The Homecoming of Bliss Knapp's Orphan

This entry is primarily a response to a couple of comments on the previous entry. The factual information is as accurate as my recollection and memory permitted. Any errors in detail are unintentional and shouldn't affect the gist of it. Clarifications or corrections are welcome.

Bliss Knapp's Destiny of The Mother Church was discussed in a much earlier entry. As was said then, it is an unobjectionable book, being primarily a brief memoir of his parents' activities in the young Christian Science Church. The book does not purport to be a biography of MBE or even to be about her, and she is only mentioned in the last few chapters.

Mr. Knapp's will, with its munificent bequest, apparently stated that if the Christian Science Publishing Society published the book and had it for sale in "essentially all" Reading Rooms TMC would receive the bequest. Bliss Knapp probably passed on circa 1940, but for decades TMC declined to publish the book, even for the multi-million dollar reward. This refusal was not because it was a book without merit, but because one of the book's arguments is that Mrs. Eddy is the woman in "Revelation", which was not an official Church position or one she unambiguously accepted.

The terms of the will were to expire in something like 50 years, or around 1990. If CSPS had not published the book by then, the loot would go to a second legatee, Stanford University (?). Naturally, all that swag just sitting there looking for a home was to TMC like a deliciously plump lamb parading sedately before a pack of hungry wolves. Succumbing to the Siren song of the "elusive spondulicks" the Church Board had, one surmises, a kind of fiscal epiphany in which "Destiny" was suddenly imbued with the irresistible attraction a very wealthy, fat, ugly widow might present to a penniless spiv. In fact, the long-lost orphan was joyously welcomed home in a Dickensian sort of denouement and made the distinguished founder and patriarch of a glorious new tribe of MBE biographies, an event which was heralded with triumphant fanfare. Unfortunately, it was indicative of the moral and ethical rot which has permeated TMC that the first "biography" in their series wasn't even close to being a biography of anyone, and certainly not one of MBE.

At this point, the progress of events became a confusing scrum. At TMC there was a headlong rush to get the book printed and for sale in Reading Rooms. That some RR's refused to carry it undoubtedly necessitated the creative shoehorning of some data into the verification shoe. Owing perhaps to more than a little unconvincing "compliance" with the terms of the will, a judge decided in the end to divide the spoils equally between TMC and Stanford University. Each left the contest with something like $90 million. Not a bad few months work for TMC even if their rectitude had acquired a new dent or two and another thick layer of tarnish from the perfectly understandable (but denied) concession to cupidity.

In short, the honest Knapp book is nothing like the Gill thing in intent or content. Gill's verbal haggis (no insult to Scotland intended) is akin to the vicious Dakin and Milmine muggings of yesteryear. It is also worth noting that Ms Gill lists both Dakin and Milmine in her bibliography and quite possibly mined these two septic tanks for some baseless, but smelly tidbits.