________________________________________________
_ The By-law book makes a showy pretence of orderliness and system, but it
is only a pretence. I will not go so far as to say it is a harum-scarum
jumble, for it is not that, but I think it fair to say it is at least
jumbulacious in places. For instance, Articles III. and IV. set forth
in much detail the qualifications and duties of Readers, she then skips
some thirty pages and takes up the subject again. It looks like
slovenliness, but it may be only art. The belated By-law has a
sufficiently quiet look, but it has a ton of dynamite in it. It makes
all the Christian Science Church Readers on the globe the personal
chattels of Mrs. Eddy. Whenever she chooses, she can stretch her long
arm around the world's fat belly and flirt a Reader out of his pulpit,
though he be tucked away in seeming safety and obscurity in a lost
village in the middle of China:
"In any Church. Sec. 2. The Pastor Emeritus of the Mother-Church shall
have the right (through a letter addressed to the individual and Church
of which he is the Reader) to remove a Reader from this office in any
Church of Christ, Scientist, both in America and in foreign nations; or
to appoint the Reader to fill any office belonging to the Christian
Science denomination."
She does not have to prefer charges against him, she does not have to
find him lazy, careless, incompetent, untidy, ill-mannered, unholy,
dishonest, she does not have to discover a fault of any kind in him, she
does not have to tell him nor his congregation why she dismisses and
disgraces him and insults his meek flock, she does not have to explain to
his family why she takes the bread out of their mouths and turns them
out-of-doors homeless and ashamed in a strange land; she does not have to
do anything but send a letter and say: "Pack!--and ask no questions!"
Has the Pope this power?--the other Pope--the one in Rome. Has he
anything approaching it? Can he turn a priest out of his pulpit and
strip him of his office and his livelihood just upon a whim, a caprice,
and meanwhile furnishing no reasons to the parish? Not in America. And
not elsewhere, we may believe.
It is odd and strange, to see intelligent and educated people among us
worshipping this self-seeking and remorseless tyrant as a God. This
worship is denied--by persons who are themselves worshippers of Mrs.
Eddy. I feel quite sure that it is a worship which will continue during
ages.
That Mrs. Eddy wrote that amazing By-law with her own hand we have much
better evidence than her word. We have her English. It is there. It
cannot be imitated. She ought never to go to the expense of copyrighting
her verbal discharges. When any one tries to claim them she should call
me; I can always tell them from any other literary apprentice's at a
glance. It was like her to call America a "nation"; she would call a
sand-bar a nation if it should fall into a sentence in which she was
speaking of peoples, for she would not know how to untangle it and get it
out and classify it by itself. And the closing arrangement of that By-
law is in true Eddysonian form, too. In it she reserves authority to
make a Reader fill any office connected with a Science church-sexton,
grave-digger, advertising-agent, Annex-polisher, leader of the choir,
President, Director, Treasurer, Clerk, etc. She did not mean that. She
already possessed that authority. She meant to clothe herself with
power, despotic and unchallengeable, to appoint all Science Readers to
their offices, both at home and abroad. The phrase "or to appoint" is
another miscarriage of intention; she did not mean "or," she meant "and."
That By-law puts into Mrs. Eddy's hands absolute command over the most
formidable force and influence existent in the Christian Science kingdom
outside of herself, and it does this unconditionally and (by auxiliary
force of Laws already quoted) irrevocably. Still, she is not quite
satisfied. Something might happen, she doesn't know what. Therefore she
drives in one more nail, to make sure, and drives it deep:
"This By-law can neither be amended nor annulled, except by consent of
the Pastor Emeritus."
Let some one with a wild and delirious fancy try and see if he can
imagine her furnishing that consent. _
Read next: BOOK II: CHAPTER VI - MONOPOLY OF SPIRITUAL BREAD
Read previous: BOOK II: CHAPTER VI - AND SOME ENGLISH REQUIRED
Table of content of Christian Science
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
