies, she attributed directly to the results of malicious animal magnetism, and that eminently reliable and decorous establishment, the University Press, was supposed to have been given over to the riotous disorders of demonology. Mrs. Eddy set half a dozen of her students to treating the pressmen and binders against errors and delays, and wrote out an argument for them to use in their treatments. The veteran printer, Mr. John Wilson himself, she assigned, for especial treatment, to her son, E. J. Foster Eddy. The letter in which Mrs. Eddy issued instructions that the treatments upon the press were to begin, was written to Dr. Foster Eddy, and reads as follows:

  Jan. 13, 385 Commonwealth Avenue.

  My Dearest One: Please to go at once to Miss Bartlett and give her the directions inclosed. See Capt. Eastaman and give him the same. After writing out sufficient copies, distribute them as follows:

  To Capt. Eastaman, Miss Bartlett; for Mrs. Munroe; Press and Bindery, for Mr. Johnson, Mr. Knapp, Mrs. Knapp.

  You keep Mr. Wilson, the printer of Cambridge, under your care alone. Also the Mr. Wilson, or proprietor, whoever he is, in Boston, who manages the bindery, under your care only. You know they cannot be made sick for printing and binding God’s book, and you must show your faith by works in this instance.

  Attached to this letter is a sheet of manuscript in Mrs. Eddy’s handwriting, which reads:

  Argument

  Nothing can hinder the book, Science and Health, from being published immediately. The press and machinery that publish this book and all who work on it in the press and bindery are safe in God’s hands, they cannot be and are not governed by hatred. They are governed, upheld and prospered by Love and the book is coming out rapidly. When the book goes to the bindery then stop the press aid and turn all their force there.

  Tell each one that I say by no means take up the mesmerists or any personality, but to have faith in God and this will do it all — just as the prayer asks.

  Your personal work for the Wilsons must be done as I have taught you, to help them, and not touch others.

  If I or Mr. Frye write or telegraph to you then you must stop at once the student’s argument. You understand this, do you not?

  The last sentence in Mrs. Eddy’s instructions seems to imply that it was possible to over-treat the pressroom, and that it might be necessary to stop the treatments at any time. Just what the results of over-treatment might be, it is difficult to conjecture, but from another letter to Dr. Foster it is evident that Mrs. Eddy thought the treatments had been too vigorous and had thrown everything into confusion:

  Dearest:

  I have just found what did (but did not) produce a temporary tempest here. It was the help you procured on the Press! Never, never put “new wine into old bottles.”

  Those persons named are utterly incapable of handling the Red Dragon. They can command serpents but not the last species.

  At once dismiss your help and confine your treatment to the Proprietor Mr. W —— and electricity take no other personality into thought but the ones employed at the Press.

  All is God, Good there is no evil.

  It was in the early autumn of 1889 that Mrs. Eddy conceived the idea that malicious animal magnetism was interfering with the proper conduct of the Christian Science Journal. She sent one morning for Mr. William G. Nixon, publisher of the Journal, and directed him to take the magazine and flee with it at once into some other city; if he stayed in Boston a month longer, she declared, mesmerism would wreck the periodical. Mr. Nixon tried to explain to her the difficulties of picking up a periodical and “fleeing” with it between publication days, when no preparatory arrangements had been made and no new location selected. But Mrs. Eddy was immovable. In business disputes Mrs. Eddy had always one argument which none of her associates could hope to equal: she would draw up her shoulders, look her opponent in the eye, and say, very slowly, “God has directed me in this matter. Have you anything further to say?” Mr. Nixon naturally wished to remain in Boston; he had brought his family there from Dakota, and his contract with his printer was unexpired. But there was nothing to be gained by arguing with Mrs. Eddy; and there was no time to be lost if he was to find a new location for his business in time to get out the next month’s Journal. He went to Philadelphia, where he at length found a suitable office and a printer who would undertake to get the magazine out on time. Just as he was about to close the contract, he received a telegram from Mrs. Eddy telling him to bring the Journal back to Boston at once.

  In directing the Journal’s policy, Mrs. Eddy was never afraid to change her mind, and often repudiated to-day what she had yesterday advanced as divine revelation. On one occasion she wrote to Mr. Nixon that God had directed her to recommend a certain candidate for the editorship of the Journal:

  385 Commonwealth Ave.

  Boston , Sept. 30 1889

  My dear Student

  God our God has just told me who to recommend to you for the Editor of C. S. Jour. but you are not to name me in this transaction. It is Rev. Charles Macomber Smith D.D. 164 Summer St Somerville Mass. He was healed by reading Science and Health and left a large salary to preach Christian Science and then left that position for the hope J. F. Bailey had held out to him of preaching for my Church but I objected to taking him solely because his church had not been consulted before giving him a call.

  Get him sure but be very reticent let it not be known until he is engaged or you will have a fuss about it.

  Lovingly,

  M. B. G. Eddy.

  Mr. Nixon had not had time to act upon this letter when he received another in which Mrs. Eddy explained that her recommendation of Mr. Smith had been the result of mesmerism, and not of divine inspiration:

  Concord, N. H.

  62 State St.

  To Mr. Nixon

  My dear Student

  I regret having named the one I did to you for Editor It is a mistake he is not fit It was not God evidently that suggested that thought but the person who suggests many things mentally but I have before been able to discriminate I wrote too soon after it came to my thought He has not been taught C. S. and I hear refuses to be taught by any one but me. Love to wife

  Ever Affectionately

  M. B. G. Eddy.

  In another letter she reprimands her publisher for not affixing the author’s name whenever he refers to Science and Health in the columns of the Journal, and for not printing the name of that book always in small capitals. Mr. Nixon felt that the Journal should be the magazine of Christian Science rather than Mrs. Eddy’s personal organ, and had rashly attempted to persuade her that it would be more dignified in her to keep her own name a little more in the background, especially when so many of her enemies were asserting that Christian Science was nothing but a glorification of Mrs. Eddy’s “personality.” On this point she says to Mr. Nixon, in a letter dated June 30, 1890:

  Those who are trying to frighten you over using my name at suitable intervals and who are crying out personality are the very ones that persist in their purpose to keep my personality before the public through abusing it and to harness it to all the faults of other personalities and make it responsible for them. But neither of these efforts disposes of personality nor handle it on the rule our Master taught nor deal with mortal personality scientifically.

  In the same letter she reproves him for having omitted her appellation of “Reverend” when referring to her in the Journal.

  Among Mrs. Eddy’s letters to her publisher, Mr. Nixon, is this rather amusing one:

  July 14 1890.

  385 Commonwealth Ave.

  My dear Student

  Many thanks for your copy of Brotherham’s translation of the New Testament But I cannot see the merit in it that Mr. Bailey attaches to it in his long notice in the Journal. The language is decaying as fast as that of Irving’s Pickwick Papers I prefer the common version for all scriptural quotations to that.

  Most truly and affectionately,

  M. B. G. Eddy.

  Having divested herself of her responsibilities as editor and teacher, Mrs. Eddy further protected herself from the importunities of her students by the publication in the Journal of seven fixed rules, which announced that she was not to be consulted regarding the personal or church difficulties of her followers. Her next step was to disorganise the Boston church. Upon this action the Journal of February, 1890, comments as follows:

  The dissolution of the visible organisation of the church is the sequence and complement of that of the college corporation and association. The college disappeared that the spirit of Christ might have freer course among its students and all who come into the understanding of Divine Science, the bonds of the church were thrown away so that its members might assemble themselves together to “provoke one another to good works” in the bond only of love.

  After Mrs. Eddy disorganised it, the church continued to hold regular services and, to all intents and purposes, went on just as before with the one important exception that it held no more business meetings and transacted no business. The real reason for this disorganisation seems to have been just that, for the time, Mrs. Eddy wanted no business transacted. Her explanation that organisation was a detriment to spirituality could scarcely have been more than a convenient pretext, for at the same time that she put this check upon the Boston church, her messages to the workers in the field continually urged them to organise churches. It would seem that what was hurtful to spirituality in Boston would be hurtful elsewhere; but the fact was that ever since the schism of 1888 Mrs. Eddy had been dissatisfied with her Boston church, and she had decided to take it to pieces and make it over. A plan was forming in her mind, and putting a stop to all the business transactions of the church gave her time to feel her way toward its accomplishment.

  The Boston church was still homeless and held its meetings in public halls. In 1886 its members had purchased a lot on Falmouth Street — where the original Mother Church now stands — with the intention of erecting upon it a church building. They paid two thousand dollars down upon the date of purchase and assumed a mortgage for the balance due. By December, 1888, the church had paid $5,800 upon the property, and had reduced the mortgage to $4,963.50. Mrs. Eddy then stepped in and, through her lawyer, secured an assignment of the mortgage for the amount due upon it. Eight months later she foreclosed and bought in the property herself through her lawyer’s brother.

  In other words, Mrs. Eddy sold to herself the land upon which she now held the mortgage, securing for $5,000 a piece of real estate which three years before had sold for $10,763.50, — and which since then had almost doubled in value, — and the members of the Boston church had lost all equity in the property upon which they had paid $5,800.

  Since Mrs. Eddy intended ultimately to give this land back to the church, why, the reader may ask, did she not come forward when the payments ran behind, and satisfy the mortgage, leaving the property unincumbered in the hands of the organisation which had already paid on it more than half the purchase price? The reason seems to have been that there were still in that body persons of whom Mrs. Eddy did not feel sure; members who might be elected to office, might have too active a part in the church government, and might even incite a new rebellion like that of 1888. Her plan now was to give this building-site to the Boston church directors under such conditions as would forever do away with congregational self-government, and would place the church wholly under the control of such trustees as she should appoint.

  Mrs. Eddy was aiming at (1) the entire personal ownership of the site of the Boston church, (2) perpetual personal control of the church which should be reared upon it, (3) making the Boston church not merely a local church and the home of the Boston congregation, but a church universal, the “Mother Church” of Christian Science the world over, with Mrs. Eddy installed as its visible head. And a seemingly insignificant real-estate transaction was actually the means of accomplishing this important end.

  Up to this time Mrs. Eddy’s name had been kept out of the various conveyances on the Falmouth Street property, and she desired that it should not directly appear in future transactions. She now had the land deeded to her student, Ira O. Knapp. Mr. Knapp then conveyed the property to three trustees, Alfred Lang, Marcellus Munroe, and William G. Nixon, who were to hold it for the purpose of building a church thereon. The trust deed by which the conveyance was made was of such an unusual character that Mr. Nixon insisted upon having the title examined before the trustees should place on the lot a building paid for by Christian Scientists residing in all parts of the United States. After examining it, the Massachusetts Title Insurance Company refused to insure the title, and, in spite of Mrs. Eddy’s argument that “the title was from God, and that no material title could affect God’s temple,” the three trustees returned all the donations to the building fund which they had received, and resigned. The property was now conveyed by Mr. Knapp to Mrs. Eddy (who had in reality been its owner all the while) for a consideration of one dollar, and Mrs. Eddy began all over again.

  On September 1, 1892, Mrs. Eddy conveyed this much-bandied-about plot of ground to four new trustees: Ira O. Knapp, William B. Johnson, Joseph S. Eastaman, and Stephen A. Chase, who were pledged to erect upon the site, within five years, a church building costing not less than $50,000. Among the provisos of the trust deed were the following:

  That in this church there should be no services “which shall not be in strict harmony with the doctrines and practice of Christian Science as taught and explained by Mary Baker G. Eddy in the seventy-first edition of her book, entitled Science and Health, which is soon to be issued, and in any subsequent edition thereof.”

  That these trustees should be called the Board of Directors and should constitute a perpetual body or corporation, fill ing any vacancy in their body by election, and filling it only with such an one as should be “a firm and consistent believer in the doctrines of Christian Science as taught in a book entitled Science and Health by Mary Baker G. Eddy, beginning with,” etc.

  That this board should elect the pastor, speaker, or reader, maintain public worship, and was “fully empowered to make all necessary rules and regulations” for this purpose.

  That “the omission or neglect on the part of said directors to comply with any of the conditions herein named, shall constitute a breach thereof, and the title shall revert to the grantor, Mary Baker G. Eddy, her heirs and assigns,” etc.

  That “Whenever said directors shall determine that it is inexpedient to maintain preaching, reading or speaking in said church in accordance with the terms of this deed, they are authorised and required to reconvey forthwith said lot of land with the building thereon, to Mary Baker G. Eddy, her heirs and assigns forever, by a proper deed of conveyance.”

  At last, then, Mrs. Eddy had the Boston church where she wanted it; an institution without congregational government, controlled by four directors whom she should appoint and who should elect their successors at her suggestion; who were pledged to see that the church taught only what was in the seventy-first edition of Science and Health, and whatever Mrs. Eddy might please to put into any subsequent edition; and who, if they did not comply with all these instructions, were bound to give back the lot, and the building upon it, to Mrs. Eddy and to her heirs forever. A Mother Church thus constructed would have great possibilities.

  But here an objection arose. A corporation must be formed, and when Mrs. Eddy asked the State to grant her a new charter for a new church body, the Commissioner of Corporations refused. His reason was that the original charter, granted in 1879, had never been annulled and was still in force. But Mrs. Eddy had no intention of recognising the old church or its charter; if her new directors merely held the property in trust for a church organisation, her end would be defeated. As the deed of trust read, the directors were virtually to hold the property in trust for Mrs. Eddy herself, to the end of executing her wishes. There must be a way, Mrs. Eddy insisted, in which her trustees could hold the property without recognising the existence of the chartered church body, so she set her lawyers to work. “Guided by Divine Love,” she said, her attorneys found in the laws of Massachusetts a statute whereby a body of donees might be considered a corporate body for the purpose of taking and holding grants and donations without the formal organisation of a church. This old statute once unearthed, Mrs. Eddy’s plan was entirely worked out: the Mother Church was now controlled absolutely by her four directors; the corporation consisted of her directors and not of the church body; and the congregation had no more voice in the management of the church than has the audience in the management of a theatre.