She holds, in perpetuity, autocratic and indisputable sovereignty and control over every branch Church in the earth; and yet says, in that sugary, naive, angel-beguiling way of hers, that the Mother-Church: "shall assume no official control of other churches of this denomination." Whereas in truth the unmeddled-with liberties of a branch Christian Science Church are but very, very few in number, and are these: 1.

It can appoint its own furnace-stoker, winters.2.It can appoint its own fan-distributors, summers.3.It can, in accordance with its own choice in the matter, burn, bury, or preserve members who are pretending to be dead--whereas there is no such thing as death.4.It can take up a collection.
The branch Churches have no important liberties, none that give them an important voice in their own affairs.

Those are all locked up, and Mrs.
Eddy has the key.

"Local Self-Government" is a large name and sounds well; but the branch Churches have no more of it than have the privates in the King of Dahomey's army.
"MOTHER-CHURCH UNIQUE" Mrs.Eddy, with an envious and admiring eye upon the solitary and rivalless and world-shadowing majesty of St.Peter's, reveals in her By-laws her purpose to set the Mother-Church apart by itself in a stately seclusion and make it duplicate that lone sublimity under the Western sky.

The By-law headed "Mother-Church Unique" says-- "In its relation to other Christian Science churches, the Mother-Church stands alone.
"It occupies a position that no other Church can fill.
"Then for a branch Church to assume such position would be disastrous to Christian Science, "Therefore--" Therefore no branch Church is allowed to have branches.