A Recent number of The Watchman contains the following editorial paragraph: "The explanation is given of Mrs. Eddy's popularity as an author that 'she writes what the people desire to read.' If that refers to English style, what a mistake literary men and editors are making in imagining that lucidity of expression is essential in any article that is to command public attention! What tyros in literature Gibbon and Macaulay were!"
As to the statement that Mrs. Eddy "writes what the people desire to read," no one familiar with the facts will dispute it. The people, in rapidly increasing numbers, are seeking and reading her writings. These writings are becoming more and more eagerly sought for and read as people come to know them. Many thousands of sincere persons find in her writings the words of comfort, help, and health for which they longed. Many of the world's best thinkers are reading her writings, because they find in them that which satisfies both their intellectual and spiritual cravings. This is fact, not assertion merely. Being fact how does it blend with the remainder of the paragraph from our editorial friend? Do people eagerly read, and continue to read, writings which they cannot understand? Does not the fact that these writings are being so generally read, refute the intimation that they are lacking m lucidity of style? Their style must be lucid to those who read them or they would cease doing so. In this busy age, busy and serious people do not idle away their time in reading what they cannot understand. If they read with the hope that they might understand, but found that they could not, they would give up the hopeless task and Mrs. Eddy would soon be out of readers. But the reverse of this is the case.
Take Mrs. Eddy's leading and greatest work, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and what is the fact? It has reached its two hundred and twenty-third edition of one thousand copies each, and the ratio of its increasing circulation is almost, if not quite, without precedent. If people could not understand it, would they continue to purchase and read it? The Query answers itself.
