CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 11 June 1907, Page 4

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

MARK TWAIN'S DENUNCIATION.

A recent cablegram from New York stated that during the hearing of a suit to compel officials of the Christian Science Association to render accounts, it was elicited that £20,000 had disappeared before the appointment of trustees, 'i'he late Mrs Eddy's family ignore the trustees, and ihe suit is pro,«edingi

Mrs Eddy's relatives filed a suit in equity at Concord, New Hampshire, against the directors or trustees of the Christian Science Church, with the object of obtaining an account of the Christian Science leader's financial affairs. The complainants are Mr Geo. W. Glover, Mi's Eddy's only chiFd, his daughter, Mary Baker Glover, and Mrs Eddy's nephew, Mr George W. Baker. They assert that Mrs Eddy is incapacitated by the infirmities incident to old ago to manage her affairs. The petition details Mrs Eddy's sources Of revenue from Christian Science, and alleges that probably several millions dollars have been netted by the leader of the cult.

At the end of October the New York "World" created a sensation b£ announcing that Mrs Eddy, \vho is 66 years old, was really dying bi cancer, but that she Was impersonated by a friend, who, dressed iv velvet and ermine, drove out daily in a cloaed carriage, in order to convince tho Chris 1 tian Scientists that Mrs Eddy was m perfect health, The hiayor of . Con : cord, whert Mrs Eddy resides, denied the statement. Subsequently, 11 reporters separately interviewed Mrs Eddy, and declared her to be tottering to the grave and almost inarticulate/ The book on "Christian Science,' written Dy the great American humourist, Mark Twain, is attracting wide attention. This is how an Australian reviewer sums it up : —

Mark Twain roundly accuses Mrs Eddy of "claiming aa her own another person's bookj and wearing as her own property iaurols figlitiuiiy belonging to that person," And he thinks that "the reason — and the only reason — that he has not protested is because his work was not exposed to print until after he was safely dead." Whether M hot he shows good and sufficient cause for this plain accusation readers must judge from a perusal of his book.

With regard to ttin now notorious charges against the head of the Christiau Scientists of "going bald-headed for the Hollars," Mark Twain, as may be expected, has a good deal to say. In seven years Mrs Eddy taught over 4000 students in her "Metaphysical Gd; lege." Thin, she has stated fifei'fe&it, and each student paid 300 dollars, or £60, for a oOUi'Se of seven lessons.

"Three hundred times four thousand is — but perhaps you can figure it yourself. I could do it ordinarily, but I fell dowii yesterday and hurt my leg. Cipher it ; you will see that it is a grand sum for a woman to earn in seven year:-. Yet that was not all she got out of her colleges in the sevsni" Then Ulere is the toil b6ok "Science and Health," which Mark Twain calculates as being produced and sold in such a way as to bring in a profit of 7UO per cent on an enormous circulation ; and there are many other sources of prolit of which he tells the unvarnished history. But he does not think that Mrs Eddy wants money any longer for herself, or even for her natural heirs.

"I do not think her money-passion has even diminished in ferocity ; I do not think that she has ever allowed a dollar that had no friends to get by her alive ; but I think her reason for want ing it has changed. . . I thing she is of late years giving herself large concern about only one interest — her power of glory, and the perpetuation and worship of her Name — with a capital N. Her church is her pet heir, and I think it will get her wealth. It is the torch which is to light the world and the ages with her glory." Finally, here 's Mark Twain's summing, up of Mrs Eddy's character:

"Grasping, sordid, penurious, famishing for everything 6ne sees — monp.y, power, glory — vain, untruthful, jealous, despotic, arrogant, insolent, pitiless where thinkers and hypnotists are concerned, illiterate, shallow, incapable of reasoning outside of commercial lines, immeasurably selfish."