avoided if Mrs. Eddy had used some of
her other names in place of that one. "Mother Mary" was certain to stir
up discussion. It would have been much better if she had signed
the telegram "Mother Baker"; then there would have been no Biblical
competition, and, of course, that is a thing to avoid. But it is not too
late, yet.

I wish to break in here with a parenthesis, and then take up this
examination of Mrs. Eddy's Claim of January 17th again.

The history of her "Mother Mary" telegram--as told to me by one who
ought to be a very good authority--is curious and interesting. The
telegram ostensibly quotes verse 53 from the "Magnificat," but really
makes some pretty formidable changes in it. This is St. Luke's version:

"He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent
empty away."

This is "Mother Mary's" telegraphed version:

"He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the sick hath He not
sent empty away."

To judge by the Official Report, the bursting of this bombshell in that
massed convention of trained Christians created no astonishment, since
it caused no remark, and the business of the convention went tranquilly
on, thereafter, as if nothing had happened.

Did those people detect those changes? We cannot know. I think they must
have noticed them, the wording of St. Luke's verse being as familiar to
all Christians as is the wording of the Beatitudes; and I think that the
reason the new version provoked no surprise and no comment was, that the
assemblage took it for a "Key"--a spiritualized explanation of verse 53,
newly sent down from heaven through Mrs. Eddy. For all Scientists study
their Bibles diligently, and they know their Magnificat. I believe that
their confidence in the authenticity of Mrs. Eddy's inspirations is so
limitless and so firmly established that no change, however violent,
which she might make in a Bible text could disturb their composure or
provoke from them a protest.

Her improved rendition of verse 53 went into the convention's report and
appeared in a New York paper the next day. The (at that time) Scientist
whom I mentioned a minute ago, and who had not been present at the
convention, saw it and marvelled; marvelled and was indignant--indignant
with the printer or the telegrapher, for making so careless and so
dreadful an error. And greatly distressed, too; for, of course, the
newspaper people would fall foul of it, and be sarcastic, and make fun
of it