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Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

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EMMANUEL MOVEMENT

You will tell me if my understanding of the New Movement is correct: to wit, that it is just Christian Science, with some of the earmarks painted over & the others removed, after the fashion of the unanointed cattle-thieves of the wild, wild West. My word, how ecclesiastical history do repeat herself! The Jews steal a God & a Creation & a Flood & a Moral Code from Babylon; Egypt steals the like from a forgotten Antiquity; Greece steals the swag from Egypt; Rome steals it from Greece; Christianity comes belated along & steals morals & miracles & one thing & another from Budh & Confucius; Christian Science arrives & steals the Christian outfit & gives it a new name; & now at last comes the Boston puritan -- hater of Christian Science -- & steals the plunder anew & re-baptises it, & shouts tearful & grateful glory to God for winking at the mulct & not letting on -- according to His shady custom these thirty million years.
- Letter to Joseph Twichell, 17 April 1908

Recommended reading:
The Letters of Mark Twain and Joseph Hopkins Twichell
available from amazon.com

 

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