A word upon a question of authorship. Not that quite; but rather, a question of emendation and revision. We know that the Bible-Annex was not written by Mrs. Eddy, but was handed down to her eighteen hundred years ago by the Angel of the Apocalypse; but did she translate it alone, or did she have help? There seems to be evidence that she had help. For there are four several copyrights on it—1875, 1885, 1890, 1894. It did not come down in English, for in that language it could not have acquired copyright—there were no copyright laws eighteen centuries ago, and in my opinion no English language—at least up there. This makes it substantially certain that the Annex is a transla- [begin page 505] tion. Then, was not the first translation complete? If it was, on what grounds were the later copyrights granted?

I surmise that the first translation was poor; and that a friend or friends of Mrs. Eddy mended its English three times, and finally got it into its present shape, where the grammar is plenty good enough, and the sentences are smooth and plausible though they do not mean anything. I think I am right in this surmise, for Mrs. Eddy cannot write English to-day, and this is argument that she never could. I am not able to guess who did the mending, but I think it was not done by any member of the Eddy Trust, nor by the editors of the “C. S. Journal,” for their English is not much better than Mrs. Eddy's.

However, as to the main point: it is certain that Mrs. Eddy did not doctor the Annex's English herself. Her original, spontaneous, undoctored English furnishes ample proof of this. Here are samples from recent articles from her unappeasable pen; double-columned with them are a couple of passages from the Annex. It will be seen that they throw light. The italics are mine:

1. “What plague spot, or bacilli were (sic) gnawing (sic) at the heart of this metropolis . . . and bringing it” (the heart) “on bended knee? Why, it was an institute that had entered its vitals—that, among other things, taught games,” et cetera. (P. 670, C. S. Journal, article entitled “A Narrative—by Mary Baker G. Eddy.”)		“Therefore the efficient remedy is to destroy the patient's unfortunate belief, by both silently and audibly arguing the opposite facts in regard to harmonious being—representing man as healthful instead of diseased, and showing that it is impossible for matter to suffer, to feel pain or heat, to be thirsty or sick.” (P. 375, Annex.)
2. “Parks sprang up (sic) . . . electric street cars run (sic) merrily through several streets, concrete sidewalks and macadamized roads dotted (sic) the place,” et cetera. (Ibid.) 3. “Shorn (sic) of its suburbs it had indeed little left to admire, save to (sic) such as fancy a skeleton above ground breathing (sic) slowly through a barren (sic) breast.” (Ibid.)		“Man is never sick; for Mind is not sick, and matter cannot be. A false belief is both the tempter and the tempted, the sin and the sinner, the disease and its cause. It is well to be calm in sickness; to be hopeful is still better; but to understand that sickness is not real, and that Truth can destroy it, is best of all, for it is the universal and perfect remedy.” (Chapter xii, Annex.)

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You notice the contrast between the smooth, plausible, elegant, addled English of the doctored Annex and the lumbering, ragged, ignorant output of the translator's natural, spontaneous and unmedicated penwork. The English of the Annex has been slicked up by a very industrious and painstaking hand—but it was not Mrs. Eddy's.

If Mrs. Eddy really wrote or translated the Annex, her original draft was exactly in harmony with the English of her plague-spot or bacilli which were gnawing at the insides of the metropolis and bringing its heart on bended knee, thus exposing to the eye the rest of the skeleton breathing slowly through a barren breast. And it bore little or no resemblance to the book as we have it now—now that the salaried polisher has holystoned all of the genuine Eddyties out of it.

Will the plague-spot article go into a volume just as it stands? I think not. I think the polisher will take off his coat and vest and cravat and “demonstrate over” it a couple of weeks and sweat it into a shape something like the following—and then Mrs. Eddy will publish it and leave people to believe that she did the polishing herself:

1. What injurious influence was it that was affecting the city's morals? It was a social club which propagated an interest in idle amusements, disseminated a knowledge of games, et cetera.

2. By the magic of the new and nobler influences the sterile spaces were transformed into wooded parks, the merry electric car replaced the melancholy 'bus, smooth concrete the tempestuous plank sidewalk, the macadamized road the primitive corduroy, et cetera.

3. Its pleasant suburbs gone, there was little left to admire save the wrecked graveyard with its uncanny exposures.

The Annex contains one sole and solitary humorous remark. There is a most elaborate and voluminous Index, and it is preceded by this note:

“This Index will enable the student to find any thought or idea contained in the book.”

(Later Still.)—A Thousand Years Ago.1

Passages from the Introduction to the “Secret History of Eddypus, the World-Empire”:

The First Part of this Introduction—which deals with Book I of my narrative—being now concluded and the outlines of that portion of the ancient world's history which preceded the rise of what was in time to be the sole Political and Religious Power in the earth—Christian Science—being clearly defined in the reader's mind, as I trust, I now arrive at the Second Part of my Introduction, which will tersely synopsize Book II of my History.

Accuracy is not claimed for Book I, as the reader will see when he comes to examine it. One of the first acts of the Christian Science (or Divine Science) Popes when they had attained to supreme power in the globe, was the destruction of all secular libraries, the suppression of all secular seats of learning, and the prohibition of all literature not issued by the papal press at Eddyflats (called by another name previously). This extinction of light was begun nearly nine hundred years ago, at the time that the Roman Catholic Church gave up the struggle and ceased to exist as an independent body, turning over what was left of its assets to the Christian Science Church on exceedingly good terms, and merging itself in that giant Trust, about the beginning of the reign of Her Divine Supremacy Pope Mary Baker G. Eddy IV, “Viceroy of God”—as the official formula of that remote age words it, a formula still used in our own day under Her Divine Supremacy Pope Mary Baker G. Eddy LXIX. Within a century after the beginning of this extinction of light all the ancient history-books had disappeared from the world. Within two centuries more the tale of the ancient world had ceased to be history, properly speaking, and had become legend. And mainly fantastic legend, too, as the reader will admit when he comes to study it.

[begin page 508]

But my Book II deals not with legend, but with fact. Its materials are drawn from the great find of seven years ago, the inestimable Book which Mark Twain, the Father of History, wrote and sealed up in a special vault in an important city of his day, whose ruins were discovered under mounds in the desert wastes a hundred and fifty years ago, and in recent years have been clandestinely explored by one whose name I must not reveal, lest the Church learn it and bring the traitor to the rack and the stake.

This noble Book was written during the time of the Rise of Christian Science, and is the only authentic one in existence which treats of that extraordinary period, the Church histories being—what we know them to be, but do not speak it out except when we are writing as I am now, secretly and in the fear of consequences. The translation of the Book's quaint and mouldy English into the Language Universal, the English of our day, has been a slow and most difficult work—and withal dangerous—but it has been accomplished. The best reward of our handful of brave scholars is not publicity of their names!

What we know of the Father of History is gathered from modest chance admissions of his own, and will be found in the proper places in my succeeding volumes. We know that he was a statesman and moralist of world-wide authority, and a historian whose works were studied and revered by all the nations and colleges in his day. He has tacitly conceded this in chapter 4 of volume IX of his immortal Book. It is apparent that he had defects. This we learn by his attempts to conceal them. He often quotes things that have been said about him; and not always with good discretion, since they “give him away”—a curious phrase which he uses so frequently that we must suppose it was a common one in his time. In one place he quotes—with an evident pang, though he thinks he conceals the hurt—this remark from a book, by an unknown author, entitled the St. Louis Globe-Democrat: “He possesses every fine and great mental quality except the sense of humor.” Nine-tenths of this verdict is nobly complimentary; yet instead of being satisfied with it and grateful for it, he devotes more than five pages to trying to prove that he has the sense of humor. And fails—though he is densely unaware of it. There is something pathetic about this. He has several other defects; the reader will find them noted in their proper places.

His Book is inestimably valuable, because of its transparent truth- [begin page 509] fulness, and because it covers the whole of that stupendous period, the birth and rise of Christian Science. He was born fifteen years after Our Mother, in the autumn of the year 15 of our era, which corresponds to the year 1835 of the so-called Christian Era, and was educated in five foreign and domestic Universities. He lived throughout Our Mother's earthly sojourn, and several years after her Translation in the Automobile of Fire. From him we learn that he was 246 years old when he finished his Book and buried it, but the date of his death is shrouded in obscurity. And the manner of it.

Briefly, then, let us outline the contents of my Book II.

In A.M. (year of Our Mother) 55, (A.D. 1875), Our Mother's Revelation was published. It bore the title “Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,” and in the early days it was read by her disciples in connection with a volume, now long ago obsolete and forgotten, called the Old and New Testaments, as a translation of the meanings of that volume. A generation or two after her Ascension, she re-wrote “Science and Health,” and discarded its previous contents, and also its title. She sent this perfected work down from on high by Revelation. From that day to ours her book has borne the simple title, “The Holy Bible, by Her Divine Supremacy Pope Mary Baker G. Eddy I.” By command, left in her Will, the term “Christian Science” was changed to “Divine Science” as soon as her Church's universal dominion in the earth was secure. This happened at the time of the merger, when Her Divine Supremacy Pope Mary Baker G. Eddy IV ascended the throne. He was the first male Pope. By the terms of the Will all Popes must officially bear Our Mother's name and be called “She,” regardless of sex. Our Popes have all been males since Our Mother's time.

The world's events are not ordered by gods nor by men, but solely by Circumstance—accidental, unplanned, and unforeseen. One Circumstance creates another, that one a third, and so on: just as a seed, falling in a barren place, creates a plant, the plant creates a forest, the forest condenses the humidity of the atmosphere and creates streams, the streams make the region fruitful, this invites men, a community results, a nation grows from it, a civilization develops, and with it its sure and inevitable crop of ambitions, jealousies, quarrels, wars, and squabbling little religions: the ages go on and on and on, and from century to century histories are written, wherein it is told how this [begin page 510] and that and the other vast event was the work of such-and-such a king, or such-and-such a statesman, and not a word about Accidental and Inevitable Circumstance, which alone did those things, and would have done them anyhow, whether those kings and statesmen had existed or not. Meantime that small seed which fell in the desert in the beginning has been long ago forgotten and no man takes it into account; yet it was the Circumstance which produced all the other Circumstances, without knowing it or intending it; and without it the desert had remained a desert and there had been no nation, no kings, and no history.

Out of a Circumstance of ten million years ago grew the world's entire history—every minute detail of it; and there was never at any time a possibility of changing or preventing any Circumstance in the whole crop, nor of postponing it a fraction of a second nor of hastening it a fraction of a second by the ingenuity of any man or body of men. That pregnant Circumstance was the very first act or motion of the very first microscopic living germ that Nature produced. From that wee Circumstance proceeded all history of the past, and from it will proceed all happenings of the future, to the end of time.

Nothing could have prevented it, ten million years ago, from producing, in its due and far distant season, the discovery of America, the colonization of it, the Rebellion against the crown, the creation of the Republic, the birth and flowering of its sordid and mighty civilization, the advent of the unsuccessful Quimby, the fertilizing of his idea by Our Mother, the inflating of that idea into a religion, the unforeseen and unexpected expansion of that religion by the accident of Circumstances which no man could control nor direct nor delay, the growth abreast of it of the giant forces of Labor and Capital, their destruction of the Republic, the erection of the Absolute Monarchy, the swallowing up of the civil Monarchy in the colossal religious Autocracy of the World-Empire of Eddypus, the exalting of the Founder of Divine Science to the Second Place in the Holy Family, the extinction of the world's civilizations, and the closing down of the Black Night through whose sombre and melancholy shadows the human race has now been groping hopeless and forlorn these eight hundred years.

About the year 1870 of the so-called Christian era (A.M. 50), ingenious men massed together a multitude of small and unprofitable oil-industries under the control of a restricted body of able managers— [begin page 511] and that was the first Trust. Circumstances had compelled this. These Circumstances were railways and telegraphs. Businesses which had been wide apart before, could live upon their local markets; but the new Circumstances compelled them to send their products from their widely separated sources to the great centres of commerce, and meet the resulting competition with a new device—concentration of the streams, and control of them. Thus, Circumstances furnished the Opportunity and created the first Trust.

The first Trust created the second, the second the third, and so on. In the course of a generation they created hundreds. Little by little, steadily and inevitably, the movement grew. It forced each industry to band its capital and its companies together, whether it wanted to or not; for Circumstances are arbitrary and are not affected by any man's opinions or principles or desires.

Meantime Circumstances had been doing some other notable work. For many, many ages, in the world, the masters of each old-time industry had formed themselves into close corporations—guilds—for their protection: to control trade and regulate competition. But each guild concerned itself with its own interests only; the ironmongers did not combine with the silk mercers nor with the furriers (skinners), nor did any two or more unrelated industries pool their affairs and thus secure each other's protection. Also, for ages, the wage-earning servants of each guild had compacted themselves into close unions, for protection against intruding and alien practisers of their trades, and to limit the number of apprentices, prevent the making of too many journeymen, and keep up the wages. But the subordinates of no two or more, or of all the trades, thought of banding together and commanding the situation. This formidable idea was not born until the world was old and gray.

Circumstances gave it birth. A Circumstance—what it was is centuries ago forgotten—compelled a pair of unrelated unions to join together; this bred another and another combination; the movement grew and spread, according to the law of Circumstance, and by ten or fifteen years after the formation of the Oil Trust, the Knights of Labor were in business. It was smiled at by the wise and the sarcastic, but the smile was premature. It had its ups and downs, but it grew in strength nevertheless, and prospered. In time it discarded its fantastic title and adopted a sober and dignified one.

[begin page 512]

It was itself a Trust, of course, and by the end of its birth-century was become the mightiest and the most merciless and remorseless of all; yet with the dearest and sweetest and most engaging dulness and innocence it preached a lofty and immaculate holy war against all other Trusts!

It marched side by side with the commercial Trusts for a good while, then it marched ahead of them. It was the first Trust that bound all its vast machinery, all its multitudinous unrelated parts, in one bond of iron—accomplishing this extraordinary thing years before Circumstances did the same with the nation's commercial Trusts.

Side by side with the Labor Trust and the Commercial Trusts was moving the Christian Science Trust—quite unheeded, except to be despised by the wise and smiled at by the sarcastic. Prematurely. All attention was upon the other two—those busy servants that were opening and smoothing the road for their and the world's future master without suspecting it.

The years drifted on. Labor whipped Capital, Capital whipped Labor—turn about. All the railways, ships, telegraphs, telephones, manufactures, newspapers—all the industries of the nation, in a word —became combined in one prodigious Trust, and in its home office its Board directed all the affairs of the country.

Its chairman uttered his command, and next day every newspaper in the land spoke his views with one voice; he touched a button and delivered his orders, and the Conventions nominated his candidate for President, and on election day the people elected that candidate; he dictated the President's policy and was obeyed; he dictated the laws, and the Congress passed them; he officered the army and the navy to suit the Board, he made war when he pleased and peace when he chose.

In its regular and recurrent turn the Labor Trust swept him and his Board away, and took over the government and continued it on the same lordly plan until Capital got the upper hand once more.

In the course of one of its innings Capital abolished the spectre Republic and erected a herditary Monarchy on its ruins, with dukes and earls and the other ornaments; and later, Labor rose and seized the whole outfit and turned out the Billionaire Royal Family and set up a Walking Delegate and his household in their place.

Meantime the Science was growing, relentlessly growing, ceaselessly growing. When it numbered 10,000,000 its presence began to be [begin page 513] privately felt; when it numbered 30,000,000 its presence began to be publicly felt; when it numbered 60,000,000 it began to take a hand—quietly; when it numbered half the country's population, it lifted up its chin and began to dictate.

It was time for the intellect of the land to realize where power and profit were to be had, and it went over to the Science, solid—just as had happened in all times with all successful vast movements of all kinds.

The game was made. Four-fifths of the nation skurried to the Church, the rest were lashed into it. The Church was master, supreme and undisputed, all other powers were dead and buried, the Empire was an established perpetuity, its authority spread to the ends of the earth, its revenues were estimable in astronomical terms only, they went to but one place in the earth—the Treasury at Eddyflats, called “Boston” in ancient times; the Church's dominion covered every land and sea, and made all previous concentrations of Imperial force and wealth seem nursery trifles by contrast.

Then the Black Night shut down, never again to lift!

Thus stand briefly outlined the contents of Book II. In that Book I have set down the details.

The reader must not seek to know the author's name. Lest the Church learn it also!

Author of “The Secret History of Eddypus.”

There are three portraits of Mrs. Eddy: one by her bitter enemies, one by her worshiping friends, and one by herself. The first-mentioned is done with black paint, the second with white paint and gilding, the third with what Mrs. Eddy intended for white. As a result, in the first we have the greediest and wickedest Christian since Judas, in the second we have a duplicate of the Savior, and in the third we have Jesus and Judas most naïvely and complacently mixed. If one wishes to prove to himself (or must I use that tiresome idiotism oneself?) that human estimates of human beings are of slight value and entitled to small respect, let him examine these portraits.

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As a sample of the hostile portrait, I refer him to a pamphlet by Mr. Frederick W. Peabody of 15 Court Square, Boston, partly entitled “A Complete Exposé.” The rest of the title engulfs 21 words; and as I am paid by the word I should consider it dishonorable in me to shovel those in and put that unearned $4.20 in my pocket. I should regard it as blood-money. The main part of the pamphlet is inside the covers; it is bitter, unsparing, fiendishly interesting, and would be worth the pamphlet's price—25 cents—just by itself, without the prodigal title. Samples of the friendly portrait are procurable at the C. S. Publishing Society's offices, 95 Falmouth street, Boston. They are to be had there in a variety of forms, the work of many eager and affectionate hands. For samples of Mrs. Eddy's portrait of herself, the reader is referred to her voluminous writings, which are likewise procurable at No. 95. Her features are scattered here and there through them, and have to be searched out; but they are all there, and collectible. I desire to plaster these three portraits together, one on top of another, in the composite-photograph style, and shall hope that the real Mrs. Eddy will develop from the combination. I shall expect to cull freely from Mr. Peabody, for when it comes to handling the controversial brush with true vindictiveness and charm, I regard him as the gayest of the gay. I shall cull as freely from Mrs. Eddy, likewise, for when it comes to putting 2 and 2 together and getting 46 out of it she is a solitaire, she is without a peer, and unapproachably fascinating.

I am not writing about her because I believe in her—for I don't; I am only writing about her because she is the most interesting figure in the world to-day. She is a portent. By and by there will hardly be room enough between the horizons for her name; and her shadow will fall across the whole earth. Fifty years from now I shall be spending the most of my holidays looking down over the balusters watching her cult spread about the earth, and thirty centuries from now I shall be at it still.

When she was about 70 years old, she published her autobiography (1891). It is a short 15,000 words, and Louis Stevenson could have written it in three days. In it she gives 17 pages to her childhood [begin page 516] and to her ancestry—the bulk of the 17 to the latter. Without warning to the reader she now makes a jump of nearly half a century and lands in the year 1878; certainly as surprising a sample of acrobatics as is to be found in autobiographical literature anywhere. She compresses the history of the next three years into five lines.

At this point she takes a rest, and pulls in a quite irrelevant poem by the ears—two pages. It is she that calls it by that name, and I feel—indeed I think I may say I know—that she does it innocently, and without intending to deceive. I will quote from it by and by.

After the refreshment of the Poem she vaults back from 1881 to 1843, a matter of about 40 years, and in three pages and a quarter tells the reader about her marriages—an average of a page and two lines to each. Instinct warns her that this is almost irreverently scanty; and she —the shrewdness of it!—instead of apologising, makes a virtue of that very scantiness:

“Mere historic incidents and personal events are frivolous and of no moment, unless they illustrate the ethics of Truth. To this end, but only to this end, such narrations may be admissible and advisable.” Retrospection and Introspection, p. 34.

Necessarily she is not meaning to mean what she means there. She realizes that three marriages are historic incidents and personal events, and that they illustrate the ethics of Truth if you stop there and do not enlarge upon them; but that if you enlarge upon them those marriages then become frivolous and of no moment, and are no longer competent material to illustrate the ethics of Truth with. I think that is it. She goes on explaining the scantiness for a couple of pages, but it is waste of space and I would there had been some more marriages.

We have now glanced at one-half of the autobiographical primer; the other half of it springs around a good deal—for Mrs. Eddy is not herself when she is not disconnected—but it furnishes glimpses of the important features of the rest of her career. Only glimpses, merely glimpses; it is plain that she is quite incapable of elaborating anything except a something which she would mistake for a thought. She then at once becomes garrulous and enthusiastic and ungrammatical and incoherent beyond imagination.