I am often asked, Could not Mrs. Eddy do more good at healing than teaching? I answer according to my own judgment, that doubtless healing would be more to her liking than teaching, for the results appear sooner, and as a rule the patient has more gratitude than the student. But Mrs. Eddy has paused before no human sacrifice for this cause.
After her discovery of the science it was her own demonstrations, so beyond anything known to the age, that first interested the people in her mental method. Having thoroughly tested its healing power (during which practice she took no remuneration for her labors) she considered it a duty to impart to others her knowledge. To this end she commenced teaching.
Some of those who have come up since she has made the way for them, and have learned all they know of this subject from her and her books, have proceeded to steal her writings, and even to sell her books in secret for one hundred dollars per copy. Misrepresenting the author, mal-practising and mal-teaching Christian Science, they self-style themselves Metaphysicians, or Christian Scientists. These tell you that there are four schools of mental healing in Boston, and they belong to another school than hers ; or that they learned the science of a man who died over twenty years ago. But they never tell why they brought nothing out of all their learning until her books were published, and they had them to study.
