Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/90

82 Eddy on account of her antipathy to medicine and orthodoxy? But we are not yet through with Mrs. Eddy's inconsistencies.

Matter is unreal and is darkness, she vehemently contends, but she makes financial charges for dispensing the light of her health-giving metaphysics. That is, she demands so much unreality and darkness in exchange for so much reality and light. It is stated that her estate after her death was appraised at over two millions of dollars. She certainly knew how to chase the shadows of darkness and to get possession of them; and how also to will them to her church, believing, it would seem, that the church needed them, Mrs. Eddy was a financial success. She beat all other religious reformers in making money. Jesus of Nazareth was not in her class. He died poor; she died in the arms of luxury, that is, in the enjoyment of the shadow of darkness and unreality. Oh! consistency, thou art indeed a jewel; but alas! how the sow tramples upon thee! How sweet the darkness was to this angel of light!

The great American trio of religious grafters, Joseph Smith, Alexander Dowie and Mary Baker G. Eddy each, had a genius for getting a corner on revelation and getting in the shekels. And the greatest of these is Mary Baker G. Eddy.

Again, since matter is unreal, Mrs. Eddy argues, we should take no medicine. For both the pill and the swallowing machine are unreal. The acting subject and the thing acted upon both, you