The Christian Science Publishing Society is conducted for the purpose of publishing and marketing Mrs. Eddy’s works and the three Christian Science periodicals, the Christian Science Journal, the Christian Science Sentinel, and Der Christian Science Herald. It is managed and controlled by a Board of Trustees appointed by Mrs. Eddy, and the net profits of the business are turned over semi-annually to the treasurer of the Mother Church. The manager and editors are appointed for one year only, and must be elected or reëlected by a vote of the directors and “the consent of the Pastor Emeritus, given in her own handwriting.” The Manual also states that a person who is not accepted by Mrs. Eddy as suitable shall in no manner be connected with publishing her books or editing her periodicals.

  Until 1898 any Christian Scientist could give public talks or lectures upon the doctrines of his faith, but in January of that year Mrs. Eddy withdrew this privilege. She appointed a Board of Lectureship, carefully selecting each member and assigning each to a certain district. In this work she placed several of her most influential men, among whom was Septimus J. Hanna. As itinerant lecturers these men could not very well build up a dangerously strong personal following, and they could very ably set forth the Christian Science doctrines. These lecturers are elected annually, subject to Mrs. Eddy’s approval. Their representative lectures must be censored by the clerk of the Mother Church. The Manual stipulates that these lectures must “bear testimony to the facts pertaining to the life of the Pastor Emeritus.”

  Seven missionaries are elected annually by the Board of Directors, and their duties are to fill vacancies in pulpits and to “correctly propagate” Christian Science wherever it is most needed.

  The Board of Education consists of three members, the President, Vice-President, and a teacher. Mrs. Eddy is the permanent President — unless, says the Manual, she sees fit to “resign over her own signature.” The Vice-President and teacher are elected from time to time, “subject to the approval of the Pastor Emeritus.”

  It is not easy to become a member of the Mother Church. The applicant for admission must read nothing upon metaphysics or religion except Mrs. Eddy’s books and the Bible, and his application must be countersigned by one of Mrs. Eddy’s loyal students, who is made responsible for the candidate’s sincerity. There are many things for which the new member may be expelled after he is once admitted into the church. He may not haunt the roads upon which Mrs. Eddy drives. He may not discuss, lecture upon, or debate upon Christian Science in public without permission from one of her representatives. He must not be a “leader” in the church and must never be called one. He may read only the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s books for religious instruction. He shall not “vilify” the Pastor Emeritus. He must go to Mrs. Eddy’s home and serve her in person for one year if she requires it of him. He may not permit his children to believe in Santa Claus — Mrs. Eddy abolished Santa Claus by proclamation in 1904. He may not read or quote from Mrs. Eddy’s books without first naming the author. Mrs. Eddy says, in explanation of this by-law: “To pour into the ears of listeners the sacred revelations of Christian Science indiscriminately, or without characterising their origin and thus distinguishing them from the writings of authors who think at random on this subject, is to lose some weight in the scale of right thinking.”

  A Christian Scientist “shall neither buy, sell nor circulate Christian Science literature which is not correct in its statement,” etc., Mrs. Eddy, of course, determining whether or not the statement is correct. He “shall not patronise a publishing house or bookstore that has for sale obnoxious books.”

  A Christian Scientist may not belong to any club or society, which excludes either sex, Free Masons excepted, outside the Mother Church. Mrs. Eddy says that church organisations are ample for him.

  It is indicative of Mrs. Eddy’s influence over her followers that when this by-law was issued, less than twenty inquiries (so her secretary announced) were received at Pleasant View. Men resigned from their political, business, and social clubs, women from their literary and patriotic organisations, without a murmur and without a question.

  No hymns may be sung in the Mother Church unless they have been approved by Mrs. Eddy, and Mrs. Eddy’s hymns must be sung at stated intervals. “If a solo singer in the Mother Church shall either neglect or refuse to sing alone a hymn written by our Leader and Pastor Emeritus, as often as once each month, and oftener if the Directors so direct, a meeting shall be called and the salary of this singer shall be stopped.”

  Above all these lesser by-laws Mrs. Eddy holds one in which her supreme authority rests. A mesmerist or “mental malpractitioner” is to be excommunicated, and “if the author of Science and Health shall bear witness to the offence of mental malpractice, it shall be considered sufficient evidence thereof.” The accused can make no defence, and has no appeal. In the matter of hypnotism, Mrs. Eddy’s mere word is enough. She has, she says, an unerring instinct by which she can detect hypnotism in any creature:

  I possess a spiritual sense of what the malicious mental practitioner is mentally arguing which cannot be deceived; I can discern in the human mind thoughts, motives, and purposes; and neither mental arguments nor psychic power can affect this spiritual insight.

  Of late years Mrs. Eddy has shown a disposition to so modify the practice of Christian Science healing as not to conflict with the laws. Christian Scientists formerly treated all diseases, without regard to legal restrictions. But experience has shown Mrs. Eddy that an evasion of the law is regarded by the public as a defiance of the law, and forms a serious obstacle to the spread of Christian Science. It also has involved Christian Scientists constantly in lawsuits.

  In March, 1901, Mrs. Eddy announced in the Journal that thereafter Christian Scientists must submit to vaccination, and report cases of contagion as required by law.

  A year later the teaching and practice of obstetrics was dropped by order of Mrs. Eddy, who gave as the reason, “Obstetrics is not Science, and will not be taught.” This was after obstetrics had been taught and practised as “Science” for thirty-two years.

  An important change of practice was instituted when, in December, 1902, the Journal announced: “Mrs. Eddy advises, until the public thought becomes better acquainted with Christian Science, that Christian Scientists decline to doctor infectious or contagious diseases.” On the same subject Mrs. Eddy wrote: “Christian Scientists should be influenced by their own judgment in the taking of a case of malignant disease, they should consider well their ability to cope with the case — and not overlook the fact that there are those lying in wait to catch them in their sayings; neither should they forget that in their practice, whether successful or not, they are not especially protected by law.”

  Christian Scientists are now permitted to consult with medical practitioners in certain cases. A by-law provides that, “if a member of this church has a patient that he does not heal; and whose case he cannot lawfully diagnose, he may consult with an M.D. on the anatomy involved. And it shall be the privilege of a Christian Scientist to confer with an M.D. on ontology, or the Science of Being.”

  Christian Scientists are no longer allowed to use the titles, “Reverend,” or “Doctor,” unless they have received these titles under the laws of the state.

  A practitioner is not permitted to sue a patient to recover payment for his services, and he is required to “reasonably reduce” his fee in chronic cases, and in cases where he has not effected a cure.

  The result of Mrs. Eddy’s planning and training and pruning is that she has built up the largest and most powerful organisation ever founded by any woman in America. Probably no other woman so handicapped — so limited in intellect, so uncertain in conduct, so tortured by hatred and hampered by petty animosities — has ever risen from a state of helplessness and dependence to a position of such power and authority. All that Christian Science comprises to-day — the Mother Church, branch churches, healers, teachers, Readers, boards, committees, societies — are as completely under Mrs. Eddy’s control as if she were their temporal as well as their spiritual ruler. The growth of her power has been extensive as well as intensive.

  In June, 1907, the membership of the Mother Church, according to the Secretary’s report, was 43,876. The membership of the branch churches amounted to 42,846. As members of the branch churches are almost invariably members of the Mother Church as well, there cannot be more than 60,000 Christian Scientists in the world to-day, and the number is probably nearer 50,000.

  In June, 1907, there were in all 710 branch churches. Fifty-eight of these are in foreign countries: twenty-five in the Dominion of Canada, fourteen in Great Britain, two in Ireland, four in Australia, one in South Africa, eight in Mexico, two in Germany, one in Holland, and one in France. There are also 295 Christian Science societies, not yet incorporated into churches, thirty of which are in foreign countries.

  In reading these figures one must bear in mind the fact that thirty years ago the only Christian Science church in the world was struggling to pay its rent in Boston.

  An effective element in the growth of the church is the fact that a considerable proportion of Christian Scientists make their living by their religion, and their worldly fortunes as well as their spiritual comfort are in their church; they must prosper or decline with Christian Science, and they prosecute the cause of their church with all their energies and with entire singleness of purpose. The perfect system under which the church is organised provides for the constant advertising, by the Publication Committee, of the religion, of the church, and of Mrs. Eddy; and this has been perhaps the greatest factor in the growth of the church. There is an impression to-day that the Christian Science church numbers its members by hundreds of thousands; and this impression was created and is continued by the exaggerated statements of Mrs. Eddy herself, and of her leading church officers, and by the insistent work of the Publication Committees.

  Christian Science itself presents, superficially, an old and well-worn truth, besides much that is fallacious and absurd; and the secret of its popularity lies in the fact, not that it has played tricks with metaphysical platitudes, but that it has adapted them to the buoyant spirit of the times.

  What Mrs. Eddy has accomplished has been due solely to her own compelling personality. She has never been a dreamer of dreams or a seer of visions, and she has not the mind for deep and searching investigation into any problem. Her genius has been of the eminently practical kind, which can meet and overcome unfavourable conditions by sheer force of energy, and in Mrs. Eddy’s case this potency has been accompanied by a remarkable shrewdness, which has had its part in determining her career. Her problem has been, not to work out the theory of mental healing, but to popularise it, and having popularised it, to maintain a personal monopoly of its principle; and the history of Christian Science shows how near she has come to doing this.

  Not until Mrs. Eddy met Quimby had she ever known any serious purpose, and although she was superbly equipped by nature to blaze the way for new and bizarre ideas, and was always the first to take up with such irregular and passing notions as mesmerism, clairvoyance, writing-mediumship, etc., she had never produced an original idea on her own account. With Quimby came her opportunity, and once given an actual purpose, Mrs. Eddy, with her unequalled zeal for not letting go of a thing, was at once upon the highroad to success.

  For herself, she has won what has always seemed to her most valuable, and what has been from the beginning a crying necessity of her nature: personal ease, an exalted position, and the right to exact homage from the multitude.

  For Quimby, she has, and mainly by reason of her ingratitude toward her old benefactor, secured public attention to his theory of mental healing. Through Dr. Warren F. Evans and Mr. and Mrs. Julius A. Dresser the Quimby idea, previous to the Christian Science interpretation of it, had been slowly and laboriously coming into a limited practice; but with the entrance of Mrs. Eddy into the field, with her extravagant claims of miraculous revelation and her violent methods of procedure, the whole movement received a tremendous impetus; and unconsciously and very much against her will, she has been the most effective agent in promoting Quimbyism as well as Eddyism. For, although it has been one of Mrs. Eddy’s chief cares to stem the progress of the rival school, and to raise an impassable barrier between her own cult and that of all other mental healers, it has not disturbed the fact that for practical purposes, Eddyism is simply Quimbyism, overlaid with superstition and ignorance; and the future of Mrs. Eddy’s school depends largely upon the willingness of her followers to continue their self-deception on this point, which is the chief requirement of her religion.

  Whatever there is of value to the world in Mrs. Eddy’s system, lies in the practicality of its healing methods, and the foregoing chapters have shown that Mrs. Eddy realises this, for she has not only constantly stimulated the healing department of her church, but, year by year, she has restrained and modified its practice, until to-day Christian Science is scarcely more radical in its methods than are the regular schools of her best hated enemy, materia medica. Physicians have been forced to take into account, more and more, in their dealings with the sick, the condition of the patient’s mind, and to use it as a co-operative force with their medical treatment; and in America this is largely owing to the stir made by Mrs. Eddy’s healers in the sick world. In Europe this result has been obtained, not through mystery and revelation and quackery, but in the course of regular scientific study and experiment, and in the schools of the foremost European neurologists, psychical treatment for certain disorders has been for many years a recognised and established method.

  There is now in America a benevolent attempt on the part of certain churches to introduce a kind of reformed Christian Science, and to establish “clinics” where sick cases may be diagnosed by regular school physicians, while the pastors in charge of the clinics administer the psychical treatment in an effort to aid in the cure. They aim, at these clinics, to conduct the treatment on as scientific a basis as is possible, and their failures as well as their successful cures are honestly recorded. These church movements are an indirect outcome of Mrs. Eddy’s activities. Her own congregations are built up at the expense of those of the orthodox churches, and it is largely as a means of self-preservation, as well as owing to a laudable desire to increase the benefits of mental healing, that these churches are taking up the practical side of Christian Science, and are trying to make it “regular” and to conform to what is known of psychological causes and effects.

  These various efforts to investigate the source and workings of an elusive healing principle are not without their value, even if the actual practice is more often based upon enthusiasm than upon any exact knowledge. They serve to emphasise both the benefits of psychical treatment and the harm which may rise from its ignorant or exclusive application in radical cases. But, from the nature of the subject, it is certain that the permanent value of suggestive therapeutics will ultimately be determined, not by the inexperienced or the overzealous in any walk of life, but through the slow and patient experiments of medical science; and this, too, will be the final test of the value of Mrs. Eddy’s life-work.

  APPENDIX A

  IN MRS. EDDY’S autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, she gives the following story of her ancestry:

  My ancestors, according to the flesh, were from both Scotland and England, my great-grandfather on my father’s side being John McNeil of Edinburgh. His wife, my great-grandmother, was Marion Moor, and her family is said to have been in some way related to Hannah More, the pious and popular authoress of a century ago. John and Marion Moor McNeil had a daughter who perpetuated her mother’s name. This second Marion McNeil was married to an Englishman named Joseph Baker, and so became my paternal grandmother. Joseph Baker and his wife, Marion McNeil, came to America seeking freedom to worship God, though they could scarcely have crossed the Atlantic more than a score of years prior to the Revolutionary period. A relative of my grandfather Baker was General Henry Knox, of Revolutionary fame. In the line of my grandmother Baker’s family was the late Sir John McNeil, a Scotch knight who was prominent in British politics and at one time held the position of ambassador to Persia.

  The statements made by Mrs. Eddy concerning her connection with the McNeil family of Scotland having been published in a way that brought them to the attention of that family in Scotland, drew a denial from the granddaughter of the real Sir John MacNeill. In the Ladies’ Home Journal for November, 1903, there appeared an article entitled “Mrs. Eddy as She Really Is,” introduced by an editorial note which stated: “The writing of this article and the making of illustrations on the opposite page were done with the special permission of Mrs. Eddy, and both pages having been seen by her in proof, received her full approval.” In the course of this article, it is said: “Among Mrs. Eddy’s ancestors was Sir John McNeill, a Scotch knight prominent in British politics, and ambassador to Persia. Her great-grandfather was the Right Honourable Sir John McNeill of Edinburgh, Scotland. Mrs. Eddy is the only survivor of her father’s family, which bore the coat-of-arms of the ancient McNeills. The motto is Vincere aut mori (conquer or die). Surrounding the shield and enclosed in a heavy wreath is the motto of the Order of the Bath, tria juncta in uno (three joined in one).” Soon after this was published it was challenged by a granddaughter of Sir John MacNeill, Mrs. Florence Macalister of Aberdeen, Scotland, who wrote to Mrs. Eddy correcting her statement, and caused a correction to be published in London Truth. She says: