Your letterEditorial Note: This letter is not extant. is received. The booksEditorial Note: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy came some time ago. I have read them carefully. Indeed it has been years since I gave any persons works so conscientious a reading as I have given these.

Now you know how hard it is to dissent from one who thoroughly commands your respect and admiration, and how much harder still it is to tell the person so. But your booksEditorial Note: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy have failed entirely to convince me of your theory. I think I see that your premises are all wrong. Because I tell you sister that all things have their origin in sex difference and the idea that there is but one original substance - God or Mind will not do. There must be two original substances out of which all other things result. There must be Mind and Matter. You are right in the assumption that matter is dead and cannot feel. (However you dont Corrected: don’t admit the existence of matter at all except as a delusion of mind) At all events matter is dead. I think however that spirit, which is the most subtle fluid of which we can conceive, is also dead until drawn by the law of attraction into chemical relations with matter. I think life is the result of the union of these two —­ spirit and matter.

I expect you will think me presumptious Corrected: presumptuous in opposing my ideas to yours, but I have also given these matters great thought. Neither must I dont Corrected: don’t presume to state my opinions with very great positiveness. I am a child in knowledge, I feel this. But I am searching the truth with absolute humility, always praying to be guarded from error. It seems to me that you have built up a tremendous theory upon a false foundation. You say your work is proven by its fruits; but I say that mesmerism bears fruit also. It heals the sick. Faith of every discription Corrected: description and in no matter what absurdity has done wonders.

I feel that the reading of your work has done me an infinite good in spite of what I conceive to be its radical error; for all through these two volumesEditorial Note: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy from beginning to end russ runs the greatest thought of the century — indeed of 18 centuries; it is this, that we must trust good in order to realize good; we must turn every thought away from evil in all its forms in order to not be held subject to evil. This I now see was Christs Corrected: Christ’s doctrine, but the world has not understood it. In this you are His interpreter to the race. It is a wonderful thing for one person to do, and you have done it. In doing this it seems to me that you have brought life light and immortality to lifeII Tim 1:10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel: for me.

And now to change the subject I started my little paperEditorial Note: The Woman’s World without a dollar. It was a success. In 21 editions I obtained nearly 4000 paid subscribers. These with unpaid ones run my list to 5000. But my paper never came out regularly. It was never intended that it should. I so stated the fact in every issues. The paper has been in existence for two years, coming out whenever I felt that I had something to say. During the three hot months I do not issue it at all. My next edition will come out the first of September. I am then going to issue 100,000 copies. I hope to make that edition represent the highest thought I know combined with the highest culture.

Be sure that I shall say the very best I know of your work. I hail you as one of the most progressive spirits I have met, and I wish you all success consistent with the true merit of your systemEditorial Note: Christian Science. If you are altogether right I think I am not too prep prejudiced to find it out. If you are not right I trust that you may be put right through the honesty of your noble intentions and the splendid lucidity of your intellect.

I shall be delighted to receive your magazine, and will put your name on my exchange list. I will also send you some back numbers of my paperEditorial Note: The Woman’s World, though I doubt whether you can find time, or will have the desire to read them.

With many thanks for your kindness in sending me your booksEditorial Note: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy I am most Lovingly