Eddy's that she wrote Science and Health from the direct dictation
of the Deity; yet in England near forty years ago Orton had a huge
army of devotees and incorrigible adherents, many of whom remained
stubbornly unconvinced after their fat god had been proven an
impostor and jailed as a perjurer, and to-day Mrs. Eddy's following
is not only immense, but is daily augmenting in numbers and
enthusiasm. Orton had many fine and educated minds among his
adherents, Mrs. Eddy has had the like among hers from the
beginning. Her church is as well equipped in those particulars as
is any other church. Claimants can always count upon a following,
it doesn't matter who they are, nor what they claim, nor whether
they come with documents or without. It was always so. Down out
of the long-vanished past, across the abyss of the ages, if you
listen you can still hear the believing multitudes shouting for
Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel.

A friend has sent me a new book, from England--The Shakespeare
Problem Restated--well restated and closely reasoned; and my fifty
years' interest in that matter--asleep for the last three years--is
excited once more. It is an interest which was born of Delia
Bacon's book--away back in that ancient day--1857, or maybe 1856.
About a year later my pilot-master, Bixby, transferred me from his
own steamboat to the Pennsylvania, and placed me under the orders
and instructions of George Ealer--dead now, these many, many years.
I steered for him a good many months--as was the humble duty of the
pilot-apprentice: stood a daylight watch and spun the wheel under
the severe superintendence and correction of the master. He was a
prime chess player and an idolater of Shakespeare. He would play
chess with anybody; even with me, and it cost his official dignity
something to do that. Also--quite uninvited--he would read