Somewhere the day is breaking,
    And gloom and darkness flee;
  Though storms our bark are tossing,
    There’s somewhere a placid sea.

  And thus, I thought, ’tis always
    In this mysterious life,
  There’s always gladness somewhere
    In spite of its pain and strife;
  And somewhere the sin and sorrow
    Of earth are known no more;
  Somewhere our weary spirits
    Shall find a peaceful shore.

CHAPTER XVII.

THAT EDDYFYING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

This season there broke out in our community, as elsewhere, what has always appeared to me, to be a distemper, misnamed by its crafty creator, “Christian Science.”  Unchristian scienceless would be a more appropriate name, as the so-called divine revelation was made to its Eddyfying high priestess about 1800 years after the sublime career of Christ was ended, and its preposterous claims antagonize every principle of modern science.

This craze seized certain discontented young women who studied “Science and Health” under the tutorage of its author, and they soon became too transcendental to perform the useful duties of life, posing as teachers of the “utterly utter.”  It monopolized the feeble intellects of some farmers’ boys, who at once began to try to get a lazy living by sitting beside sick women with their hands over their eyes, ostensibly engaged in prayer, but really endeavoring to prey upon the weak minded.

Some superstitious people who had been long under the care of a regular physician, and who were just at the turning point of receiving benefit therefrom, took an “Eddy sitting” and jumped to the conclusion that said mummery affected a miraculous cure.

As a drowning man clutching at a straw, I confess that I accepted the offer of treatments, made by a pleasant lady “Christian science” doctor.  I found it tolerably agreeable to sit by her side, holding her soft hand while she assumed an attitude of supplication, but my malady was in nowise benefited thereby.  This amiable lady finally loaned me a copy of their sacred book called “Science and Health,” expressing the opinion that a careful reading thereof would renew my youth and make me a believer in their modern Eleusinian mysteries forever.

I read this preposterous book with all the earnestness and prayerfulness of which I was capable; but found it to be a heterogeneous conglomeration of words—­mere words, a hodge podge of all the exploded philosophical, religious, and scientific heresies of the past ages, so cunningly jumbled that the gullible, unable to find any meaning to it, conclude that it is too profound for their comprehension, and unwilling to acknowledge the fact for fear of being called ignorant, solemnly pronounce it to be great.

One quotation will reveal the utter nothingness of this book, from the sale of which “Pope Eddy” is said to have realized, a half-million dollars.  Says this modern goddess:  “The word Adam is from the Hebrew Adamah, signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness.  Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads a dam or obstruction.  This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal mind in solution.”