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From the platform of the Monday lectureship in [2]

Tremont Temple, on Monday, March 16, 1885, as

will be seen by what follows. Reverend Mary Baker G.

Eddy was presented to Mr. Cook's audience, and allowed [5]

ten minutes in which to reply to his public letter con-

demning her doctrines; which reply was taken in full by

a shorthand reporter who was present, and is transcribed

below.

Mrs. Eddy responding, said:—[10]

As the time so kindly allotted me is insufficient for

even a synopsis of Christian Science, I shall confine my-

self to questions and answers.

Am I a spiritualist?

I am not, and never was. I understand the impossi- [15]

bility of intercommunion between the so-called dead and

living. There have always attended my life phenomena

of an uncommon order, which spiritualists have mis-

called mediumship; but I clearly understand that no

human agencies were employed—that the divine Mind [20]

reveals itself to humanity through spiritual law. And

to such as are “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption

of our body,” Christian Science reveals the in-

[pg 096]

finitude of divinity and the way of man's salvation from [1]

sickness and death, as wrought out by Jesus, who robbed

the grave of victory and death of its sting. I understand

that God is an ever-present help in all times of trouble—

have found Him so; and would have no other gods, no [5]

remedies in drugs, no material medicine.

Do I believe in a personal God?

I believe in God as the Supreme Being. I know not

what the person of omnipotence and omnipresence is,

or what the infinite includes; therefore, I worship that [10]

of which I can conceive, first, as a loving Father and

Mother; then, as thought ascends the scale of being to

diviner consciousness, God becomes to me, as to the

apostle who declared it, “God is Love,”—divine Prin-

ciple—which I worship; and “after the manner of my [15]

fathers, so worship I God.”

Do I believe in the atonement of Christ?

I do; and this atonement becomes more to me since

it includes man's redemption from sickness as well as

from sin. I reverence and adore Christ as never before. [20]

It brings to my sense, and to the sense of all who enter-

tain this understanding of the Science of God, a whole

salvation.

How is the healing done in Christian Science?

This answer includes too much to give you any con- [25]

clusive idea in a brief explanation. I can name some

means by which it is not done.

It is not one mind acting upon another mind; it is

not the transference of human images of thought to

other minds; it is not supported by the evidence before [30]

the personal senses—Science contradicts this evidence;

it is not of the flesh, but of the Spirit. It is Christ come

[pg 097]

to destroy the power of the flesh; it is Truth over error; [1]

that understood, gives man ability to rise above the evi-

dence of the senses, take hold of the eternal energies of

Truth, and destroy mortal discord with immortal har-

mony—the grand verities of being. It is not one mortal [5]

thought transmitted to another's thought from the human

mind that holds within itself all evil.

Our Master said of one of his students, “He is a devil,”

and repudiated the idea of casting out devils through

Beelzebub. Erring human mind is by no means a de- [10]

sirable or efficacious healer. Such suppositional healing

I deprecate. It is in no way allied to divine power. All

human control is animal magnetism, more despicable

than all other methods of treating disease.

Christian Science is not a remedy of faith alone, but [15]

combines faith with understanding, through which we

may touch the hem of His garment; and know that om-

nipotence has all power. “I am the Lord, and there is

none else, there is no God beside me.”

Is there a personal man? [20]

The Scriptures inform us that man was made in the

image and likeness of God. I commend the Icelandic

translation: “He created man in the image and likeness

of Mind, in the image and likeness of Mind created

He him.” To my sense, we have not seen all of man; [25]

he is more than personal sense can cognize, who is the

image and likeness of the infinite. I have not seen a

perfect man in mind or body—and such must be the

personality of him who is the true likeness: the lost

image is not this personality, and corporeal man is this [30]

lost image; hence, it doth not appear what is the real

personality of man. The only cause for making this

[pg 098]

question of personality a point, or of any importance, is [1]

that man's perfect model should be held in mind, whereby

to improve his present condition; that his contemplation

regarding himself should turn away from inharmony, sick-

ness, and sin, to that which is the image of his Maker. [5]