Mrs. Eddy, the leader of Christian Science, died at Boston,
U.S.A., last Sunday in her ninetieth year. It is not known yet who will succeed her as the head of " the Church of Christ, Scientist." She was the daughter of Mark Baker, a farmer in New Hampshire. Biographies of her have stated that she was a descendant of Sir John McNeill, who was British Ambassador in Persia. But this is demonstrably untrue, as all the descendants of Sir John McNeill can be traced, and there was no sort of relationship between them and Mrs. Eddy. She was married three times, having divorced her second husband. Her son and her grand- daughter by her first marriage attempted in 1907 to exact from her by law a statement of her financial administra- tion. In the " sixties " Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Patterson) became a " mind-bealer." In 1875 she published her well- known book, "Science and Health," which has been sold in vast quantities at a high price, and is supposed to have brought her considerable wealth. In 1879 the "First Church of Christ, Scientist," was built in Boston at a cost of nearly half-a-million pounds. We need not trace here the spread of Christian Science in many lands. The inherent principle that the mind has a. tremendous influence on the body is of course true. But it is not new. It might indeed be said of Christian Science as was said of an opponent's speech by Brougham : "It contains both what is new and what is true, but unfortunately what is new is not true, and what is true is not new." All the peculiar teaching and practices of Christian Science which have gathered round this principle seem to us to be most dangerous follies and superstitions.
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