Mark Twain's Biographer Quoted by Committee on Publication

Arthur W. Eckman with contributions from Oliver J. Hart

Boston Traveler

Boston Traveler Arthur W. Eckman, Committee on Publication for Massachusetts

In your issue of Tuesday, November 10, Westbrook Pegler's column carried a casual but not unfriendly reference to Christian Science and its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy.

Mark Twain's (Samuel Clemens) early thrusts at this religion and its Founder were mentioned in a manner which, I think, might mislead your readers. While Mark Twain did level his shafts at Christian Science and Mrs. Eddy in the "early days," he later changed his views regarding both.

Our authority for this statement is his long-time secretary, Albert Bigelow Paine, who, on page 1271 of "Mark Twain, A Biography," has this to say:

"I was at this period interested a good deal in mental healing, and had been treated for neurasthenia with gratifying results. Like most of the world, I had assumed, from his published articles, that he condemned Christian Science and its related practices out of hand. When I confessed, rather reluctantly, one day, the benefit I had received, he surprised me by answering:

"'Of course you have been benefited. Christian Science is humanity's boon. Mother Eddy deserves a place in the Trinity as much as any member of it. She has organized and made available a healing principle that for two thousand years has never been employed, except as the merest kind of guesswork. She is the benefactor of the age.'

"It seemed strange, at the time, to hear him speak in this way concerning a practice of which he was generally regarded as the chief public antagonist. It was another angle of his many-sided character."

Clara Clemens, Mark Twain's daughter, in her book "My Husband Gabrilowitsch," reaffirms her father's change of view, quoting the same statement by her father, in Chapter XXI of her book.

Only those fail who lose their way because they cease to seek for the highest. If we follow God's light long enough and far enough, we shall reach Bethlehem.—Dr. Oliver J. Hart.

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