these things picturesque? The Viennese lady told me that in a chapel
of the Mosque there was a picture or image of Mrs. Eddy, and that before
it burns a never-extinguished light. Is that picturesque? How long do
you think it will be before the Christian Scientist will be worshipping
that image and praying to it? How long do you think it will be before
it is claimed that Mrs. Eddy is a Redeemer, a Christ, or Christ's equal?
Already her army of disciples speak of her reverently as 'Our Mother.'
How long will it be before they place her on the steps of the Throne
beside the Virgin--and later a step higher? First, Mary the Virgin and
Mary the Matron; later, with a change of Precedence, Mary the Matron
and Mary the Virgin. Let the artist get ready with his canvas and his
brushes; the new Renaissance is on its way, and there will be money in
altar-canvases--a thousand times as much as the Popes and their Church
ever spent on the Old Masters; for their riches were as poverty as
compared with what is going to pour into the treasure-chest of the
Christian-Scientist Papacy by-and-by, let us not doubt it. We will
examine the financial outlook presently and see what it promises. A
favourite subject of the new Old Master will be the first verse of the
twelfth chapter of Revelation--a verse which Mrs. Eddy says (in her
Annex to the Scriptures) has 'one distinctive feature which has special
reference to the present age'--and to her, as is rather pointedly
indicated:

'And there appeared a great wonder in heaven--a woman clothed with
the sun and the moon under her feet,' etc.

The woman clothed with the sun will be a portrait of Mrs. Eddy.

Is it insanity to believe that Christian Scientism is destined to make
the most formidable show that any new religion has made in the world
since the birth and spread of Mohammedanism, and that within a century
from now it may stand second to Rome only, in numbers and power in
Christendom?

If this is a wild dream it will not be easy to prove it is so just
yet, I think. There seems argument that it may come true. The
Christian-Science 'boom' is not yet five years old; yet already it has
500 churches and 1,000,000 members in America.

It has its start, you see, and it is a phenomenally good one. Moreover,
it is latterly spreading with a constantly accelerating swiftness. It
has a better chance to grow and prosper and achieve permanency than any
other existing 'ism;' for it has more to