, and have a blithe time over it, and be properly thankful for the
chance. It shows how innocent he was; it shows that he did not know the
limitations of newspaper men in the matter of Biblical knowledge. The
new verse 53 raised no insurrection in the press; in fact, it was not
even remarked upon; I could have told him the boys would not know there
was anything the matter with it. I have been a newspaper man myself, and
in those days I had my limitations like the others.

The Scientist hastened to Concord and told Mrs. Eddy what a disastrous
mistake had been made, but he found to his bewilderment that she was
tranquil about it, and was not proposing to correct it. He was not able
to get her to promise to make a correction. He asked her secretary if
he had heard aright when the telegram was dictated to him; the secretary
said he had, and took the filed copy of it and verified its authenticity
by comparing it with the stenographic notes.

Mrs. Eddy did make the correction, two months later, in her official
organ. It attracted no attention among the Scientists; and, naturally,
none elsewhere, for that periodical's circulation was practically
confined to disciples of the cult.

That is the tale as it was told to me by an ex-Scientist. Verse
53--renovated and spiritualized--had a narrow escape from a tremendous
celebrity. The newspaper men would have made it as famous as the
assassination of Caesar, but for their limitations.

To return to the Claim. I find myself greatly embarrassed by Mrs. Eddy's
remark: "I regard self-deification as blasphemous." If she is right
about that, I have written a half-ream of manuscript this past week
which I must not print, either in the book which I am writing, or
elsewhere: for it goes into that very matter with extensive elaboration,
citing, in detail, words and acts of Mrs. Eddy's which seem to me to
prove that she is a faithful and untiring worshipper of herself, and has
carried self-deification to a length which has not been before ventured
in ages. If ever. There is not room enough in this chapter for that
Survey, but I can epitomize a portion of it here.

With her own untaught and untrained mind, and without outside help,
she has erected upon a firm and lasting foundation the most minutely
perfect, and wonderful, and smoothly and exactly working, and best
safe-guarded system of government that has yet been devised in the
world, as I believe, and as I am sure I could prove if I had