Aristotle said, "What does a man gain by telling a lie? Not to be believed when he speaks the truth." If the simple falsehoods uttered about me were compounded, the mixture should be labelled thus: "Some Christians' mistaken views of Mrs. Eddy's text-book and the malice aforethought of sinners."
That I take opium, that I am a book-thief, a mesmerist, a medium, a "pantheist," or that my hourly life is prayerless, or not in strict obedience to the decalogue, is not more true than that I am dead. The St. Louis Democrat is alleged to have reported me dead, and said in my obituary that I died of poison, and bequeathed all my property to Susan Anthony!
The opium falsehood has only this to it. Thirty years ago the regular physicians prescribed morphine, which I took, when they could do no more for me. Afterwards the glorious revelations of Christian Science saved me from that necessity and made me well, since which I have not taken a drug, with this exception. Years ago when the mental malpractice of poison was undertaken by a mesmerist, to thwart that design, I experimented by taking some large doses of morphine to watch the effect, and I say it with tearful thanks, the drug had no effect upon me whatever,—the hour had struck, "if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them."
