The first legal aid or hindrance experienced by the Christian Science movement may have been either an aid or a hindrance. In 1875, after Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Glover) had composed her principal work and had named it "The Science of Life," she learned that another book had this title. In this situation, she changed the title of her book to "Science and Health," while it was being printed, so that she could get a valid copyright. This incident is attested by a letter dated June 2, 1875, from Mrs. Eddy to the Copyright Office in Washington. That it may have been an aid, not a hindrance, is indicated by a paragraph in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (pp. 15-16).
In 1879 and 1881, Massachusetts statutes aided the Christian Science movement more than can be easily appreciated now, by enabling Mrs. Eddy and her followers to incorporate the Church of Christ, Scientist, and the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. These charters helped immediately to promote the new teaching, and later they served as precedents for the incorporation of additional churches and "institutes" for teaching Christian Science, which also helped to give it a recognized standing in public estimation. Sometimes charters were refused. Even at Philadelphia in 1903, the final authority for the granting of charters refused one for First Church of Christ, Scientist, of Philadelphia. The officials gave different reasons at different times, but their last one was this: "Our laws recognize disease as a grim reality, to be met and grappled with as such." In short, the officials in so enlightened a community as Pennsylvania considered that they could and should limit the ideas to be taught as religion and Science.
A suit which Mrs. Eddy began in the United States Circuit Court at Boston, in 1883, was important then and is now, because the decree in that suit determined the issue whether she was the actual author of the pamphlet "The Science of Man" and the book "Science and Health," which she had filed in the United States Copyright Office. The defendant was Edward J. Arens, formerly an avowed Christian Scientist, who had issued a pamphlet entitled "Christianity, or the Understanding of God as Applied to Healing the Sick," consisting largely of statements copied from the pamphlet and the book just named. In his pamphlet Mr. Arens acknowledged indebtedness to P. P. Quimby of Belfast, Maine, and referred slightingly to "a work by Eddy." Thereupon, Mrs. Eddy brought a suit against him for infringing her copyrights. He defended it by alleging that Mr. Quimby, not Mrs. Eddy, was the actual author of the statements in question, and that she had taken them from manuscripts composed by him. This defense would have been sufficient if it could have been proved, but the defendant introduced no proof, and the court entered a decree for the plaintiff. After the decree had been entered, the defendant offered the excuse that the manuscripts by which his alleged defense could have been proved were in the possession of Mr. Quimby's son, who had refused to produce them as evidence in the suit. Such an excuse, however, is idle, for everybody knows that the production of evidence can be required. In these circumstances, the decree obtained by Mrs. Eddy against the Quimby canard should be conclusive with all fair-minded persons that she is the actual author of the Christian Science textbook.
