The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
the house. That means an income for the Trust--in the near future--of
millions: not thousands--millions a year.
No member, young or old, of a Christian-Scientist church can retain
that membership unless he pay 'capitation tax' to the Boston Trust
every year. That means an income for the Trust--in the near future--of
millions more per year.
It is a reasonably safe guess that in America in 1910 there will be
10,000,000 Christian Scientists, and 3,000,000 in Great Britain; that
these figures will be trebled by 1920; that in America in 1910 the
Christian Scientists will be a political force, in 1920 politically
formidable--to remain that, permanently. And I think it a reasonable
guess that the Trust (which is already in our day pretty brusque in its
ways) will then be the most insolent and unscrupulous and tyrannical
politico-religious master that has dominated a people since the palmy
days of the Inquisition. And a stronger master than the strongest
of bygone times, because this one will have a financial strength
not dreamed of by any predecessor; as effective a concentration
of irresponsible power as any predecessor had; in the railway, the
telegraph, and the subsidised newspaper, better facilities for watching
and managing his empire than any predecessor has had; and after a
generation or two he will probably divide Christendom with the Catholic
Church.
The Roman Church has a perfect organisation, and it has an effective
centralisation of power--but not of its cash. Its multitude of Bishops
are rich, but their riches remain in large measure in their own hands.
They collect from 200,000,000 of people, but they keep the bulk of the
result at home. The Boston Pope of by-and-by will draw his dollar-a-head
capitation-tax from 300,000,000 of the human race, and the Annex and
the rest of his book-shop will fetch in double as much more; and his
Metaphysical Colleges, the annual pilgrimage to Mrs. Eddy's tomb, from
all over the world--admission, the Christian-Science Dollar (payable
in advance)--purchases of consecrated glass beads, candles, memorial
spoons, aureoled chromo-portraits and bogus autographs of Mrs. Eddy,
cash offerings at her shrine--no crutches of cured cripples received,
and no imitations of miraculously restored broken legs and necks allowed
to be hung up except when made out of the Holy Metal and proved by
fire-assay; cash for miracles worked at the tomb: these money-sources,
with a thousand to be yet invented and ambushed upon the devotee, will
bring the annual increment well up above a billion. And nobody but the
Trust will have the handling of it. No Bishops appointed unless they
agree to hand in 90 per cent. of the catch. In that day the Trust will
monopolise the manufacture and sale of the Old and New Testaments as
well as the Annex, and raise their price to Annex rates, and compel the
devotee to buy (for even to-day a healer has to have the Annex and the
Scriptures or he is not allowed to work the game), and that will bring
several hundred million dollars more. In those days the Trust will have
an income approaching $5,000,000 a day, and no expenses to be taken out
of it; no taxes to pay, and no charities to support. That last detail
should not be lightly passed over by the reader; it is well entitled to
attention.
No charities to support. No, nor even to contribute to. One searches in
vain the Trust's advertisements and the utterances of its pulpit for
any suggestion that it spends a penny on orphans, widows, discharged
prisoners, hospitals, ragged schools, night missions, city missions,
foreign missions, libraries, old people's homes, or any other object
that appeals to a human being's purse through his heart.(2)
I have hunted, hunted, and hunted, by correspondence and otherwise, and
have not yet got upon the track of a farthing that the Trust has spent
upon any worthy object. Nothing makes a Scientist so uncomfortable as to
ask him if he knows of a case where Christian Science has spent money
on a benevolence, either among its own adherents or elsewhere. He is
obliged to say no. And then one discovers that the person questioned has
been asked the question many times before, and that it is getting to be
a sore subject with him. Why a sore subject? Because he has written his
chiefs and asked with high confidence for an answer that will confound
these questioners--and the chiefs did not reply. He has written
again--and then again--not with confidence, but humbly, now, and has
begged for defensive ammunition in the voice of supplication. A reply
does at last come--to this effect: 'We must have faith in Our Mother,
and rest content in the conviction that whatever She(3) does with the
money it is in accordance with orders from Heaven, for She does no act
of any kind without first “demonstrating over” it.'
That settles it--as far as the disciple is concerned. His Mind is
entirely satisfied with that answer; he gets down his Annex and does
an incantation or two, and that mesmerises his spirit and puts that to
sleep--brings it peace. Peace and comfort and joy, until some inquirer
punctures the old sore again.
Through friends in America I asked some questions, and in some cases
got definite and informing answers; in other cases the answers were not
definite and not valuable. From the definite answers I gather that the
'capitation-tax' is compulsory, and that the sum is one dollar. To the
question, 'Does any of the money go to charities?' the answer from an
authoritative source was: _'No, not in the sense usually conveyed by this
word.'_ (The italics are mine.) That answer is cautious. But definite,
I think--utterly and unassailably definite--although quite
Christian-scientifically foggy in its phrasing. Christian Science is
generally foggy, generally diffuse, generally garrulous. The writer was
aware that the first word in his phrase answered the question which I
was asking, but he could not help adding nine dark words. Meaningless
ones, unless explained by him. It is quite likely--as intimated by
him--that Christian Science has invented a new class of objects to apply
the word charity to, but without an explanation we cannot know what they
are. We quite easily and naturally and confidently guess that they are
in all cases objects which will return five hundred per cent. on the
Trust's investment in them, but guessing is not knowledge; it is merely,
in this case, a sort of nine-tenths certainty deducible from what we
think we know of the Trust's trade principles and its sly and furtive
and shifty ways.
Sly? Deep? Judicious? The Trust understands business. The Trust does not
give itself away. It defeats all the attempts of us impertinents to get
at its trade secrets. To this day, after all our diligence, we have not
been able to get it to confess what it does with the money. It does not
even let its own disciples find out. All it says is, that the matter
has been 'demonstrated over.' Now and then a lay Scientist says, with
a grateful exultation, that Mrs. Eddy is enormously rich, but he stops
there; as to whether any of the money goes to other charities or not,
he is obliged to admit that he does not know. However, the Trust is
composed of human beings; and this justifies the conjecture that if it
had a charity on its list which it did not need to blush for, we should
soon hear of it.
'Without money and without price.' Those used to be the terms. Mrs.
Eddy's Annex cancels them. The motto of Christian Science is 'The
labourer is worthy of his hire.' And now that it has been 'demonstrated
over,' we find its spiritual meaning to be, 'Do anything and everything
your hand may find to do; and charge cash for it, and collect the money
in advance.' The Scientist has on his tongue's end a cut-and-dried,
Boston-supplied set of rather lean arguments whose function is to show
that it is a Heaven-commanded duty to do this, and that the croupiers of
the game have no choice by to obey.
The Trust seems to be a reincarnation. Exodus xxxii.4.
I have no reverence for Mrs. Eddy and the rest of the Trust--if there is
a rest--but I am not lacking in reverence for the sincerities of the
lay membership of the new Church. There is every evidence that the lay
members are entirely sincere in their faith, and I think sincerity
is always entitled to honour and respect, let the inspiration of the
sincerity be what it may. Zeal and sincerity can carry a new religion
further than any other missionary except fire and sword, and I believe
that the new religion will conquer the half of Christendom in a hundred
years. I am not intending this as a compliment to the human race, I
am merely stating an opinion. And yet I think that perhaps it is a
compliment to the race. I keep in mind that saying of an orthodox
preacher--quoted further back. He conceded that this new Christianity
frees its possessor's life from frets, fears, vexations, bitterness, and
all sorts of imagination-propagated maladies and pains, and fills his
world with sunshine and his heart with gladness. If Christian Science,
with this stupendous equipment--and final salvation added--cannot win
half the Christian globe, I must be badly mistaken in the make-up of the
human race.
I think the Trust will be handed down like the other papacy, and will
always know how to handle its limitless cash. It will press the button;
the zeal, the energy, the sincerity, the enthusiasm of its countless
vassals will do the rest.
IX
The power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or make
it sick is a force which none of us is born without. The first man
had it, the last one will possess it. If left to himself a man is most
likely to use only the mischievous half of the force--the half which
invents imaginary ailments for him and cultivates them: and if he is one
of these very wise people he is quite likely to scoff at the beneficent
half of the force and deny its existence. And so, to heal or help that
man, two imaginations are required: his own and some outsider's. The
outsider, B, must imagine that his incantations are the healing power
that is curing A, and A must imagine that this is so. It is not so, at
all; but no matter, the cure is effected, and that is the main thing.
The outsider's work is unquestionably valuable; so valuable that it may
fairly be likened to the essential work performed by the engineer when
he handles the throttle and turns on the steam: the actual power is
lodged exclusively in the engine, but if the engine were left alone it
would never start of itself. Whether the engineer be named Jim, or Bob,
or Tom, it is all one--his services are necessary, and he is entitled
to such wage as he can get you to pay. Whether he be named
Christian Scientist, or Mental Scientist, or Mind Curist, or Lourdes
Miracle-Worker, or King's-Evil Expert, it is all one,--he is merely the
Engineer, he simply turns on the same old steam and the engine does the
whole work.
In the case of the cure-engine it is a distinct advantage to clothe the
engineer in religious overalls and give him a pious name. It greatly
enlarges the business, and does no one any harm.
The Christian-Scientist engineer drives exactly the same trade as the
other engineers, yet he out-prospers the whole of them put together. Is
it because he has captured the takingest name? I think that that is only
a small part of it. I think that the secret of his high prosperity lies
elsewhere:
The Christian Scientist has organised the business. Now that was
certainly a gigantic idea. There is more intellect in it than would
be needed in the invention of a couple of millions of Eddy
Science-and-Health Bible Annexes. Electricity, in limitless volume, has
existed in the air and the rocks and the earth and everywhere since