klin,
the mysticism of Swedenborg, and the bold pronunciamento of Robert
Ingersoll. It is a religion of affirmation with a denial-of-matter
attachment.

It is a religion of this world. Jesus was a Man of Sorrows but Mary
Baker Eddy was a Daughter of Joy.

And as the universal good sense of mankind holds that the best
preparation for a life to come, if there is one, is to make the best of
this, Christian Science is meeting with a fast-growing popular
acceptance.

The decline of the old orthodoxy is owing to its clinging to the fallacy
that the world's work is base, and Nature is a trickster luring us to
our doom. Mrs. Eddy reconciled the old idea with the new and made it
mentally palatable. And this is the reason why Christian Science is
going to sweep the earth and in twenty years will have but one
competitor, the Roman Catholic faith.

Orthodoxy, blind, blundering, stubborn, senile, is tottering--the
undertaker is at the door. Indeed, the old idea of our orthodox friends
that they were preparing to die, was literally true.

The undertaker's name and business address attached to the front of many
a city church is a sign too subtle to overlook. Not only was the
undertaker a partner of the priest, but he is now foreclosing his claim.
Christian Science is not final. After it has lived its day, another
religion will follow, and that is the Religion of Commonsense, the
esoteric religion which Mrs. Eddy herself lived and practised.

As for her believers, she gave them the religion of a Book--two Books,
the Bible and "Science and Health." They want form and ritual and
temples.

She gave them these things, just as doctors give sweetened water to
people who still demand medicine; and as if to supply the zealous
converts, just out of orthodoxy, their fill of ecclesiastic husks, she
built fine churches--churches rivaling the far-famed San Salute of
Venice. Let them have their wish! Paganism is in their blood--they are
even trying to worship her!

Let them go on and eventually they will pray not in temples nor on this
or that mountain, but in spirit and in truth, just as did Mrs. Eddy, one
of the world's most successful women.

* * * * *

Christian Science is orthodox Christianity, minus medical fetish and the
fear that a belief in sin, sickness, death and eternal punishment
naturally lends, plus the joy of a natural, healthy, human life. The
so-called rational Christian sects preserve t