● ● ●  letter purported to be from a man of German birth, hard pressed for money, who was returning to Germany after a long stay in the United States. “Friend Hiram” was said to be Mrs. Eddy’s first pupil, Hiram S. Crafts.

Not at all convinced by the papers in question, the Directors of The Mother Church declined to consider buying them.

In 1936, there was published in Great Britain and in the United States a book by an author who participated in the foregoing attempts to sell. It included the following features, described as “newly discovered”: (1) a purported article or essay headed “The Metaphysical Religion of Hegel by Francis Lieber—‘Christian Herrmann’ ”; (2) a purported notation on the cover of the same paper, as follows: “N.B. This is Metaphysical Basis of Healing and Science of Health. Same as ‘Christ-power’ and ‘Truth-power’ Mary Baker”; (3) a purported letter dated April 7, 1866, addressed “Mr. Hiram Crafts Secretary of Kantian Society Boston Lyceum. Friend Hiram” and signed “Francis Lieber ‘Christian Herrmann.’” The book included what were represented as exact reproductions of the foregoing features in type and in handwriting. The author also asserted that the first and third of the foregoing features were written by “none other than the noted publicist and educator, Dr. Francis Lieber.”

Francis Lieber (1800–1872) . . . was a professor in Columbia College (now Columbia University) in New York City. . . . In 1866, Hiram S. Crafts was a heel finisher in a shoe factory at Lynn, Massachusetts.

In 1930–1933, during the solicitations just described, none of the solicitors who spoke or wrote at that time made any assertion or claim corresponding to the purported notation by “Mary Baker” just quoted. Nor did any of them make any assertion or claim that the letter or manuscript then offered for sale was written by Francis Lieber. On the contrary, they spoke as if Christian Herrmann were an actual person.

After the book in question was published, The Christian Science Board of Directors, disbelieving that the documents in question were genuine and desiring opinions from disinterested experts, put specimens of Mrs. Eddy’s handwriting and specimens of Francis Lieber’s handwriting (of which there are plenty), with copies of the book in  ● ● ●