Article January 22, 1903 Issue

Mrs. Eddy Replies to Mark Twain

Believes in but one Mother Mary and Knows she is not that One.—Explains the Appellation.—Name Given without her Consent by Students Spreads like Wildfire.

Mary Baker G. Eddy

The New York Herald

A letter in this article was later republished in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany (My. 302:12-303:32)

Concord, N. H., Friday.—In answer to criticisms by Mark Twain, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy makes the following statement:—

It is a fact, well understood, that I begged the students who first gave me the endearing appellative “mother” not to name me thus. But without my consent that word spread like wildfire. I still must think the name is not applicable to me: I stand in relation to this century, as a Christian discoverer, founder, and leader, I regard self-deification as blasphemous; I may be more loved, but I am less lauded, pampered, provided for, and cheered, than others before me—and wherefore? Because Christian Science is not yet popular, and I refuse adulation.

My first visit to the Mother Church after it was built and dedicated pleased me, and the situation was satisfactory. The dear members wanted to greet me with escort and the ringing of bells, but I declined, and went alone in my carriage to the church, entered it, and knelt in thanks upon the steps of its altar. There the foresplendor of the beginnings of truth fell mysteriously upon my spirit. I believe in one Christ, teach one Christ, know of but one Christ. I believe in but one incarnation, one Mother Mary, and know I am not that one, and never claimed to be. It suffices me to learn the Science of the Scriptures relative to this subject.

Christian Scientists have no quarrel with Protestants, Catholics, or any other sect. They need to be understood as following the divine Principle—God, Love—and not imagined to be unscientific worshipers of a human being.

In the aforesaid article, of which I have seen only extracts, Mark Twain's wit was not wasted in certain directions. Christian Science eschews divine rights in human beings. If the individual governed human consciousness, my statement of Christian Science would be disproved, but to understand the spiritual idea is essential to demonstrate Science and its pure monotheism, —one God, one Christ, no idolatry, no human propaganda. Jesus taught and proved that what feeds a few feeds all. His life-work subordinated the material to the spiritual, and he left this legacy of truth to mankind. His metaphysics is not the sport of philosophy, religion, or Science, rather is it the pith and finale of them all.

I have not the inspiration or aspiration to be a first or second Virgin-Mother—her duplicate, antecedent, or subsequent. What I am remains to be proved by the good I do. We need much humility, wisdom, and love to perform the functions of foreshadowing and foretasting heaven within us. This glory is molten in the furnace of affliction.

The New York Herald.

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