Genesis. When the crude forms of
human thought take on higher symbols and significations, the
scientifically Christian views of the universe will appear, illuminating
time with the glory of eternity."

I append these two passages simply as samples of "inspired literature."

Any one who tries to understand such printed matter is headed for
Bloomingdale. You must leave it alone absolutely or else accept it and
read it with your mental eyes closed, mumbling it with your lips, and
let your mind roam like a priest reading his breviary in the
smoking-apartment of a Pullman car. The question then arises, "Was Mrs.
Eddy sincere in putting forth such writings?"

And the answer is, she was most certainly sincere, and she was certainly
sane. She was an honest woman. But she was not a clear or logical
thinker, except on matters of finance and business, and consequently she
did not give forth a clear expression when she essayed philosophy. In
order to write lucidly you must think lucidly. Mrs. Eddy had no sense of
literary values. She was absolutely devoid of humor, and humor is only
the ability to detect a little thing from a big one--to perceive a wrong
adjustment from a right one.

Style in literature is taste. But the lack of style, taste and humor is
general in mankind. The world has produced only a few great thinkers,
and one of them was Darwin, a name which Mrs. Eddy mentioned in "Science
and Health" with reproach. Great writers are even more rare than great
thinkers, because to write one must have the ability not only to think
clearly, but the knack or technical skill to use the right word, the
luminous word, and so arrange, paragraph and punctuate them that your
meaning will be clear to average minds. To say that Mrs. Eddy was not a
thinker nor a writer, is not an indictment of the woman, although it may
be a reflection on the mental processes of the people who think she was.

To say that there are two million people reading Mrs. Eddy, also proves
nothing, since numbers are no vindication. Over a hundred million people
have kissed the big toe of Saint Peter in Rome.

And surely the Roman Catholic Church contains a vast number of highly
educated people. The things you do not know, you do not know. And Mrs.
Eddy, knowing nothing of literary style, knew nothing of literary art.
Her prose and her poetry are worse than ordinary. All inspirational
poetry I ever read is rot, and all inspired paintings I ever saw are
daubs.