[Christian Science by Mark Twain]@TWC D-Link bookChristian Science CHAPTER III 4/8
It seems to me to modify the value of their testimony.
When these people talk about Christian Science they do as Mrs.Fuller did: they do not use their own language, but the book's; they pour out the book's showy incoherences, and leave you to find out later that they were not originating, but merely quoting; they seem to know the volume by heart, and to revere it as they would a Bible--another Bible, perhaps I ought to say.
Plainly the book was written under the mental desolations of the Third Degree, and I feel sure that none but the membership of that Degree can discover meanings in it.
When you read it you seem to be listening to a lively and aggressive and oracular speech delivered in an unknown tongue, a speech whose spirit you get but not the particulars; or, to change the figure, you seem to be listening to a vigorous instrument which is making a noise which it thinks is a tune, but which, to persons not members of the band, is only the martial tooting of a trombone, and merrily stirs the soul through the noise, but does not convey a meaning. The book's serenities of self-satisfaction do almost seem to smack of a heavenly origin--they have no blood-kin in the earth.
It is more than human to be so placidly certain about things, and so finely superior, and so airily content with one's performance.
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