Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/362

334 then forthwith strives to give the impression that the rumor is not true. It is reasonable to infer from newspaper reports of that date that some insidious disease was raging at that time.

The allegation that copies of Mrs. Eddy's book, “Retrospection and Introspection,” are few, and that efforts are being made to buy them up because she has contradicted herself, is without foundation. They are advertised in every weekly issue of the Christian Science Sentinel, and still contain the original account of her husband's demise at Wilmington.

May it not be, since this critic places certain circumstances in 1843, which records show really existed in 1844, that the woman whom he had in mind is some other one?

We can state Mrs. Eddy's teaching on the unreality of evil in no better terms than to quote her own words. Nothing could be further from her meaning than that evil could be indulged in while being called unreal. She declares in her Message to The Mother Church [1901]: “To assume there is no reality in sin, and yet commit sin, is sin itself, that clings fast to iniquity. The Publican's wail won his humble desire, while the Pharisee's self-righteousness crucified Jesus.”

Of further interest in this matter is the following extract from an editorial obituary which appeared in 1845 in the Freemason's Monthly Magazine, published by the late Charles W. Moore, Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts: —