|
|
 |
Mary Baker Eddy
|
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby |
|
|
Mary Baker Eddy & Phineas
P. Quimby
JANUARY, 1903. When
we do not know a public man personally, we guess him out by the facts
of his career. When it is Washington, we all arrive at about one
and the same result. We agree that his words and his acts clearly
interpret his character to us, and that they never leave us in doubt as
to the motives whence the words and acts proceeded. It is the
same with Joan of Arc, it is the same with two or three or five or six
others among the immortals. But in the matter of motives and of a
few details of character we agree to disagree upon Napoleon, Cromwell,
and all the rest; and to this list we must add Mrs. Eddy. I think
we can peacefully agree as to two or three extraordinary features of
her make-up, but not upon the other features of it. We cannot
peacefully agree as to her motives, therefore her character must remain
crooked to some of us and straight to the others.
No matter, she is interesting enough without an amicable
agreement. In several ways she is the most interesting woman that
ever lived, and the most extraordinary. The same may be said of
her career, and the same may be said of its chief result. She
started from nothing. Her enemies charge that she surreptitiously
took from Quimby a peculiar system of healing which was mind-cure with
a Biblical basis. She and her friends deny that she took anything
from him. This is a matter which we can discuss by-and-by.
Whether she took it or invented it, it was --materially--a sawdust mine
when she got it, and she has turned it into a Klondike; its spiritual
dock had next to no custom, if any at all: from it she has launched a
world-religion which has now six hundred and sixty-three churches, and
she charters a new one every four days.
When we do not know a person--and also when we do--we have to judge his
size by the size and nature of his achievements, as compared with the
achievements of others in his special line of business--there is no
other way. Measured by this standard, it is thirteen hundred
years since the world has produced anyone who could reach up to Mrs.
Eddy's waistbelt.
Figuratively speaking, Mrs. Eddy is already as tall as the Eiffel
tower. She is adding surprisingly to her stature every day.
It is
quite within the probabilities that a century hence she will be the
most imposing figure that has cast its shadow across the globe since
the inauguration of our era.
MARK TWAIN
NEW YORK. January, 1907.
|
|
