The Boston Pope of by-and-by will draw his dollar-a-head
capitation-tax from 300,000,000 of the human race, and the Annex and the
rest of his book-shop will fetch in double as much more; and his
Metaphysical Colleges, the annual pilgrimage to Mrs. Eddy's tomb, from
all over the world--admission, the Christian-Science Dollar (payable in
advance)--purchases of consecrated glass beads, candles, memorial spoons,
aureoled chromo-portraits and bogus autographs of Mrs. Eddy, cash
offerings at her shrine--no crutches of cured cripples received, and no
imitations of miraculously restored broken legs and necks allowed to be
hung up except when made out of the Holy Metal and proved by fire-assay;
cash for miracles worked at the tomb: these money-sources, with a
thousand to be yet invented and ambushed upon the devotee, will bring the
annual increment well up above a billion. And nobody but the Trust will
have the handling of it. No Bishops appointed unless they agree to hand
in 90 per cent. of the catch. In that day the Trust will monopolise the
manufacture and sale of the Old and New Testaments as well as the Annex,
and raise their price to Annex rates, and compel the devotee to buy (for
even to-day a healer has to have the Annex and the Scriptures or he is
not allowed to work the game), and that will bring several hundred
million dollars more.
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