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_ It is true in matters of business Mrs. Eddy thinks of everything. She
thought of an organ, to disseminate the Truth as it was in Mrs. Eddy.
Straightway she started one--the Christian Science Journal.
It is true--in matters of business Mrs. Eddy thinks of everything. As
soon as she had got the Christian Science Journal sufficiently in debt to
make its presence on the premises disagreeable to her, it occurred to her
to make somebody a present of it. Which she did, along with its debts.
It was in the summer of 1889. The victim selected was her Church--
called, in those days, The National Christian Scientist Association.
She delivered this sorrow to those lambs as a "gift" in consideration of
their "loyalty to our great cause."
Also--still thinking of everything--she told them to retain Mr. Bailey in
the editorship and make Mr. Nixon publisher. We do not know what it was
she had against those men; neither do we know whether she scored on
Bailey or not, we only know that God protected Nixon, and for that I am
sincerely glad, although I do not know Nixon and have never even seen
him.
Nixon took the Journal and the rest of the Publishing Society's
liabilities, and demonstrated over them during three years, then brought
in his report:
"On assuming my duties as publisher, there was not a dollar in the
treasury; but on the contrary the Society owed unpaid printing and paper
bills to the amount of several hundred dollars, not to mention a
contingent liability of many more hundreds"--represented by advance--
subscriptions paid for the Journal and the "Series," the which goods Mrs.
Eddy had not delivered. And couldn't, very well, perhaps, on a
Metaphysical College income of but a few thousand dollars a day, or a
week, or whatever it was in those magnificently flourishing times. The
struggling Journal had swallowed up those advance-payments, but its
"claim" was a severe one and they had failed to cure it. But Nixon cured
it in his diligent three years, and joyously reported the news that he
had cleared off all the debts and now had a fat six thousand dollars in
the bank.
It made Mrs. Eddy's mouth water.
At the time that Mrs. Eddy had unloaded that dismal gift on to her
National Association, she had followed her inveterate custom: she had
tied a string to its hind leg, and kept one end of it hitched to her
belt. We have seen her do that in the case of the Boston Mosque. When
she deeds property, she puts in that string-clause. It provides that
under certain conditions she can pull the string and land the property in
the cherished home of its happy youth. In the present case she believed
that she had made provision that if at any time the National Christian
Science Association should dissolve itself by a formal vote, she could
pull.
A year after Nixon's handsome report, she writes the Association that she
has a "unique request to lay before it." It has dissolved, and she is
not quite sure that the Christian Science Journal has "already fallen
into her hands" by that act, though it "seems" to her to have met with
that accident; so she would like to have the matter decided by a formal
vote. But whether there is a doubt or not, "I see the wisdom," she says,
"of again owning this Christian Science waif."
I think that that is unassailable evidence that the waif was making
money, hands down.
She pulled her gift in. A few years later she donated the Publishing
Society, along with its real estate, its buildings, its plant, its
publications, and its money--the whole worth twenty--two thousand
dollars, and free of debt--to--Well, to the Mother-Church!
That is to say, to herself. There is an act count of it in the Christian
Science Journal, and of how she had already made some other handsome
gifts--to her Church--and others to--to her Cause besides "an almost
countless number of private charities" of cloudy amount and otherwise
indefinite. This landslide of generosities overwhelmed one of her
literary domestics. While he was in that condition he tried to express
what he felt:
"Let us endeavor to lift up our hearts in thankfulness to . . . our
Mother in Israel for these evidences of generosity and self-sacrifice
that appeal to our deepest sense of gratitude, even while surpassing our
comprehension."
A year or two later, Mrs. Eddy promulgated some By-laws of a self-
sacrificing sort which assuaged him, perhaps, and perhaps enabled his
surpassed comprehension to make a sprint and catch up. These are to be
found in Art. XII., entitled. _
Read next: BOOK II: CHAPTER VII - THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY
Read previous: BOOK II: CHAPTER VII - COPYRIGHT
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