s in her place as absolute and
irresponsible a sovereign as she was.

It consists of but five persons, a much more manageable Cardinalate than
the Roman Pope's. I think it will elect its Pope from its own body, and
that it will fill its own vacancies. An elective Papacy is a safe and
wise system, and a long-liver.

CHAPTER XV

We may take that up now.

It is not a single if, but a several-jointed one; not an oyster, but a
vertebrate.

1. Did Mrs. Eddy borrow from Quimby the Great Idea, or only the little
one, the old-timer, the ordinary mental-healing-healing by "mortal"
mind?

2. If she borrowed the Great Idea, did she carry it away in her head, or
in manuscript?

3. Did she hit upon the Great Idea herself? By the Great Idea I mean, of
course, the conviction that the Force involved was still existent, and
could be applied now just as it was applied by Christ's Disciples and
their converts, and as successfully.

4. Did she philosophize it, systematize it, and write it down in a book?

5. Was it she, and not another, that built a new Religion upon the book
and organized it?

I think No. 5 can be answered with a Yes, and dismissed from the
controversy. And I think that the Great Idea, great as it was, would
have enjoyed but a brief activity, and would then have gone to sleep
again for some more centuries, but for the perpetuating impulse it got
from that organized and tremendous force.

As for Nos. 1, 2, and 4, the hostiles contend that Mrs. Eddy got the
Great Idea from Quimby and carried it off in manuscript. But their
testimony, while of consequence, lacks the most important detail; so far
as my information goes, the Quimby manuscript has not been produced. I
think we cannot discuss No. 1 and No. 2 profitably. Let them go.

For me, No. 3 has a mild interest, and No. 4 a violent one.

As regards No. 3, Mrs. Eddy was brought up, from the cradle, an
old-time, boiler-iron, Westminster-Catechism Christian, and knew
her Bible as well as Captain Kydd knew his, "when he sailed, when he
sailed," and perhaps as sympathetically. The Great Idea had struck a
million Bible-readers before her as being possible of resurrection and
application--it must have struck as many as that, and been cogitated,
indolently, doubtingly, then dropped and forgotten--and it could have
struck her, in due course. But how it could interest her, how it
could appeal to her--with her make this a thing that is difficult to
understand.