The appreciation closes:

I have only wished to say how fine and beautiful was his life and
character, and to take him by the hand and say good-by, as to a
fortunate friend who has done well his work and gees a pleasant
journey.

CCXXV. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CONTROVERSIES

The North American Review for December (1902) contained an instalment
of the Christian Science series which Mark Twain had written in Vienna
several years before. He had renewed his interest in the doctrine, and
his admiration for Mrs. Eddy's peculiar abilities and his antagonism
toward her had augmented in the mean time. Howells refers to the "mighty
moment when Clemens was building his engines of war for the destruction
of Christian Science, which superstition nobody, and he least of all,
expected to destroy":

He believed that as a religious machine the Christian Science Church
was as perfect as the Roman Church, and destined to be more
formidable in its control of the minds of men....

An interesting phase of his psychology in this business was not.
only his admiration for the masterly policy of the Christian Science
hierarchy, but his willingness to allow the miracles of its healers
to be tried on his friends and family if they wished it. He had a
tender heart for the whole generation of empirics, as well as the
newer sorts of scienticians, but he seemed to base his faith in them
largely upon the failure of the regulars, rather than upon their own
successes, which also he believed in. He was recurrently, but not
insistently, desirous that you should try their strange magics when
you were going to try the familiar medicines.

Clemens never had any quarrel with the theory of Christian Science or
mental healing, or with any of the empiric practices. He acknowledged
good in all of them, and he welcomed most of them in preference to
materia medica. It is true that his animosity for the founder of the
Christian Science cult sometimes seems to lap over and fringe the
religion itself; but this is apparent rather than real. Furthermore,
he frequently expressed a deep obligation which humanity owed to the
founder of the faith, in that she had organized a healing element
ignorantly and indifferently employed hitherto. His quarrel with Mrs.
Eddy lay in the belief that she herself, as he expressed it, was "a very
unsound Christian Scientist."

I believe she has a serious malady-