help—“echoing” throws no light
upon “scribe.” A rock can reflect
an echo, a wall can do it, a mountain can do it, many
things can do it, but a scribe can’t. A
scribe that could reflect an echo could get over thirty
dollars a week in a side-show. Many impresarios
would rather have him than a cow with four tails.
If we allow that this present scribe was setting
down the “harmonies of Heaven”—and
certainly that seems to have been the case then there
was only one way to do it that I can think of:
listen to the music and put down the notes one after
another as they fell. In that case Mrs. Eddy
did not invent the tune, she only entered it on paper.
Therefore dropping the metaphor—she was
merely an amanuensis, and furnished neither the language
of Science and Health nor the ideas. It reduces
her to eight per cent. (and the dividends on that
and the rest).
Is that it? We shall never know. For Mrs.
Eddy is liable to testify again at any time.
But until she does it, I think we must conclude that
the Deity was Author of the whole book, and Mrs. Eddy
merely His telephone and stenographer. Granting
this, her claim as the Voice of God stands-for the
present—justified and established.
I overlooked something. It appears that there
was more of that utterance than Mr. Peabody has quoted
in the above paragraph. It will be found in
Mrs. Eddy’s organ, the Christian Science Journal
(January, 1901) and reads as follows:
“It was not myself . . . which dictated Science
and Health, with Key to the Scriptures.”
That is certainly clear enough. The words which
I have removed from that important sentence explain
Who it was that did the dictating. It was done
by
“the divine power of Truth and Love, infinitely
above me.”
Certainly that is definite. At last, through
her personal testimony, we have a sure grip upon the
following vital facts, and they settle the authorship
of Science and Health beyond peradventure:
1. Mrs. Eddy furnished “the ideas and
the language.” 2. God furnished the ideas
and the language.
It is a great comfort to have the matter authoritatively
settled.
It is hard to locate her, she shifts about so much.
She is a shining drop of quicksilver which you put
your finger on and it isn’t there. There
is a paragraph in the Autobiography (page 96) which
places in seemingly darkly significant procession
three Personages:
1. The Virgin Mary 2. Jesus of Nazareth.
3. Mrs. Eddy.
This is the paragraph referred to:
“No person can take the individual place of
the Virgin Mary. No person can compass or fulfil
the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth.
No person can take the place of the author of Science
and Health, the discoverer and founder of Christian
Science. Each individual must fill his own niche
in time and eternity.”
