ange themselves behind the hew
banner.

There is something almost disconcerting in the ardour and devotion of
Mrs. Eddy's followers. Truly, in the success of Christian Science we
see one more proof of the ease with which a new religion can be started
if, in addition to faith, it concerns itself with man's earthly welfare.

The founder of the sect was a clever woman. Well aware of the power
and fascination of the mysterious, she exploited it with a profound
understanding of the human heart. She mingled the realities of life
with the mysteries of thought, and the sun of her revelations is always
veiled by intangible clouds. From her gospel one might cull at random
scores of phrases that defy human understanding. "Evil is nothing, no
thing, mind or power," she says in _Science and Health_. "As
manifested by mankind, it stands for a lie, nothing claiming to be
something." And again--"Mortal existence has no real entity, but saith
'It is I.'"

The nonsensicalness of her phraseology can find no comparison save in
the inconceivable chaos of her teachings. She goes so far as to imply
that the supreme effort of a woman's spirit should suffice to bring
about conception. Jesus Christ having been conceived of the Holy
Ghost, she suggests that man should follow this example, and renounce
the lusts of the flesh. "Proportionately as human generation ceases,
the unbroken links of eternal, harmonious being will be spiritually
discerned"--and in another place, "When this new birth takes place, the
Christian Science infant is born of the spirit, born of God, and can
cause the mother no more suffering."

In the explanations of the Bible given in her _Key to the Scriptures_
we are told that when we come upon the word "fire," we are to translate
it as "fear," and the word "fear" as "heat"; while we must remember
that Eve never put the blame for her sin upon the serpent, but, having
"learnt that corporeal sense is the serpent," she was the first to
confess her misdeed in having followed the dictates of the flesh
instead of those of the spirit.

Like all prophets and saviours, Mrs. Eddy was crucified during her
lifetime. She had to engage in a continuous struggle with the envy and
jealousy of those who sought to misrepresent her teachings and bring
her glory to the dust. But she was far from being an ordinary woman,
and even in childhood seemed to be marked out for an exceptional
career. At the age of eight, like Joan of Arc