Christian Science with Notes Containing Corrections to Date - Paperback

Text extracted from opening pages of book: HRISTIAN SCIENCE WITH NOTES CONTAINING CORRECTIONS TO DATE BY MARK TWAIN ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS ILLUSTRATIONS MARK TWAIN ( 1906) Frontispiece THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, BOSTON, MASS., KNOWN AS THE MOTHER-CHURCH . . Facing p. 70 THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, CEN TRAL PARK WEST AND g6TH STREET, NEW YORK 252 PREFACE BOOK I. of this volume occupies a quarter or a third of the volume, and consists of matter written about four years ago, but not hitherto published in book form. It contained errors of judgment and of fact. I have now correct ed these to the best of my ability and later knowledge. Book II. was written at the beginning of 1903, and has not until now appeared in. any form. In it my purpose has been to present a character-portrait of Mrs. Eddy, drawn from her own acts and words solely, not from hear say and rumor; and to explain the nature and scope of her Monarchy, as revealed in the Laws by which she governs it, and which she wrote herself. MARK TWAIN. NEW YORK, January, igo?. BOOK CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ** It is the first time since the dawn-days of Creation that a Voice has gone crashing through space with such placid and complacent confidence and command CHAPTER I VIENNA, 1899 THIS last summer, when I was on my way back to Vienna from the Appetite-Cttre in the mountains, I fell over a cliff in the twilight and broke some arms and legs and one thing or another, and by good luck was found by some peasants who had lost an ass, and they carried me to the nearest habitation, which was one of those large, low, thatch - roof ed farm-houses, with apartments in the garret for the family, and a cunning little porch under the deep gable decorated with boxes of bright colored flowers and cats; on the ground - floor a large and light sitting-room, separated from the milch - cattle apartment by a partition; and in the front yard rose stately and fine the wealth and pride of the house, the manure pile. That sentence is Germanic, and shows that I am acquiring that sort of mastery of the art and spirit of the language which en ables a man to travel all day in one sentence without changing cars. There was a village a mile away, and a horse doctor lived there, but there was no surgeon. It seemed a bad outlook; mine was distinctly a surgery case. Then it was remembered that a lady from Boston was summering in that village, and she was a Christian Science doctor and could cure anything. So she was sent for. It was night by this time, and she could not conveniently come, but sent word that it was no matter, there was no hurry, she would give me absent treatment now, and come in the morning; meantime she begged me to make myself tranquil and comfortable and re member that there was nothing the matter with me. I thought there must be some mistake. Did you tell her I walked off a cliff seventy five feet high? Yes, '' And struck a bowlder at the bottom and bounced ? Yes. And struck another one and bounced again ? Yes. And struck another one and bounced yet again ? Yes. And broke the bowlders? Yes. J>> That accounts for it; she is thinking of the bowlders. Why didn't you tell her I got hurt, too? I did* I told her what you told me to tell her: that you were now but an incoherent se ries of compound fractures extending from your scalp - lock to your heels, and that the comminutedprojections caused you to look like a hat-rack. ** And it was after this that she wished me to remember that there was nothing the matter with me? Those were her words/*