Then, is compiling and delivering that sermon for which you pay nothing, and which you deliver without the authors consent, and receive pay therefor, the precedent for preaching Christian Science, — and are you doing to the author of the above-named book as you would have others do unto you?
Those authors and editors of pamphlets and periodicals whose substance is made up of my publications, are morally responsible for what the law construes as crime. There are startling instances of the above-named law-breaking and gospel-opposing system of authorship, which characterize the writings of a few professed Christian Scientists. My Christian students who have read copies of my works in the pulpit require only a word to be wise; too sincere and morally statuesque are they to be long led into temptation; but I must not leave persistent plagiarists without this word of warning in public, since my private counsel they disregard.
To the question of my true-hearted students, “Is it right to copy your works and read them for our public services?” I answer: It is not right to copy my book and read it publicly without my consent. My reasons are as follows: —
First: This method is an unseen form of injustice standing in a holy place.
Second: It breaks the Golden Rule, a divine rule for human conduct.
Third: All error tends to harden the heart, blind the eyes, stop the ears of understanding, and inflate self; counter to the commands of our hillside Priest, to whom Isaiah alluded thus: “I have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people there was none with me.”
