But mark the culminating effect of the book upon him and then come to his third standpoint.
Why should such an idea interest Mary Baker Eddy, he wondered, unless she was, as her followers believe, “patient, gentle, loving, compassionate, noble-hearted, unselfish, sinless — a profound thinker, an able writer, a divine personage, an inspired messenger.”[1] And why should they not so believe? The critic went on to say: “She has delivered to them a religion which has revolutionized their lives, banished the glooms that shadowed them, and filled them and flooded them with sunshine and gladness and peace; a religion which has no hell; a religion whose heaven is not put off to another time, with a break and a gulf between, but begins here and now, and melts into eternity.”[2]
“Let the reader turn to the chapter on prayer and compare that wise and sane and elevated and lucid and compact piece of work with the aforesaid preface [the preface to the third edition] and with Mrs. Eddy’s poetry,” said this critic.
Indeed, let him compare it with Mrs. Eddy’s sublime hymn,
| “Shepherd, show me how to go |
| “ O’er the hillside steep, |
| “How to gather, how to sow, |
| “ How to feed Thy sheep.” |
But the critic’s third standpoint was: “I think she has from the very beginning been claiming as her
- ↑ Mark Twain, “Christian Science,” p. 285.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 286.
