5CC, THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE bv S. A. li —ers MARY BAKER G. EDDY From a photograph taken in Concord, N. H., in 1892 V \^^ kt»^ CF r,7/v. m f* JAN 12 1910 THE LIFE OF%o^^C^4 MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BY,/ GEORGINE MILMINE ILLUSTRATED ^ ISTEW YOEK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1909 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN COPYRIGHT, 1907, 1908, BY THE S. S. MCCLUKE COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY PUBLISHED, NOVEMBER, 1909 NOTE The following history was first published in serial form in McClure's Magazine, 1907-1908. It has since been revised and new material has been added. G. M. CONTENTS CHAPTER PXGB I. Mrs. Eddy's American Ancestors — Mark Baker, and Life on the Bow Farm — Schooldays in Til- ton — Early Influences — Her First Marriage 3 II. Mrs. Glover as a Widow in Tilton — Her Interest in Mesmerism and Clairvoyance — The Disposal of Her Son — Marriage to Daniel Patterson 26 III. Mrs. Patterson First Hears of Dr. Quimby — Her Arrival in Portland — Quimby and His "Science" 42 IV. Mrs. Patterson Becomes Quimby's Patient and Pupil — Her Defence of Quimby and His The- ory— Her Grief at His Death — She Asks Mr. Dresser to Take up Quimby's Work . . 56 V. The Quimby Controversy — Mrs. Eddy's Claim that Christian Science Was a Divine Revelation to Her — The Story of Her Fall on the Ice in Lynn and Her Miraculous Recovery . . 71 VI. The Quimby Controversy Continued-— Mrs. Eddy's Attempts to Discredit Quimby — Her Charge that He Was Always a Mesmerist — Quimby's Adherents Defend Him 88 vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE VII. Dr. and Mrs. Patterson in Lynn — Their Sep- aration— Mrs. Patterson as a Professional Vis- itor— She Teaches Hiram Crafts the Quimby " Science " — Mrs. Patterson in Amesbury . 105 VIII. Two Years with the Wentworths in Stoughton — Mrs. Patterson Instructs Mrs. Wentworth from the Quimby Manuscripts and Prepares Her First Book for the Press . . . 121 IX. Mrs. Glover Goes into Partnership with Richard Kennedy — Their Establishment in Lynn — Mrs. Glover's First Disciples — Disagreements and Lawsuits ....... 134 X. Mrs. Glover's Influence over Her Students — Quimby Discredited — Daniel Harrison Spof- ford — Mrs. Glover's Marriage to Asa Gilbert Eddy 155 XL The First Appearance of Science and Health — Christian Science as a System of Metaphysics — As a Religion — As a Curative Agent . . 176 XIL Mrs. Eddy's Belief that She Suffered for the Sins of Others — Letters to Students — The Origin and Development of Malicious Animal Magnetism — A Revival of Witchcraft . . 211 XIII. The " Conspiracy to Murder " Case — Arrest of Eddy and Arens on a Sensational Charge — Hearing in Court — Discharge of the De- fendants 245 CONTENTS ix CHAPTER PAGE XIV. Mrs. Eddy Addresses Boston Audiences — She is Tortured by Her Fear of Mesmerism — Or- ganisation of " The Church of Christ, Scien- tist " — Withdrawal of Eight Leading Mem- bers— Mrs. Eddy's Retreat from Lynn . 262 XV. The Massachusetts Metaphysical College Organ- ised— Death of Asa Gilbert Eddy — Mrs. Eddy's Belief that He Was Mentally As- sassinated— Entrance of Calvin A. Frye . 281 XVI. Mrs. Eddy's Boston Household— A Daily War- fare Against Mesmerism — The P. M. Soci- ety— An Action Against Arens for In- fringement of Copyright .... 298 XVII. Literary Activities — Mrs. Eddy as an Editor — The Rev. Mr. Wiggin Becomes Her Liter- ary Assistant — His Private Estimate of Mrs. Eddy and Christian Science . . 312 XVIII. The Material Prosperity of Church and College — Mrs. Eddy Goes to Live in Commonwealth Avenue — Discontent of the Students — A Rival School of Mental Healing— The Schism of 1888 340 XIX. Mrs. Eddy Rallies Her Forces — Growth of Christian Science in the West — The Mak- ing of a Healer — The Apotheosis of Mrs. Eddy 361 X CONTENTS CHAPTFE PAGE XX. The Adoption of a Son — Mrs. Eddy's House- hold and the New Favourite — A Crisis in Christian Science — Mrs. Eddy is Driven from Boston by " M.A.M." . . . .379 XXL The New Policy — Mrs. Eddy Resigns from Pulpit and Journal and Closes Her College — Disorganisation of the Church and Asso- ciation— Reconstruction on a New Basis — Mrs. Eddy in Absolute Control and Posses- sion 391 XXII. Life at Pleasant View — Mrs. Eddy Produces More Christian Science Literature — Fos- ter Eddy Is Made Publisher of the Text- Book — The Story of His Fall from Favour — Rule of Service 411 XXIII. Josephine Curtis Woodbury and the Romantic School — Birth of the Prince of Peace — Mrs. Eddy Withdraws Her Support — " War in Heaven" 428 XXIV. Mrs. Eddy Adopts the Title of " Mother "— Beginning of the Concord Pilgrimages — Mrs. Eddy Hints at Her Political Influence —The Building of the Mother Church Ex- tension ........ 441 XXV. George Washington Glover — Mrs. Eddy's Son Brings an Action Against Leading Christian Scientists — Withdrawal of the Suit — Mrs. Eddy Moves from Concord, N. H., to New- ton, Mass 453 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER PAGD XXVI. Training the Vine — How Mrs. Eddy Has Organ- ised Her Church — Her Management and DiscipHne — The Church Manual — Recent Modifications in Christian Science Practice — Membership of the Church — Practical Results of Mrs. Eddy's Life-Work . . 460 Appendix A 486 Appendix B ... . .. ..... 489 Appendix C . .. ,.; . .. :. .. . . 494 ILLUSTRATIONS Mary Baker G. Eddy. From a photograph taken in Concord, N. H., in 1892 .... Frontispiece FACING PAGE Mark Baker, Mrs. Eddy's father 10 Daniel Patterson, Mrs. Eddy's second husband . . 34 The house in North Groton, N. H., where Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Daniel Patterson, lived for seven years . 38 Phineas Parkhurst Quimby 48 Mary Baker G. Eddy. From a tintype given to Mrs. Sarah G. Crosby in 1864 62 Facsimile of the second sheet of the first " spirit " letter from Albert Baker, Mrs. Eddy's brother, to Mrs. Sarah Crosby . 66 Mary Baker G. Eddy. From a photograph taken in Amesbury, Mass., in 1870 114 Mary Baker G. Eddy. Helping an Amesbury photogra- pher to get a successful picture of a baby . .114 Title page and part of the first page of the manuscript from which Mrs. Glover taught Mrs. Wentworth the system of mental healing which she ascribed to P. P. Quimby 128 Richard Kennedy. From a photograph taken in Lynn, Mass., in 1871 1^2 Asa Gilbert Eddy, Mrs. Eddy's third husband . . .168 Daniel H. SpofFord 252 Edward J. Arens 252 xiii xiv ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Marj Baker G. Eddy. From a tintype given to Lucy Wentworth in Stoughton, Mass., in 1870 . . 270 Mary Baker G. Eddy. From a photograph taken in Boston in the early eighties ..... 270 Calvin A. Frye. From a photograph taken about 1882 294< Mary Baker G. Eddy. Taken about the year 1886, while at the head of her college in Boston . . 308 Mary Baker G. Eddy. As she looked in 1870 when she first taught Christian Science in Lynn, Mass. . 308 The Reverend James Henry Wiggin, who was for four years Mrs. Eddy's literary adviser . . . 328 Christian Scientists' Picnic at Point of Pines, July 16, 1885 348 Ebenezer J. Foster Eddy, the adopted son of Mrs. Eddy 384 George Washington Glover, Mrs. Eddj^'s only child . . 384 Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy's home in Concord, N. H. . 414 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. The Mother Church 450 -^ THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHAPTER I MRS. eddy's AMERICAN ANCESTORS MARK BAKER, AND LIFE ON THE BOW FARM SCHOOLDAYS IN TILTON EARLY INFLU- ENCES HER FIRST MARRIAGE MARY A. MORSE BAKER/ the future leader of the Christian Science Church, was the sixth and youngest child of Mark and Abigail Baker. She was bom July 16, 1821, at the Baker homestead in the township of Bow, near the present city of Concord in New Hampshire. As a family the Bakers were of the rugged farmer type of the period to which they belonged. From the days of John Baker, their earliest American ancestor, who came from East Anglia and obtained a freehold in Charles- town, Mass., in 1634, throughout five generations ^ to Mark Baker, they had worked the unwilling soil of their New England farms, and brought up large families to labour after them. One of their number had engaged in the pre-Revolutionary wars, and in 1758 received a captain's commission from Governor Benning Wcntworth of New Hampshire. This was >Mrs. Eddv was named iu part for her grandmother, Ma^. ^°".,^J?°;;i L% O'Moor) Baker. She wrote her name as above, using only the initial oi uir '''The°fivT-generations were (1) John. (2) Thomas (3) Thomas (4) Joseph. (5) Joseph, who was the father of Mark Baker and the grandfathci of Mis. Eddy. 4 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Joseph Baker, the grandfather of Mark who married Hannah, the daughter of Captain John Lovewell, hero of " Lovell's Fight," and through her came into possession of the homestead in Bow. According to family tradition this farm, which was given to Hannah Lovewell by her father, was originally a part of " Lovell's Grant," a tract deeded to Captain Lovewell by the government for " gallant military service." As far back as the memory of any of the present generation of Bakers goes, however, the farm was first occupied by Joseph Baker 2d, and his wife, whose name is recorded by the Baker family both as Mary Ann O'Moor and Marion Moore.^ Of their large family of children, Mark, born May 2, 1785, was the youngest,* and at the death of his father in 1816, he, with an elder brother, James, inherited the farm.^ Marfe^^^^re of the estate included the farmhouse and bams, with the obliga- tion to support his mother. The farm was hill land, rising from the valley of the Merrimac River, and not especially fertile, but as his fathers before him had done, he managed, by toiling early and late, to wring from it a living for himself and his large family. In May, 1807, he had married the daughter of Nathaniel and Phebe Ambrose, neighbours across the Merrimac, in Pembroke, and brought her home to his father's house. Like the Bakers, the Ambrose family were severe Congregationalists, and farmers of the familiar New England type. Deacon Ambrose and his wife were staunch ' Mrs. EfWy and at loast ono othor descondant gives the name as ^farion Monro, but from statistics copied from the family Bible of tills Joseph Baker, and now in possession of his jrreat srand-dauRhter. it Is recorded that Joseph Baker was born November 0. 1741. and died in February. ISlfi. It gives the name of his wife as Mary Ann O'Moir, who was born December 11, 1743, and died January 26, 1835, and names ten children born to them. See Appendix A. ■* The Joseph Baker record names ten children, as follows : John, James, David, Jesse, William, Hannah, Joseph, Mary Ann, Philip, and Mark. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 6 supporters of their church, and they had brought up their daughter, Abigail, to be both pious and thrifty. As the wife of Mark Baker she is remembered for her patience and industry. She devoted all her energies to the care of her family, and was faithful in attendance at church. And this simple record, like that of many another heroic New England housewife, is all that is known, of Mrs. Eddy's mother. The dominating influence in the Baker home was Mark, and he made his presence felt in the community as well. His char- acter was naturally strong, and as narrow as his experience and opportunity had been. Born ten years after the American Revolution, he grew up in the atmosphere of sharply-defined opinions and declared principles, peculiar to the times. The country was still comparatively undeveloped and scantily popu- lated, and without the broadening influences made possible by later inventions. His house, in the middle of an isolated farm, was remote from its neighbours ; the nearest town was Concord, then a place of two or three thousand inhabitants, and where, except on market days and church days, he almost never went. The hard daily labour of the farm, and the equally hard work which he made of his politics and religion, comprised all his interests. To conquer the resisting land, to drive a good bar- gain, to order his conduct within the letter of his church law, to hate his enemies and to hold in contempt all who disagreed with him — these were the rules by which he shaped his life. High-tempered, dominating, and narrow, he was not content merely to adhere to his own principles, letting other men live as they would, but sought to impress his convictions upon his neighbours. There are instances of life-long quarrels between 6 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Mark Baker and those who differed from him in business, poli- tics, and rehgion. A quarrel over a question of business with his brother James resulted in a complete separation of the two families (although they lived as neighbours for years) from 1816 almost to the present time.^ A charge which he brought against a church brother was arbitrated for several years before church committees ; and his local political quarrels during abolition days were frequent and bitter. He lived on the Bow farm from 1785 to 1836, and in Sanbornton Bridge (now Tilton) from 1836 until his death in 1865, and to those who knew him in these two communities he is still a vivid memory. In appearance he was tall and lean, his muscles hardened by labour. His iron jaw and tense gray eye bespoke determina- tion and resistance. The very tap of his stick, as he tramped along the country roads, conveyed a challenge. His voice was terrific in power and volume. The Baker voice is a tradi- tion in New Hampshire, and stories are told in Bow of the Baker brothers at work in distant fields upon their farms, thundering like gods to each other across the hills. Mark's neighbours called him " Squire " Baker, and the younger folk called him " Uncle." They found him sharp at a bargain, but honest in his dealings, and while he paid his workers the smallest wages, he always sacredly kept his word, and in his narrow way he was a good citizen. He tried his friends by his fierce temper and his intense prejudices, which kept him, in one way and another, in a continual ferment. " A ° Only a fpw years ago Mvs. Eddy renewed this family connection by Ki'iiding for Roprcsentativo Henry Moore Baker of Concord, a grandson of .Tamos Baker, to call upon her at Pleasant View, her home in the same city. Mr. Baker was. until October, 1909, one of the three trustees appointed by Mrs. Eddy in 1907 to take charge of her property interests. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 7 tiger for temper, and always in a row." " You could no more move him than you can move old Kearsarge " (a local moun- tain). "An ugly disposition, but faithful to his church, and immovable in his politics." These are the comments of his old neighbours in Tilton to-day. Inevitably, he carried his religion and politics to extremes. In the Congregational church he was an active figure, faithful and punctilious in performing all its requirements. Not only did he fulfil his own church obligations, but he saw that his brethren and sisters fulfilled theirs. He brought charges of backsliding against fellow-members when they failed to attend public worship or communion, and was willingly appointed to visit and " labour " with the delinquents. It seems probable that Mark enjoyed this duty and performed it thoroughly. He had his own church troubles, too. The yellowed books of the Tilton Congregational Church record many a disputation between him and the brethren. A quarrel between Mark Baker and William Hayes was aired before the congregation year after year, but the two were never reconciled. The church did not follow Mark's wishes in the settlement of the differences, and after bringing up the old charges again and again, and receiving no satisfaction, he applied for a letter of dismissal, because he " could not walk in covenant with this church." When his request was refused, he placed himself on record as " feeling aggrieved at the doings of the church on this subject," A story which has passed into neighbourhood tradition illu- minates the man and shows the strength and quality of his religious feeling. One Sunday in his later years he mistook the day and worked as usual about his place. On Monday 8 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND morning he started for church, but was disturbed at seeing his neighbours at work. As usual he took them to task. " Sis- ter Lang," he said, frowning at a neighbour who was placing out her tubs for washing, " what is the meaning of this on the Lord's Day.? " The woman replied that as the day was Monday she was preparing to do the family washing, but jVIark com- manded her to prepare for church instead, and went on his way. Farther along he stopped again. " Brother Davis," he cried, " what is this commotion in the streets ? Why are not the church bells ringing for public worship ? " He was again assured that it was Monday ; but he was not convinced until he arrived at the church and found the doors closed. He hurried to Elder Curtice, who confirmed his fears. " Is it possible that I have broken the Lord's Day? " exclaimed Uncle Baker in alarm, and he knelt with his pastor and prayed for forgiveness. Back to his home went the old man, the godly part of him purged. But the old Adam remained, and as he strode up the hill he trembled with excitement. A tame crow, a pet of the children of the neighbourhood, hopped on a bush in front of him, cawing loudly. In his perturbed condition, the sight of the bird made Mark angrier than ever, and raising his stick, he struck the crow dead. " Take that," he said in a passion, " for hoppin' about on the Sabbath," and he stormed on up the hill. At home he kept the day strictly as Sunday to atone for his worldliness of the previous day. In politics he was no less intense. He was a pro-slavery advocate before the war, and an unbending Copperhead during it. He hated Abraham Lincoln above all men. Two luckless young women, selling pictures of Lincoln, once entered his HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 9 house to induce him to buy, but saved themselves from ejection only by a hasty flight. " I'll never forget what he said about Lincoln," said one of his old neighbours now living. *' When the news of Lincoln's assassination reached Sanbornton Bridge, I stopped at Mark Baker's to tell him of it. ' What ! ' he cried, and throwing down his hoe, he shouted at the top of his voice, ' I'm glad on't ! ' " When his politics and religion clashed as they did during the Civil War, the old man was sorely torn. His pastor, Elder Cor- ban Curtice, was a Republican who believed in the righteousness of the war, and Mark, with others of a different political faith, attempted to have the minister removed for " political preach- ing." Failing in this, some of the oldest members left the church. But Mark Baker remained. He went to church as regularly as ever, and abided by all its rulings as before, but his protest was expressed in a manner altogether characteristic. He sat doggedly thr.ough the sermon, his eyes fixed on the elder. The moment the word " rebellion " left the preacher's lips — whether he referred to the rebellion of the States or the rebellion of the angels — jNIark Baker sprang to his feet, and, with flashing eyes and clenched fists, strode indignantly out of the church. These incidents show the calibre of the man who was Mrs. Eddy's father. There is no doubt that he possessed qualities out of the ordinary. With his natural force and strong con- victions, and with his rectitude of character, he might have been more than a local figure, but for the insurmountable obstacles of a childishly passionate temper and a deep per- versity of mind. He was without imagination and without 10 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND sympathy. From fighting for a principle he invariably passed to fighting for his own way, and he was unable to see that the one cause was not as righteous as the other. His portrait — a daguerreotype — shows hardness and endurance and immova- bihty. There is no humility in the heavy lip and square-set mouth, no aspiration in the shrev/d eyes ; the high forehead is merely forbidding.^ ^'^ All Mark Baker's children were born in the little farmhouse in Bow, between 1808 and 1821. There were three sons — Samuel, Albert, and George Sullivan — and three daughters — Abigail, Martha, and Mary.® The family also included INIark Baker's mother. According to pioneer custom the early Bakers had built their house on top of the hill upon which their farm lay, fully half a mile from the public road, which at that point follows the course of the Merrimac River in the valley. However inconvenient and impractical this choice of a site may have been, it left nothing to be desired in the view. Across the green valley of woods and fields, through which flows the white-banked river, one can see from the Baker hill-top the long blue ranges of the White Mountains. Nearer at hand there are glimpses of clean white villages, and at the left is the city of Concord. The nearest house is out of sight at the foot of the hill. In Mark Baker's day it was occupied by his brother James, with whom Mark was not in friendly relation. The house itself is of wood, unpainted, and extremely small ">-* In his last years he was afflicted with a palsy of the head and hands, and Buffer(>d from facial cancer althouj?h it did not cause his death. Of his family, nearly all liave died of cancer in some form. His two eldest daushters and their three children, and two of his sons, Samuel and George, all died of the dread disease. ° Samuel Dow, horn July 8, 1808 ; Albert, horn February 5. 1810 ; George Sullivan, born August 7, 1812; Abigail Barnard, horn .January 15, 1816; Martha Smith, born January 19, 181!) ; Mary A. Morse, born July 16, 1821. Frcin a tintype. Courtesy of Mrs. II. S. Tliilbrook MARK BAKER Mrs. Eddy's father HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 11 and plain. A narrow door in the centre opens directly upon the stairway. On the left hand is a little parlour, lighted by two small-paned windows, and containing a comer fireplace. A larger room at the right, used as a granary by the present owner, was once the kitchen and living-room. Overhead there were three or four small sleeping-rooms. One wonders where the family of nine bestow^ed themselves wlien they were all in the house at once. The house has not been occupied for many years. The windows are boarded up, and it is desolate and forsaken. Yet it is not forgotten, for every summer Christian Scientists come to visit the spot where their leader was born. It is a shrine to the devout, who carry away stones and handfuls of soil and little shrubs, as souvenirs. The Baker children were brought up like other farmers' fami- lies of that time and place. The older ones worked about the farm and in the house, and in the winter when farm v/ork was " slack " they attended the district school. Lonely and unstimu- lating enough the life seems from this distance, but as a matter of fact it was useful and not uninteresting. It was before the days of steam railroads and the thousand modern aids to living, when every farmer's family was an industrial community in itself. All the supplies of the household, as well as food and clothes, were produced at home. Each man and woman and girl and boy of the farms w^as a craftsman, their daily work re- quiring physical strength and mental ingenuity and a kind of moral heroism. The school supplied their intellectual interests, the church satisfied their religious emotions, and for social diversion there were corn-huskings and barn-raisings and quilt- ing-bees. The rest was hard labour. 12 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND The qualities of Mark Baker were transmitted to his children. Thej were all high-tempered and headstrong and self-assertive, and thej did not lack confidence in themselves in any particular. At home, however, they were trained to obedience and up to the time at least of the birth of his youngest daughter, Mark Baker was master in his own house. But from the beginning it was evident that special concessions must be made to Mary. She was named for her grandmother, who made a pet of her from the first, and no doubt helped to spoil her as a baby. Mrs. Baker, the mother, often told her friends that Mary, of all her children, was the most difficult to care for, and they were all at their wits' ends to know how to keep her quiet and amused. As Mary grew older she was sent to district school with her sisters, but only for a few days at a time, for she was subject from infancy to convulsive attacks of a hysterical nature. Because of this affliction she was at last allowed to omit school altogether and to throw off all restraint at home. The family rules were relaxed where she was concerned, and the chief prob- lem in the Baker house was how to pacify Mary and avoid her nervous " fits." Even Mark Baker, heretofore invincible, was obliged to give way before the dominance of his infant daughter. His time-honoured obsei-vance of the Sabbath, which was a fixed institution at the Baker farm, was abandoned because Mary could not, after a long morning in church, sit still all day in tlic house with folded hands, listening to tho reading of the Bible. Sundays became a day of torture not only to tlie hys- terical child, but to all the family, for she invariably had one of her bad attacks, and the day ended in excitement and anxiety. These evidences of an abnormal condition of the nerves are im- HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 13 portant to any study of Mrs. Eddy and her career. As child and woman she suffered from this condition, and its existence explains some phases of her nature and certain of her acts, which otherwise might be difficult to understand and impossible to estimate. Until Mary's fifteenth year the routine of life at the farm was unbroken except for the departure from home of her two eldest brothers to start life for themselves, and the death of her grandmother Baker. In choosing their occupations, Mark Baker's sons turned away from the farm, new opportunities having been opened by the expanding industrial and commercial life of the country. Samuel, the eldest, went to Boston, in company with a neighbour's son, George Washington Glover, to learn the trade of a stone mason, as the quarries of New Hampshire had then been recently opened. Albert, the second son, had a higher ambition. He prepared himself for college and entered Dartmouth. He was graduated in 1834, and immediately went to Hillsborough Center, N. H., to study law in the office of Franklin Pierce, afterward President of the United States. Under the influence of Pierce young Baker entered politics. He served one term as Assemblyman in the State Legislature, and received the nomination for Representa- tive in Congress ; but he died in 1841 before the election. He was then only thirty-one years old, and his character and ability seemed to justify the high opinion of his friends, who regarded him as a coming man. The death of the elder Mrs. Baker occurred in January, 1835, and early the following year Mark Baker sold the homestead and moved his family to a farm near the village of Sanbornton 14 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Bridge (now called Tilton), eighteen miles north of Concord. Sanbornton Bridge was, in 1836, growing into a lively manu- facturing village. It already contained public-spirited citizens, and had considerable social life. Altogether it afforded larger opportunities than the Bow farm ; and here the interests of the Baker family now centred. Abigail, the eldest daughter, soon married Alexander Hamilton Tilton,'^ the rich man of the village, and settled there. Her husband owned the woollen mill, and accumulated a considerable fortune from the manu- facture of the " Tilton tweed," which he put on the market. Mrs. TLlton was extremely handsome and dignified, and her strong character, in which the Baker traits were tempered by a kindliness of spirit and a keen sense of responsibility, made her a leading figure in that little community. She was also capable and adaptable. When her husband died she took charge of his business, and was even more successful in its management than he had been. George Sullivan Baker formed a partnership with his brother-in-law. Martha, the second daughter, married Luther C. Pillsbury, deputy warden of the New Hampshire penitentiary in Concord, but after the death of her husband she returned to live in Sanbornton Bridge. Here, too, Mark Baker and his wife lived out their days, and jhere Mary Baker passed her girlhood, married, returned as a 'widow, married again, and once more returned as a deserted wife. As soon as they were settled on the new farm, Mary was sent to the district school at the Bridge. The schoolhouse stood on the site of the present Tilton Seminary. It was a ' At the request of Charles Tilton, wbo gave the village a town hall, San- bornton Bridge was renamed Tilton in 1869. Charles Tilton was a nephew of Alexander Hamilton Tilton. HISTORY OP CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 15 two-story wooden building, painted red. The district school occupied the lower floor, while the upper room was used for a small private school, where the higher English branches were taught. After a time these upper classes came to be known as the " academy," and it was here that Dyer H. Sanborn, the author of Sanborn's Grammar, taught for five years at a later date. Mary was then nearing her fifteenth birthday, and as she had received almost no instruction at Bow, the family hoped that another attempt at school might be more successful. It is one proof of Mary's remarkable personality that her old associates remember her, even as a child, so clearly. The Baker family was not one to be readily forgotten in any community, and Mary had all the Baker characteristics, besides a few im- pressive ones on her own account. The writer has talked with scores of Mary Baker's contemporaries in the New Hampshire villages where she lived, and in their descriptions of her, their recollections of her conduct, and their estimates of her character, there is a remarkable consistency. Allowance must always be made, in dealing with the early life of a famous person, for the dishonour of a prophet in his own country. Such allow- ance has been made here, and nothing is set down which is not supported by the testimony of many witnesses among her neighbours and relatives and associates. When Mary attended the district school in Tilton, she is remembered as a pretty and graceful girl, delicately formed, and with extremely small hands and feet. Her face was too long and her forehead too high to answer the requirements of perfect beauty, but her complexion was clear and of a delicate colour, and her waving brown hair was abundant and always 16 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND becomingly arranged. Her eyes were large and gray, and when overcharged with expression, as was often the case, they deepened in colour until they seemed to be black. She was always daintily dressed, and even at fifteen succeeded in keeping closer to the fashions than was common in the community or in her own home. But in spite of these advantages Mary was not altogether attractive. Her manners and speech were marred by a peculiar affectation. Her unusual nervous organisation may have accounted for her self-consciousness and her sus- ceptibility to the presence of others, but whatever the cause, Mary always seemed to be " showing off " for the benefit of those about her, and her extremely languishing manners were un- kindly commented upon even at a time when languishing man- ners were fashionable. In speaking she used many words, the longer and more unusual the better, and her pronunciation and application of them were original. Sarah Jane Bodwell, a daughter of the Congregational min- ister at Sanbornton Square, " kept " the school then, and find- ing Mary very backward in her studies in spite of her age and precociousness, she placed her in a class with small children. Mary seemed indifferent about getting into a more advanced class and did not apply herself. Her old schoolmates say that she was indolent and spent her time lolling in her seat or scribbling on her slate, and apparently was incapable of con- centrated or continuous thought. " I remember Mary Baker very well," said one of her class- mates now living in Tilton. " She began to come to district school in the early summer of 1836. I recollect her very dis- tinctly because she sat just in front of me, and because she HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 17 was such a big girl to be in our class. I was only nine, but I lielpcd her with her arithmetic when she needed help. We studied Smith's Grammar and ciphered by ourselves in Adams's New Arithmetic, and when she left school in three or four weeks we had both reached long division. She left on account of sickness. " I remember what a pretty girl she was, and how nicely she wore her hair. She usually let it hang in ringlets, but one day she appeared at school with her hair ' done up ' like a young lady. She told us that style of doing it was called a ' French Twist,' a new fashion which we had never seen before. In spite of her backwardness at books she assumed a very superior air, and by her sentimental posturing she managed to attract the attention of the whole school. She loved to impress us with fine stories about herself and her family. The schoolgirls did not like her, and they made fun of her as school- girls will. I knew her for a long time afterward, as we grew up in the same village, but I can't say that Mary changed much with her years." Mrs. Eddy's own story of her early education should also be considered. In her autobiography. Retrospection and In- trospection, she says that she was kept out of school much of the time because her father " was taught to believe " that her brain was too large for her body; that her brother Albert taught her Greek, Latin, and Hebrew ; and her favourite child- hood studies were Natural Philosophy, Logic, and Moral Sci- ence. From childhood, too, Mrs. Eddy recalls, she was a verse-maker, and " at ten years of age I was as familiar with Lindley Murray's Grammar as with the Westminster Catechism ; 18 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND and the latter I had to I'cpeat every Sunday." Mrs. Eddy has also said that she " graduated from Dyer H. Sanborn's Academy at Tilton." But at present she makes no pretension to such scholarly attainments. " After my discovery of Chris- tian Science," she says, " most of the knowledge I had gleaned from schoolbooks vanished like a dream." Only Lindley Murray remained, and he in an apotheosized state. "Learning was so illumined," she writes, " that grammar was eclipsed. Etymology was divine history, voicing the idea of God in man's origin and signification. Syntax was spiritual order and unity. Prosody, the song of angels, and no earthly or inglorious theme." Mrs. Eddy's schoolmates are not able to reconcile her story with their own recollections. They declare frankly that they do not believe Albert Baker taught her Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He entered college when Mary was nine, and left home when she was thirteen. There were, they say, no graduations from Dyer H. Sanborn's Academy, for the girls and boys left school when they were old enough to go to work or to marry. They insist that Mary's education was finished when she reached long division in the district school. At church, too, Mary made a vivid impression. Like the rest of Mark Baker's family, she attended service regularly; and she took pains with her costume, and the timing of her arrival, so that members of the congregation have retained a distinct picture of Mary Baker as she appeared at church. She always made a ceremonious entrance, coming up the aisle after the rest of the congregation were seated, and attracting the general attention by her pretty clothes and ostentatious manner. No trace of early piety can be found in a first-hand HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 19 study of Mrs. Eddy's life, yet in her autobiography she con- stantly refers to deep religious experiences of her childhood. As her chief recollection of Bow farm days, she relates a peculiar experience, intended to show that, like little Samuel, she received ghostly visitations in early youth. She writes : For some twelve months, when I was about eight years old, I repeatedly- heard a voice, calling me distinctly by name, three times, in an ascending scale. I thought this was my mother's voice, and sometimes went to her, beseeching her to tell me what she wanted. Her answer was always: "Nothing, child! What do you mean?" Then I would say: "Mother, who did call me? I heard somebody call Mary, three times!" This con- tinued until I grew discouraged, and my mother was perplexed and anxious. At another time her cousin, Mehitable Huntoon, heard the voice and told Mary's mother about it. " That night," con- tinues Mrs. Eddy's narrative, " before going to rest, my mother read to me the Scriptural narrative of little Samuel, and bade me, when the voice called again, to reply as he did, ' Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.' The voice came; but I did not answer. Afterward I wept, and prayed that God would forgive me, resolving to do, next time, as my mother had bidden me. When the call came again I did answer, in the words of Samuel, but never again to the material senses was that mysterious call repeated." Mrs. Eddy tells the story of her admission to church member- ship and of her discussions with the elders, and Christian Scientists draw a parallel between this incident and that of Christ debating at the age of twelve with the wise men in the temple. " At the age of twelve," writes Mrs. Eddy, " I was admitted to the Congregationalist (Trinitarian) Church." She describes her horror of the doctrine of predestination, while she aO LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND was preparing to enter the church, and how she wept over the necessity of believing that her unregenerate sisters and brothers would be damned. Peace, however, followed a season of prayer, and when she finally appeared at church for examination on doctrinal points, she flatly refused to accept that of predes- tination. She says : Distinctly do I recall what followed. I stoutly maintained that I was willing to trust God, and take my chance of spiritual safety with my brothers and sisters, — not one of whom had then made any profession of religion, — even if my credal doubts left me outside the doors. . . . Nevertheless, he (the minister) persisted in the assertion that I had been truly regenerated, and asked me to say how I felt when the new light dawned within me. I replied that I could only answer him in the words of the Psalmist: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." This was so earnestly said, that even the oldest church-members wept. After the meeting was over they came and kissed me. To the astonish- ment of many, the good clergyman's heart also melted, and he received me into their communion, and my protest along with me. The official record bearing on this point, taken from the clerk's book of the Tilton Congregational Church, is as follows: 1838, July 26, Received into this church, Stephen Grant, Esq., John Gilly and his wife Hannah, Mrs. Susan French, wife of William French, Miss Mary A. M. Baker, by profession, the two former receiving the ordinance of baptism. Greenaugh McQuestion, Scribe. As Mary Baker was born on July 16, 1821, and as this record is dated " 1838, July 26," she was evidently seventeen, and not twelve, when the event described above took place. At home Mary was still allowed to have her own way as completely as in her baby days. Indeed, by this time she, as well as her family, had come to consider this privilege a natural right, and she grew constantly more insistent in her demands upon her parents and brother and sisters, who had HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 21 found by long experience that the only way to live at all with Mary was to give in to all her whims. In a household where personal labour was exacted from each member, Mary spent her days in idleness. Where her sisters dressed plainly, she went clad in fine and dainty raiment, and where implicit obedi- ence was required of the others, Mary ignored, and more often opposed, the wishes of her father ; and in the clashes between them, her mother and sisters usually — at least in her younger years — ranged themselves on her side, and against her father. Mary's hysteria was, of course, her most effective argument in securing her way. Like the sword of Damocles, it hung perilously over the household, which constantly surrendered and conceded and made shift with Mary to avert the inevitable climax. Confusion and excitement and agony of mind lest Mary should die was the invariable consequence of her hysterical outbreaks, and the business of the house and farm was at a standstill until the tragedy had passed. These attacks, which continued until very late in Mrs. Eddy's life, have been described to the writer by many eye-witnesses, some of whom have watched by her bedside and treated her in Christian Science for her affliction. At times the attack resembled convulsions. Mary fell headlong to the floor, writh- ing and screaming in apparent agony. Again she dropped as if lifeless, and lay limp and motionless, until restored. At other times she became rigid like a cataleptic, and continued for a time in a state of suspended animation. At home the family worked over her, and the doctor was sent for, and Mary invariably recovered rapidly after a few hours ; but year after year her relatives fully expected that she would die in one 22 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND of these spasms. Nothing had the power of exciting Mark Baker like one of Mary's " fits," as they were called. His neighbours in Tilton remember him as he went to fetch Dr. Ladd,® how he lashed his horses down the hill, standing upright in his wagon and shouting in his tremendous voice, " Mary is dying ! " Outside the family, Mary's spells did not inspire the same anxiety. The unsympathetic called them " tantrums," after a better acquaintance with her, and declared that she used her nerves to get her own way. In later years Mark Baker came to .share this neighbourhood opinion, and on one occasion, after Mary had grown to womanhood, he tested her power of self- control by allowing her to remain on the floor, where she had thrown herself when her will was crossed, and leaving her to herself. An hour later when he opened the door, the room was deserted. Mary had gone upstairs to her room, and noth- ing was heard from her until she appeared at supper, fully recovered. After that Mary's nerves lost their power over her father to a great extent, and when hard put to it, he sometimes complained to his friends. A neighbour, passing the house one morning, stopped at Mark's gate and inquired why Mary, who was at that moment rushing wildly up and down the second-story piazza, was so excited; to which Mark repHcd bitterly: "The Bible says Mary Magdalen had seven devils, but our Mary has got ten ! " Unquestionably, Mary's attacks represented, to a great de- gree, a genuine affliction. Although Dr. Ladd sometimes impa- tiently diagnosed them as " hysteria mingled with bad temper," * Dr. Nathaniel G. Ladd, the village physician. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 23 he was, without doubt, deeply interested in her case. He dabbled a little in mesmerism and sometimes experimented on Mary, whom he found a sensitive subject. He discovered that he could partly control her movements by mental suggestion. " I can make that girl stop in the street any time merely by willing it," he used to tell his friends, and he often demonstrated that he could do it. Mesmerism was a new subject in New England in those days, and there was much experimenting and excitement over it. There is no doubt that it formed one of the early influences in Mrs. Eddy's life, and that it left an indelible impression upon her supersensitive organisation. Charles Poyen, a French disciple of Mesmer, had travelled through New England, lectur- ing and performing marvels of mesmeric power in the same towns in which Mrs. Eddy then lived. In his book. Animal Magnetism in New England, which was published in 1837, he gives an account of his experiences there and says : " Animal magnetism indisputably constituted in several parts of New England the most stirring topic of conversation among all classes of society." He called it a "great Truth," "The Power of Mind Over Matter," a " demonstration," a " discovery given by God," and a " science." Whether or not Mary Baker saw or heard Poyen, or, read his book, she must have heard of his theories, and must have been familiar with the phrases he used, as they were matter of common household discussion and would appeal strongly to a girl of Mary's temperament. In Christian Science she has given an important place to "Animal Magnetism," and there is a chapter devoted to it in her book. Science and Health. U LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Andrew Jackson Davis/ afterward the celebrated Spiritual- ist, had already begun to astound the public by his remarkable theories of the universe and disease, and by liis extraordinary literary feats. The healing of disease by means outside regu- lar channels was commonly reported, and new religious ideas were developing. It was a more prolific period than usual for all sorts of mystery and quackery in New England. Another influence of these early years, which had an eifect upon her later career, may be traced to the sect known as Shakers, which had sprung up in that section of New Hamp- shire. Their main community was at East Canterbury, N. H., five miles from Tilton, and Mary Baker was familiar with their appearance, their peculiar costume, and their community life. She knew their religious doctrines and spiritual exaltations, and was acquainted with their habits of industry and thrift. In her girlhood there were still living in the neighbourhood people who remembered Ann Lee,^*^ the founder of the sect. All through Mary's youth the Shakers were much in the courts because of the scandalous charges brought against them, and on one occasion they were defended by Franklin Pierce, in Avhose office Albert Baker studied law. Laws directed against their community were constantly presented to the Legislature, and complaints against them were frequently heard. A famous " exposure " of Shaker methods, written by Mary Dyer, who had been a member of the Canterbury community, was published in Concord in 1847; and the Shakers and their doings formed one of the exciting topics of the times. •Author of The Great Hannonia, etc. See Appendix B " Fleeing from England in 1774, Ann ' America at Concord and the neighbouring Fleeing from England in 1774, Ann Lee spent her first few years in ■rica at Concord and the neighbouring towns. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 25 That these happenings made a profound impression on Mary Baker and became irrevocably a part of her susceptible nature is evident; for we find her reverting to and making use of certain phases of Shakerism when, later, she had established a religious system of her own.^^ When Mary was twenty-two years old she married George Washington Glover, a son of John and Nancy Glover, who were neighbours of the Bakers at Bow. " Wash " Glover, as he was called, was a big, kind-hearted young fellow, who had learned the mason's trade with Mary's brother, Samuel, and he was an expert workman. The families were already con- nected through the marriage of Samuel Baker to Glover's sister, Eliza. After learning his trade, Glover had gone South, where there was a demand for Northern labour, and it was on one of his visits home that he fell in love with Mary Baker. They were married at Mark Baker's house December 12, 1843, and Glover took his bride back with him to Charleston, S. C. Six months later he was stricken with yellow fever and died in June, 1844, at Wilmington, N. C, where he had gone on business. His young wife was left in a miserable plight, being far from home, among strangers and without money. Mr. Glover, how- ever, had been a Freemason, and his brothers of that order came to his wife's relief. They buried her husband and paid her railroad fare to New York, where she was met by her brother George and taken back to her father's house. Here, the following September, her son was born, and she named liim George Washington, after his father. " See Appendix C. CHAPTER II MRS. GLOVER AS A WIDOW IN TILTON HER INTEREST IN MESMER- ISM AND CLAIRVOYANCE THE DISPOSAL OF HER SON MARRIAGE TO DANIEL PATTERSON Mrs. Glover had now to face a hard situation. Her brief married life had ended in adversity, and returning a widow to her father's house, she was without means of support for herself or her child, and she had neither the training nor the disposition to take up an occupation, or to make herself useful at home. Her sisters and brothers were married and gone from home, and her parents were growing old and less able to cope with her turbulent moods. Embarrassing as this position would have been to most women, Mrs. Glover did not apparently find it so. She took it for granted that she was to receive not only the sympathy of her relatives but their support and constant service, and that they should assume the care of her child. She divided her time between her father's house and that of her sister Abby, and her baby was left to her mother and sister or sent up the valley to a Mrs. Varney, whose son, John Varney, worked for the Tiltons. Frequently, too, the child stayed with Mahala Sanborn, a neighbour who had attended Mrs. Glover at his birth. But wherever he was, it was not with his mother, who had shown a curious aversion to him from the beginning. " Mary," said her father, " acts like an 26 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 27 old ewe that won't own its lamb. She won't have the boy near her." It must be said to the credit of the Baker family that they met Mrs. Glover's demands with a patience and faithfulness that seems remarkable from a family of such impatient and dominating character. They gave her the best room in each house and regulated their domestic affairs with a view to her comfort. When her nerves were in such a state of irritation that the slightest sound annoyed her, Mark Baker spread the road in front of his house with straw and tan bark to deaden the sound of passing waggons. The noise of children disturbed her, so the baby was sent to Mahala Sanborn or to Mrs. Tilton. At her sister's house they tiptoed about the rooms and placed covered bricks against every sill that the doors might close softly. At both houses she was rocked to sleep like a child in the arms of her father or her sister, and then gently carried to bed. Sometimes, at the Tiltons', this task fell to John Varney, the hired man, who like the members of her own family, rocked her to sleep and carried her to bed. To put an end to this practice, Mrs. Tilton ordered a large cradle made for Mrs. Glover. It was built with a balustrade and an extension seat at one end upon which Varney could sit, and by rocking himself as in a chair, also rock the cradle. Another symptom of her pathological condition was her intense desire for swinging. A large swing was hung from hooks in the ceiling of her room at Mrs. Tilton's, and here she was swung hours at a time by her young nephew, Albert Tilton. When Albert tired of the exercise he sometimes hired a substitute, so that " swinging Mrs. Glover " became a popular way of 28 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND earning an honest penny among the village boys. One of these " boys " has described his experience to the writer. " Some days," he said, " Mrs. Glover was so nervous she couldn't have anybody in the room with her, and then I used to tie a string to the seat and swing: her from outside her bedroom door." Mark Baker and John Vamey were obliged often to carry her in their arms and walk the floor with her at night to soothe lier excitable nerves, and when everything else failed, Mark used to send for old " Boston John " Clark to come and quiet Mrs. Glover by mesmerism. Clark was a bridge-builder from one of the villages up the valley who had acquired some reputa- tion as a mesmerist, practising, like Dr. Ladd, upon any sub- ject who was willing, and particularly happy when he dis- covered a " sensitive " like Mrs. Glover. He never failed to soothe her, and after one of his visits, the Baker family enjoyed a space of quiet from the incessant turmoil of Mary's nerves. Yet Mrs. Glover was neither helpless nor incapacitated. She did not keep to her bed and she was able to go about the village and to attend to whatever she was interested in. Her neighbours remember her at church gatherings and at the sewing circle, where she went regularly although she did not sew. It was one of Mrs. Glover's notions, after her six months in Charles- ton, to imitate the Southern women In little matters of dress and manner, and at the scAvIng circle she sat and gave voluble descriptions of her life in the South and the favourable Im- pression she had made there, deploring the loss of the daily horseback ride she had been accustomed to take in South Carolina. Twice Mrs. Glover made an effort at self-support. While HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 29 living with Mrs. Tilton she taught a class of children, holding the sessions in a small building, once used as a shop, on the Tilton place. After a few weeks' trial she gave it up. A little later she repeated the experiment, but with the same result. Although Mrs. Glover was later to have a " college " of her own, and to be its president and sole instructor, teaching was assuredly not her vocation in these early Tilton days. Perhaps a dozen of her Tilton pupils are still living, and they arc fond of relating anecdotes of the days when they went to school to Mrs. Glover. They all remember that the teacher required the class to march around the room singing the following refrain : " We will tell Mrs. Glover How much we love her; By the light of the moon We will come to her." ^ Mrs. Glover began now to enjoy considerable local fame on account of her susceptibility to mesmeric influence, and her clairvoyant powers. She had developed a habit of falling into trances. Often, in the course of a social call, she would close her eyes and sink into a state of apparent unconsciousness, dur- ing which she could describe scenes and events. The curious and superstitious began to seek her ad^^ce while she was in ' This song was evidently an adaptation of a popular " round " of that period, which ran : " Go to Jane Glover And tell her I love her And by the light of the moon I will come to her." A correspondent gives the information that in Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland, a similar " round " was in popular use previous to the year 1840, the words of which were : " Go to Joan Glover And tell her I love her And by the light of the mooa J will come to her." 30 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND this trance state. " Boston John " Clark experimented with her, putting her into the mesmeric sleep and attempting to trace lost or stolen articles by means of her clairvoyance. Once she tried to locate a drowned body. These efforts were not attended with any great success, but interest in mesmerism and clairvoyance ran high, and any one who could fall into a trance and describe things was sure to be am object of wonder. John Varney conceived the notion of turning this talent of Mrs. Glover's to practical account. " Boston John " was sent for, and Mrs. Glover, at Varney's suggestion, described the hiding-place of Captain Kidd's treasure, which was then a topic of exciting speculation. She indicated a spot near the city of Lynn, Mass. Varney and his cronies set out for the place and spent several days digging for the treasure, but without success. A few years later when spiritualism swept over the country, Mrs. Glover took on the symptoms of a " medium." Like the Fox sisters, she heard mysterious rappings at night, she saw " spirits " of the departed standing by her bedside, and she received messages in writing from the dead. There are people living who remember very distinctly the spiritism craze in Tilton, and who witnessed Mrs. Glover's manifestations of mediumship. One elderly woman recalls a night spent with Mrs. Glover when her rest was constantly disturbed by the strange rappings and by Mary's frequent announcements of the " appearance " of different spirits as they came and went. Mark Baker's house was one of those where spirit seances were held. The whole community was more or less interested and a few went to extremes. One of this number became HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 31 so excited over the wonderful phenomena of Mrs. Glover's writing mediumship that his mind was temporarily unbalanced. A foraier Tilton woman, who remembers these events, writes of Mrs. Glover's ability as a writing medium : " This was by no means looked upon as anything discreditable, but only as a matter of great astonishment." During these years, too, Mrs. Glover tried her hand at writing. She spent many hours in her room " composing poetry," which sometimes appeared in the poet's comers of local newspapers, and there is a tradition that she wrote a love story for Godey's Lady's Book. This literary tendency was a valuable asset, which Mrs. Glover made the most of. It gave her a certain prestige in the community, and she was not loth to pose as an " authoress." Perhaps it was this early habit of looking upon herself as a literary authority which led her to take those curious liberties with English which have always been characteristic of her. She drew largely upon the credit of the language, sometimes producing a word or evolving a pronunciation which completely floored her hearers. Some of these words and phrases have passed into local bywords. " When I vociferate so loudly, why do you not respond with greater alacrity .? " she sometimes seriously demanded of her attendants. She referred to plain John Varney as "Mr. Ve-owney," and few ordinary words were left unadorned. She sought also to improve upon nature in the matter of her o^vn good looks. Although she had a beautiful complexion, she rouged and powdered, and although she had excellent teeth, she had some of them replaced by false ones, " made entirely of platinum," as Mrs. Glover described them. 32 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND On the whole, it is no wonder that Mrs. Glover was not taken seriously in her own town. Artificiality spread over all her acts, and in no relation in life did she impress even her nearest friends or her own family with genuine feeling or sincerity. Indeed, she was bitterly censured in those years for the more active faults of selfish and unfilial conduct and a strange lack of the sense of maternal duty. In 1851 Mrs. Glover had given her son, George, to Mahala Sanborn. The boy, having reached the age of seven, was growing too large to be sent about from one house to another to be looked after. Mrs. Glover's mother had died of typhoid fever in November, 1849, and Mi*s. Tilton was growing each year more impatient and weary of Mrs. Glover's conduct. So when Mahala Sanborn married Russell Cheney and was preparing to move away from Tilton, Mrs. Glover begged her to take George to live with her perma- nently. Mrs. Cheney, who was attached to the boy, at last consented to do so, and George accompanied her and her hus- band to their new home in North Groton, and was called by their name. Mark Baker, in the fall of 1850, had married Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson Duncan, a widow of Londonderry, N. H., and moved into the village of Tilton. Mrs. Glover continued to live at home, spending most of her time there now, for her step- mother was of a pliable nature and gentle disposition, and had taken up the task of attending to Mary's wants with a patience equal to that of Mrs. Glover's own mother. Notwithstanding Mrs. Glover's shortcomings of temper, she could be amiable and attractive enough when she chose. To men she always showed her most winning side, and she had HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 33 never lacked admirers. One of her suitors at this time was Dr. Daniel Patterson, an itinerant dentist practising in Tilton and the villages thereabouts. Dr. Patterson was large, hand- some, and genial. He wore a full beard, dressed in a frock coat and silk hat, and was popular among his patrons. Al- though he was industrious enough at his business and made a living sufficient for himself, he was not a genius at money- making, and he was not inclined to exert himself much more than was necessary. From his first acquaintance with Mrs. Glover he was determined to marry her. Conscientious Mark Baker, when he heard of Dr. Patterson's intention, visited the dentist and told him of Mary's ill-health and nervous afflictions, but interference only strengthened the doctor's determination, and on June 21, 1853, the wedding took place at Mark Baker's house, although Dr. Patterson was obliged to carry his bride downstairs from her room for the ceremony, and back again when it was over. Mrs. Glover had been very ill and weak that spring and was not yet recovered. After her marriage she spent the days of her convalescence in Tilton with her husband, and then they went to Franklin, a neighbouring village where Dr. Patterson was practising. But Mrs. Patter- son's invahdism, from being intermittent, soon became a settled condition. She sent for her cradle while they were living in Franklin, and the older residents still recall the day that Patterson drove into town with a large waggon containing his wife's cradle. From Franklin they went, in a short time, to North Groton, where the Cheneys and young George Glover were living. North Groton, in the southern fringe of the White Mountains, 34. LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND was very remote and could be reached only by stage. Like all the White Mountain region, it was beautiful in the summer season, but in the winter it was rugged and desolate. The farmhouses were far apart, and the roads were sometimes im- passable. Often one would not see a neighbour or a passerby for weeks at a time when the snow was deep; and the winters there were very long. In a lane off the main road, the Patter- sons lived in a small frame house, which faced a deep wood. At the right rose the mountains. Back of the house there was a swift mountain brook, and there the dentist had built a small sawmill, which he operated when there was not much dentist work to do, or when his wife's ill-health made it necessary for him to stay closely at home. He also practised homoeopathy intermittently, but in the main he worked at his dentistry, driving to the nearby towns to practise, and leaving his wife alone or in the care of their occasional servant. There was only one near neighbour. It is not strange that, under these circumstances, Mrs. Patterson fell into a state of chronic illness and developed ways that were considered peculiar by her friends. Her neighbours in North Groton tell the old story of her illnesses, her hysteria, her high temper, and her unreasonable demands on her husband. She required him to keep the wooden bridge over the brook covered with sawdust to deaden the sound of footsteps or vehicles, and, according to local tradi- tion, he spent many evenings killing discordant frogs, whose noise disturbed Mrs. Patterson. Other stories sink further toward burlesque. Old inhabitants of North Groton still re- member the long drive which a neighbour made for Mrs. Patter- Fliotoijrapli l)y Win. W. Wi-llc DANIEL PATTERSON Mrs. Eddy's second husband HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 35 son one stormy winter night. While the doctor was away in Franklin, attending to his practice, Mrs. Patterson fell into a state of depression which ended in hysterics. A neighbour was sent for, and Mrs. Patterson declared she was dying, and that her husband must be brought home at once. To her own family this situation would not have seemed the desperate affair it was to Mrs. Patterson's neighbour. Moved by the entreaties of the dying wife, he set out at night on the thirty- mile drive to Franklin, over roads that were almost impassable from heavy snowdrifts. His horses became exhausted and he stopped at Bristol only long enough to change them for a fresh pair. Arriving at Franklin the next morning he made haste to inform Dr. Patterson of his wife's dying condition. To his astonishment the dentist looked up and remarked, " I think she will live until I finish this job at least," and went on with his work. When they reached North Groton late that day, they found Mrs. Patterson sitting in her chair, serene and cheerful, having apparently forgotten her indisposition of the night before. Gradually the sympathy of her neighbours was withdrawn from Mrs. Patterson, and in North Groton, as in Tilton, she came to be harshly criticised. Many years afterward, upon the occasion of the dedication of the Christian Science Church in Concord, N. H., July 16, 1904, a North Groton corre- spondent, under the head, " Time Makes Changes," wrote in the Plymouth Record : With the announcement of the dedication of the Christian Science Church at Concord, the gift of Mar\^ Baker Glover Patterson Eddy, the thoughts of many of the older residents have turned back to the time when Mrs. Eddy, as the wife of Daniel Patterson, lived in this place. These 36 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND people remember the woman at that time as one who carried herself above her fellows. With no stretch of the imagination they remember her un- governable temper and hysterical ways, and particularly well do they remember the night ride of one of the citizens who went for her husband to calm her in one of her unreasonable moods. The Mrs. Eddy of to-day 1 is not the Mrs. Patterson of then, for this is a sort of Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll case, and the woman is now credited with many charitable and kindly acts. Although Mrs. Patterson now lived near her boy, George, she did not see a great deal of him. He had started to go to school, and used sometimes to stop at his mother's house on his way home, but she never cared to have him with her. Instead, and by some perverse law of her nature, she showed a deep affection for the infant son of her neighbour, naming him Mark after her father, and making plans for his education and future. In 1857 Russell Cheney and his wife went West to live, taking George Glover with them. George was now thirteen. He was excited at the prospect of the trip, and after bidding his mother good-bye, he was taken to Tilton a day before the time set for their departure, to say farewell to his Grandfather Baker and his Aunt Tilton. In Retrospection and Introspection Mrs. Eddy gives the fol- lowing account of her separation from her son : After returning to the paternal roof, I lost all my husband's property, except what money I had brought with me; and remained with my parents until after my mother's decease. A few months before my father's second marriage to Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson Duncan, sister of Lieutenant-Governor George W. Patterson, of New York — my little son, about four years of age, was sent away from me, and put under the care of our family nurse, who had married, and resided in the northern part of New Hampshire. I had no training for self-supjjort, and my home I regarded as very precious. The night before my child was taken from me, I knelt by his side throughout the dark hours, hoping for a vision of relief from this trial. The following HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 37 lines are taken from my poem, "Mother's Darling," written after this separation : " Thy smile through tears, as sunshine o'er the sea, Awoke new beauty in the surge's roll! Oh, life is dead, bereft of all, with thee, — Star of my earthly hope, babe of my soul." My dominant thought in marrying again was to get back my child, but after our marriage his stepfather was not willing he should have a home with me. A plot was consummated for keeping us apart. The family to whose care he was committed, very soon removed to what was then regarded as the Far West. After his removal a letter was read to my little son informing him that his mother was dead and buried. Without my knowledge he was appointed a guardian, and I was then informed that my son was lost. Every means within my power was employed to find him, but without success. We never met again until he had reached the age of thirty- four, had a wife and two children, and by a strange providence had learned that his mother still lived, and came to see me in Massachusetts. From Enterprise, Minn., where the Cheneys settled, Mrs. Patterson often had news of her son. Mrs. Cheney and her husband wrote frequently to their relatives and friends in North Groton and Tilton, giving details of their life and of George's progress. Mr. Cyrus Blood of North Groton, one of George Glover's early chums, remembers a visit he paid to Dr. Patter- son, during which Mrs. Patterson read a letter from George, in which he told her of leaving the Cheneys and enlisting in the Civil War. This was in 1861 when George was seventeen. " She seemed as well pleased, and as proud," writes Mr. Blood, " as any mother with a boy in the army." The present writer has also read a letter from Mrs. Patterson to P. P. Quimby of Portland, Me., dated July 29, 1865, in which she describes her son as " mortally ill at Enterprise, Minn.," and declares that unless he is better at once she will start for the West " on Monday." 88 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND George Glover made an excellent record as a soldier; was wounded at Shiloh and honourably discharged ; was appointed United States Marshal of the Dakotas ; knocked about the Western states as a prospector and miner, and finally settled at Lead, S. D., where he now carries on his mining enterprises. He has a wife and four children, the eldest of whom is a daughter named Mary Baker Glover, for her grandmother. Mrs. Eddy and her son met for the first time after their long separation, in 1879, Mrs. Eddy having sent a mysterious tele- gram begging him to come to her immediately. She was then living in Lynn. The Glovers live in a handsome house in Lead which Mrs. Eddy built for her son in 1902. None of the family is a Christian Scientist. Several years ago when Glover's eldest daughter died his neighbours expressed amazement that he had not called upon Mrs. Eddy to cure her. " Why, do you know," replied George, " I never thought of mother ! " In March, 1860, three years after George had gone West with the Cheneys, Dr. and Mrs. Patterson became involved in a dispute with a neighbour and moved away, this time trying Rumney, the next village. At first they boarded with Mrs. John Herbert, a widow at Rumney Station, and later they lived by themselves in a house belonging to John Dearborn in Rumney Village, a mile from the Station. Mrs. Patterson's reputation had preceded her and she was at once a topic of discussion. She went out but seldom, and then propped up with pillows in a carriage. It was said that she suffered from a spinal disease. From the Herbert family and from her husband she required the utmost attention. Dr. Patterson waited upon her constantly when he was at home, carrying her downstairs to HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 39 her meals and back again to her room. When he was not at home, she was able to walk about and attend to most of her wants unassisted; but when he returned she relapsed into a state of helplessness. From the traditions which abound in these villages it is evident that the Pattersons' marriage was an unfortunate one. Dr. Patterson's bluff and rather coarse geniality must greatly have irritated his high-strung and self-centred wife, and there is no doubt that, on his part, he came quickly to see the force of Mark Baker's advice against the marriage. He seems to have responded faithfully to his wife's demands, and to have endured her irascibility with patience. It was probably a relief to both when Dr. Patterson went South, after the Civil War began, in the hope of securing more profitable employ- ment as an army surgeon. He visited the early battlefields, and, straying into the enemies' lines, was taken captive and sent to a Southern prison. In his absence Mrs. Patterson showed that she was capable of a gentler sentiment toward her husband. During his confinement in prison she published (June 20, 1862) the following poem, the last stanza of which is slightly reminis- cent of certain lines in Lord Byron's poem to the more celebrated patriot, Bonnivard: TO A BIRD FLYING SOUTHWARD By Mary A. Patterson Alas! sweet bird, of fond ones reft, Alone in Northern climes thus left. To seek in vain through airy space Some fellow-warbler's resting place; And find upon the hoarse wind's song — No welcome note is borne along. 40 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Then wildly through the skies of blue, To spread thy wings of dappled hue, As if forsooth this frozen zone Could yield one joy for bliss that's flown; While sunward as thine eager flight, That glance is fixed on visions bright. And grief may nestle in that breast. Some vulture may have robbed its rest. But guileless as thou art, sweet thing. With melting melody thou'lt sing; The vulture's scream your nerves unstrung, But, birdie, 'twas a woman's tongue. I, too, would join thy skj^-bound flight. To orange groves and mellow light, And soar from earth to loftier doom. And light on flowers with sweet perfume. And wake a genial, happy lay — Where hearts are kind and earth so gay. Oh! to the captive's cell I'd sing A song of hoi>e — and freedom bring — An olive leaf I'd quick let fall. And lift our country's blackened pall; Then homeward seek my frigid zone. More chilling to the heart alone. Lone as a solitary star,'' Lone as a vacant sej^ulchre. Yet not alone ! my Father's call — Who marks the sparrow in her faU — Attunes my ear to joys elate, The joys I'll sing at Heaven's gate. Bumney, June 20, 1862. = Byron's " Prisoner of Chillon," when relating how the bird perched and sang upon the grating of his donjon, exclaims : " I sometimes deem'd that it might be My brother's soul come down to me ; Biit then at last away it flew, And then 'twas mortal well I knew, For he would never thus have flown, And left me twice so douhly lone, Lone as the corse within its shroud, Lone as a solitary cloud, — " etc. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 41 Left alone, and once more penniless, after her husband's im- prisonment, Mrs. Patterson again fell back upon her relatives. She wrote to Mrs. Tilton for assistance. Mrs. Tilton went to Rumney, settled Mrs. Patterson's affairs there, and took her back to Tilton. It is this part of her career that Mrs. Eddy has sought to blot out of existence. She makes no reference to it in her autobiography, and in another place has said that no special account is to be made of the years between 1844 and 1866. These twenty-two lost years — ^between her twenty-third and forty-sixth birthdays — were, as has been shown, spent in fretful ill-health and discontent. It was a hard life, sordid in many of its experiences, petty in its details, and narrow in its limitations. Yet there is nothing to show that Mrs. Eddy made an effort to improve her hard situation, or to make herself useful to others ; and at forty she was known only for her eccentricities. CHAPTER III MRS. PATTERSON FIRST HEARS OF DR. QUIMBY HER ARRIVAL IN PORTLAND QUIMBY AND HIS " SCIENCE " While Dr. and Mrs. Patterson were living in Rumney, it was announced in the village that a new healer, Phineas Park- hurst Quimbj of Portland, Me., would visit Concord, N. H., to treat all the sick who would come to him. Stories of the marvellous cures he was said to perform had spread throughout New England. Stubborn diseases, which had resisted the skill of regular physicians, were reported as yielding promptly to the magic of the Quimby method. This new doctor, so the story ran, used no medicines, and never failed to heal ; and upon hearing these tales the sick and the suffering — particularly those who were the victims of long-standing and chronic diseases — took heart and tried to reach him. Among these was Mrs. Patterson. Her husband wrote to Dr. Quimby from Rumney on October 14, 1861, that Mrs. Patterson had been an invalid from a spinal disease for many years. She had heard of Quimby's " wonderful cures," and desired him to visit her. If Dr. Quimby intended to come to Concord, as they had heard, Dr. Patterson would " carry " his wife to see him. If not, he would try to get her to Portland. Dr. Quimby did not visit Concord, and Dr. Patterson soon went South, but in the following spring (May 9, 1862) Mrs. Patterson herself wrote to Quimby from Rumney, appeal- 43 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 43 ing to him to help her, and setting forth her truly pathetic situation. She had been better, the letter said, but the shock of hearing that her husband had " been captured by the Southrons " and again prostrated her. She had, she wrote, " full confidence " in Dr. Quimby's " philosophy, as explained in your circular," and she begged him to come to Rumney. She had been ill for six years, she said, and " only you can save me." Hard as the journey to Portland would be, she thought she was sufficiently " excitable," even in her feeble condition, to undertake it.^ Although Quimby could not go to Rumney as she requested, Mrs. Patterson clung to the idea of seeing him. After she had returned to her sister's home in Tilton, she talked of Quimby constantly, and begged Mrs. Tilton to send her to Portland for treatment. But Mrs. Tilton would not consent, nor provide money for the trip, as she considered Dr. Quimby a quack and thought the reports of his cures were greatly ex- aggerated. Instead, she sent Mrs. Patterson to a water cure — • Dr. Vail's Hydropathic Institute at Hill, N. H. At the Hill institution Dr. Quimby was just then a topic of eager interest among the patients, and Mrs. Patterson finally resolved to reach Portland. She wrote again to Dr. Quimby from Hill, telling him that although she had been at Dr. Vail's cure for several months, she had not been benefited and would die unless he, Quimby, could help her. " I can sit up but a few minutes at a time," she wrote. " Do you think I can reach you without sinking from the effects of the journey.'' " Mrs. Patterson knew that it was useless to appeal again to ^This letter, with others from Mrs. Patterson to Dr. Quimby, is in the possession of Quimby's son, George A. Quimby of Belfast, Me. 44 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND her sister, and as there was no one else, she used her wits. From time to time she apphed to Mrs. Tilton for small sums of money for extra expenses. By hoarding these she soon had enough to pay her fare to Portland, and she, therefore, set out. Mrs. Patterson arrived at the International H[otel in October, 1862, and with scores of others, who went flocking to Quimby, she was helped up the stairs to his office. Dr. Quimby now becomes such a potent influence in Mrs. Patterson's life that some understanding of the man and his theories is necessary for any complete comprehension of her subsequent career. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby was " Doctor " only by courtesy : he had taken no university degree and had studied in no regular school of medicine. He was regarded by the educated public as an amiable humbug or a fanatic, but by hundreds of his patients he was looked upon as a worker of miracles. His methods resembled those of no regular physician then in practice, nor did he imitate the spiritualistic and clairvoyant healers who at that time flourished in New England. He gave no drugs, went into no trances, used no incantations, and did not heal by mesmerism after he had discovered his " science." He professed to make his patients well and happy purely by the benevolent power of mind. Fantastic as this idea then seemed, Quimby was no ordinary quack. He did not practise on the credulous for money, and his theories represented at least independent thought and pa'^ tient, life-long study. He was born in New Lebanon, N. H., February 16, 1802, but spent the larger part of his life in Belfast, Me. He was one of seven children, and his father was HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 45 a poor, liardworldng blacksmith. Quimby, therefore, had prac- tically no educational advantages; indeed, he spent actually only six weeks in school. Apprenticed as a boy to a clock- maker, he became an adept at his trade. The Quimby clock is still a domestic institution in New England; hundreds made by Quimby's own hands are still keeping excellent time. Quimby had an ingenious mind and a natural aptitude for mechanics. He invented, among other things, a band-saw much like one in use at the present time, and he was one of the first makers of daguerreotypes. From the first he disclosed one rare 'mental quality: his keen power of observation and originality of thought forbade his taking anything for granted. He recog- nised no such thing as accepted knowledge. He developed into a mild-mannered New England Socrates, constantly looking into his own mind, and subjecting to proof all the commonplace beliefs of his friends. He read deeply in philosophy and science, and loved nothing better than to discuss these subjects at length. In those days a man of Quimby's intellectual type did not lack subjects of interest. In the '30's the first wave of mental science, animal magnetism, and clairvoyance swept over New England. The atmosphere was charged with the occult, the movement ranging all the way from phrenology and mind- reading to German transcendentalism. Quimby's interest was directly stimulated by the visit of Charles Poyen, the well- known French mesmerist, who came to lecture in Belfast. The inquiring clock-maker became absorbed in Poyen's theories, formed his acquaintance, and followed him from town to town. Inevitably, Quimby began experimenting in the subject which 46 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND so Interested him. Discovering that he had mesmeric power, he exercised it upon many of his friends and easily repeated the performance of Poyen and other exhibitors. From becom- ing their imitator he became their rival, and abandoning his workshop, started out as a professional mesmerist. Among the wonder-workers of the early '40's, " Park " Quimby, as he was popularly called, became pre-eminent. Always considered an original character in his native village, he was now regarded as an outright crank, and was the subject of much amiable jocu- larity. In the course of his experiments, Quimby discovered that his most sensitive subject was Lucius Burkmar, a boy about seven- teen years old, over whom he had acquired almost unlimited hypnotic control. The two travelled all over New England, performing mesmerics feats that have hardly been duplicated since, everywhere arousing great popular interest, and, in certain quarters, great hostility. Psychic phenomena were then incom- pletely understood ; clergymen preached against mesmerism, or animal magnetism, as the work of the dcAal, — a revival of ancient witchcraft ; while the practical man regarded It as pure fraud. The newspapers frequently vilified Quimby and Burkmar, and they were more than once threatened by mobs. Then, as now, the public mind associated the occult sciences with the cure of physical disease. Clairvoyants, magnetlsers, and mind-readers treated all Imaginable Ills. Wlien blind- folded, they had the power — according to their advertisements — of looking Into the bodies of their patients, examining their inmost organs, Indicating the affected parts, and prescribing remedies. Hundreds of men, women, and children, whose cases HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 47 " the doctors had given up as hopeless," fervently testified to their power. Thus Quimby and Burkmar inevitably received numerous appeals from the sick. After a few trials, Quimby became convinced that in a mesmeric state Burkmar could diagnose and treat disease. Though absolutely ignorant of medicine and anatomy, Burkmar described minutely the ailments of numerous patients, and prescribed medicines, which, although absurd to a physician, apparently produced favourable results. For three or four years Quimby and Burkmar practised with considerable success. Consumptives, according to popular re- port, began to get well, the blind saw, and the halt walked. Quimby then made an important discovery. After careful observation, he concluded that neither Burkmar nor his remedies, in themselves, had the slightest power. Burkmar, he believed, did not himself diagnose the case. He merely reported what the patient, or some one else present in the room, imagined the disease to be. He had, Quimby thought, a clairvoyant or mind- reading faculty, by which he simply reproduced the opinion which the sick had themselves formed. Quimby also discovered that, in instances where improvement actually took place, the drug prescribed had nothing to do with it. Once Burkmar, in the mesmeric state, ordered a concoction too expensive for the patient's purse. Quimby mesmerised him again ; and this time he prescribed a cheaper remedy — which served the purpose quite as well. After a few experiences of this kind, Quimby concluded that Burkmar's prescriptions did not produce the cures, but that the patients cured themselves. Burkmar's only service was that he implanted in the sick man's mind an un- shakable faith that he would get well. Any other person, or 48 LIP^E OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND any drug, Quimby declared, which could put the patient in this attitude of mental receptivity and give his own mind a chance to work upon the disease, would accomplish the same result. He made this discovery the basis of an elaborate and original system of mind cure; he dropped mesmerism, dis- missed Burkmar, and began to work out his theory. He ex- perimented for several years In Belfast, and, in 1859, opened an office in Portland. Quimby had the necessary mental and moral qualifications for his work. His personality Inspired love and confidence, and his patients even now affectionately recall his kind-hearted- ness, his benevolence, and his keen perception. Even his oppo- nents In the controversy which has raged over his work and that of Mrs. Eddy, speak well of him. " On his rare humanity and sympathy," says Mrs, Eddy, " one could write a sonnet." He was a small man, both in stature and In build, quick, sensitive, and nervous In his movements. His large, well- formed head stood straight on erect, energetic shoulders. He had a high, broad forehead, and silken white hair and beard. His eyes, arched with heavy brows, black, deep-set, and pene- trating, seemed, as one of his patients has written, " to see all through the falsities of life and far into the depths and into the spirit of things." At times his eyes flashed with good- nature and wit, for Quimby by no means lacked the jovial virtues. If his countenance suggested one quality more than another, It was honesty ; whatever the public thought of his ideas, no one who ever saw him face to face doubted the man's absolute sincerity. He demanded the same sympathy which he himself gave. He dealt kindly with honest doubters, but Courteiy of Geor>.'e A. Ouiniby PHINEAS PARKHURST QUIMBY HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 49 would have notliing to do with the scornfuh Unless one really wished to be cured, he said, his methods had no virtue. On one occasion, instead of taking his place beside a certain patient, he turned his chair directly around and sat back to back. " That's the way you feel toward me," he declared. His offices were constantly filled with patients, and his mail was enormous. People came to consult him from all over New England and the Far West. He treated " absently " thousands who could not visit him in person. Mrs. Julius A. Dresser, one of his early patients and con- verts, thus describes her first meeting with Mr. Quimby: I found a kindly gentleman who met me with such sympathy and gentleness that I immediately felt at ease. He seemed to know at once the attitude of mind of those who applied to him for help, and adapted himself to them accordingly. His years of study of the human mind, of sickness in all its forms, and of the prevailing religious beliefs, gave him the ability to see through the opinions, doubts, and fears of those who sought his aid, and put him in instant sympathy with their mental attitudes. He seemed to know that I had come to him feeling that he was a last resort, and with little faith in him and his mode of treatment. But, instead of telling me that I was not sick, he sat beside me and explained to me what my sickness was, how I got into the condition, and the way I could have been taken out of it through the right understanding. He seemed to see through the situation from the beginning, and explained the cause and eifect so clearly that I could see a little of what he meant. My case was so serious, however, that he did not at first tell me I could be made well. But there was such an effect produced by his explanation, that I felt a new hojie within me, and began to get well from that day. He continued to explain my case from day to day, giving me some idea of his theory and its relation to what I had been taught to believe, and sometimes sat silently with me for a short time. I did not understand much that he said, but I felt the spirit and the life that came with his words; and I found myself gaining steadily. Some of these pithy sayings of his remained constantly in mind, and were very helpful in preparing the way for a better understanding of his thought, such, for instance, as his remark that, "Whatever we believe, that we create," or, "Whatever opinion we put into a thing, that we take out of it." 50 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND In all the relations of life, Quimby seems to have been loyal and upright. Outside of his theory he lived only for his family and was the constant playmate of his children. His only inter- est in his patients was to make them well. He treated all who came, whether they could pay or not. For several years Quimby kept no accounts and made no definite charges. The patients, when they saw fit, sent him such remuneration as they wished. Inevitably, he drew his followers largely from the poor and the desperately ill. " People," he would say, " send for me and the undertaker at the same time; and the one who gets there first gets the case." Quimby was thoroughly convinced that he had solved the riddle of life, and that ultimately the whole world would accept his ideas. His subject possessed him. He wearied his family almost to desperation with it, and wore out all his friends. He discussed it at length with any one who would listen. To put it in writing, to teach it, to transmit it to posterity, — that was his consuming idea. His only fear was lest he should die before the " Truth " had made a lasting impress. He wrote about it in the newspapers, — not, however, as extensively as he desired, for the editors seldom printed his articles, re- garding them as the veriest rubbish. He selected, here and there, especially appreciative and intelligent patients, discussed his doctrine with them exhaustively, and enjoined them to teach unbelievers. His following was not wholly among the ignorant and humble. Edwin Reed, ex-mayor of Bath, Me., declares that Quimby cured him of total blindness. He visited him as a young graduate of Bowdoin, had his sight completely restored, spent several months studying the theory, and left with the HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 51 conviction, which he has never lost, that Quimby was a strong and original thinker. Julius A. Dresser, whose name figures largely in the history of mental healing, early became absorbed in Quimby. For several years he was associated with him, receiving patients and explaining, as a preliminary to their meeting with the doctor, his ideas and methods. In 1863 Dr. Warren F. Evans, a Swedenborgian clergyman, visited Quimby twice professionally. He became a convert, and, in several books well known among students of mental healing, developed the Quimby doctrine. " Quimby," he said, " seemed to repro- duce the wonders of Gospel history." About 1859 Quimby began to put his ideas into permanent form. George A. Quimby thus describes his father's literary methods : " Among his earlier patients in Portland were the Misses Ware, daughters of the late Judge Ashur Ware, of the United States Admiralty Court; and they became much interested in " the Truth," as he called it. But the ideas were so new, and his reasoning was so divergent from the popular conceptions, that they found it difficult to follow him or remember all he said; and they suggested to him the propriety of putting into writing the body of his thoughts. From that time he began to write out his ideas, which practice he con- tinued until his death, the articles now being in the possession of the writer of this sketch. The original copy he would give to the Misses Ware; and it would be read to him by them, and, if he suggested any alteration, it would be made, after which it would be copied either by the Misses Ware or the writer of this, and then re-read to him, that he might see that all was just as he intended it. Not even the most trivial word or the construction of a sentence would be changed without con- sulting him. He was given to repetition; and it was with difficulty that he could be induced to have a repeated sentence or phrase stricken out, as he would say, "If that idea is a good one, and true, it will do no harm to have it in two or three times." He believed in the hammering process, and in throwing an idea or truth at the reader till it would be firmly fixed in his mind. ' Article in the New England Magazine, March, 1888, 62 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND In six years Quimbj produced ten volumes of manuscripts. In them he discussed a variety of subjects, all from the stand- point of his theory. He wrote copiously on Religion, Disease, Spiritualism, " Scientific Interpretations of Various Parts of the Scriptures," Clairvoyance, " The Process of Sickness," " Re- lation of God to Man," Music, Science, Error, Truth, Happi- ness, Wisdom, " The Other World," " Curing the Sick," and dozens of other topics. He gave all his patients access to these manuscripts, and permitted all who wished to make copies, overjoyed whenever he found one interested enough to do this. He also encouraged his followers to write, themselves, frequently correcting their essays and bringing them into harmony with his own ideas. Quimby's writings, as a whole, have never been published ; but the present writer has had free and continuous use of them. From these manuscripts can be deduced a complete and de- tailed philosophy of life and disease. They refute the asser- tion sometimes made, that Quimby was a spiritualist, or that he made the slightest claim to divine revelation. Certain ad- mirers sometimes compared him with Christ ; but he himself wrote a long dissertation called A Defence Against Making Myself Equal xiith Christ. He usually calls his discovery the " Science of Health," and " The Science of Health and Happi- ness " ; once or twice he describes it as " Christian Science." Scores of times he refers to it as the " Science of Christ." He also repeatedly calls it " The Principle," " The Truth," and " Wisdom." Though he never identified his doctrine with religion, and never dreamed of founding an ecclesiastical organisation upon HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 53 it, his Impulse at the bottom was religious. He believed that Christ's mission was largely to the sick; that He and His apostles performed cures in a natural manner ; and that he had himself rediscovered tlieir method. Jesus Christ, indeed, was Quimby's great inspiration. He distinguished, however, be- tween the Principle Christ and the Man Jesus. This duality, he said, manifested itself likewise in man. In every individual, according to Quimby, there were two persons. The. first was the Truth, Goodness, and Wisdom into which he had been naturally born. In this condition he was the child of God, the embodiment of Divine Love and Divine Principle. This man had no flesh, no bones, and no blood ; he did not breathe, eat, or sleep. He could never sin, never become sick, never die. He knew nothing of matter, or of the physical senses ; he was simply Spirit, Wisdom, Principle, Truth, Mind, Science. Quimby, above all, loved to call him the " Scientific Man." This first person was, so to speak, en- crusted in another man, formed of matter, sense, and all the accumulated " errors " of time. This man had what Quimby called " Knowledge " — that is, the ideas heaped up by the human mind. According to Quimby, this second man held the first, or truly Scientific man, in bondage. The bonds consisted of false human beliefs. The idea, above all, which held him enthralled, was that of Disease. The man of Science knew nothing of sickness. The man of Ignorance, however, con- sciously and unconsciously, had been impregnated for centuries with this belief. His whole life, from earliest Infancy, was encompassed with suggestions of this kind. Parents constantly suggest illness to their children ; doctors preach It twenty-four 54 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND hours a day ; the clergy, the newspapers, books, ordinary con- versation,— the whole modern world, thought Quimby, had en- gaged in a huge conspiracy to familiarise the human mind with this false concept. This process had been going on for thousands of years, until finally unhealthy ideas had triumphed over healthy ; beliefs had got the upper hand of truth ; knowl- edge had supplanted wisdom ; ignorance had taken the place of science ; matter had superseded mind ; Jesus had dethroned Christ. Quimby regarded his mission in the world as the reestablish- ment of the original and natural harmony. Though his philos- ophy embraces the whole of life, he used all his energies in eradicating one of man's many false " beliefs," or " errors," — tiiat of Disease. His method was simplicity itself. The med- ical profession constantly harped on the idea of sickness; Quimby constantly harped on the idea of health. The doctor told the patient that disease was inevitable, man's natural in- heritance ; Quimby told him that disease was merely an " error," that it was created, " not by God, but by man," and that health was the true and scientific state. " The idea that a beneficent God had anything to do with disease," said Quimby, " is super- stition." " Disease," reads another of his manuscripts, " is false reasoning. True scientific wisdom is health and happi- ness. False reasoning is sickness and death." Again he says : " This is my theory : to put man in possession of a science that will destroy the ideas of the sick, and teach man one living profession of his own identity, with life free from error and disease. As man passes through these combinations, they differ one from another. ... He is dying and living all the time to HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 55 error, till he dies the death of all his opinions and beliefs. Therefore, to be free from death is to be alive in truth; for sin, or error, is death, and science, or wisdom, is eternal life, and this is the Christ." " My philosophy," he says at another time, " will make man free and independent of all creeds and laws of man, and subject him to his own agreement, he being free from the laws of sin, sickness, and death." Quimby, after dismissing Burkmar in 1845, never used mes- merism or manipulated his patients. Occasionally, after talk- ing for a time, he would dip his hands in water and rub the patient's head. He always asserted that this was not an essential part of the cure. His ideas were so startling, he said, that the average mind could not grasp them, but required some outward indication to bolster up its faith. The cure itself, Quimby always insisted, was purely mental.^ 'As far back as 1857, a writer in the Bangor Jeifersonian contradicts the statement that Quimby cured mesmerically. " He sits down with his patient," the letter says, " and' puts liimself en ravport with him. which he does with- out producing the mesmeric sleep. The mind is used to oveiTome disease. . . . There is no danger from disease when the mind is armed against it. ... He dissipates from the mind the idea of disease and induces in its place an idea of health. . . . The mind is what it thinks it is and. if It contends against the thought of disease and creates for itself an ideal form of health, that form impresses itself upon the animal spirit and through that upon the body." CHAPTER IV MRS. PATTERSON BECOMES QUIMBy's PATIENT AND PUPIL, HER DEFENCE OF QUIMBY AND HIS THEORY HER GRIEF AT HIS DEATH- — SHE ASKS MR. DRESSER TO TAKE UP QUIMBy's WORK Upon reaching the hotel in Portland where Dr. Quimby had his offices, Mrs. Patterson was received by Julius A. Dresser and introduced to Dr. Quimby. George A. Quimby, Mrs. Julius A. Dresser, and the Hon. Edwin Reed all remember Mrs. Pat- terson's appearance at this time. She was so feeble that she had to be assisted up the stairs and into the waiting-room. She had lost the beauty of her earlier years. Her figure was emaciated, her face pale and worn, and her eyes were sunken. After the fashion of the time, her hair hung about her shoulders in loose ringlets, and her shabby dress suggested the hardness and poverty of her life. Yet Mrs. Patterson, as she was intro- duced to other patients sitting about the waiting-room, made something of an impression. " Mrs. Patterson was presented to Dr. Quimby," says one of the patients who was present, " as ' the authoress,' and her man- ner was extremely polite and ingratiating. She wore a poke bonnet and an old-fashioned dress, but my impression was that her costume was intended to be a little odd, as in keeping with her ' literary ' character. She seemed very weak, and we thought she was a consumptive." 56 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 57 Mrs. Patterson almost immediately informed Quimby that she was very poor, and asked his assistance in getting an in- expensive boarding-place. Quimby, by personal intercession, obtained a room for her at reduced rates in Chestnut Street. According to George A. Quimby, Quimby's son and secretary, Mrs. Patterson's first stay in Portland lasted about three weeks. As far as her health was concerned the visit seemed a complete success. Under Quimby's treatment the spinal trouble dis- appeared and Mrs. Patterson left his office a well woman. But this hardly-achieved visit to Portland meant much more to her than that. For the first time in her life she felt an absorbing interest. Her contact with Quimby and her inquiry into his philosophy seem to have been her first great experience, the first powerful stimulus in a life of unrestraint, disappointment, and failure. Her girlhood had been a fruitless, hysterical re- volt against order and discipline. The dulness and meagreness of her life had driven her to strange extravagances in conduct. Neither of her marriages had been happy. Maternity had not softened her nor brought her consolations. Up to this time her masterful will and great force of personality had served to no happy end. Her mind was turned in upon itself; she had been absorbed in ills which seem to have been largely the result of her own violent nature — lacking any adequate outlet, and, like disordered machinery, beating itself to pieces. Quimby's idea gave her her opportunity, and the vehemence with which she seized upon it attests the emptiness and hunger of her earlier years. All during her stay in Portland she haunted the old man's rooms, asking questions, reading manu- scripts, observing his treatment of his patients. Quimby at 58 Lll K OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND first took a decided liking to her, " She's a devihsh bright ->'^' xi' 'V L.A-^^4 ^-4.uC 6^^^ Ia 'W' ,lilt4^-^^>^*\^? ^iZ: u^*^ c4U.f ^' i.^ ,^- ~^1^ ^*^ .^"^^^tZ^ 4^-^^^ Facsimile of the second sheet of the first "spirit " letter from Albert Baker, Mrs. Eddy's brother, to Mrs. Sarah Crosby HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 61 Albert should select his own sister as the medium through which to warn Mrs. Crosby against her, seemed remarkable. Again, if Mrs. Patterson consciously shammed, Mrs. Crosby could not understand why she should deliver a message so uncompli- mentary to herself — unless, indeed, to make the message seem more genuine. Several times, in the course of this visit, Mrs. Patterson went into trances. In one of these, Albert Baker's spirit told Mrs. Crosby that if, from time to time, she would look under the cushion of a particular chair, she would find important written communications from him. Mrs. Crosby, following the injunction, discovered now and then a letter. One of these is interesting chiefly as containing Albert Baker's spiritistic endorsement of P. P. Quimby. The text is as follows : Sarah dear Be ye calm in reliance on self, amid all the changes of natural yearnings, of too keen a sense of earth joys, of too great a struggle between the material and spiritual. Be calm or you will rend your mortal and your experience which is needed for your spiritual progress lost, till taken up without the proper sphere and your spirit trials more severe. This is why all things are working for good to those who suifer and they must look not upon the things which are seen but upon those which do not appear. P. Quimby of Portland has the spiritual truth of diseases. You must imbibe it to be healed. Go to him again and lean on no material or spiritual medium. In that path of truth I first found you. Dear one, I am at present no aid to you although you think I am, but your spirit will not at present bear this quickening or twill leave the body; hence I leave you till you ripen into a condition to meet me. You will miss me at first, but afterwards grow more tranquil because of it, which is important that you may live for yourself and children. Love and care for poor sister a great sufi'ering lies before her. After leaving Albion, Mrs. Patterson continued to receive messages from Albert. On one occasion Mrs. Patterson sent Mrs. Crosby the following communication from her brother: 68 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Child of earth ! heir to immortality ! love hath made intercession with wisdom for you — your request is answered. Let not the letter leave your hand — nor destroy it. Love each other, your spirits are aflSned. My dear Sarah is innocent, and will rejoice for every tear. The gates of paradise are opening at the tread of time; glory and the crown shall shall be the diadem of your earthly pilgrimage if you patiently persevere in virtue, justice, and love. You twain are my care. I speak through no other earthly medium but you. Mr. Quimby died January 16, 1866- As in the case of many mental healers, his own experience apparently belied his doc- trines. He had for years suffered from an abdominal tumour. He had never had it treated medically, but asserted that he had always been able, mentally, to prevent it from getting the upper hand. The last few years of his life he worked inces- santly. His practice increased enormously, and at last broke him down. In the summer of 1865 he was compelled to stop work. He closed his Portland office and went home to Belfast to devote the rest of his life to revising his manuscripts and preparing them for publication. His physical condition, how- ever, prevented this ; he became feebler every day. He now acknowledged his inability to cure himself. As long as he had his usual mental strength, he said, he could stop the disease; but, as he felt this slipping from him, his " error " rapidly made inroads. Finally, Quimby 's Avife, with his acquiescence, sum- moned a homoeopathic physician. Quimby consented to this, he said, not because he had the slightest idea that the doctor could help him, but merely to comfort his family. His wife had never accepted the " theory " ; his children, for the most part, had no enthusiasm for it. They all, however, loved the old man dearly and could not patiently witness his suffering HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 69 without seeking all means to allay it. Quimby followed im- plicitly all the doctor's instructions. His son, George A. Quimby, says : ^ An hour before he breathed his last, he said to the writer: "I am more than ever convinced of the truth of my theory. I am perfectly willing for the change myself, but I know you will all feel badly; but / know that I shall be right here with you, just the same as I have always been. I do not dread the change any more than if I were going on a trip to Philadelphia." His death occurred January 16, 1866, at his residence in Belfast, at the age of sixty-four years, and was the result of too close application to his profession and of overwork. A more fitting epitaph could not be accorded him than in these words: " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." For, if ever a man did lay down his life for others, that man was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. Many mourned Quimby's death. No one felt greater grief or expressed it more emphatically and sincerely than Mary M. Patterson. She wrote at once to Julius Dresser, asking him to take up the master's work. Her letter follows : Mr. Dresser: Lynn, February 14, 1866. Sir: I enclose some lines of mine in memory of our much-loved friend, which perhaps you will not think overwrought in meaning: others must of course. I am constantly wishing that you would step forward into the place he has vacated. I believe you would do a vast amount of good, and are more capable of occupying his place than any other I know of. Two weeks ago I fell on the sidewalk, and struck my back on the ice, and was taken up for dead, came to consciousness amid a storm of vapours from cologne, chloroform, ether, camphor, etc., but to find myself the helpless cripple I was before I saw Dr. Quimby. The physician attending said I had taken the last step I ever should, but in two days I got out of my bed alone and loill walk; but yet I confess I am frightened, and out of that nervous heat my friends are forming, spite of me, the terrible spinal affection from which I have suffered so long and hopelessly. . . . Now can't yov help me? I 'New England Magazine, March, 1888. 70 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY believe you can. I write this with this feeling: I think that I could help another in my condition if they had not placed their intelligence in matter. This I have not done, and yet I am slowly failing. Won't you write me if you will undertake for me if I can get to you? Respectfully, Mary M. Pattehsok. The verses referred to had already been published in a Lynn newspaper. Lines on the Death of Dr. P. P. Quimby,' Who Healed with the Truth that Christ Taught in Contradistinction to All Isms. Did sackcloth clothe the sun and day grow night, All matter mourn the hour with dewy eyes, When Truth, receding from our mortal sight, Had paid to error her last sacrifice? Can we forget the power that gave us life? Shall we forget the wisdom of its way? Then ask me not amid this mortal strife — This keenest pang of animated clay — To mourn him less; to mourn him more were just If to his memory 'twere a tribute given For every solemn, sacred, earnest trust Delivered to us ere he rose to heaven. Heaven but the happiness of that calm soul. Growing in stature to the throne of God; Rest should reward him who hath made us whole, Seeking, though tremblers, where his footsteps trod. Mary M. Patterson". Lynn, January 22, 1866. " In a copy of these verses sent to Mrs. Sarah G. Crosby the title is worded somewhat differently and several slight variations occur in the text. CHAPTER V THE QUIMBY CONTROVERSY MRS. EDDy's CLAIM THAT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WAS A DIVINE REVELATION TO HER THE STORY OF HER FALL ON THE ICE IN LYNN AND HER MIRACULOUS RECOVERY Nine years after the death of Phineas P. Quimby, Mrs. Eddy pubhshed a book entitled Science and Health, in which she developed a system of curing disease by the mind. In this work she mentions Quimby only incidentally, and acknowledges no indebtedness to him for the idea upon which her system is based. Upon this foundation Mrs. Eddy has since established the Christian Science Church, the sect which regards her as the real discoverer and only accredited teacher of metaphysical healing. Quimby himself, though he founded no religious or- ganisation, to-day has thousands of followers ; the several schools of Mental Scientists are convinced that he was the discoverer and founder of mental healing in this country. Mrs, Eddy's partisans maintain that she received her inspiration from God, while Quimby's adherents maintain that she obtained her ideas very largely from Quimby. Interrupting, for the present, the narrative of Mrs. Eddy's life, this chapter will attempt to present the arguments of both sides in this controversy. Quimby's followers do not assert that Quimby wrote Science and Health, or that he is the responsible author of all the ideas now formulated in the Christian Science creed. In brief, 71 n LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND their position is this : that Mrs. Eddy obtained the radical principle of her Science, — the cure of disease by the power of Divine mind, — from Quimby ; that she left Portland with manu- scripts which formed the basis of her book. Science and Health; that she publicly figured for several years after Quimby's death as the teacher and practitioner of his system ; that she had, herself, before 1875, repeatedly acknowledged her obligations to him ; and that since the publication of the first edition of Science and Health, in her determined efforts to disprove this obligation, she has not hesitated to bring discredit upon her former teacher. They do not maintain that Quimby is, in any sense, the founder of the present Christian Science organisa- tion ; they do declare, however, that had Mrs. Eddy never visited Quimby, never listened to his ideas or studied his writings, such an organisation would probably not now exist. On the other hand. Christian Scientists repudiate any suggestion that Mrs. Eddy, or their ecclesiastical establishment, is in the slight- est degree indebted to the Portland healer. Christian Scientists beheve that Mrs. Eddy received the truths of Christian Science as a direct revelation from God. She came to fulfil and to complete the mission of Jesus Christ. Jesus, that is, possessed only partial wisdom. " Our Master healed the sick," she writes in Science and Health, ". . . and taught the generalities of its divine Principle to his students; but he left no definite rule for demonstrating his Principle of healing and preventing disease. This remained to be discovered through Christian Science." ^ " Jesus' wisdom ofttlmes was shown by His forbearing to speak," she writes, " as well as by His speak- ^ Science and Health (1898), p. 41. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 73 ing, the whole truth. . . . Had wisdom characterised all His " sayings, He would not have prophesied His own death and thereby hastened it or caused it." ^ In other words, Jesus, by foretelling His crucifixion, created that thought, and the thought ultimately hastened His death. In a letter written about 1877, Mrs. Eddy again suggests that her mission com- pletes that of the New Testament : Lynn, March 11th. My Dear Student: I did not write the day your letter came, a belief was clouding the sunshine of Truth and it is not fair weather yet. But Harry, be of good cheer " behind the clouds the sun is still shining." / know the crucifixion of the one who presents Truth in its hie/her aspect will be this time through a bigger error, through mortal mind instead of its lower strata or matter, showing that the idea given of God this time is higher, clearer, and more permanent than before^ My dear companion and fellow- labourer in the Lord ^ is grappling stronger than did Peter with the enemy, he would cut off their hands and " ears " ; you dear student, are doubtless praying for me — and so the Modern Law giver is upheld for a time. I shall go to work for the book as soon as I can think clearly for agony, or outside of the belief. May the All Love hold and help you ever. Your Teacher M B G E. In Retrospection and Introspection, Mrs. Eddy writes : No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No person can compass or fulfil the indi\idual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the dis- 2 Both this and other quotations in this article have been modified in later editions of Mrs. Eddy's hooks. The phrase above now stands : " This wisdom, which characterised his saylnjjs did not prophesy his death and thereby hasten or permit It." The author thinks It hardly necessary, In what follows, to Indicate tlie various readings of the same quotation, but will content herself with namins the particular editions In which the phrases, as quoted, appear. When no edition is mentioned, the latest edition is to be understood. ^Miscellaneous Writinf/s (1897), pp. 83 and 84. * The italics are not Mrs. Eddy's. ^ This is apparently a reference to Asa G. Eddy, her husband. 74 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND coverer and founder of Christian Science. Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity. The second appearing of Jesus is unquestionably, the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God as in Christian Science.' Mrs. Eddy believes that Christian Science is foretold in the Book of Revelation. In Science and Health she writes: John the Baptist prophesied the coming of the Immaculate Jesus and declared that this spiritual idea was the Messiah who would baptise with the Holy Ghost — Divine Science. The son of the Blessed represents the fatherhood of God; and the Revelator completes this figure with the Woman, or type of God's motherhood.' Again Saint John writes, in the tenth chapter of his Book of Revelation: " And I saw another mighty angel come down from Heaven, clothed with a cloud; and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book open; and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth." Is this angel, or message from God, Divine Science that comes in a cloud? To mortals obscure, abstract, and dark; but a bright promise crowns its brow. When understood, it is Truth's prism and praise; when you look it fairly in the face, you can heal by its means, and it hath for you a light above the sun, for God " is the light thereof." . . . This angel had in his hand a " little book," open for all to read and understand. Did this same book contain the revelation of Divine Science, whose " right foot " or dominant power was upon the sea, — upon elementary, latent error, the source of all error's visible forms? . . . Then will a voice from harmony cry: "Go and take the little book. Take it and eat it up, and it shall make thy belly bitter; but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey." Mortal, obey the heavenly evangel. Take up Divine Science. Study it, ponder it. It will be indeed sweet at its first taste, when it heals you; but murmur not over Truth, if you find its digestion bitter. , . . In the opening of the Sixth Seal, typical of six thousand years since Adam, there is one distinctive feature which has special reference to the present age? * Retrospection and Introspection, pp. 95 and 96. ''Science and Health (1888), p. 513. "The italics in this paragi-aph arc not Mrs. Eddy's. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 75 Rev. xii. 1. " And there appeared a great wonder in Heaven, — a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." . . . Rev. xii. 5. " And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up unto God, and to his Throne." Led on by the grossest element of mortal mind, Herod decreed the death of every male child, in order that the man Jesus {the masculine representative of the spiritual idea) might never hold sway, and so deprive Herod of his crown. The imjjersonation of tlie spiritual idea had a brief history in the earthly life of our Master; but "of his kingdom there shall be no end," for Christ, God's idea, will eventually rule all nations and peoples — im- peratively, absolutely, finally — with Divine Science. This immaculate idea, represented first by man and last by woman, will baptise with fire; and the fiery baptism will burn up the chaif of error with the fervent heat of Truth and Love, melting and purifying even the gold of human character.' The following extracts from Mrs. Eddy's writings indicate the magnitude of her claims, and her conception of her own exalted mission : She says in Science and Health: In the year 1866, I discovered the Science of Metaphysical Healing, and named it Christian Science. God had been graciously fitting me, during many years, for the reception of a final revelation of the absolute Principle of Scientific Mind-healing. . . . No human pen or tongue taught me the Science contained in this book . . . and neither tongue nor pen can ever overthrow it.^" Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy says, continues the teach- ings of St. Paul. On our subject, St. Paul first reasons upon the basis of what is seen, the eff"ects of Truth on the material senses; thence, up to the Unseen, the testimony of spiritual sense; and right there he leaves the subject. Just there, in the intermediate line of thought, is where the present writer found it, when she discovered Christian Science. And she has not left it, but continues the explanation of the power of Spirit up to its infinite meaning, its AUness.^' ^Science and HeaUh (1808), pp. 550, 551, 552, and 557. ^"Science and Health (1898), pp. 1 and 4. ^Miscellaneous Writings (1897), p. 188. 76 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Mrs. Eddy's followers believe that her discovery, in a manner, has repeated the day of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Ghost to man. She says: This understanding is what is meant by the descent of the Holy Ghost, — that influx of divine Science which so illuminated the Pentecostal Day, and is now repeating its ancient history. . . . In the words of St. John: "He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." This Comforter I understand to be Divine Science." In Miscellaneous Writings, Mrs. Eddy further says of her Science and her ministry: Above the fogs of sense and storms of passion, Christian Science and its Art will rise triumphant; ignorance, envy, and hatred — earth's harm- less thunder — pluck not their heaven-born wings. Angels, with overtures, hold charge over both, and announce their principle and idea. . . . No works similar to mine on Christian Science existed, prior to my discovery of this Science. Before the publication of my first work on this subject, a few manuscripts of mine were in circulation. The discovery and founding of Christian Science has cost more than thirty years of unremitting toil and unrest; but, comparing those with Ihe joy of knowing that the sinner and the sick are helped upward, that time and eternity bear witness to this gift of God to the race, I am the debtor. In 1895, I ordained the Bible, and Science and Health with Key to THE Scriptures, the Christian Science Text-book, as the Pastor, on this planet, of all the churches of the Christian Science Denomination. This ordinance took effect the same year, and met with the universal approval 'and support of Christian Scientists. Whenever and wherever a church of Christian Science is established, its Pastor is the Bible and My Book. In 1896, it goes without saying, preeminent over ignorance or envy, that Christian Science is founded by its discoverer, and built upon the Rock of Christ. The elements of earth beat in vain against the immortal parapets of this Science. Erect and eternal, it will go on with the ages, go down the dim posterns of time unharmed, and on every battlefield rise higher in the estimation of thinkers, and in the hearts of Christians." To Christian Scientists, therefore, Mrs. Eddy's discovery or revelation was a great turning-point in the history of the i2Kc)P«cp and Tlealih (1900K pp. 48 and 55. ^^Miscellaneous Wrilinsjs (1807), pp. 374, 382, and 383. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 77 human race, and the manner in which it came about is of the highest importance. It is difficult to ascertain definitely just when Mrs. Eddy arrived at the conclusion that mortal mind, not matter, causes sin, sickness, and death,- as her own recollection of her initial revelation seems to be somewhat blurred. " As long ago as 1844," she writes in the Christian Science Journal, in June, 1887, " I was convinced that mortal mind produced all disease, and that the various medical systems were, in no proper sense, scientific. In 1862, when I first visited Mr. Quimby, I was proclaiming — to druggists, Spiritualists, and mesmerists — that science must govern all healing." To her discovery of the principle of mental healing, she has assigned no less than three different dates : In a letter to the Boston Post, March 7, 1883, she says: We made our first experiments in mental healing about 1853, when we were convinced that mind had a science, which, if understood, would heal all disease. A.gain, in the first edition of Science and Health (1875), she says: We made our first discovery that science mentally applied would heal the sick, in 1864, and since then have tested it on ourselves and hundreds of others and never found it fail to prove the statement herein made of it. In Retrospection and Introspection, she says: It was in Massachusetts, in February, 1866, , . . that I discovered the Science of Divine Metaphysical Healing, which I afterwards named Chris- tian Science." In later editions of Science and Health, and in numerous other places, Mrs. Eddy definitely fixes 1866 as the year of her " Retrospection and Introspection, p. 38. 78 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND discovery. This is now the generally accepted date. Her enemies have naturally made much of the seeming inconsistency of these statements. To disprove her claim that she had a knowledge of mind healing as far back as 1844 or 1853, they quote Mrs. Eddy's own words in the Christian Science Journal of June, 1887. She there says that before her visit to Quimby in 1862, " I knew nothing of the Science of Mind-healing. . . . Mind Science was unknown to me." It is scarcely necessary to remark that each of these dates mig'ht be intrinsically correct, as each might mark an important advance in Mrs. Eddy's mastery of her science. It would be extremely difficult for any discoverer to date exactly the in- ception of an idea which eventually absorbed him completely. Doubtless these seeming inaccuracies on Mrs. Eddy's part would have been passed over as due to mere inexactness of expression, had not each date been given to meet some specific charge as to her indebtedness to Quimby — and given, as it would seem, mainly for the purpose of extricating herself from the difficulty of the moment. As sho^vn above, in the first edition of Science and Health (1875), she said that it was in 1864 that she first discovered that " science mentally applied would heal the sick." Eight years after Mrs. Eddy had announced 1864 as the correct and authentic date of her discovery, Julius A. Dresser,^® "Julius A. Drpsser was born in Portland. Me., February 12, 183S. He was in colloE;e in Watcrvillc, Me., wben his health failed. lie had a strongly emotional religious nature and intended to become a minister in the f'nlTiiiistic Baptist Church. When he went to Mr. Quimbv in the summer of 1800, he apparently had only a short time to live. Quimbv told him his religion was killing him." Quimby treated him successfully for typhoid pneumonia, according to Mr. Dresser's son. Horatio W. Dresser of Cambridge, and " gave him the understanding which enabled mv father to live thirty-three years after his restoration to health." Mr. Dresser became an enthusiastic convert to the Quimby faith and for HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 79 in a letter to the Boston Post (February 24, 1883), advanced Quimby's claim. It was in a reply to this letter, written March 7, 1883, published in the same paper, that Mrs. Eddy first asserted : " We made our first experiments in mental healing about 1853." Four years later (February 6, 1887), Mr. Dresser delivered an address upon " The True History of Mental Science," at the Church of Divine Unity, in Boston, in which he declared that Quimby was the originator of the present science of mental healing, and that Mrs. Eddy did not understand disease as a state of mind until she was his patient and pupil. This address caused such comment and discussion, that four months later (June, 1887) Mrs. Eddy answered it through the Christian Science Journal by asserting : " As long ago as 1844, I was convinced that mortal mind produced all disease. ... In 1862 . . . I was proclaiming . . . that science must govern all healing-." some years devoted himself to explaining Quimby's principle of mental healing to new patients. In this way he met Miss Annetta G. Seabury, whom he married in September, 1863, and Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Patterson. After his marriage Mr. Dresser took up newspaper work in Portland and in 1866 moved to Webster, Mass., where he edited and published the Webster Times. The death of Quimby was a great shock to Mr. and Mrs. Dresser. It was generally expected by Quimby's followers that Mr. Dresser would take up the work as Quimby's successor' Mrs. Dressor hesitated to attempt it publicly, knowing her own and her husband's sensitiveness, and after consideration they decided not to undertake it at that time. " This." says Mr. Horatio W. Dresser, "was a fundamentally decisive ac(ion, and much stress should be placed upon it. For Mrs. Eddy naturally looked to fathor as the probable successor, and when she learned from father that he had no thought of taking up the public work, the field became free for her. I am convinced that she had no desire previous to that time to make any claims for herself. Her letters give evidence of this." Mr. Dresser's health again weakened from overwork, and after living in the West for a time he returned to Massachusetts and began his public work as mental teacher and healer. In Boston Mr. Dresser found that Mrs. Rddy s pupils and rejected pupils wore practising- with the sick, and he believed that their work was inferior to Quimby's. This gave him confidence to begin. In 1882 Mr. and Mrs. Dresser began to practise in Boston, and in 1883 they were holding class lectures, teaching from the Quimby manuscripts and prac- tising the Qulmbv method. , . From this the "facts with regard to Mrs. Eddy and Mr. Quimby spread, and this was the beginning of the Quimby controversy. 80 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND The unprejudiced historian finds discrepancies, not only in the dates of Mrs. Eddy's discovery, but in her accounts of the particular episodes which occasioned it. In the several editions of Science and Health, for example, there are two elaborate versions. In the early editions Mrs. Eddy associates her dis- covery with experiments which she made to cure herself of dyspepsia; in later editions, as the result of a miraculous re- covery from a spinal injury received in a fall on the ice in Lynn, in 1866. Both these episodes are related in all editions of the book. In the early versions, however, the recovery from dyspepsia receives the greater emphasis ; while in recent editions the fall on the ice assumes the chief importance, with the other story forced more and more into the background. In the first edition of Science and Health (1875), Mrs. Eddy gives the following account of how she was led to see the truth : When quite a child, we adopted the Graham system for dyspepsia, ate only bread and vegetables, and drank water, following this diet for years; we became more dyspeptic, however, and of course thought we must diet more rigidly; so we partook of but one meal in twenty-four hours, and this consisted of a thin slice of bread, about three inches square, without water; our physician not allowing us with this simple meal, to wet our parched lips for many hours thereafter; whenever we drank, it produced violent retchings. Thus we passed most of our early years, as many can attest, in hunger, pain, weakness and starvation. At length we learned that while fasting increased the desire for food, it spared none of the sufferings occasioned by partaking of it, and what to do next, having already exhausted the medicine men, was a question. After years of suffering, when we made up our mind to die, our doctors kindly assuring us this was our only alternative, our eyes were suddenlj^ opened, and we learned suffering is self-imposed, a belief, and not truth. That God never made men sick; and all our fasting for penance or health is not acceptable to Wisdom because it is not the science in which Soul governs sense. Thus Truth, opening our eyes, relieved our stomach, also, and enabled us to eat without suffering, giving God thanks; but we never afterwards enjoyed food as we expected to, if ever we were a freed slave, HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 81 to eat without a master; for the new-born understanding that food could not hurt us, brought with it another point, viz., that it did not help us as we had anticipated it would before our changed views on this subject; food had less power over us for evil or for good than when we consulted matter before spirit and believed in pains or pleasures of personal sense. As a natural result we took less thought about " what we should eat or what drink," and fasting or feasting, consulted less our stomachs and our food, arguing against their claims continually, and in this manner despoiled them of their power over us to give pleasure or pain, and recovered strength and flesh rapidly, enjoying health and harmony that we never before had done. The belief that fasting or feasting enables man to grow better, morally or physically, is one of the fruits of the " tree of knowledge " against which Wisdom warned man, and of which we had partaken in sad experience; be- lieving for many years we lived only by the strictest adherence to dietetics and physiolog}^ During this time we also learned a dyspeptic is very far from the image and likeness of God, from having " dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, or beasts of the field"; therefore that God never made one; while the Graham system, hygiene, physiology, materia medica, etc., did, and contrary to his commands. Then it was that we promised God to spend our coming years for the sick and suffer- ing; to unmask this error of belief that matter rules man. Our cure for dyspepsia was, to learn the science of being, and " eat what was set before us, asking no question for conscience' sake; yea to consult matter less and God more." In the latest editions, Mrs. Eddy relates this incident, but does not connect herself with it. " I knew a woman," she says, " who, when quite a child, adopted the Graham system to cure dyspepsia," giving the incident merely as an illustra- tion of Christian Science healing. At present, Christian Scientists date the da^m of the new era from February 1, 1866, on the evening of which day Mrs. Eddy fell on the ice. She says in Retrospection and Intro- spection: It was in Massachusetts, February, 1866, and after the death of the magnetic doctor, Mr. P. P. Quimbj% whom Spiritualists would associate therewith, but who was in no-wise connected with this event, that I dis- covered the Science of Divine Metaphysical Healing, which I afterwards 82 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND named Christian Science. The discovery came to pass in this way. During twenty years prior to my discovery I had been trying to trace all physical eifects to a mental cause; and in the latter part of 1866 I gained the Scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon. My immediate recovery from the eflfects of an injury caused by an accident, an injury that neither medicine nor surgery could reach, was the falling apple that led me to the discovery how to be well myself, and how to make others so. Even to the Homeopathic physician who attended me, and rejoiced in my recovery, I could not then explain the modus of my relief. I could only assure him that the Divine Spirit had wrought the miracle — a miracle which later I found to be in perfect Scientific accord with divine law." In a sketch of Mrs. Eddy, published by the Christian Science PubHshing Society, still a later version is given : In company with her husband, she was returning from an errand of mercy, when she fell upon the icy curbstone, and was carried helpless to her home. The skilled physicians declared that there was absolutely no hope for her, and pronounced the verdict that she had but three days to live. Finding no hope and no help on earth, she lifted her heart to God. On the third day, calling for her Bible, she asked the family to leave the room. Her Bible opened to the healing of the palsied man, Matt, ix, 2. The truth which set him free, she saw. The power which gave him strength, she felt. The life divine, which healed the sick of the palsy, restored her, and she rose from the bed of pain, healed and free. Several documents can be brought in refutation of this claim. Mrs, Eddy's own letter to Julius A. Dresser, after the death of Quimby, apparently disproves the miraculous account given above. This letter, already quoted in full in the preceding chapter, contains the first recorded reference to this accident: Two weeks ago I fell on the sidewalk (writes Mrs. Eddy), and struck my back on the ice, and was taken up for dead, came to consciousness amid a storm of vapours from cologne, chloroform, ether, camphor, etc., but to find myself the helpless cripple I was before I saw Dr. Quimby. "Retrospection and Introspection, p. 38. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 83 The physician attending said I had taken the last step I ever should, but in two days I got out of my bed alone and tvill walk; but yet I confess I am frightened, and out of that nervous heat my friends are forming, sj)ite of me, the terrible spinal aifection from which I have suffered so long and hopelessly. . . . Now can't you help me? I believe you can. I write this with this feeling: I think that I could help another in my condition if they had not placed their intelligence in matter. This I have not done, and yet I am slowly failing. Won't you write me if you will undertake for me if I can get to you? In this letter, although it was written two weeks after the mishap in question, Mrs. Eddy makes no reference to a miracu- lous recovery. In fact, she apparently fears a return of her old spinal trouble and asks Mr, Dresser to protect her against it by the Quimby method. She adds that, although she has not placed her " intelligence in matter," she is " slowly failing." In the first edition of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy refers to this recovery, but merely as an interesting demonstration of Scientific healing. She also describes it in a letter written in 1871 to Mr. W. W. Wright. Wright, a well-known citizen of Lynn, and a prospective student, addressed several questions to Mrs. Eddy concerning Christian Science. " What do you claim for it," he says, " in cases of sprains, broken limbs, cuts, bruises, etc., when a surgeon's services are generally re- quired ? " To which Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Glover, replied : I have demonstrated upon myself in an injury occasioned by a fall, that it did for me what surgeons could not do. Dr. Gushing of this city pronounced my injury incurable and that I could not survive three days because of it, when on the third day I rose from my bed and to the utter confusion of all I commenced my usual avocations and notwithstanding displacements, etc., I regained the natural position and functions of the body. How far my students can demonstrate in such extreme cases depends on the progress they have made in this Science. Here again Mrs. Eddy cites the experience merely as a re- 84. LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND markable instance of the power of Christian Science ; and does not connect it in any way with her revelation. The Dr. Gushing to whom Mrs. Eddy refers in this letter is still living at Springfield, Mass. He has the clearest recol- lection of Mrs. Eddy and the accident in question. He is an ex-president of the Massachusetts Homoeopathic Society. From his records he has made the following affidavit: COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS COUNTY OF HAMPDEN, SS. : Alvin M. Gushing, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am seventy- seven years of age, and reside in the City of Springfield in the Common- wealth of Massachusetts. I am a medical doctor of the homeopathic school and have practised medicine for fifty years last past. On July 13 in the year 1865 I commenced the practice of my profession in the City of I>ynn, in said Commonwealth, and, while there, kept a careful and accurate record, in detail, of my various cases, my attendance upon and my treatment of them. One of my cases of which I made and have such a record is that of Mrs. Mary M. Patterson, then the wife of one Daniel Patterson, a dentist, and now Mrs. Mary G. Eddy, of Concord, New Hampshire. On February 1, 1866, I was called to the residence of Samuel M. Bubier, who was a shoe manufacturer and later was mayor of Lynn, to attend said Mrs. Patterson, who had fallen upon the icy sidewalk in front of Mr. Bubier's factory and had injured lier head by the fall. I found her very nervous, partially unconscious, semi-hysterical, complaining by word and action of severe pain in the back of her head and neck. This was early in the evening, and I gave her medicine every fifteen minutes until she was more quiet, then left her with Mrs. Bubier for a little time, ordering the medicine to be given every half hour until my return. I made a second visit later and left Mrs. Patterson at midnight, with directions to give the medicine every half hour or hour as seemed necessary, when awake, but not disturb her if asleep. In the morning Mrs. Bubier told me my orders had been carried out and said Mrs. Patterson had slept some. I found her quite rational but complaining of severe pain, almost spasmodic on moving. She declared that she was going to her home in Swampscott whether we consented or not. On accoxmt of the severe pain and nervousness, I gave her one-eighth of a grain of morphine, not as a curative remedy, but as an expedient to HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 85 lessen the pain on removing. As soon as I could, I procured a long sleigh with robes and blankets, and two men from a nearby stable. On my return, to my surprise found her sound asleep. We placed her in the sleigh and carried her to her home in Swampscott, without a moan. At her home the two men undertook to carry her upstairs, and she was so sound asleep and limp she "doubled up like a jack-knife," so I placed myself on the stairs on my hands and feet and they laid her on my back, and in that way we carried her upstairs and placed her in bed. She slept till nearly two o'clock in the afternoon; so long I began to fear there had been some mistake in the dose. Said Mrs. Patterson proved to be a very interesting patient, and one of the most sensitive to the effects of medicine that I ever saw, which accounted for the effects of the small dose of morphine. Probably one- sixteenth of a grain would have put her sound asleep. Each day that I visited her, I dissolved a small portion of a highly attenuated remedy in one-half a glass of water and ordered a teaspoonful given every two hours, usually giving one dose while there. She told me she could feel each dose to the tips of her fingers and toes, and gave me much credit for my ability to select a remedy. I visited her twice on February first, twice on the second, once on the third, and once on the fifth, and on the thirteenth day of the same month my bill was paid. During my visits to her she spoke to me of a Dr. Quimby of Portland, Maine, who had treated her for some severe illness with remarkable success. She did not tell what his method was, but I inferred it was not the usual method of either school of medicine. There was, to my knowledge, no other physician in attendance upon Mrs. Patterson during this illness from the day of the accident, February 1, 1866, to my final visit on February 13th, and when I left her on the 13th day of February, she seemed to have recovered from the disturbance caused by the accident and to be, practically, in her normal condition. I did not at any time declare, or believe, that there was no hope for Mrs. Patterson's recovery, or that she was in a critical condition, and did not at any time say, or believe, that she had but three or any other limited number of days to live. Mrs. Patterson did not suggest, or say, or pretend, or in any way whatever intimate, that on the third, or any other day, of her said illness, she had miraculously recovered or been healed, or that, discovering or perceiving the truth of the power employed by Christ to heal the sick, she had, by it, been restored to health. As I have stated, on the third and subsequent days of her said illness, resulting from her said fall on the ice, I attended Mrs. Patterson and gave her medicine; and on the 10th day of the following August, I was again called to see her, this time at the home of a Mrs. Clark, on Sumner Street, in said City of Lynn. I found Mrs. Patterson suffering from a bad 86 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND cough and prescribed for her. I made three more professional calls upon Mrs. Patterson and treated her for this cough in the said month of August, and with that, ended my professional relations with her. I think I never met Mrs. Patterson after August 31, 1866, but saw her often during the next few j'ears and heard tliat she claimed to have dis- covered a new method of curing disease. Each of the said visits upon Mrs. Patterson, together with my treatment, the symptoms and the progress of the case, were recorded in my own hand in my record book at the time, and the said book, with the said entries made in February and August, 1866, is now in my possession. I have, of course, no personal feeling in this matter. In response to many requests for a statement, I make this affidavit because I am assured it is wanted to perpetuate the testimony that can now be obtained, and be used only for a good purpose. I regard it as a duty which I owe to posterity to make public this particular episode in the life of Mary Baker G. Eddy. AiviN M. Gushing. On this second day of January, in the year one thousand, nine hundred and seven, at the City of Spring-field, Massachusetts, personally appeared before me, Alvin M. Gushing, M.D., to me personally known, and made oath that he had read over the foregoing statement, and knows the contents thereof, and that the same are true; and he, thereupon, in my presence, did sign his name at the end of said statements, and at the foot of each of the three preceding pages thereof. Raymond A. Btowell, Notary Public. It will be noted that although Mrs. Eddy's revelation and miraculous recovery occurred on February third, Dr. Gushing visited her professionally three times after she had been re- stored to health by divine power. Dr. Gushing says that he visited her on the third day — when, writes Mrs, Eddy, she had her miraculous recovery ; and also two days later. In August, seven months after her discovery of Ghristian Science, he was called in to treat her for a cough, and made four pro- fessional visits during that month. Quimby's adherents believe that Mrs. Eddy's own contra- dictory statements invalidate her claims that God miraculously HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 87 revealed to her the principle of Christian Science. They assert that, on the other hand, they can clearly prove that she ob- tained the basic ideas of her system from Phineas P. Quimby. They can prove their contention, they add, from the sworn testimony of many reputable witnesses. They do not rely, liowever, chiefly upon personal testimony. They put forth as the chief witness against Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Eddy herself. They seek to disprove practically all her later statements regarding Quimby by quoting from her own admitted writings and from letters. They assert that Mrs. Eddy obtained from Quimby, not only her ideas, but the very name of her new religion. Mrs. Eddy herself says that in 1866 she named her discovery Chris- tian Science. Quimby, however, called his theory Christian Science at least as early as 1863. In a manuscript written in that year, entitled " Aristocracy and Democracy," he used these identical words. In the main, however, Quimby called his theory the " Science of Health and Happiness," the " Science of Christ," and many times simply " Science." CHAPTER VI ^-'c THE QUIMBY CONTROVERSY CONTINUED MRS. EDDY S ATTEMPTS TO DISCREDIT QUIMBY HER CHARGE THAT HE WAS ALWAYS A MESMERIST QUIMBy's ADHERENTS DEFEND HIM The controversy is chiefly upon two points : whether Quimby healed mentally, through the divine power of mind, or physic- ally, through mesmerism or animal magnetism ; and whether he himself developed his own theory and wrote his own manu- scripts or obtained his ideas from Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Eddy, when accused of having appropriated Quimby's theories, has always declared that her system had not the slightest similarity to his. Christian Scientists heal by the direct power of God, precisely as did Jesus Himself. They regard mesmerism, or hypnotism, as the supreme error. " Animal magnetism," once wrote the Rev. James Henry Wiggin, Mrs. Eddy's literary ad- viser, " is her devil. No church can long get on without a devil, you know." Therefore, if Mrs. Eddy proves that Quimby practised this art, and healed by it, to her followers she has more than proved her case. In Retrospection and Introspec- tion, she says that Quimby was a " magnetic doctor," and im- plies that he was a spiritualist. " It was in Massachusetts, February, 1866," she says, " and after tlie death of the mag- netic doctor, ]\Ir. P. P. Quimby, Avhom Spiritualists would asso- ciate therewith, but who was in no-wise connected with this HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 89 event, that I discovered the Science of Divine Metaphysical HeaHng, which I afterwards named Christian Science." This idea she has elaborated many times. In Miscellaneous Writings she tells the story of her visit to Quimby in these words : About the year 1863, while the author of this work was at Dr. Vail's Hydropathic Institute in New Hampshire, this occurred: A patient con- sidered incurable left that institution, and in a few weeks returned apparently well, having been healed, as he informed the patients, by one Mr. P. P. Quimby, of Portland, Maine. After much consultation among ourselves, and a struggle with pride, the author, in company with several other patients, left the Water Cure, en route for the aforesaid doctor in Portland. He proved to be a magnetic practitioner. His treatment seemed at first to relieve her but signally failed in healing her case. Having practised Homeopathy, it never occurred to the author to learn his practice, but she did ask him how manipulation could benefit the sick. He answered kindly and squarely, in substance, " Because it conveys elec- tricity to them." That was the sum of what he taught her of his medical profession.^ In the Christian Science Journal for June, 1887, Mrs. Eddy repeats the same idea: I never heard him intimate that he healed disease mentally; and many others will testify that, up to his last sickness, he treated us magnetically, manipulating our heads, and making passes in the air while he stood in front of us. During his treatments I felt like one having hold of an electric battery and standing on an insulated stool. His healing was never considered or called anything but Mesmerism. In numerous other articles, Mrs. Eddy has declared that Quimby healed by animal magnetism ; that he never said he healed mentally, never recognised the superiority of mind to matter, or any divine principle in his work. These statements, however, hardly agree with that made in the letter to W. W. Wright, written in 1871 and quoted in this chapter, in which ^Miscellaneous Writings (1897), p. 378. 90 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND she refers to Quimby as " an old gentleman who had made it a research for twenty-five years, starting from the standpoint of magnetism, thence going forv/ard and leaving that behind." In the letter pubhshed on November 7, 1862, in the Portland Courier, Mrs. Eddy herself defended Quimby from the very charge which she now brings against him — that he healed by animal magnetism. On this point, she wrote: Again, is it by animal magnetism that lie heals the sick? Let us examine. I have employed electro-magnetism and animal magnetism, and for a brief interval have felt relief, from the equilibrium which I fancied was restored to an exhausted system or by a diffusion of concentrated action. But in no instance did I get rid of a return of all my ailments, because I had not been helped out of the error in which ojiinions involved us. My operator believed in disease, indejsendent of the mind; hence I could not be wiser than my master. But now I can see dimly at first, and only as trees wallsing, the great principle which underlies Dr. Quimby's faith and works; and just in proportion to my right perception of truth is my recovery. This truth which he opposes to the error of giving intelli- gence to matter and placing pain where it never placed itself, if received understandingly, clianges the currents of the system to their normal action; and the mechanism of the body goes on undisturbed. That this is a science capable of demonstration, becomes clear to the minds of those patients who reason upon the process of their cure. The truth which he establishes in the patient cures him (although he may be wholly unconscious thereof) ; and the body, which is full of liglit, is no longer in disease. . . . After all, this is a very spiritual doctrine; but the eternal years of God are with it, and it must stand firm as the rock of ages. And to many a poor sufferer it may be found, as by me, " the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Hardly anything could be more specific than this. In 1862, Mrs. Eddy, while she was still Quimby's patient, declared that he healed, not by animal magnetism, but by the " truth which he opposes to the error of giving intelligence to matter and placing pain where it never placed itself." Again, " the truth which he establishes in the patient cures him . . . HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 91 and the body, which is full of light, is no longer in disease." In 1871, while teaching and practising Quimby's method for a livelihood, she declared that he started " from the stand- point of magnetism, thence going forward and leaving that behind." ' In 1887, when at the head of a great organisation of her own, she says : " he treated us magnetically. . . . His healing was never considered or called anything but Mesmerism." Now Mrs. Eddy says that Quimby's method was purely " physical " ; then, in 1862, she wrote that, " after all, this is a very spiritual doctrine," and describes it as " the great prin- ciple which underlies Dr. Quimby's faith and works." In an- other communication to the Portland Courier, written November, 1862, Mrs. Eddy specifically declared that Quimby healed after Christ's method. She said: P. P. Quimby stands upon the plane of wisdom with his truth. Christ healed the sick, but not by jugglery or with drugs. As the former speaks as never man before spake, and heals as never man healed since Christ, is he not identified with truth? And is not this the Christ which is in him? We know that in wisdom is life, "and the life was the light of man." P. P. Quimby rolls away the stone from the sepulchre of error, and health is the resurrection. But we also know that "light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not." Mrs. Eddy repeated the same thought in the verses which she published, over her own name, in a Lynn newspaper, on February 22, 1866. She entitled them, " Lines on the Death of Dr. P. P. Quimby, Who Healed with the Truth that Christ Taught in Contradistinction to All Isms." The letters written by Mrs. Eddy to Quimby in the years 1862, '63, '64., and '65, extracts from which were printed, express the same conviction. 2 See extract from letter to Mr. W. W. Wright, p. 101 of this chapter. 92 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND On September 14, 1863, in asking for an " absent treatment," Mrs. Eddy wrote : " I would like to have you in your omni- presence visit me at eight o'clock this evening." In a letter dated Warren, May, 1864, she writes that she has been ill, but adds, " I am up and about today, i.e., by the help of the Lord (Quimby)." In the quotation from Retrospection and Introspection above, Mrs. Eddy associates Quimby with spirit- ualists. Yet, forty years ago, she delivered a public lecture to prove that he was not a spiritualist. She records the event in a letter to Quimby, dated Warren, April 24, 1864: Jesus taught as man does not, who then is wise but you? Posted at the public marts of this city is this notice, Mrs. M. M. Patterson will lecture at the Town Hall on P. P. Quimby's Spiritual Science healing disease, as opposed to Deism or Rochester Happing Spiritualism. Quimby's manuscripts, his defenders assert, clearly show that when Mrs. Eddy knew him he had dropped mesmerism for his new system. In 1859 — three years before he ever saw Mrs. Eddy — he clearly distinguished between physical and spiritual heahng — between the permanent healing of disease through God, Wisdom, or the Christ method, and its temporary and ineffectual healing through ignorance, symbolically called Beelzebub. The question is asked me by some, is the curing of disease a science? I answer yes. You may ask who is the founder of that science? I answer Jesus Christ. Then comes the question, what proof have you that it is a science? Because Christ healed the sick, that of itself is no proof that he knew what he was doing. If it was done, it must have been done by some law or science, for there can be no such thing as accident with God, and if Christ was God, he did know what he was doing. When he was accused of curing disease through Beelzebub or ignorance, he said. If I cast out devils or disease through Beelzebub or ignorance, my kingdom or science cannot stand, but if I cast out devils or disease through a science HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 93 or law, then my kingdom or law will stand, for it is not of this world. When others cast out disease they cured by ignorance, or Beelzebub, and there was no science in the cure, although an effect was produced, but not knowing the cause, the world was none the wiser for their cures. At another time when told by his disciples, that persons were casting out devils in his name, and they forbid them, he said, they that are with us are not against us, but they that are not with us, or are ignorant of the laws of curing, scattereth abroad, for the world is none the wiser. There you see, he makes a difference between his mode of curing and theirs. If Christ's cures were done by the power of God, and Christ was God, he must have known what that power or science was, and if he did, he knew the difference between his science, and their ignorance. His science was His Kingdom, therefore it was not of this world, and theirs being of this world, he called it the Kingdom of Darkness. To enter into Christ's Kingdom, or science, was to enter into the laws of knowledge, of curing the evils of this world of darkness. As disease is an evil, it is of this world and in this kingdom of darkness. To separate one world from another, is to separate life, the resurrection of one is the destruction of the other.^ Mrs. Eddy, to prove that Quimby was merely a mesmerist, emphasises the fact that he frequently rubbed his patients' heads. According to the present Christian Science belief, that is the cardinal sin. Physical contact with the patient implies that the treatment is of this world; in order that healing be Divine, Christ-like, its only instrument must be mind. On this one point the controversy has been long and bitter. It figures as conspicuously in this dispute as did the word fllioque in the contentions of the early Christian Church. Mrs. Eddy, in the Christian Science Journal of June, 1887, says: If, as Mr. Dresser says, Mr. Quimby's theory (if he had one) and practice were like mine, purely mental, what need had he of such physical means as wetting his hands in water and rubbing the head? Yet these appliances he continued until he ceased practice; and in his last sickness the poor man employed a homeopathic physician. The Science of Mind-healing would lie lost by such means and it is a moral impossibility to understand or to demonstrate this science through such extraneous aids. Mr. Quimby, ' From a manuscript written in 1859. 94 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND never to my knowledge, thought that matter was mhid; and he never intimated to me that he healed mentally, or by the aid of mind. Did he believe matter and mind to be one, and then rub matter in order to convince the mind of truth? Which did he manijjulate with his hands, matter or mind? Was Mr. Quimby's entire method of treating the sick intended to hoodwink his patients? Quimby's followers freely admit that, on some occasions, he dipped his hands in water and rubbed the patient's head. They deny, however, that this was an essential part of the cure, Mr. Julius A. Dresser explains the circumstances thus : Some may desire to ask, if in his practice, he ever in any way used manipulation. I reply that, in treating a jjatient, after he had finished his explanations, and the silent work, ivhich completed the treatment, he usually rubbed the head two or three times, in a brisk manner, for the purpose of letting the patient see that something was done. This was a measure of securing the confidence of the patient at a time when he was starting a new practice, and stood alone in it. I knew him to make many and quick cures at a distance sometimes with persons he never saw at all. He never considered the touch of the hand as at all necessary; but let it be governed by circumstances, as was done eighteen hundred years ago.* In Mrs. Eddy's early days, she treated in precisely the same way. As will be described in the next chapter, she lived in several Massachusetts towns, teaching and practising the Quimby cure. She always instructed her students, after treat- ing their patients mentally, to rub their heads. In addition, Mrs. Eddy would dip her hands in water and lay them over the stomach of the patient, repeating, as she did this, the words : " Peace, be still." Several of Mrs. Eddy's students of that time are still practising, and they still, in accordance with her instructions of nearly forty years ago, manipulate their patients. It was not until 1872 that she learned that the < The True History of Mental Science, p. 25. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 95 practice was pernicious. She tells the story as follows, in a pamphlet, The Science of Man, published in 1876: When we commenced this science, we permitted students to manipulate the head, ignorant that it could do harm, or hinder the power of mind acting in an opposite direction, viz., while the hands were at work and the mind directing material action. We regret to say it was the sins of a young student that called our attention to this question for the first time, and placed it in a new moral and physical aspect. By thorough examination and tests, we learned manipulation hinders instead of helps mental healing; it also establishes a mesmeric connection between patient and practitioner that gives the latter opportunity and power to govern the thoughts and actions of his patients in any direction he chooses, and with error instead of truth. This can injure the patients and must always prevent a scientific result. . . . Since our discovery of this malpractice in 1872, we have never permitted a student with our consent to manipulate in the least, and this process unlearned is utterly worthless to benefit the sick.° This is an admission on ]Mrs. Eddy's part that, for six years after her discovery of the " absolute principle of metaphysical healing," she herself taught the method which she now asserts disproves that Quimby ever healed by the power of mind. Quimby's adherents maintain that the fact that during these six years she followed his instructions implicitly and rubbed her patients' heads, is merely another proof that she obtained her original conception of mental healing from him. In Mis- cellaneous Writings Mrs. Eddy explains this head-rubbing on the same ground as did Quimby, — that is, that the average weak and doubting mind needed an outward sign : It was after Mr. Quimby's death, that I discovered, in 1866, the momentous facts relating to Mind and its superiority over matter, and named my discovery Christian Science. Yet, there remained the difficulty of adjusting in the scale of Science a metaphysical practice, and settling the question. What shall be the outward sign of such a practice: if a °P. 12. 96 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Divine Principle alone heals, what is the human modus for demonstrating this? . . . My students at first practised in slightly diflFerent forms. Although / could heal mentally, without a sign save the immediate recovery of the sick, my students' patients, and people generally, called for a sign— a material evidence wherewith to satisfy the sick that something was lieing done for them; and I said, " Suifer it to be so now," for thus saith our Master. Experience, however, taught me the impossibility of demonstrat- ing the Science of Metaphysical Healing by any outward form of practice.^ Other pupils of Quimby, among them Mr. Juhus A. Dresser, resented his being presented to the world by Mrs. Eddy as a mesmerist and magnetic healer. They asserted again and again that he healed by mental science purely, and that Mrs. Eddy had misrepresented him and his methods. Mr. Dresser made a statement to that effect in the Boston Post, February 24, 1883. Mrs. Eddy replied to this letter (Boston Post, March 7, 1883), admitting that Quimby " may have had a theory in advance of his method," but making the claim that it was she who first asked him to " write his thoughts out," and that she would sometimes so transform his manuscripts that they were virtually her own compositions. She says: We never were a student of Dr. Quimby's. . . . Dr. Quimby never had students, to our knowledge. He was an Humanitarian, but a very unlearned man. He never published a work in his life; was not a lecturer or teacher. He was somewhat of a remarkable healer, and at the time we knew him he was known as a mesmerist. We were one of his patients. He manipulated his patients, but possibly back of his practice he may have had a theory in advance of his method. . . . We knew him about twenty years ago, and aimed to help him. We saw he was looking in our direction, and asked him to write his thoughts out. He did so, and then we would take that copy to correct, and sometimes so transform it that he would say it was our composition, which it virtually was; but we always gave him back the copy and sometimes wrote his name on the back of it. ■Miscellaneous Writings (1897), pp. 379 and 3S0. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 97 In a revised edition of Julius A. Dresser's pamphlet, The True History of Mental Science, Mr. Dresser's son, Horatio W. Dresser, says : It has frequently been claimed that Mrs. Eddy was Quimby's secretary, and that she helped him to formulate his ideas. It has also been stated that these manuscripts were Mrs. Eddy's writings, left by her in Portland; that the articles printed in this pamphlet were Mrs. Eddy's words, as nearly as she can recollect them (Christian Science Sentinel, February 16, 1899). There is absolutely no truth in any of these statements or suppo- sitions. Mrs. Eddy never saw a page of the original manuscripts; and Volume I, loaned her by my father in 1862, was his cojry from a copy. Mrs. Eddy may have made a cojiy of this .volume for her own use, but the majority even of the copied articles Mrs. Eddy never saw. I have read and copied all of these articles, and can certify that they contain a very original and complete statement of the data and theory of mental healing. There are over eight hundred closely written pages, covering one hundred and twenty subjects, written previous to March, 1862, more than six months before Mrs. Eddy went to Dr. Quimby. In the 1884 edition of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy, writing of Quimby, says: The old gentleman to whom we have referred had some very advanced views on healing, but he was not avowedly religious neither scholarly. We interchanged thoughts on the subject of healing the sick. I restored some patients of his that he failed to heal, and left in his possession some manuscripts of mine containing corrections of his desultory pennings which I am informed, at his decease, passed into the hands of a patient of his, .now residing in Scotland. He died in 1865 and left no published works. The only manuscript that we ever held of his, longer than to correct it, was one of perhaps a dozen pages, most of which we had composed. This manuscript of " perhaps a dozen pages," is clearly the one called by Quimby, Questions and Answers. The original copy, now in the possession of the writer, in the handwriting of Quimby's wife, is dated February, 1862, eight months before 98 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Quimbj had ever seen Mrs. Eddy. From this manuscript Mrs. Eddy taught for several years after Quimby's death, and she sold copies of it to her early students for $300 each.^ Its history will be given in detail and its contents analysed in the next chapter. In refutation of Mrs. Eddy's general assertion that she herself taught Quimby what he knew about mental science, and that she corrected and so largely contributed to the Quimby manuscripts, Quimby's defenders again quote Mrs. Eddy herself. They once more draw upon her early letter to the Portland Courier. This, they say, does not read like a letter written by master to pupil. If Mrs. Eddy were the teacher and Quimby the student, would she, they ask, speak of him in this wise? " Now, then, his works are but the result of superior wisdom, which can demonstrate a science not understood. . . . But now I can see dimly at first, and only as trees walking, the great principle which underlies Dr. Quimby's faith and works; and just in proportion to my right perception of truth is my recovery." If Mrs. Eddy, they add, were at that time writing Quimby's manuscripts, would she, in this same letter, have ex- pressed herself thus : — " At present I am too much in error to elucidate the truth, and can touch only the keynote for the master hand to wake the harmony. ... To many a poor sufferer may it be found, as by me, ' the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.' " Mrs. Eddy's poem on Quimby's death, already quoted, is apparently the grateful tribute of pupil to teacher. Its con- cluding lines ill sustain INIrs. Eddy's present position: 'For the $300 Mrs. Eddy's students also obtained twelve lessons in the Quimby cure. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 99 " Rest should reward him who hath made us whole, Seeking, though tremblers, where his footsteps trod." Her letters to Quimby, 1862-'65, also fail to substantiate this impression that Quimby was under Mrs. Eddy's instruc- tion. " I have the utmost faith in your philosophy," she wrote in 1862. Other phrases, scattered through the letters, read: * " Dear doctor, what could I do without you? ... I am to all who see me a living wonder, and a living monument of your power. . . . My explanation of your curative principle surprises people. . . . Who is wise but you.'' " She wrote from Warren, Me., in the spring of 1865, that she had been asked to treat sick people after the Quimby method. She refuses to do so, she adds, because she considers that she is still in her " pupilage." In connection with Mrs. Eddy's claim that she herself largely wrote the Quimby manuscripts, the following extract from an affidavit of Mrs. Sarah G. Crosby of Waterville, Me., an intimate friend of Mrs. Eddy when she was under Quimby 's treatment, is also of interest : I know little of the history of said Mrs. Patterson between 1866 and 1877, when she called me professionally® to Lynn, in February, 1877, a few weeks after her marriage to Asa G. Eddy, to report a course of lessons to a class of nine pupils. She told me she wished a copy of these lessons for Mr. Eddy to study, that he, too, might teach classes. These lectures were in all material respects the same as I had myself been taught by said Dr. Quimby and that Mrs. Patterson and I had so often discussed, and which she had tried so hard to make me understand and adopt when we were together in Portland and later in Albion; — the same teaching about Truth and Error and matter and disease, the same method of curing disease by Truth casting out Error, the same claim that it was the method 8 For further extracts from Mrs. Eddy's letters to Quimby, see Chapter IV. ° Mrs. Crosby was an expert court stenographer. 100 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND adopted by Jesus. I do not hesitate to say that Mrs. Eddy's teachings in 1877, and Dr. Quimby's teachings in 18C4 were substantially the same; in fact, as I heard them both, / know they were. In June, 1883, an attorney representing said Mrs. Patterson came to see me at Waterville, my present home, and interviewed me regarding her work with Dr. Quimby in Portland in 1864. I refused to answer his questions and he left, but returned the next day bearing an affectionate letter from said Mrs. Patterson. The following is a copy thereof: — " My deau Sister, Sarah, — I wanted to see you mj'self but it was impossible for me to leave my home and so have sent the bearer of this note to see you for me. Two nights ago I had a sweet dream of Albert^" and the dear face was so familiar, Oh how I loved him ! and in the morning a thought popped into my head to ask Sarah to help me in this very trying hour. These are the circumstances. A student "of my husband's took the class- book of mine that he studied, put his name to most of it, and published it as his own after he was through with the class. Then was the time I ought to have sued him, but Oh, I do so dislike a quarrel that I hoped to get over it without a law-suit. So I noticed in my next edition of ' Science and Health ' his infringe- ment with a sharp reprimand thinking that would stop him, but this winter he issued another copy of my work as the author, and then I sued him. The next thing he did was to publish the falsehood that I stole my works from the late Dr. Quimby. When everything I ever had published has been written or edited by me as spontaneously as I teach or lecture. " It will be rememberpd that the " spirit " friendship of Mrs. Patterson's dead brother, Albert Baker, for Mrs. Crosby, formed a close bond iu the friendship of the two women, and that he communicated mth Mrs. Crosby throuj^h his sister. — See Chapter IV. " In the early '80's, Edward J. Arens published a pamphlet entitled Old Theolof/tj in its Application to the Henlitu; of the Sick; the Redemption of Man from the Bondage of 8in and Death, and His Restoration to an In- heritance of Ererlastitiy Life. In this Arens borrowed liberally, in word and idea, from Science and Health. In 1883 Mrs. Eddy sued Arens for infringe- ment of copyright. Arens said, in defence, that he had not borrowed from Mrs. Eddy, but from the late P. P. Quimby, of Portland, Me. He added that Mrs. Eddy had herself appropriated Quimby's ideas, — in other words, that both had drawn their philosophy from the same source. The court decided in Mrs. Eddy's favour, and issued a perpetual injunction restraining Arens from circulating his Itooks. On the strength of this decision Mrs. Eddy and her followers have declared that the United States courts have decided the issue of the Quimby controversy in her favour. There is nothing in this decision contrary to the claims of Quimby's friends. The court, they agree, simply decided that Mrs. Eddy held a valid copyright upon Science and Health and that Arens had violated" that copyright. They have never denied either of these facts. They freely admit that Mrs. Eddy wrote Science and Health as it stands, and that she has a property interest in it. They are not dis- cussing legal technicalities, but only the moral issue involved, — which, they add, did not and properly could not, be considered by the court. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 101 Now dear one, I want you to tell this man, the bearer of this note, that you know that Dr. Quiraby and I were friends and that I used to take his scribblings and fix them over for him and give him my thoughts and language which as I understood it, were far in advance of his. Will you do this and give an affidavit to this eifect and greatly oblige your Affectionate Sister Mary." I read the foregoing appeal for help from said Mrs. Patterson, then Eddy, and as it was clearly a request that I should make oath to what was not true, I informed the attorney that I should not make the affidavit asked by his client, as it would not be a true statement. He then threatened to summon me to the trial, but I think I made him understand that I would not be a desirable witness on his side of the case. He thereupon departed, and I was not summoned to testify. And since that interview, I have only a public knowledge of said Mrs. Patterson-Eddy. In her private correspondence, Mrs. Eddy has said, in so many words, that she taught the Quimby system. Reference has already been made to the correspondence in March, 1871, between Mrs. Eddy — then Mrs. Glover — and Mr. W. W. Wright of Lynn. Mr. Wright specifically asked this question : 6th: Has this theory ever been advertised or practised before you introduced it, or by any other individual? To this Mrs. Eddy replied : 6th: Never advertised, and practised by only one individual who healed me. Dr. Quiraby of Portland, Me, an old gentleman who had made it a research for twenty-five years, starting from the stand-point of magnetism thence going forward and leaving that behind. I discovered the art in a moment's time, and he acknowledged it to me; he died shortly after and since then, eight years, I have been founding and demonstrating the science. . . . please preserve this, and if you become my student call me to account for the truth of what I have written Respectfully M M B Glover Mrs. Eddy has never attempted to reconcile the statements which she made before the publication of Science and Health with the very different ones which she has made since. 102 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND The explanation by which she seeks to account for her early expressions of devotion and gratitude to Quimby is not one which tends to lessen the perplexities of the historian. She simply asserts that she wrote these tributes to Quimby while under mesmeric influence and is not properly responsible for them at all. In the Boston Post, in a letter dated March 7, 1883, after Julius A. Dresser had made public some of the letters already quoted, she wrote as follows: Did I write those articles purporting to be mine? I might have written them twenty or thirty years ago, for I was under the mesmeric treatment of Dr. Quimby from 1862 until his death in 1865. He was illiterate and I knew nothing then of the Science of Mind-healing, and I was as ignorant of mesmerism as Eve before she was taught bj^ the serpent. Mind Science was unknown to me; and my head was so turned bj' animal magnetism and will-power, under his treatment, that I might have written something as hopelessly incorrect as the articles now published in the Dresser pamphlet. I was not healed until after the death of Mr. Quimby; and then healing came as the result of my discovery in 1866, of the Science of Mind-healing, since named Christian Science. In 1887, when Julius A. Dresser published his True History of Mental Science, the Quimby-Eddy controversy reached its climax. Mrs. Eddy, says Horatio W. Dresser, requested her literary adviser, Rev. James Henry Wiggin, to answer the pamphlet. Mr. Wiggin asked Mrs. Eddy if she had written the letters in the Portland newspapers, the letter to Dresser, the poem on Quimby's death, and other effusions. Mrs. Eddy admitted that she had. " Then," replied Mr. Wiggin, " there is nothing to say," and declined the task. In a personal letter Mr. Wiggin says : What Mrs. Eddy has, as documents clearly prove, she got from P. P. Quimby, of Portland, JNIe., whom she eulogised after death as the great HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 103 leader and her special teacher. . . . She has tried to answer this charge of the adoption of Quimby's ideas, and called me in to counsel her about it; but her only answer (in print!) was that if she said such things twenty years ago, she must have been under the influence of Animal Magnetism. Mrs. Eddy, however, issued the following challenge: To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Mr. George A. Quimby son of the late Phineas P. Quimby, over his own signature and before witnesses, stated in 1883, that he had in his possession at that time all the manuscript that had been written by his father. And I hereby declare that to expose the falsehood of parties publicly intimating that I have ajDpropriated matter belonging to the aforesaid Quimby, I will pay the cost of printing and publishing the first edition of those manuscripts with the author's name: Provided, that I am alloived first to examine said manuscripts, and do find that they were his oion compositions, and not mine, that were left with him, many years ago, or that they have not since his death, in 1865, been stolen from my published works. Also that I am given the right to bring out this one edition under the copyright of the owner of said manuscripts, and all the money accruing from the sales of said book shall be paid to said owner. Some of his purported writings, quoted by Mr. D— , were my own words as near as I can recollect them. There is a great demand for my work, " Science and Health, with Key to Scriptures," hence Mr. D — 's excuse for the delay to publish Quimby's manuscripts namely, that this period is not sufficiently enlight- ened to be benefited by them (?) is lost, for if I have copied from Quimby, and my book is accepted, it has created a demand for his. Mary Baker G. Eddy. This proposition was ignored by Mr. Quimby, owing to liis own knowledge of Mrs. Eddy and of his father's manuscripts. Quimby's adherents declare that the provisions made in her offer indicate what her claims would have been if the manu- scripts had been given into her hands — as she had already announced that Dr. Quimby's writings were her own — and that the proposition was made with the object of securing possession of the manuscripts. 104. LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY In a letter to Mr. A. J. Swartz, a mental healer of Chicago who interested himself in the case, dated February 22, 1888, George A. Quimbj explained his position: Your letter with enclosure at hand. I judge that you offer to defend the memory of my father, the late P. P. Quimby. . . . Please permit me to say that I have no doubt of your kind intention to come to the rescue of my father, but I do not feel that there is the slightest necessity for it. ... If I were in prison, in solitary confinement for life, I should be too busy to get into any kind of a discussion witli Mrs. Eddy. I have my father's manuscripts in my possession, but will not allow them to be copied nor to go out of my hands. Answering your further inquiries, I have no written article of Mrs. Eddy's in my possession, have never had, nor did my father ever have, nor did she ever leave any with either of us. Neither of us have ever " stolen " any of her writings nor anything else. In fact, we both have been able to make a living without stealing. . . . Yours truly, George A. Quimby. From the history of this controversy, it is evident that, for Mrs. Eddy, there have existed two Phineas P. Quimbys : one the Quimby who was her physician and teacher, who roused her from the fretful discontent of middle-age, and who gave her purpose and aspiration ; the other the Quimby who, after the publication of Science and Health, became, in a sense, her rival, — ^whom she saw as an antagonist threatening to invalidate her claims. If she has been a loser through this controversy, it is not because of what she borrowed from Quimby, but because of her later unwillingness to admit her obligation to him. Had she observed the etiquette of the regular sciences, where personal ambition is subsidiary to a desire for tinith, and where dis- coverers and investigators are scrupulous to acknowledge the sources from which they have obtained help, it would have strengthened rather than weakened her position. CHAPTER VII DR. AND MRS. PATTERSON IN LYNN THEIR SEPARATION MRS. PATTERSON AS A PROFESSIONAL VISITOR SHE TEACHES HIRAM CRAFTS THE QUIMBY " SCIENCE " MRS. PATTERSON IN AMESBURY Although after Mrs. Eddy's second visit to Quimby in the early part of 1864 she always desired to teach his doctrines and could think and talk of little else, it was not until 1870 that she was able to establish herself as a teacher of metaphysical healing. The six years intervening are important chiefly as the period of Mrs. Eddy's novitiate. During that time she drifted from one to another of half a dozen little towns about Boston ; but amid all vicissitudes one thing remained fixed and constant, — her conviction that she was the person destined to teach and popularise Quimbyism. Mrs. Patterson's long visit at the home of Mrs. Sarah Crosby, at Albion, Me., has already been referred to in the fourth chapter of the present volume. She went to Mrs. Crosby's house in May, 1864, remaining there most of the summer and leaving in the early autumn. She then rejoined her husband, Dr. Patterson, at Lynn, Mass., where the doctor had begun to practise and had taken an office at 76 Union Street. In the Lynn Weekly Reporter, of June 11, 1864, the following ad- vertisement appears for the first time: 105 106 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND DENTAL NOTICE Dr. D. Patterson Would respectfully announce to the public that he has returned to Lynn, and opened an office in B. F. & G. N. Spinney's new building, on Union St., between the Central Depot & Sagamore Hotel, where he will be happy to greet the friends and patrons secured last year while in the offices of Drs. Davis and How, and now he hopes to secure the patronage of "all the rest of mankind" by the exhibition of that skill which close study and many years of first-class and widely-extended practice enable him to bring to the aid of the suffering. He is aware that he has to compete with able practitioners, but yet offers his services fearlessly, knowing that competition is the real stimulus to success, and trusting to his ability to please all who need Teeth filled, extracted or new sets. He was the first to introduce LAUGHING GAS in Lynn for Dental purposes and has had excellent success with it. Terms lower than any- where else for the same quality of work. Dr. Patterson and his wife first boarded at 42 Silsbee Street, where they remained for some months, afterward moving to the house of O. A. Durall, in BufFum Street. The doctor's dental practice in Lynn was fairly good, and people liked him for a bluff, jovial fellow, none too clever, but honest and kind of heart. Both he and his wife were at this time prominent members of the Linwood Lodge of Good Tem- plars, at Lynn, and old members of the lodge remember the active part which Mrs. Patterson took in their meetings. She was often called upon to read, or to speak on matters under discussion, and was always ready to do so. Her remarks never failed to command attention, and the Good Templars of Lynn considered her " smart but queer." Members of the lodge who are still living say that she discussed Quimbyism whenever she found opportunity to do so, and, although they were con- siderably amused by her extravagant metaphors and could make nothing of her " philosophy," they had no doubt that it was HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 107 very profound and recondite. It was when she was returning from one of these Good Templar meetings, February 1, 1866, that Mrs. Patterson had the fall from the effects of which she says she was miraculously healed. She, with a party of fellow Templars, was passing the corner of Oxford and Market Streets, when she slipped upon the icy sidewalk and fell. She was carried into the house of Samuel Bubier, where Dr. Cushing attended her, and the next day, at her urgent request, she was moved to the house on the Swampscott Road, Avhere she and her husband were then boarding. It was on the following day, according to Mrs. Eddy's account, that she received her revelation, and in this house Christian Science was born. In the following spring the Pattersons took a room in the house of P. R. Russell, at the corner of Pearl and High Streets, Lynn. Here, after about two months. Dr. Patterson finally left his wife, and they never lived together after this time. In refer- ring to her husband's desertion of her, Mrs. Eddy says : In 1862^ my name was Patterson; my husband, Dr. Patterson, a dis- tinguished dentist. After our marriage I was confined to my bed with a severe illness, and seldom left bed or room for seven years, when I was taken to Dr. Quimby, and partially restored. I returned home, hoping once more to make that home happy, but only returned to a new agony, — to find my husband had eloped with a married woman from one of the wealthy families of that city, leaving no trace save his last letter to us, wherein he wrote " I hope some time to be worthy of so good a wife." ^ 1 Letter to the Boston Post, March 7, 18S3. ,^ „ ^ Prom Mrs. Eddy's statement it is impossible to tell whether by that city she means Sanbornton Bridge, wliere she returned after her first visit to Quimhv, or Lvnn, where she joined her husband after her second visit. Neither in Lvnn nor Sanbornton Bridge do the people who knew the Pattersons recall any elopement on Dr. Patterson's part. 1'. R. Russell, in whose house the Pattersons were living when the Doctor deserted his wife, says in his affidavit : "While they were' living at my house. Dr. Patterson went away and did not return. I do not know the cause of his going. I never heard that he eloped with any woman, and I never hoard Mrs. Patterson say that he had eloped with any woman. Mrs. Patterson never said anything whatever to me on the subject of her husband's departure. I never heard anything against Dr. Patterson's character either then or since." 108 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND After leaving his wife, Dr. Patterson went to Littleton, N. H., where he practised for some years. Afterward he led a roving life, wandering from town to town, until he at last went back to the home of his boyhood, at Saco, Me., where he secluded himself and lived the life of a hermit until his death in 1896. Bitter experience awaited Mrs. Patterson after her husband's desertion. Whatever may have been the cause for his leaving, Mrs. Patterson did not, at that time, claim the sympathy of her friends on account of it, and to her landlord and his wife she maintained silence on the subject, merely saying in answer to inquiries, that he had gone away. According to Mrs. Patter- son's relatives, her husband went about the separation deliber- ately, announcing his intention and his reason ^ to her family, and making what provision he was able for her support.^ In the fall of 1865 Mark Baker, Mrs. Patterson's father, died, and at about the same time her sister, Mrs. Tilton, closed her door forever against Mrs. Patterson.^ Her only child, George Glover, at that time a young man, she had sent away in his childhood. Mrs. Patterson was, therefore, for the first time in her life, practically alone in the world and largely dependent upon herself for support. Untrained in any kind of paid work, she fell back upon the favour of her friends or chance acquaintances, living precariously upon their bounty, and obliged to go from house to house, as one family after * To her family Dr. Patterson said that he was unable to endure life with Mrs. Patterson any longer. * For several years after their separation Dr. Patterson gave his wife an annuity of $200, which was paid in small instalments. = When Mrs. Tilton, who had taken care of Mrs. Patterson from childhood and supported her in her widowhood, finally turned against her sister, she was as hard as she had been generous before. " I loved Mary best of all my sisters and brothers," she said to her friends, " but it is all gone now." The bitterness of her feeling lasted to the day of her death. She instructed her family not to allow Mary to see her after death nor to attend her funeral, and her wishes were carried out. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 109 another wearied of her. For a while she stayed on at the Russells', but as she was unable to pay even the $1.50 a week rental which they charged her, she was served with eviction papers and dispossessed of her room within a month after Dr. Patterson's departure. Mr. Russell, her landlord, says that the matter of the rent was merely a pretext. He wished Mrs. Patterson to go because his wife, who had greatly admired her when she first came into the house, soon declared that she could not endure Mrs. Patterson's remaining there. His father. Rev. P. R. Russell, also strongly objected to Mrs. Patterson's pres- ence. The month of August, or a part of it, Mrs. Patterson spent with Mrs. Clark, in Summer Street, Lynn, and it was there that Dr. Cushing treated her for a severe cough. She next stayed with Mrs. Armenius Newhall, but soon afterward left the house, at Mrs. Newhall's request. Mrs. James Wheeler of Swampscott, in her own town known as " Mother " Wheeler from her gentle qualities and her eager- ness to help and comfort every one, then offered Mrs. Patterson a shelter. At the Wheelers', as elsewhere, Mrs. Patterson talked con- tinually of Quimby and declared that it was the ambition of her life to publish his notes on mental healing. Mrs. Julia Russell Walcott, a sister of Mrs. Patterson's former landlord, and an intimate friend of Mrs. Wheeler, says in her affidavit: Mrs. Patterson was the means of creating discord in the Wheeler family. She was unkind in her language to and treatment of Mrs. James Wheeler, at the same time exacting extra personal service and attention to her daily wants. One morning I sat in the parlour at the Wheeler house when Mrs. 110 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Patterson came down to breakfast. The family breakfast was over, but Mrs. Wheeler, according to her usual custom, had prepared a late breakfast for Mrs. Patterson. Mrs. Wheeler, Mrs. Patterson, and myself were alone in the house. I had come in late the previous evening and ]Mrs. Patterson did not know of my presence in the house. She entered the breakfast room from the hail, and began at once, and without any apparent cause, to talk to Mrs. Wheeler in a most abusive manner, using violent and Insulting language. I immediately went into the breakfast room and commanded her to stop, which she did at once. I indignantly rebuked Mrs. Patterson and in- formed her that I should tell Mrs. Wheeler's family of her conduct. Mrs. Wheeler did not respond to Mrs. Patterson. To me she said, " Thank God, Julia, that you were here, this time. I have often borne this." Mrs. Patterson was, soon after this, requested to leave the Wheeler house, and did so. Mrs. Wheeler received nothing in payment for Mrs. Patterson's board. When Mrs. Wheeler asked Mrs. Patterson for a settle- ment, Mrs. Patterson replied to the effect that she had " treated " a wounded finger for Mr. Wheeler and that this service was equivalent to what she had received from Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, in board, lodging, etc. Upon leaving the Wheelers, Mrs. Patterson took refuge with the Ellis family. Mrs. Mary Ellis lived at Elm Cottage, Swampscott, with her unmarried son, Fred Ellis, master of a boys' school in Boston. Both she and her son were cultivated persons, and they felt a certain sympathy with Mrs. Patterson's literary labours. Wherever she went, Mrs. Patterson was pre- ceded by the legend that she was writing a book. During \ the time which she spent with Mrs. Ellis, she remained in her room the greater part of each day, working upon the manu- script which eight years later was to be published under the title. Science and Health. In the evening she often joined Mr. Ellis and his mother downstairs, and read them what she had written during the day, telling them of Dr. Quimby and his theories of mind and matter, and explaining how she meant to develop them. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 111 While in Ljnn Mrs, Patterson continued to take an interest in Spiritualism. The older Spiritualists of Lynn remember her taking part as a medium in a circle which met at the home of Mrs. George Clark in Summer Street. Mrs. Richard Hazel- tine says : ^ My husband, Richard Hazeltine, and I went to the circle at Mrs. Clarli's and saw Mrs. Glover ' pass into the trance state, and heard her com- municate by word of mouth messages received from the spirit world, or what she said and we believed were messages from the spirit world. I cannot forget certain peculiar features of these sittings of Mrs. Glover's. Mrs. Glover told us, as we were gathered there, that, because of her superior spiritual quality, and because of the purity of her life, she could only be controlled in the spirit world by one of the Apostles and by Jesus Christ. When she went into the trance state and gave her communications to members of the circle, these communications were said by Mrs. Glover to come, through her as a medium, from the spirit of one of the Apostles or of Jesus Christ. Mrs. Mary Gould, a Spiritualist medium In Lynn, remembers that at one time Abraham Lincoln was one of Mrs. Glover's controls. In the winter of 1866-67 Mrs. Patterson met Hiram Crafts at a boarding-house in Lynn. Crafts was a shoe-worker of East Stoughton, who had come to Lynn to work in a shoe factory there for the winter. Mrs. Patterson tried to interest every one she met in Quimby's theories and saw in the serious shoe- maker a prospective pupil. What she told Crafts of this new system of doctoring appealed to him strongly; he was a Spirit- ualist and was deeply interested in psychic phenomena. After he returned home, he sent for Mrs, Patterson to come to East « From the affidavit of Mrs. Richard Hazeltine of Lynn. ' Althougli Mrs. Patterson did not divorce Dr. Patterson until 1873, she resumed her former name of Glover soon after he went away. 112 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Stoughton and teach him. She joined the Crafts, accordhigly, in the early part of 1867, and lived for some months in their home at East Stoughton — now Avon — instructing Mr. Crafts in the Quimby method of healing. Early in the spring Crafts rj\ O THE SICK DR. H. S. CRAFTS, Would say unhesitatingly, I can cure you. and have never failed to cure Consumption, Catarrh, Scrofula, Dyspepsia and Rheumatism, with many other forms of disease and weakness, in which I am especially successful. If you give me a fair trial and arc not helped, I will re- fund your money. The following certificate is from a lady in this city, Mrs. Raymond : — H. S. CRAFTS, Office 90, Main street: In giving to the public a statement of my peculiar case, I am actuated by a motive to point out the way to others of relief from their sufferings. About 12 years since I had an internal abscess, that not only threatened to destroy my life at that time, but which has ever since continued to affect me in some form or another internally, making life well nigh a burden to bear. I have consulted many physi- cians, all of whom have failed to relieve me of this suffering, and in this condition, while grow- ing worse year by year, about three weeks ago I applied to Dr. H. S. Crafts, who, to my own, and the utter astonishment of my friends, has, in this incredibly short time, without medicines or painful applications, cured me of this chronic malady. In couclusion, I can only quote the words of a patient who was healed by his method of cure : " I am convinced he is a skill- ful Physician, whose cures are not the result of accident." I reside in Taunton, at Weir street Ilaili'oad Crossing. ABIGAIL RAYMOND. Taunton, May 13, 18G7. — myl4-dT&S&wlm An advertisement of Hiram S. Crafts, which appeared in a Taunton newspaper, May 13, 1867. Mr. Crafts had moved from East Stoughton to Taunton, taliifig his wife and Mrs. Eddy with him. went to Taunton, taking his wife and Mrs. Patterson with him, and opened an office. He was the first of Mrs. Eddy's students to go into practice. His advertisement in a Taunton paper is reprinted herewith. Mrs. Patterson did not practise herself, but remained with the family to teach and advise Crafts. Con- HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 113 cerning Mrs. Patterson and her relation to the Crafts,® Ira Hohnes, brother of Mrs. Crafts, makes the following affidavit: Ira Holmes, being duly sworn, deposes and says : I am 76 years of age. I reside in Stoughton, Massachusetts. I first met Mrs. Mary Patterson, now known as Mary Baker G. Eddy, of Concord, New Hampshire, in the year 1867. She was then living at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hiram S. Crafts in East Stoughton, which is now called Avon. Mrs. Hiram S. Crafts is my sister, and Hiram S. Crafts is a brother of my wife, Mrs. Ira Holmes. The two families were, therefore, intimately connected, and I was acquainted with what occurred in the Crafts home. Hiram Crafts and his wife, Mary Crafts, told me that they first met Mary Patterson in a boarding house in Lynn, Mass., where Hiram and Mary Crafts lived temporarily while Hiram Crafts was working in a Lynn shoe manufactory. Mr. and Mrs. Crafts were Spiritualists, and they have told me that Mrs. Patterson represented to them that she had learned a " science " that was a step in advance of Spiritualism. She wished to teach this science to Hiram Crafts, and after Mr. and Mrs. Crafts had returned from Lynn to their home in East Stoughton, Massachusetts, Mrs. Patterson came to their home for the purpose of teaching this new science to Hiram Crafts. I have heard her say many times, while she was living at Crafts' that she learned this science from Doctor Quimby. I have heard her say these words: "I learned this science from Dr. Quimby, and I can impart it to but one person." She always said this in a slow, impressive manner, pronouncing the word " person " as if it were spelled " pairson." From my sister, Mary Crafts, and her husband, Hiram S. Crafts, I learned that Hiram Crafts had entered into an agreement with Mrs. Patterson to pay her a certain sum of money for instructing him in Quimby's science. After Hiram Crafts had learned it, he took some patients for treatment, in East Stoughton, but in a short time he, with Mrs. Crafts and Mrs. Patterson, moved to Taunton, Mass., for the purpose of practising the heahng system which Mrs. Patterson had taught him. I never knew of Mrs. Patterson treating, or attempting to treat, any sick person. I understood, from her and from Mr. and Mrs. Crafts, that she could not practise this science, but could teach it, and could teach it to only one person. While Mrs. Patterson lived in tlie home of Mr. and Mrs. Crafts, she caused trouble in the household, and urged Mr. Crafts to get a bill of divorce from his wife, Mary Crafts. The reason Mrs. Patterson gave for ' Hiram Crafts died last year. His widow is now living with a brother in Brockton, Mass, 114 LIFE OF I\IARY BAKER G. EDDY AND urging Mr. Crafts to divorce his wife was, that Mrs. Crafts stood in the way of the success of Mr. Crafts and Mrs. Patterson in the healing business. Mrs. Crafts, my sister, was gentle, kind, and patient, and in no way merited Mrs. Patterson's dislike of her. Mrs. Crafts waited upon Mrs. Patterson, did the housework and marketing, and in every way sought to advance the interests of her husband, Hiram S. Crafts. When Mrs. Crafts discovered that Mrs. Patterson was attempting to influence Mr. Crafts to apply for a divorce, she, my sister, Mary Crafts, prepared to pack up her possessions and to leave her husband's house. The result of this was that Mr. Crafts would not consent to lose his wife, and as Mrs. Crafts would not remain unless Mrs. Patterson went away, Mrs. Patterson was obliged to leave the home of Mr. and Mrs. Crafts. This was while they were residing in Taunton, Mass. After Mrs. Patterson's departure, Mr. and Mrs. Crafts returned to East Stoughton to live, and Hiram S. Crafts no longer practised the healing system taught by Mrs. Patterson. I make this statement of my own free will, solely in the interest of j ustice. Ira Holmes. commonwealth of massachusetts norfolk, ss: Stoughton, February 7, 1907. Then personally appeared the above named Ira Holmes and acknowledged the foregoing instrument by him subscribed, to be his free act and deed, before me. Geo. O. Wentworth, Notary Public. Many years afterward, when the Crafts were living in Hebron, N. H., and Mrs. Eddy had retired to Concord, N. H., she sent for Mr. Crafts and paid his expenses to Pleasant View to deliver into her hands his copy of the manuscript which she had used in teaching him, — probably a copy of the Quimby manuscript, — which he did. After leaving the Crafts, Mrs. Patterson seems to have gone to Amesbury to the home of Captain and Mrs. Na,thaniel Webster. Concerning Mrs. Webster and Mrs. Patterson's stay at her house, Mrs. Mary Ellis Bartlett, a granddaughter of Mrs, Webster, makes the following affidavit: HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 115 Mary Ellis Bartlett, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 35 years of age, and I am a citizen of Boston, Massachusetts. I am the daughter of William R. Ellis and Mary Jane Ellis, and the granddaughter of Captain Nathaniel Webster and Mary Webster, who for many years resided in Amesbury, Massachusetts. In the years between 1865 and 1870 my grandparents. Captain and Mrs. Webster, were living in Amesbury, Mass., at what is now No. 5 Merrimac Street. Captain Webster was a retired sea captain, and at that time was superintendent of cotton mills in Manchester, New Hampshire, of which E. A. Straw, his son-in-law, who was later Governor of New Hampshire, was agent for many years. My Grandmother Webster was a well-known Spiritualist. Grandfather Webster was away from home, attending to his business in Manchester, much of the time, returning home to Amesbury about once in two weeks, to remain over Sunday. My grandmother was, therefore, much alone, and because of this, and for the further reason that she was deeply interested in Spiritualism in all its forms, she had at her house constant visitors and charity patients who were Spiritualists. Invalids, cripples, and other unfortunate persons were made welcome, and my grandmother took care of them when they were ill and lodged and boarded them free of charge. She had, or believed she had, spiritual communications in regard to their various ailments, which she followed in prescribing for them and in her treatment of them. My grandmother was what was called a " drawing medium " and a " healing medium." She drew strange pictures under the influence of the spirits. Many of these pictures are now in existence, and some of them are in my possession, having been given to me by my grandmother. Grandmother Webster had a room in her house which was used for spirit- ual seances, and for all grandmother's spiritistic work. This room was on the ground floor, situated in the rear of the front parlour. It was decorated in blue, according to the direction of grandmother's spirit control, — blue being a colour favoured by the spirits. The room was furnished with the usual chairs, tables, couch, etc., but this furniture was called by my grandmother and her Spiritualist friends, " spiritual furniture," because it was used only for spiritual purposes. There was a couch which grand- motlier called her " spiritual couch." She thought she could sleep upon it when she could not sleep elsewhere. Upon it she took her daytime naps, and sometimes during a restless night she was able to sleep if she lay upon this couch. There was a table in the room which was used for tl'.e laying on of hands by the Spiritualists at the seances held in the room, and there was an old chair which had belonged to Captain W^ebster's mother, in which grandmother always sat for her spirit communications. Above this room, which was known as the " spiritual room," was a bedroom. One night in the autumn of 1867, as nearly as I can fix the date, a 116 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND woman, a stranger, came to my grandmother's door, and told her that she had been led by the spirits to come to her house, for the reason that it was " a nice, harmonious home." My grandmother, who was sympa- thetic and hospitable, and, above all, a devoted Spiritualist, who would never turn another Spiritualist away, upon hearing this, exclaimed, " Glory to God ! Come right in ! " The woman thus admitted told my grandmother that she was Mrs. Mary Glover, a Spiritualist, and that she had been drawn as above described to my grandmother's house. Mrs. Glover did not explain further why she came and did not say from what place she had come. My grandmother gave her the use of the bedroom over the spiritual room, and also the use of the spiritual room. Here grandmother and Mrs. Glover continued to hold spiritualistic seances, in which Mrs. Glover took an active part, passing into the trance state and giving what grandmother believed to be communications from the spirits. Mrs. Glover became permanently settled at Grandmother Webster's house. She was treated as a guest, was waited upon, and was cared for in every respect. My Grandfather Webster, coming home and finding Mrs. Glover established in the house, was displeased because she was there. He told my grandmother that he did not want Mrs. Glover to remain. . . . But Mrs. Glover continued to live in the house, and after a few months, during which my grandmother's admiration for Mrs. Glover had begun to grow less, Mrs. Glover informed my grandmother that she had learned a new science which she thought was something beyond Spiritualism. She said she had learned it from Dr. Quimby of Portland, Maine, and that she had brought C02:)ies of some of his manu- scripts with her. She talked about it and read the manuscripts to my grandmother, who did not, however, believe that the " science " was an improvement or a step beyond Spiritualism. From that time forward Mrs. Glover talked of Quimby's science. She was writing what she told grandmother was a revision of the Bible. She always sat in the spiritual chair at the spiritual table in grandmother's sj:)iritual room to do her writing, and sometimes after she had written for hours, she would gather up all the pages she had filled with writing and tear them up, because she could not make them read as she wished. My father, William R. Ellis, was in 1867 living in New York, with his three children — myself, my sister, and my brother. My mother had died three or four years before. Our family had always spent the summer school vacation at my grandparents' home in Amesbury, Mass., and when it was time for us to leave New York, my father always went to Amesbury in advance of the rest of us, in order to clear my grandmother's house of broken-down Spiritualists and sick persons, so that we might have enough room in the house and because he thought the atmosphere of so much sickness and Spiritualism was unwholesome for young children. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 117 My father, upon first seeing Mrs. Glover in the house, had told my grandmother that she, Mrs. Glover, should not be permitted to remain. My grandmother, upon being urged by my father and grandfather to dismiss Mrs. Glover, at last told her that she was no longer welcome and asked her to go away. Mrs. Glover ignored my grand- mother's request and continued to live in the house Failing to succeed in getting Mrs. Glover to leave the house, my grand- mother sent for my father. He arrived in the early evening of the follow- ing Saturday. When grandmother had told him of the trouble and how Mrs. Glover refused to go away, she asked my father to see if he could not make Mrs. Glover leave the house. My father commanded Mrs. Glover to leave, and when she steadfastly refused to go, he had her trunk dragged from her room and set it outside the door, insisted upon her also going out the door, and when she was outside he closed the door and locked it. I have frequently heard my father describe this event in detail, and I have heard him say that he had never expected, in his whole life, to be obliged to put a woman into the street. It was dark at the time, and a heavy rain was falling. My grandparents and my father considered it absolutely necessary to take this step, harsh and disagreeable as it seemed to them. The above statement is made partly from my own personal knowledge, and partly from hearing it many, many times from my father, my grand- mother, and my Grandfather Webster, who have related it to me and others of the family until it has come to be a well-known part of our family history. I make this statement of my own free will, solely in the interests of justice. Mary Ellis Bartlett STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS, SUFFOLK, SS: Personally appeared the above named Mary Ellis Bartlett, and made oath that the foregoing statements covering eleven sheets, each of which is subscribed by her, are true to the best of her knowledge and belief, this sixth day of February, 1907. Herbert P. Sheldok, Notary Public. When Mrs. Glover was thus left without a lodging-place for the night, Mrs. Richardson, another of Mrs. Webster's Spiritualist guests, who was in the house at the time, was 118 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND moved to compassion and took Mrs. Glover down the street to the house of Miss Sarah Bagley, a dressmaker, who was a fellow Spiritualist. DR. ROUNDY AND WIFE, pLAIRVOYANT, Magnetic and Electric Physi- ^ cians, have recently furnished a honse on Qulncy avenue, in QuiNCr, Mass., where they are still Healing the Sick v^'ith good success. Board and treatment reasonable. Address, Quincy, ISlAss. 6w* — June 6. ANY PERRON desiring to learn how to heal the sick can receire of the undersigned instruction that will enalile them to commence healing on a principle of science with a success far beyond any of the present modes. No medicine, elec- tricity, physiology or hygiene required for un- paralleled success in the most difficult cases. No pay is required unless this skill is obtained. Ad- dress. MRS. MARY B. GLOVER, Amesbury, Mass., Box 61. tff — .Tune 20. MRS. MARY LEWIS, by sending their autograph, or lock of hair, will give psychometrical de- lineations of character, answer questions. &c. Terms .$1.00 and red stamp. Address, MARY LEWIS, Morrison, Wliiteside Co., 111. June 20. — 20w*. The above advertisement, in which Mrs. Eddy offers to teach a new kind of healing based on a " principle of science," appeared July 4, 18G8, in the Banner of Light, the official organ of New England Spiritualists. Mrs. Eddy was then living at the home of the Websters in Amesbury, and the number of Captain Webster's post-office box was 61. Miss Bagley took the friendless woman into her home, and here, in addition to the small sum which she paid for her board, Mrs. Glover taught Miss Bagley the Quimby method of treating disease. Miss Bagley developed such powers as a healer that she soon abandoned her needle and began to practise " professionally." Mrs. Glover was generally known in Ames- bury as a pupil of Dr. Quimby, and it was rumoured in the village that before Mrs. Glover was through with her " science " she was going to walk on the waters of the ^Icrrimac. Two Amesbury girls were so interested in this report that, one HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 119 afternoon when Mrs. Glover attended some merrymaking on the river bank, they went down and hngered on the bridge, hoping that she might be tempted to try her powers on that festal occasion. To-day the Christian Scientists of Lynn draw a pathetic picture of the persecuted woman, driven from door to door, carrying her great truth in her bosom, and finding no man ready to receive it. And it is not to be wondered at that those who regard Mrs. Eddy as the recipient of God's most complete revelation, find here material for legend, and liken her wanderings to those of the persecuted apostles. There is no indication that these harsh experiences ever, in the least, subdued Mrs. Glover's proud spirit. Wherever she went, she took her place as the guest of honour, and she consistently assumed that she conferred favour by accepting hospitality. She did not hesitate to chide and reprimand mem- bers of the families she visited, to criticise and interfere with the administration of household affairs. She seems never to have known discouragement or to have felt apprehension for the future, but was content v/ith dominating the house in which she happened to be and with striving to win a following among the friends of the family. While she certainly cherished a vague, half-formulated plan to go out into the world some day and teach the Quimby doctrine, her imperative need was to con- trol the immediate situation ; to be the commanding figure in the lodge, the sewing-circle, the family gathering. The one thing she could not endure was to be thought like other people. She must be something besides plain Mrs. Glover, — invalid, poetess, healer, propagandist, guest; she must be exceptional 120 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY at any cost. Even while she was dependent upon precarious hospitality, Mrs. Glover managed to invest her person and her doings with a certain form and ceremony which was not without its effect. She spent much time in her room ; was not always accessible ; had her meals prepared at special hours ; made calls and received visitors with a certain stress of graciousness and condescension. She had the faculty of giving her every action and word the tone of importance. She was now a woman of forty-seven ; her wardrobe was shabby and scant ; she still rouged her cheeks ; the brown hue of her hair was crudely artificial; her watch and chain and several gold trinkets were, with the Quimby manuscripts, her only treasures. Certainly, neither village gossips nor rustic humourists had spared her. But the stage did not exist that was so mean and poor, nor the audience so brutal and unsympathetic, that Mrs. Glover could not, unabashed, play out her part. CHAPTER VIII TWO YEARS WITH THE WENTWORTHS IN STOUGHTON MRS. PATTERSON INSTRUCTS MRS. WENTWORTH FROM THE QUIMBY MANUSCRIPTS AND PREPARES HER FIRST BOOK FOR THE PRESS When Mrs. Glover left Amesbury, she went to Stoughton, to the home of Mrs. Sally Wentworth, whom she had met when she was with Hiram Crafts. Mrs. Wentworth had a consump- tive daughter whom she took to Hiram Crafts for treatment, and in his house she met Mrs. Glover and became much interested in her system of healing. Her curiosity about the Quimby mind cure was not surprising, as she was a practical nurse and had much to do with illness. She was frequently called upon to care for the sick in the neighbourhood, and was locally famous for the comfort she could give them by rubbing their limbs and bodies. She was a Spiritualist and believed in the healing power of Spiritualism. " Old Ase Holbrook," a Spiritualist and clairvoyant " doctor," often asked Mrs. Wentworth to assist him in the care of his patients. In Mrs. Glover's system of healing she hoped to find something which she could put into beneficial practice in her work. Mrs. Glover went into Mrs. Wcntworth's house to teach her the Quimby system for a con- sideration of three hundred dollars, which sum was to cover her board and lodging for a considerable period of time. The Wentworth household then consisted of the parents and 121 W2 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND two children, Charles and Lucy, the daughter being about fourteen years of age. The married son, Horace T. Went- worth, often dropped in to see his mother, and Mrs. Went- worth's niece — a spirited girl, now Mrs. Catherine Isabel Clapp, was in and out of the house continually. Mrs. Glover lived Vv'ith the Wentworths for about two years, leaving them only to make occasional visits in the neighbourhood or at Amesbury. At first all the family took great pleasure in her visit. Al- though Mrs. Glover seldom held her friends long, and although her friendships often terminated violently, when she exerted herself to charm, she seldom failed. Mrs. Wentworth used re- proachfully to declare to her less impressionable niece, " If ever there was a saint upon this earth, it is that woman." Both the children were fond of Mrs. Glover, but Lucy abandoned her- self to adoration. The child followed her about, waited upon her, and was eager to anticipate her every wish, even at the cost of displeasing her parents. She resented the slightest criticism of tlieir guest, and was deeply hurt by the jests which were passed in the village at IMrs. Glover's expense. j\Irs. Glover's highly coloured speech, her odd clothes, and grand ways, her interest in strange and mysterious subjects, her high mission to spread the truths of her dead master, made her an interesting figure in a humdrum New England village, and her very eccentricities and affectations varied the monotony of a quiet household. Her being " different " did, after all, result in material benefits to ]\Irs. Glover. All these people with whom she once stayed, love to talk of her, and most of them are glad to have known her, — even those who now say that the experience was a costly one. She was like a patch HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 123 of colour in those gray communities. She was never dull, her old hosts say, and never commonplace. She never laid aside her regal air ; never entered a room or left it like other people. There was something about her that continually excited and stimulated, and she gave people the feeling that a great deal was happening. Except for occasional angry outbursts, it was this engaging aspect of Mrs, Glover that, for many months, the Wentworths saw. She was tiresome only when she talked of Dr. Quimby, and then only because she discoursed upon him and his philos- ophy so often. Mrs. Clapp describes how, after long disserta- tions on mind and matter, Mrs. Glover would fold her hands in her lap, tilt her head on one side, and gently nodding, would, in mincing tones, enunciate this sentence: " I learned this from Dr. Quimby, and he made me promise to teach it to at least two persons before I die." She confided this fact to every one, always in the same phrase, with the same emphasis, and with the same sweetness, until it became a fashion for the village girls to mimic her. The estrangement which resulted in Mrs. Glover's leaving the"^^ house began in a difficulty between her and Mr. Wentworth. Mr. Wentworth was indignant because Mrs. Glover had at- tempted to persuade his wife to leave him and to go away with her and practise the Quimby treatment. After this, Mrs. Glover's former kindly feeling toward the family seemed to disappear altogether. Mrs. Clapp remembers going to the house one day and being disturbed by the sound of violent pounding on the floor upstairs. Her aunt, with some em- barrassment, explained that Mr. Wentworth was sick In bed, 124. LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND and that Mrs. Glover had shut herself in her room and was de- liberately pounding on the floor above his head to annoy him. Other things of a similar nature occurred, and Mrs. Wentworth was finally compelled to ask Mrs. Glover to leave the house as soon as she could find another place to stay. Horace T. Went- worth, in his affidavit, says: " Mrs. Wentworth consulted a member of the family as to the best way to bring about Mrs. Glover's departure. By this time my mother was almost in a state of terror regarding Mrs. Glover. She was so afraid of her that she hardly dared to go to sleep at night. She had a lock put on the door of her room so that Mrs. Glover could not get access to her, and ordered her to leave the house." Mrs. Glover chose for her departure a day when all the members of the Wentworth family were away from home. She took the train for Amcsbury, without a word of good-bye to any one. When the Wentworths returned that night, they went to Mrs. Glover's room and knocked, but could get no reply. Horace, the son, suggested forcing the lock, but his mother would not permit it, saying that such a liberty might offend Mrs. Glover, who had probably gone to spend the night with one of the neighbours. The next day they inquired among tlieir friends, but could get no news of their missing guest. Several days went by, and Mrs. Wentworth, becoming alarmed lest some mischance might have befallen Mrs. Glover, told her son to force the door and see if any clue to her whereabouts could be found in her room. Horace T. Wentworth, in his affidavit, thus describes his entering the room: HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 125 A few days after Mrs. Glover left, I and my mother went into the room which she had occupied. We were the first persons to enter the room after Mrs. Glover's departure. We found every breadth of matting slashed up through the middle, apparently with some sharp instrument. We also found the feather-bed all cut to pieces. We opened the door of a closet. On the floor was a pile of newspapers almost entirely con- sumed. On top of these papers was a shovelful of dead coals. These had evidently been left upon the paper by the last occupant. The only reasons that they had not set the house on fire evidently were because the closet door had been shut, and the air of the closet so dead, and because the newspapers were piled flat and did not readily ignite — were folded so tight, in other words, that they would not blaze. Mrs. Clapp, in her affidavit, substantiates this statement. The Wentworths never saw or directly heard from Mrs. Glover again. While Mrs. Glover was in Stoughton, she apparently had no ambition beyond expounding Quimby's philosophy and de- claring herself his disciple. She made no claim to having origi- nated anything she taught. Although Mrs. Eddy now believes that she discovered the secret of health through divine revelation in 1866, she was often ill while in the Wentworth house, 1868-1870, and on several occasions was confined to her bed for considerable periods of time. During her illnesses Mrs. Wentworth nursed and cared for her, rubbing her and treating her after the Quimby method. During her stay in Stoughton she made no claim to having received a divine revelation, or to having discovered any system of her own. She seldom associated her teachings with religion as such, and preached Quimbyism merely as an advanced system of treating disease. In instructing Mrs. Wentworth she used a manuscript, which, she always 126 LIFE OF I\1ARY BAKER G. EDDY AND said, liad been written by " Dr. Quimby of Portland, Me." She held tliis document as her most precious possession. " One day when I was at the Wentworths'," recently said Mrs. Clapp, " ]\Irs. Wentworth was busy copying this manuscript. I went to the buttery to get what I wanted, but couldn't find it, and called Mrs. Wentworth. She got up to get it for me, but before doing so, she put the manuscript in the desk and locked it. I expressed surprise that she should take such pains when she was only stepping across the room for a moment, and she said : ' Mrs. Glover made me promise never to leave this manu- script, even for a moment, without locking the desk.' " ]Mr. Horace T. Wentworth of Stoughton now has his mother's manuscript. He has made affidavit ^ that this is the document ^ COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, COUNTY OF NOUFOLKj SS. Horace T. WontworHi, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am sixty-four years of age, and reside in tlie Town of Stoughton, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and have resided there for upwards of sixty-tv.-o years past. I am the son of Alanson C. and Sally Wentworth, and my mother resided in said town of Stoughton from her birth to the time of her death, in 1S.S3. 1 became acquainted with Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, now of Concord, N. H., and known as the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, in the year 180S, when she was the wife of one Daniel Patterson, with whom she was not living, and was known by the name of a former husband, one George W. Glover, and called herself Mrs. Mary M. Glover. In 18(i7, Mrs. Glover came to Stoughton, and took up her residence at the house of one Iliram Crafts in said Town of Stoughton, and In 1868, after leaving said Crafts, she went upon the invitation of my mother, to the resi- dence of said Mrs. Sally Wentworth, of said Stoughton, and there continuously residid until the spring of the year 1,870. Very "often during the vears 1,808, l.siJ'J, and 1870, I saw and talked with said Mrs. Glover at my mother's said nshlrnce. Mrs. Wentworth invited said Mrs. Glover to visit her for the cxpr.'ss purpose of being taught, by said Mrs. Glover, a svstem of mental healing, which said Mrs. Glover said she had been taught bv one Dr. Phineas V. guimby, of Portland, Me. Said Mrs. Glover often spoke to me of said system of mental healing and always ascribed its origin and discovery to said CJuimby. Said Mrs. (Mover was outspoken in her acknowledgment that she learned her menial healing system from said Quimby, and never, to mv knowledge, while at my mother's house, made the slightest claim or pretensions to having discovered or originated it herself. Suid Mrs. Glover, upon coming to my mother's house, lent my mother her manuscript copy of what she. Jlrs. Glover, said were writings of said Quimbv, and permitled my inolhei to make a full manuscript copy thereof, and said innnuseript copy of the writings of said Quimby. in mv mother's handwriting, ami with cnrreclions and interlinealions in the handwriting of Mrs. Glover is ntiw, .md has been since my mother's death, in mv possession. On ihc outside, said ooiiy is entitled "Extracts from Doctor P. P. Quimhy's Writings, and at the head of the first page, on the inside, said copy is HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 127 copied by his mother from Mrs, Glover's, and that he has him- self heard Mrs. Glover attribute the original to Dr. Quimby. His brother, Charles O. Wentworth; his sister, Mrs. Arthur L. Holmes (then Miss Lucy Wentworth), and his cousin, Mrs. Catherine Isabel Clapp, have made affidavits to the same effect. This includes all members of the Wentworth household now living. The Wentworth manuscript itself powerfully supports these affidavits. Of chief interest are the title-page and the first fiirlhci- entitled " The Science of Man, or the Principle whicli Controls all Phenomena." There is a preface of two pages with Mrs. Mary M. Glover's name signed at the end. The extracts are in the form of fifteen questions and answers and are labelled. " Questions by patients, Answers by Dr. Quimby." Annexed hereto, marked " Exhibit A," is a full and complete copy of my mother's said copy of Mrs. Glover's said copy of Dr. Quimby's writings. . . . Annexed hereto and marked " Exhibit B " is a photograph of the first page of Mrs. Wentworth's manuscript plainly showing the additions made in a handwriting not my mother's. All of the said first page shown in Exhibit B is my mother's handwriting except the words " Wisdom Love & " added to the beginning of the fifteenth line, the word " of " and the symbol " & " added to the sixteenth line and the words " is in it " added to the seventeenth line, none of which additions is in my mother's handwriting. Annexed hereto and marked " Exhibit C " is a photograph of the second page of said manuscript plainly showing further additions in a handwriting not my mother's. All of the said second page sliown in Exhibit C is in my mother's handwriting except the words " wisdom love & " added to the second line, the word " believe " added to the eleventh line, none of which additions is in my mother's handwriting. I am perfectly familiar with my mother's handwriting; but am not familiar enough with said Mrs. Glover's handwriting to state positively from my ac- quaintance with it, that the said added words are written by her. This manu- script, however, came directly into my hands from my mother's desk at the time of her death ; the added words are not in the handwriting of any member of my family ; they are, as will be seen, in the nature of corrections to my mother's writing of said Mrs. Glover's signed preface to Dr. Quimliy's teach- ings, and, having compared them with unquestionable writing of said Mrs. Glover's, found with my mother's papers, and seen them to be strikingly similar, I am confidently of the opinion that they ai*e the writing of the only person interested in the correction of said Mrs. Glover's preface to said Dr. Quimby's writings, to wit, said Mrs. Mary M. Glover — Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy — herself. I have been often urged to make these facts known in the public interest, and have for years felt it my duty to tell the truth and the whole truth. . . . Horace T. Wentwouth. On this 9th day of February, 1907, at the Town of Stoughton, in the Com- monwealth of Massachusetts, personally appeai-od 1>efore me, Horace T. Went- worth, to me personally known, and made oath before me that he had read over tlie foregoing statement and knows the contents thereof, and that the same are true ; and he. thereupon, in my presence, did sign his name at the end of said statement, and at the foot of the cover. Edg.\e F. Leonard, Justice of the Peace. And before me a Notary Public appeared Horace T. Wentworth and made oath to above statement. Henky W. Bbitton, Notary Public. Stoughton, Maf^f:. FeJ). 9th, l'J07. 128 LIFE OF INIARY BAKER G. EDDY AND two pages, which are here reproduced in facsimile. The title- page reads, " Extracts from Doctor P. P. Quimby's Writings." On the first page of the manuscript appears the title, " The Science of Man or the principle which controls all phenomena." Then follows a preface, signed " Mary M. Glover." Following this is a marginal note, " P. P. Q.'s Mss.," and at this point begins the Quimby paper. Others who have copies of this same document declare that Mrs. Glover taught from them and sold them as copies of Quimby's manuscript. By examining the pages reproduced in facsimile, the reader will observe that some one has edited them, — that certain words are written in, not in the handwriting of Mrs. Wentworth. Beginning the fourth paragraph of the first page, are the words, " Wisdom Love & " ; two lines below this, are the words, " is in it " ; on the second page, second line, again, " wisdom love & " ; and on the eleventh line of the same page, " believe." Mrs. Clapp, who was familiar with Mrs. Glover's handwriting at the time, having copied many pages of her manuscript, takes oath that she believes these interlineations to be Mrs. Glover's. jNlr. William G. Nixon of Boston, who, as the publisher for several years of Mrs. Eddy's books, handled thousands of pages of her manuscript, also takes oath that in his opinion these words are in her handwriting. George A. Quimby of Belfast, Mc, has lent to the writer one of his father's manuscripts, entitled, " Questions and Answers." This is in the handwriting of Mr. Quimby's mother, the wife of Phineas P. Quimby, and is dated, in Mrs. Quimby's handwriting, February, 1862, — nine months before Mrs. Eddy's first visit to Portland. For twenty closely written pages, Quimby's manuscript, " Questions and ,J JiJt 'Ucu net (-^ ''JlcLfl. eci' ^'n CLu> JCCi HyiC t/u ilMifLU ai£ ^ 1 1--^ ft, fA~f^ J , J rrC ^, eiHJ Ci^aJ ^>*-C^c,cft4< eA AUi- '^ <(-e-''^. frj-t^ ^ Slt.^^AA^ MrAo-A A'-cA^ ,(r // l.CJ-A t/~a.3 / Ai ^-A J,', -env i/ " •■< >fci/l^ ^^X^^^^J ,:^c^. t/lc C^^A£t , ////"^ow .'/J -V-,, ',..-, /^ fij. '/ // ' —, ' 'j! A^ Title page and part of the tirst page of the manuscript from which Mrs. Glover taught Mrs. Wentworth the system of mental healing which she ascribed to P. P. Quimby HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 129 Answers," is word for word the same as Mrs. Glover's manu- script, " The Science of Man." ^ The relation of Quimby's " Questions and Answers " to the Christian Science doctrine will be discussed in a later chapter. The following quotations, taken at random, illustrate the fact that the Quimby manuscript abounds in ideas and phrases familiar to every Christian Scientist. If I understand how disease originates in the mind and fully believe it, why cannot I cure myself? Disease being made by our beliefs or by our parents' beliefs or by public opinion, there is no one formula of argument to be adopted, but every one must be hit in their particular case. Therefore it requires great shrewdness or wisdom to get the better of the error. I know of no better counsel than Jesus gave to His Disciples when He sent them forth to cast out devils, and heal the sick, and thus in practice to preach the Truth " Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves." Never get into a passion, but in patience possess ye your soul, and at length . j^ou weary out the discord and produce harmony by your Truth destroying error. Then it is you get the case. Now, if you are not afraid to face the error and argue it down, then you can heal the sick. The isatient's disease is in his belief. Error is sickness. Truth is health. In this science the names are given thus: God is Wisdom. This Wisdom is not an individuality but a principle, embraces every idea form, of which the idea, man, is the highest — hence the image of God, or the Principle. Understanding is God. All sciences are part of God. Truth is God. There is no other Truth but God. God is Wisdom. God is Principle. Wisdom, Love, and Truth are the Principle. Error is matter. Matter has no intelligence. To give intelligence to matter is an error which is sickness. Matter has no intelligence of its own, and to believe intelligence is in matter is the error which produces pain and inharmony of all sorts; to 2 The manuscript Science of Man, from which Mrs. Glover taught, Is not the same work as her printed pamphlet of that title, 130 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND hold ourselves we are a principle outside of matter, we would not be influenced by the opinions of man, but held to the worliings only of a principle, Truth, in which there are no inharmonies of sickness, pain or sin. For matter is an error, there being no substance, which is Truth, in a thing which ciianges and is only that which belief makes it. Christ was the Wisdom that knew Truth dwelt not in opinion, and tiiat matter was but opinion that could be formed into any shape which the belief gave to it, and that the life which moved it came not from it, but was outside of it. In teaching Mrs. Wentworth, Mrs. Glover supplemented the Quimby manuscripts with oral instruction. She taught Mrs. Wentworth to rub her patient's head, precisely as did Quimby, and to say, as she did so : " It is not necessary for me to rub your head, but I do it to concentrate my thoughts." In addi- tion she taught Mrs. Wentworth to lay her hands over the patient's stomach. Mrs. Eddy left a few scraps of writing at the Wentworths', all connected with her teachings. Of especial interest are the instructions which she wrote out to direct Mrs. Wentworth in treating the sick. These Mr. Horace T. Wentworth has in licr own handwriting. The first two pages of this manuscript read as follows: (The spelling, punctuation, etc., follow the original MS.) An argument for the sick having what is termed fever chills and heat with sleepless nights, and called spinal inflammation. The patient has been doctoring the sick one patient is an opium eater, with catarrh, great fear of the air, etc. Another had inflammation of the joints or rheumatism, and liver complaint another scrofula and rheuma- tism, and another dyspepsia, all of them having the most intense fear. First the fever is to be argued down. What is heat and chills we answer nothing but an effect produced upon the body by images of disease before the spiritual senses wherefore you must say of heat and chill you are not hot you are not cold you are only the eflFect of fright there is no such thing as heat and cold if there were you would not HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 131 grow hot when angry or abashed or frightened and the temperature around not changed in the least. Inflammation is not inflammation or redness and soreness of any part this is your belief only and this belief is the red dragon the King of beasts which means this belief of inflammation is the leading lie out of which you get your fright that causes chills and heat. Now look it down cause your patient to look at this truth with you call upon their spiritual senses to look with your view which sees no such image and thus waken them out of their dream that is causing them so much suff"ering, etc. In her autobiographical sketches, Mrs. Eddy does not men- tion the years she spent in Stoughton, Taunton, and Ames- bury. In Restrospection and Introspection, page 39, she says, after recounting the manner of her miraculous recovery and revelation in 1866: I then withdrew from society about three j^ears, — to ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind, that should take the things of God and show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative Principle, — Deity. The record of these wandering, vagarious years from 1864< to 1870 is far from being satisfactory biography; the number of houses in which she lived, her quarrels and eccentricities, by no means tell us the one thing which is of real importance: what, all this time, was going on in Mrs. Glover's own conscious- ness. Wherever she went, she taught, now a shoemaker, now a dressmaker, now a boy in the box factory; and wherever she went, she wrote. Her first book was not published until 1875,1 but for eight years before she was always writing; working upon articles and treatises which were eventually incorporated in this first edition of Science and Health. As early as 1866, when she was in Lynn, she said that she was writing a Bible, and was almost through Genesis. Several years later, at the Wentworths', she pointed affectionately to a pile of note-paper 132 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND tied up with a string, which lay on her desk, and told Mrs. Clapp tliat it was her Bible, and that she had completed the Book of Genesis. Mrs. Clapp at that time copied for Mrs. Glover a bulky manuscript, which she believes was one of the early drafts of Science and Health. She recalls many passages, and remembers her amusement in copying the following passage, which now occurs on page 413 of Science and Health: The daily ablutions of-an infant are no more natural or necessary than would be the process of taking a fish out of water every day and covering it with dirt in order to make it thrive more vigorously thereafter in its native element. After Mrs. Clapp had finished copying the manuscript, Mrs. Glover took it to Boston to find a publisher. Six hundred dollars, cash, in advance, was the only condition on which a pubhsher would undertake to get out the book, and Mrs. Glover returned to Stoughton and vainly besought Mrs. Wentworth to mortgage the farm to raise money. Mrs. Glover's persistence was all the more remarkable in that the trade of authorship presented peculiar difficulties for her. Although from her youth she had never lost an oppor- tunity to write for the local papers, and although when she first went to Dr. Quimby she introduced herself to him as an " authoress," her contributions in the old files of the Lynn papers show that she had had no training In the elementary essentials of composition. The quoted extracts from her written in- structions to Mrs. Wentworth are indicative of her difficulties with punctuation, which was always a laborious second thought with her. From her letters and early manuscripts it is evident that lucid, clean-cut expression was ahnost impossible to Mrs. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 133 Glover. Some of her first dissertations upon Quimbyism were so confused as to be almost unintelligible. She had, indeed, to fashion her own tools in those years when she was carpentering away at her manuscript and struggling to get her mass of notes into some coherent form. Her mind was as untrained as her pen. Logical thought was not within her compass, and even her sporadic ideas were vague and befogged. Yet, strangely enough, her task was to present an abstract theory, and to present it largely in writing. Everything depended upon her getting a hearing. In the first place, her doctrine was her only congenial means of making a living. In the second, it was the one thing about which she knew more than the people around her, and il; gave her that distinction which was necessary to her. Above all, she had a natural aptitude for the subject and absorbed it until it literally became a part of her. Mercenary motives were always strong with Mrs. Glover, but no mercenary motive seems adequately to explain her devotion to this idea. After Quimby's death in ^66, his other pupils were silent; but Mrs. Glover, wandering about with no capital but her enthusiasm, was preaching still. Her fellow-students in Portland were people of wider experi- ence than she, and had more than one interest ; but only one idea had ever come very close to Mrs. Glover, and neither things present nor things to come could separate her from it. But Mrs. Glover had not the temperament of the dreamer and devotee. There was one thing in her stronger even than her monomania, and that was her masterfulness. Others of his pupils lost themselves in Quimby's philosophy, but Mrs. Glover lost Quimby in herself. CHAPTER IX MRS. GLOVER GOES INTO PARTNERSHIP WITH RICHARD KENNEDY THEIR ESTABLISHMENT IN LYNN MRS. GLOVEr's FIRST DISCIPLES DISAGREEMENTS AND LAWSUITS When Mrs. Glover left Stoughton early in the year 1870, she went directly to the home of her friend, Miss Sarah Bagley, in Amesbury, Mass. During her former stay in Amesbury, more than two years before, she had undertaken the instruction of a boy in whom she saw exceptional possibilities. When she first met Richard Kennedy, he was a boy of eighteen, ruddy, sandy-haired, with an unfailing flow of good spirits and a lively wit which did not belie his Irish ancestry. From his childhood he had made his own way, and he was then living at Captain Webster's and working in a box factory. Mrs. Glover recognised in him, as she did in every one she met, excellent capital for a future practitioner. He studied zealously with her while she remained at the Wcbsters', and when she was compelled to leave the house, Kennedy, with Quixotic loyalty becoming his years, left with her. After she went to Stoughton, Mrs. Glover wrote to him often, and whenever he could spare the time, he went over from Amesbury to take a lesson. After her break with the Wcntworths, Mrs. Glover at once sought him out. He was then her most promising pupil, and her only hope of getting 134 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 135 the Quimby science upon any practical basis. Her experiment with Hiram Crafts had failed and she had not succeeded in her efforts to induce Mrs. Crosby in Albion, or Mrs. Wentworth in Stoughton, to give up their homes and go into the business of teaching and practising the Quimby system with her. What -, Mrs. Glover most wanted was a partner, and she now saw one in Richard Kennedy. He was nearly twenty-one and suffi- ciently well-grounded in the principles of mind-cure to begin practising. Mrs. Glover had not, up to this time, achieved any success as a healer herself, and she had come to see that her power lay almost exclusively in teaching the theory. With- out a practical demonstration of its benefits, however, the theory of her Science excited little interest, and it was in con- junction with a practising student that she could teach most effectively. She entered into an agreement with young Kennedy to the effect that they were to open an office in Lynn, Mass., and were to remain together three years. In June, 1870, Mrs. Glover and Richard Kennedy went toi Lynn. They stayed temporarily at the home of Mrs. Clarkson' Oliver, whom Kennedy had known in Amesbury, while he looked about for suitable offices. He heard that Miss Susie Magoun, who conducted a private school for young children, had just leased a building on the corner of Shepard and South Common Streets and was desirous of subletting the second floor. Miss Magoun, now Mrs. John M. Dame of Lynn, remembers how one June evening, when she was looking over the building to decide upon the arrangement of her schoolrooms, a very boyish- looking young man appeared and nervously asked whether she intended to let a part of the house. He said he was looking 136 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND for offices for a physician. Miss Magoun, misled by his youth- ful appearance, at once supposed that he wanted the rooms for his father, wliich caused the boy some embarrassment. He told her that the five rooms upstairs would not be too many for him, as he should bring with him " an elderly woman who was writing a book," and they would each need offices and sleeping-rooms. Miss Magoun liked the boy's candour and told him he might move in. He drew a sigh of relief, telling her that so many people had refused him that he had almost lost heart. Even when Miss Magoun's friends prophesied that she would lose her rent, she did not repent of her bargain ; and she never afterward had occasion to do so. Miss Magoun's first meeting with Mrs. Glover occurred some days later, when her new tenants came to take possession of their rooms. As she was hurrying through the hall to her classroom, young Kennedy stopped her and introduced his partner. Mrs. Glover boAved and at once began to explain to her astonished landlady the Quimby theory of the universe and the non-existence of matter. Kennedy's sign, which was put on a tree in the yard, read simply : " Dr. Kennedy." The rooms upstairs were very plainly furnished, for Mrs. Glover had no money and her student very little. They bought only such articles of furniture as were absolutely necessary, covered the floor with paper oil-cloth, and put up cheap shades at the windows. Much to Miss Magoun's surprise, patients began to come in before the first week was over, and at the end of the month Kennedy was able to pay his rent promptly. By the first of September the young man's practice was flourishing. Miss Magoun's school was in excel- HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 137 lent standing, and the fact that his office was in the same build- ing recommended the young practitioner, while she herself was glad to say a good word for him whenever she could. It became a common thing for the friends of discouraged invalids to say: "Go to Dr. Kennedy. He can't hurt you, even if he doesn't help you." His offices were sometimes so crowded that he would have to ask his patients to await their turn below in Miss Magoun's parlour. The children in the school were fond of him, and he often found time to run downstairs about dis- missal hour and help Miss Magoun and her assistant get the younger pupils into their wraps and overshoes. He knew them all by name, and sometimes joined in their games. Mrs. Glover herself, during these first months, remained much in the background, a solitary and somewhat sombre figure, ap- plying herself to her work with ever-increasing seriousness. For the first time she was free from pecuniary embarrassments, and she concentrated her energies upon her teaching, and writing with a determination which she had never before shown. She seldom went out of the house, was usually silent at Miss Magoun's dinner-table, and the school children, when they met her in the hall, hurried curiously past the grave, abstracted woman, who never spoke to them or noticed them. Far from relaxing in an atmosphere of comparative prosperity, she was impatient of the easy-going friendliness of the people about her. She was contemptuous of the active part which Kennedy took in the social life around him, and resented his having much to do with Miss Magoun's young friends. She continually urged him to put aside every other interest and concentrate himself wholly upon Science. She was annoyed at the women patients 138 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND who came often for treatment, and when she saw them sitting in the front office awaiting their turn, she sometimes referred to them as " the stool-pigeons." She began in these days to sense the possibihties of the principle she taught, and to see further than a step ahead. She often told Kennedy that she would one day establish a great religion which would reverence her as its founder and source. " Richard," she would declare, looking at him intently, " you will live to hear the church-bells ring out my birthday." And on July 16, 1904, they did — her own bells, in her own church at Concord. The foeling of at last having her foot in the stirrup seemed to crystallise and direct Mrs. Glover's ambition as adversity had never done. She had something the world had waited for, she told Kennedy, and she meant to make the world pay for it. She often declared that she had been born an unwelcome child, and that from the first every man's hand had been against her. Although she was in her fiftieth year, Mrs. Glover had not reached the maturity of her powers. During these early years in Lynn she becomes in every way a more commanding and formidable person. Since she no longer had to live by her wits, certain affectations and ingratiating mannerisms became less pronounced. The little distinction for which she had fought so tenaciously, and which she had been put at such shifts to maintain, was now respectfully admitted by all her students — and by some even reverently. She began to dress better. Her thin face filled out, her figure lost its gauntness and took on an added dignity. People who were afraid of her complained that her " hawk-eye " looked clear through them, and persons who admired her compared her eye to an eagle's. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 139 Once relieved of the necessity of compelling attention from hither and yon, she conserved her powers and exerted herself only when she could hope for a commensurate result. In follow- ing her through the six years prior to 1870, one is struck with her seeming helplessness against herself and against circum- stances, and with the preponderant element of blind chance in her life. Before she had been in Lynn a year, she had come to work with some sort of plan, and her life was more orderly and effective than it had ever been before. Her power was one of personality, and people were her material; — her church, which so persistently denies personality, is built upon it. Her abilities were administrative rather than executive, and without a cabinet she exemplified the old fable of the impotence of the head without the body. Mrs. Glover at first called the thing she taught merely " science," but when she had her professional cards printed they read : MRS. MARY M. GLOVER, teacher of Moral Science. Her first students in Lynn were persons whom Richard Ken- nedy had cured or friends of his patients. The case of two young men in her first class will serve to illustrate. Mrs. Charles -S. Stanley, who was suffering from tuberculosis in an advanced stage, was greatly benefited by Kennedy. She en- treated her husband and her half-brother to take instruction under Mrs. Glover, and they did so. Her husband at first felt that he had an aptitude for the subject and eventually became 140 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND a practising student. As to the half-brother, George Tuttle, Mrs. Glover felt that there she had cast her seed upon ston^; ground ; and certainly he must have been an incongruous figure in the little circle which met in her rooms to " unlearn matter." A stalwart, strapping lad, he had just returned from a cruise to Calcutta on the sailing vessel John Clark, which carried ice from Boston Harbour to the Indies. The young seaman, when asked what he thought he would get out of Mrs. Glover's class, replied that he didn't think about it at all, he joined because his sister asked him to. He even tried, in a bashful way, to practise a little, but he says that when he actually cured a girl of dropsy, he was so surprised and frightened that he washed his hands of Moral Science. Mrs. Glover's course consisted of twelve lectures and extended over a period of three weeks. Her students were required to make a cop}^ of the Quimby manuscript which Mrs. Glover called *' The Science of Man," and although each was allowed to keep his copy, he was usually put under a formal three- thousand- dollar bond not to show it. As soon as the student had taken the final lesson, Mrs. Glover addressed him or her as " Doctor," and considered that a degree had been conferred. Often she wrote her students a congratulatory letter upon their gradua- tion, addressing them by their newly acquired titles. The members of her first class in Lynn each paid one hundred dollars for the lessons. Each also agreed to give Mrs. Glover a percentage on the income from his practice. Tuttle and Stan- ley executed an agreement with her which was substantially in the following words : "Lynn, Aug. 15, 1870. We, the undersigned, do hereby HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 141 agree in consideration of instruction and manuscripts received from Mrs. Mary Baker Glover, to pay one hundred dollars in advance and ten per cent, annually on the income that we re- ceive from practising or teaching the science. We also agree to pay her one thousand dollars in case we do not practise or teach the above-mentioned science that she has taught us. (Signed) G. H. Tuttle, Charles S. Stanley." ' Trouble arose between George Tuttle and Charles Stanley and their teacher, and Mrs. Glover dismissed Stanley from the class. Although he afterward practised mental healing with some success, it was not with Mrs. Glover's sanction, and he finally became a homoeopathic physician. In 1879 Mrs. Glover brought a suit in equity in the Essex County Court against Tuttle and Stanley for unpaid tuition. Judge George F. Choate,^ the referee in the case, at his death left among his papers his book of minutes on this case of " Mary B. Eddy vs. G. H. Tuttle et cil" — written out in long hand, which throws light on Mrs. Glover's methods of teaching and on her relation to her pupils. Judge Choate's notes on Stanley's testimony are in part as follows : I went to Mrs, Eddy for the purpose of taking lessons — She pretended to teach me — She never taught me anything — I never told anybody I prac- tised her method. I was acquainted with Dr. Kennedy in Lynn. He practised physical manipulation. He first led me to commence practice, etc. — My wife was doctored by Dr. Kennedy — My wife told me Mrs. Eddy wanted to see me. I went, and Mrs. Eddy said she was about starting a class for others like me — She said she had manuscripts, not books, etc. She said she taught setting bones and obstetrics — she said she could teach me in six weeks to be as good a physician as any in the city. She wanted $100. I said I was too poor and could not pay — I left. My wife and I went 1 George F. Choate of Salem was for many years probate judge in Essex County, Mass. 14,2 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND again in the evening, and she urged me — finally I paid her $35 advance. Then I saw Tuttle with a manuscript. He said to get one to copy. I got paper. I asked her to postpone my lessons till, etc. — She said you don't require to eat in order to live. I said yes. She said she had got so far that she could live without eating. She called me and Tuttle to a room, showed me a paper. When she asked us to sign, I objected— She said when we had learned this and the other one (manuscript) which she would have for us, she would go with us and find a place, etc., and on these conditions, i. e., that she would teach us obstetrics, setting bones, and would go with us and find place, etc., I signed the agreement.^ She said she always went with students to see them well located, that she required this agreement — ^that she furnished other manuscripts, that this one was only a commencement. She turned me out of the class at the end of three weeks. She told me I couldn't practise her method anyway because I was a Baptist — We were to have a six weeks' course, and it was at end of two weeks she told me to leave. Finding that I could have a good effect upon my wife when she was sick and would have severe coughing spells, I thought likely I could have a good effect upon others. I saw what was in those manuscripts and asked her when the others she spoke of were coming. I asked her what to do if called to a person with a broken limb — She said if so, tell them there isn't any broken limb, that it is all belief, etc. The testimony of George H. Tuttle, in the same suit, is recorded in Judge Choate's minutes as follows : In 1870 I knew Mrs. Eddy — was a student of hers. My sister was being attended by Dr. Kennedy, and through my sister I was induced to go up to Mrs. Eddy's with Dr. Stanley and my sister. We signed an agreement — This is the agreement — She showed us how all diseases could be cured and that there was no sort of disease that she could not cure — Said that she would make us more successful than any physician. Tlie instructions were simply that we were to understand the teachings of the manuscript and that fully understanding it we should be able to heal all disease — We took lessons for a week and a half to two weeks, in the evenings only,— but every day, I think— There used to be an abundance of talk between her and Stanley — Considerable misunderstanding — about payments — and about his religion. She said that he couldn't be a success in this line so long as he adhered to the Baptist faith. ^Thc text of this agreement is given above. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 143 1 She said she could walk on the water — Could live without eating — He disputed with her — Offered to stand it without eating as long as she, and she backed down — She was to enable us to heal all diseases — bone-setting — obstetrics — and to treat everything successfully, — and she was to go with us and see that we had success. She used to hold up consumption and tell us that there was no such thing as lungs — no liver — and they were all imagination — She became dissatisfied sometimes with him (Stanley) and sometimes with me — Finally she recalled the manuscripts, claiming that she wanted to make some alterations. I haven't got mine back, but she gave me another one finally. This is the one. Our instructions ceased — She had taken our manuscripts, and we were literally turned out — I learned from Stanley that he had been dismissed. We went to see her and demanded our manuscripts— Did not get them — She complained of him, said she was dissatisfied — that he had fallen from grace and was going back on it — was attracted to the Baptist belief, etc., and he could not go on — Dr. Stanley and I went up together for the manuscripts. I don't remember the talk, but there were faultfindings. She was dissatisfied with him — because he didn't pay — and with his dulness and inability to comprehend it (her Science) — In the first place she had held out to us that the knowledge of her principle and the possession of this power would surely attract patients to us, so that we couldn't fail to get patients — She said she had seen the dead raised — I didn't know if dead could be raised — I in part believed that those appar- ently dead had been raised. I got treatment by Dr. Kennedy— In as much as she sent us out to Dr. Kennedy for a (practical) example, I suppose, — She taught rubbing, putting hand in water and upon the stomach, etc. She claimed that Stanley must surrender everything, surrender the Baptist as every other creed — At the time we went for our manuscripts we were both turned out — Stanley gave her a piece of his mind — told her she was a fraud, etc. I never regularly practised, because I never understood it. Stanlej^ said to her she was a fraud in getting the manuscripts back and generally — He was very mistrustful throughout. I don't think he had studied even the three weeks out. She said she would give us other manuscripts in reference to bone setting — I don't remember what she said about obstetrics; she said generally that he would have only to walk into the room and be filled with the understanding, and all pain would disappear — I don't know but that some- thing further was to be done in cases of bone setting. When Mrs. Eddy took the stand, she said : lU LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND I told the defendant it was a very good method and better than I had found before of healing sick. I taught him the method. I told him it was through the action of mind upon the body— Don't recollect that I said it would cure all diseases. I didn't limit or unlimit it. I don't know that I meant for him to understand that it will heal everything— I presume I intended him to understand that it was a better method than any other. I don't think I ever told any student that it would heal every disease. I cannot give you an explanation — you have not studied it. The principle is mind operating on the body. The mind is cause of disease — Through mind scarlet fever and diph- theria are cured — I have found that through the action of mind I could cure, as I have done, apoplexy, paralysis, etc., — Heart disease, enlargement of heart, consumption are cured by mind — I have cured cases of con- sumption found hopeless by action of mind, blindness, deafness, etc. The Prisoner of Chillon found that gray hairs are produced through the mind — I haven't tried my system on old age yet. I didn't promise to teach him bone setting or obstetrics. Nor that I would furnish other manuscripts, nor that I would go with him to find his place, etc. Might have said I would make him a good physician — I taught him the application of hands and water — He told me he hadn't the means to pay me and that if I would take him by installments, he would study — I didn't dismiss him, but he said " I understand enough now to do more than any of your students," that he knew enough now to go right into practice. I never tauglit mesmerism. I did teach the laying on of hands — not with power — I did teach manipulation in 'sixty-seven, 'sixty-eight and 'sixty-nine and in 'seventy — I ceased — I can't tell the date — Can't tell if 'seventy, 'seventy-one. I did teach Mr. Stanley manipulation — that was not my principle, it was my method — My method was metaphysical — I taught it — I don't know for what — it was because I saw a hand helped me — I thought it was a good method — I can't say whether it is a science, I can't say whether a part or the whole of it is a science — if it is practised right it is a science — that part which is eflFective and heals the sick Is a science — I don't know as I can explain it. I do not claim it as a discovery (manipula- tion), / had known of it always. Can't tell if I knew of this will power before I knew Dr. Quimby — It is not always necessary to know what is the belief. I should generally require them (my students) to keep the ten com- mandments—Should require them to be moral. I can argue to myself that striking my hand upon the table will not pro- duce i)ain— I don't think I could produce the effect that this knife would not produce a wound, but that I could argue myself out of the pain. I have not HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 145 claimed to have gone as far as that. I have said that belongs to future time. I can alleviate — I cannot prevent a broken bone. I would send for a surgeon and set the bone — and after that I would alleviate the pain and inflammation. Can't do more in my present development — / have seen the dead in understanding raised '^The infant is the son of the parent and the parents' mind governs its mind — Through the parents' mind I cure the infant. Before 1872 I taught manipulation and the use of water. That was not all I taught — I never said that was the science, but I said it was a method, and imtil I saw a student doing great evil, etc.* Richard Kennedy in his testimony said: I went to Lynn to practise with Mrs. Eddy. Our partnership was only in the practice, not in her teaching. I practised healing the sick by physical manipulation — The mode was operating upon the head giving vigorous rubbing — This was a part of her system that I had learned — The special thing she was to teach me was the science of healing by soul power — I have never been able to come to knowledge of that principle — She gave me a great deal of instruction of the so-called principle, but I have not been able to understand it — She claimed that it would cure advanced stages of consumption and the worse cases of violent disease, that these were but trifles under her Science. I was there at the time Stanley was there — I made the greatest effort to practise upon her principle, and I have never had any proof that I had attained to it or had any success from it. I had nothing to do with the instructions — She told me that she had expelled Mr. Stanley from the class — of his incompetency to understand her science — that it was impossible to convince him of the folly of his times — that his faith in a personal God and prayer teas such that she could not overcome it — She used the word Baptist in connection with him because he loas a Baptist — hut it was the same with all other creeds. So long as they believed in a^ personal God and the response to prayer, they cotdd, not progress in the scientific religion — I performed the manipu- lation of Mr. Stanley as follows: Mrs. Eddy requested me to rub Mr. Stanley's head and to lay special stress upon the idea that there was no personal God, while I was rubbing him. I never entirely gave up my belief in a personal God, though my belief was pretty well shaken up. ' See letter to W. W. Wrisrht on page 149. * Reference to Richard Kennedy. 146 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND In rendering a decision In favour of Tuttle and Stanley, Judge Choate said: Upon a careful examination I do not find any instructions given by her nor any explanations of her "science" or "method of healing" which appear intelligible to ordinary comprehension, or which could in any way be of value in fitting the Defendant as a competent and successful prac- titioner of any intelligible art or method of healing the sick, and I am of opinion that the consideration for the agreement has wholly failed, and I so find. Within a few weeks after her first class was organised, Mrs. Glover raised her tuition fee to three hundred dollars, which price was never afterward changed. Concerning her reasons for fixing upon this sum, Mrs. Eddy says : When God impelled me to set a price on my instruction in Christian Science Mind-healing, I could think of no financial equivalent for an impartation of a knowledge of that divine power which heals; but I was led to name three hundred dollars as the price for each pupil in one course of lessons at my college,^a startling sum for tuition lasting barely three weeks. This amount greatly trouliled me. I shrank from asking it, but was finally led, by a strange providence, to accept this fee. God has since shown me, in multitudinous ways, the wisdom of this decision; and I beg disinterested people to ask my loyal students if they consider three hundred dollars any real equivalent for my instruction during twelve half-days, or even in half as many lessons.' In 1888 Mrs. Eddy reduced the course of twelve lessons to seven, but the tuition fee still remained three hundred dollars. In the Christian Science Journal for December, 1888, she pub- lished the following notice: Having reached a place in teaching where my students in Christian Science are taught more during seven lessons in the primary class than they were formerly in twelve, and taught all that is profitable at one time, hereafter the primary class will include seven lessons only. As this number of lessons is of more value than twice this number in times past, no change is made in the price of tuition, three hundred dollars. Mary Baker G. Eddy. lietrovpection and Introspection, p. 71. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 147 Most of Mrs. Glover's early students were artisans; many of them shoe-workers. Lynn was then a city of about thirty thousand inhabitants, and shoemaking was, as it now is, the large and characteristic industry. Many of the farmers about the country had little shoeshops in their backyards, and during the winter season took out piecework from the factories. The majority of the village and country boys had had something to do with shoemaking before they went into business or chose a pro- fession, and when Whittier went from the farm to attend the academy at Haverhill, he was able to pay his way by making slippers. Among Mrs. Glover's first students were S. P. Ban- croft, a shoe-worker ; George W. Barry, foreman in a shoeshop ; Dorcas Rawson, a shoe-worker, and her sister Mrs. Miranda R. Rice; Charles S. Stanley, a shoe-worker; Miss Frances Spinney, who had a shop in which she employed a score of girls to sew on women's shoes ; Mrs. Otis Vickary ; George H. Allen, who was employed in his father's box factory, and Wallace W. Wright, then accountant in a bank. Liberal religious ideas flourished in New England thirty-five years ago, and although one woman left the class because " Mrs. Glover was taking Christ away from her," most of the students were ready to accept the idea of an impersonal God and to deny the existence of matter. Even Dorcas Rawson, who was an ardent Methodist and had " professed holiness," unhesitatingly accepted the statement that God was Principle. From the very beginning of her teaching Mrs. Glover had with her students those differences which later made her career so stormy. After the defection of Stanley and Tuttle, Mrs. Vickary, dissatisfied v/ith her instruction, sued for and recov- 148 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND ortd the one hundred and fifty doHars which she had paid in advance for tuition." Wallace Wright, one of the most intelligent of her early students, publicly attacked in the Lynn press the " Moral Science," as it was then called, which he had studied under Mrs. Glover. Wallace W. Wright was the son of a Universalist clergyman of Lynn, and a brother of Carroll D. Wright, who afterward became United States Commissioner of Labour. He was re- garded as one of the most promising young business men in Lynn, when he was drowned in the wreck of the City of Colum- bus, off Gayhead Light, January 18, 1884. W^hen he first studied under Mrs. Glover, he was very enthusiastic over her Science and, much to his own surprise, made several successful demonstrations. Before he entered her class, he had made careful inquiries about the nature of what she taught. Both he and his father were interested in her claims and wished to pin Mrs. Glover down to exact statements concerning her Science. He wrote her a letter, asking her nine questions, and requesting an answer to each in writing. {Here follow the most significant of Mr. Wright's questions, together with Mrs. Glover's answers) : '' QuESTiox 1 — Upon what principle is your science founded? Answer 1 — On God, tlie principle of man. •The suit Mrs Otis Vickary versus IMary M. B. Patterson, was entered In tlio Lynn Police Court on Aiisiist ?,. 1872. (Mrs. Olover had not vet obtained L^,*'^L "*. ° '-1.^'' Y^' f"™«'i" name) The Lynn Five Cent Savings-Bank was 51,?^^, ''^ ''^ ^J","^*r- J^r^^ ^he Savinps-Bank and the Defendant were 6e- rtorn/ fU,!^'i?"'"'t?,*'-^' J«" fai'u''<' to appear and answer, and judgment was ren- aered foi the 1 laintiff and execution issued for the amount of $150 and $5.73 lor costs, on August 0th. mi'f«'tbn?'n^''^^ {'^'^'■^ question and Mrs. Glover's answer, in which she ad- S^arch for nvon^fv «'"" '^'•«^tised her Science and had made it a subject of re- search for twcnty-hve years, was quoted on page 101. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 149 Question 2 — Is a knowledge of anatomy necessary to the success of the student or practitioner? Answer 2 — It is a hindrance instead of help, anatomy belongs to knowledge, the Science I teach, to God, one is the tree whereof wisdom forbade man to partake, the other is the " tree of life." Question 3 — Will it meet the demands of extreme, acute cases? Answer 3 — Yes, beyond all other known methods of healing; it is in acute and extreme cases that this science is seen most clearly in its demonstrations over matter. Question 4 — Is a knowledge of disease necessary to effect cures? Answer 4 — This " knowledge " is what science comes to destroy. Question 7 — Does it admit of universal application? Answer 7 — Yes, even to raising or restoring those called dead. I have witnessed this myself, therefore I testify of what I have seen.* In June, 1871, Mr. Wright went to Knoxville, Tenn., and there entered into practice. Of this experience he afterward wrote : The 9th of last June found me in Knoxville, Tennessee, as assistant to a former student. We met with good success in a majority of our cases, but some of them utterly refused to yield to the treatment. Soon after settling in Knoxville I began to question the propriety of calling this treatment " Moral Science " instead of mesmerism. Away from the influence of argument which the teacher of this so-called science knows how to bring to bear upon students with such force as to outweigh any attempts they may make at the time to oppose it, I commenced to think more independently, and to argue with myself as to the truth of the positions we were called upon to take. The result of this course was to convince me that I had studied the science of mesmerism.' Wright accordingly wrote to Mrs. Glover from Knoxville, asking her to refund the three hundred dollars which he had paid for his tuition and also to compensate him for the two hundred dollars which his venture had cost him. On his return to Lynn * In Mrf3. Eddy's testimony in hor suit against Stanloy and Tuttlo, printed in tliis article, she states that she has seen the dead in understanding awaken through her Science. — See page 145. * Lynn Transcript, January 13, 1872. 150 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND he called upon Mrs. Glover and repeated this request. On January 13, 1872, Mr. Wright published a signed letter in the Lynn Transcript, stating that he believed Moral Science and Mesmerism to be one and the same thing, and warning other students against being misled. Mrs. Glover replied to this letter in the same paper, January 20th, stating that Mr. Wright had made an unreasonable demand to which she had refused to accede, and that he was now attacking her Science from motives of revenge: 'Tis but a few weeks since he called on me and threatened that if I did not refund his tuition fee and pay him $200 extra he would prevent my ever having another class in this city. Said he, " my simple purpose now is revenge, and I will have it " — and this, too, immediately after saying to individuals in this city that the last lesson the class received of which he was a member, was alone worth all he had paid for tuition. . . . Very soon after this, however, I received a letter from him requesting me to pay him over and above all I had received from him, or in case I should not, he would ruin the Science. I smiled at the threat and told a lady at my side, "If you see him, tell him first to take a bucket and dip the Atlantic dry, and then try his powers on this next scheme." . . . JNIy few remaining years will be devoted to the cause I have espoused, viz: — to teach and to demonstrate the Moral and Physical Science that can heal the sick. Well knowing as I do that God hath bidden me, I shall steadfastly adhere to my purpose to benefit my sufi'ering fellow- beings, even though it be amid the most malignant misrepresentation and persecution. Mary M. B. Glover This controversy continued several weeks, occupying columns of the Transcript, and on February 10th, Mr. Wright issued the following challenge: And now in conclusion I publicly challenge Mrs. Mary Baker Glover to demonstrate her science by any of the following methods, promising, if she is successful, to retract all I have said, and humble myself by asking forgiveness publicly for the course I have taken. Her refusal to do this, by silence or otherwise, shall be considered a failure of her cause: HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 151 1st: To restore the dead to life again as she claims she can. 2nd: To walk upon the water without the aid of artificial means as she claims she can. 3rd: To live 24 hours without air, or 2i: days without nourishment of any kind without its having any effect upon her. 4th: To restore sight when the optic nerve has been destroj'ed. 5th: To set and heal a broken bone without the aid of artificial means. I am, respectfully, W. W. Wright At this point Mrs. Glover retired from the controversy, but five of her students, George W. Barry, Amos Ingalls, George H. Allen, Dorcas Rawson, and Miranda Rice wrote a protest to the Lynn Transcript, February 17th, ignoring Mr. Wright's challenge, but defending their teacher and her Science, and declaring that his charges against both were untrue. Mr. Wright had the last word and ended the controversy, February 2-lth, by exultantly declaring that Mrs. Glover and her Science were practically dead and buried ; which certainly suggests that the gift of prophecy was denied him. Mrs. Glover's pen at this period was not employed exclusively in controversy. In the Lynn Transcript, November 4, 1871, appear the following verses : LINES ON RECEIVING SOME GRAPES By Mary Baker Glo\'er Beautiful grapes would I were thee, Clustering round a parent stem, The blessing of my God to be. In woodland, bower or glen; Where friend or foe had never sought The angels " born of apes," And breathed the disappointed thought. Behold! They're sour grapes. 152 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND And such, methinks, e'en Nature shows The fate of Beauty's power — Admired in parlour, grotto, groves, But faded, O how sour! Worth, — unlike beauty— fadeless, pure, A blessing and most blest, Beyond the shadows will endure, And give the lone heart rest. For the Transcript. Though Mrs. Glover's classes grew larger, and Richard Ken- nedy's practice steadily increased, frequent disagreements oc- curred between him and his teacher. He found that the Quimby method was, like every other method of treating disease, limited in its scope, and urged Mrs. Glover to modify her sweeping statements concerning its possibilities — which greatly angered her. His common-sense rebelled when Mrs. Glover told her students that she could hold her finger in the flame of a candle without feeling pain, and her grim ambition rather repelled him. Although he was almost filial in his dutifulness, her tyranny in trivial matters tried even his genial temper. About a year after they opened their office, Miss Magoun married John M. Dame of Lynn, and gave up her school, leaving the Moral Scientists to sublet from another tenant. On Thanksgiving night of that year (1871) Mrs. Glover and Kennedy went to Mrs. Dame's new home to play cards. At the card-table Kennedy and Mrs. Glover played against each other, Kennedy and his partner playing, apparently, the better game. Mrs. Glover, who could not endure to be beaten in anything, lost her temper and declared that Richard had cheated. The young man was chagrined at being thus RICHARD KENNEDY From a photograph taken in Lynn, Mass., in 1871 Photograph by Bowers HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 153 taken to task before his friends. The frequent scenes caused by Mrs. Glover's jealous and exacting disposition had worn out his patience. When he and Mrs. Glover reached home that night, he tore his contract with her in two and threw it into the fire, telling her that he would no longer consider himself bound by it. Mrs. Glover threatened and entreated, but to no purpose, and even when she fell to the floor in a swoon Kennedy was not to be moved. From that night Kennedy prepared to leave Mrs. Glover. Their separation took place in the spring of 1872. When they settled their accounts, Mrs. Glover was left with about six thousand dollars in money. While they remained together, Kennedy had paid their living expenses and had given Mrs. Glover half of whatever money was left from his practice, while Mrs. Glover's income from teaching was entirely her own. After this separation Kennedy took another office in Lynn, and Mrs. Glover remained for some months in their old rooms. She afterward boarded with the Chadwells on Shepard Street, later stayed at the home of Dorcas Rawson, and still later lived for some time in a boarding-house at Number 9 Broad Street, opposite the house which she eventually purchased. The Essex County registry of deeds shows that on March 31, 1875, Francis E. Besse, in consideration of $5,650, deeded to " Mary M. B. Glover, a widow woman of Lynn," the property at Number 8 Broad Street, which became the first official head- quarters of Christian Science.^" This house, a small two-and-a- half story building, Is still standing. When Mrs. Glover moved in, shortly after her purchase, she occupied only the second "When Mrs. Glover bought this property, she assumed the mortgage on It of $2,800. 15 i LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY floor, renting the first floor of the house to a succession of tenants. She used as her study a httle low-ceiled room on the third floor, lighted by one window and a skylight. Here she completed the manuscript of Science and Health, read the proofs of the first edition, and prepared the second and third editions. The Christian Science reading-room of Lynn is now in this building. At the time of the June communions ^^ at the Mother Church in Boston, thousands of people go out to visit the little skylight room which they regard as the cradle of their faith. The room has, of course, been changed since Mrs. Eddy worked there. The woodwork has been painted white, and the walls and ceiling are now pale blue and cream colour, dotted with gold stars. None of the original furniture remains ; but the chair and table are said to be very like those which Mrs. Eddy used, and on the shelf is a clock like that which used to count the hours while Mrs. Eddy measured time out of existence. On the low wall there hangs — not without a stirring effect of contrast — a very light and airy water-colour of the gray tower of the original Mother Church in Boston. Over the door is frescoed the First Commandment: " Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." "Those yearly communions at the Mother Church in Boston have this year (1908) been discontinued by order of Mrs. Eddy. CHAPTER X MRS. glover's influence OVER HER STUDENTS QUIMBY DIS- CREDITED DANIEL HARRISON SPOPFORD MRS. GLOVEr's MARRIAGE TO ASA GILBERT EDDY Whatever disagreement Mrs. Glover had with individual students, their number constantly increased, and for every de- serter there were several new adherents. Her following grew not only in numbers but in zeal; her influence over her students and their veneration of her were subjects of comment and aston- ishment in Lynn. Of some of them it could be truly said that they lived only for and through Mrs. Glover. They continued to attend in some manner to their old occupations, but they became like strangers to their own families, and their personali- ties seemed to have undergone an eclipse. Like their teacher, they could talk of only one thing and had but one vital interest. One disciple let two of his three children die under metaphysical treatment without a murmur. Another married the woman whom Mrs. Glover designated. Two students furnished the money to bring out her first book, though Mrs. Glover at that time owned the house in which she lived, and her classes were fairly remunerative. The closer students, who constituted Mrs. Glover's cabinet and bodyguard, executed her commissions, transacted her busi- ness, and were always at her call. To-day some of these who 155 156 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND have long been accounted as enemies by Mrs. Eddy, and whom she lias anathematised in print and discredited on the witness- stand, still declare that what they got from her was beyond equivalent in gold or silver. They speak of a certain spiritual or emotional exaltation which she was able to impart in her classroom ; a feeling so strong that it was like the birth of a new understanding and seemed to open to them a new heaven and a new earth. Some of Mrs. Glover's students experienced this in a very slight degree, and some not at all, but such as were imaginative and emotional, and especially those who had something of the mystic in their natures, came out of her class- room to find that for them the world had changed. They lived by a new set of values ; the colour seemed to fade out of the physical world about them; men and women became shadow- hke, and their own humanity grew pale. The reality of pain and pleasure, sin and grief, love and death, once denied, the only positive thing in their lives was their behef — and that was aknost wholly negation. One of the students who was closest to Mrs. Glover at that time says that to him the world outside her little circle seemed like a madhouse, where each inmate was given over to his delusion of love or gain or ambition, and the problem which confronted him was how to awaken them from the absurdity of their pursuits. It is but fair to say that occasionally a student was more of a royalist than the king, and that Mrs. Glover herself had a very sound sense of material values and often reminded an extravagant follower to render unto Caesar what was his due. Among the enthusiasts of Mrs. Glover's following was Daniel Harrison SpofFord, who became a very successful practitioner HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 157 of mental healing, and at one time had offices in Boston, Haver- hill, and Newburjport, dividing his time among the three places. Spofford was one of the most interesting of Mrs. Glover's students and an important factor in the early de- velopment of Christian Science.^ He was born at Temple, N. H., and when he was a boy of ten came to eastern Massa- chusetts with his brother and widowed mother. He was put out to work for farmers about the country, and, although he was a frail boy, he did a man's work. He was working as a watchmaker's apprentice when, in his twentieth year, he entered the army. He enlisted in '61 and served in the Army of the Potomac, in Hooker's brigade, until he was mustered out in '64, taking part in some twenty engagements, among them Gettysburg and the second battle of Bull Run. On his return from the army he went to work in a shoe factory in Lynn. He first met Mrs. Glover in 1871, when she was with Richard Kennedy, and he had access, through another student, to the manuscripts from which she taught. During the next three years, which he spent in the South and West, he carried these manuscripts with him and studied them. He was thoughtful and reflective by nature, and even when he was a chore boy on the farm he read the Bible diligently and went about his work in the barn and in the field, pondering deeply upon the paradoxes of the old theology. He had worked out a kind of transcendentalism of his own, and he found something in the Quimby manuscripts which satisfied a need of his nature. When he came back to Lynn, in the spring of 1875, he began to experiment among his friends in the healing power of this * Mr. Spofford now lives opposite the old Whittier homestead, on the road be- tween Haverhill and Amesbury. 158 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND system, and made several cures which were much talked about. Mrs. Glover soon heard of this and sent SpofFord a letter, in which she said: " Mr. Spofford I tender you a cordial invitation to join my next class and receive my instruction in healing the sick without medicine, without money and withoiit price." Spofford, who was then about thirty-three years of age, accordingly entered Mrs. Glover's class in April, 1875, and in a few weeks her teaching had become to him the most im- portant thing in the world. Mr. SpofFord still says that no price could be put upon what Mrs. Glover gave her students, and that the mere manuscripts which he had formerly studied were, compared to her expounding of them, as the printed page of a musical score compared to its interpretation by a master. His teacher recognised in him a mind singularly adapted to her subject, and a nature sincere and free from self-seeking. She turned many of her students over to him for instruction in Scriptural interpretation, addressed him as " Harry," and showed her appreciation of his loyalty by pre- senting to him, in a silver case, the gold pen with which Science and Health was written. In May, a month after he entered her class, Mr. Spofford opened an office in Lynn and put out his sign, " Dr. SpofFord, Scientific Physician." His success was as rapid as Richard Kennedy's had been, although it would be difficult to find two men more unlike than these, who were perhaps the most intelligent and able of all Mrs. Glover's practising students. Kennedy was cheerful, impulsive, practical, and blessed with a warm enjoyment of the world as it is. He made a host of friends, whom he managed to see very often, and always found a thou- HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 159 sand agreeable duties which he discharged punctiliously. Spof- ford was an idealist, somewhat tinged with the gentle melan- choly of the dreamer — a t^'pe with which the literature of New England has made us all familiar. His frame was delicate, his hands and features finely cut, and his eyes were intense and very blue in colour. His voice was low, and his manner gentle and somewhat aloof. Foremost in loyalty among Mrs. Glover's women students was Mrs. Miranda Rice, who remained in constant attendance upon her, acting as mediator between her and recalcitrant students, and attending her in those violent seizures of hysteria which continued to torture her. Mrs. Rice says that during these attacks the poor woman would often lie unconscious for hours together; at other times she would seem almost insane, would denounce all her friends, declare that they were all perse- cuting and wronging her, and that she would run away, never to come back. In spite of the hardships of her service, Mrs. Rice remained Mrs, Glover's friend for about twelve 3^ears — Mrs. Glover rarely kept her friends so long. Mrs. Rice always felt under obliga- tion to her teacher, for she had paid no tuition when she entered her class, and one of Mrs. Glover's most noted demon- strations— for years recounted in succeeding editions of Science and Health — -occurred when she attended Mrs. Rice in childbed. Mrs. Rice still affirms that the birth was absolutely painless. George W. Barry, a student who avowed that Mrs. Glover had cured him of consumption, was long active in her service and he always addressed her as " Mother." Once when Bronson Alcott, that undiscouraged patron of metaphysical cults, went IGO LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND to Lynn upon an invitation from Mrs. Glover and addressed lier class, he turned to Barry and, struck by his youthful appearance, asked, " How old are you, young man ? " Barry replied, " I am five years old, sir," explaining that it was five years ago that he first began to study under Mrs. Glover. Two years after he had thus defined existence, Barry sued Mrs. Glover, then Mrs. Eddy, for money due him for services to her extending over a period of five years; some of the instances set forth in his bill of particulars give an interesting glimpse of life at Number 8 Broad Street. Among the services ren- dered, as stated in this bill, was : " Copying the manuscript of the book entitled Science and Health, and aiding in arrange- ment of capital letters and some of the grammatical construc- tions." (The Referee in the case found that Barry had copied out in long hand twenty-five hundred pages, and allowed him more than the usual copyist rate, " on account of the difficulty which a portion of the pages presented to the copyist by reason of erasures and interlineations.") Other services mentioned in Barry's bill were : " Copying manuscript for classes and help- ing to arrange the construction of some of the sentences " ; " copying Mrs. Glover's replies to W. W. Wright's newspaper articles " ; " searching for a publisher " ; " moving her goods from the tenement on South Common Street, Lynn, i.e., dispos- ing of some at the auction room, storing others in my uncle's barn, and storing trunks and goods at my father's house, clearing up rooms, paying rent for the same " ; " attending to her financial business, i.e., withdrawing monies from Boston savings banks, going to Boston to get United States coupon bonds, taking in my care two mortgages," etc. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 161 Further services mentioned in Barry's bill were : " Aiding in buying and caring for the place at Number 8 Broad Street; aiding in selection of carpets and furniture, helping to move, putting down carpets, etc., and working in the garden." In his bill of expenditures he said that he had paid out money on Mrs. Glover's account for rent, car-fare, postage, stationery, printing, express charges, and boots. In her reply Mrs. Glover stated that she had repaid him for all these expenditures, and that the boots were a present from the plaintiff. On the wit- ness-stand she further stated that she taught him " how to make an interrogation point and what capitals to attach to the names of the Deity." She affirmed that she had cured him of disease. " I gave him mind as one would treat, a patient with material medicine," she told the judge. Mrs. Glover later reproachfully published some verses which she said Barry wrote her before his defection : O, mother mine, God grant I ne'er forget, Whatever be my grief or what my joy, The unmeasured, unextinguishable debt I owe to thee, but find my sweet employ Ever through thy remaining days to be To thee as faithful as thou wast to me." Surrounded as she was by these admiring students, who hung upon her words and looked to her for the ultimate wisdom, Mrs. Glover gradually became less acutely conscious of Quimby's relation to the healing system she taught. She herself was being magnified and exalted daily by her loyal disciples, in whose extravagant devotion she saw repeated the attitude of "Science and Health (1881), Vol. II., p. 15. 162 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND many of Quimby's patients — herself among them — to their healer. Instead of pointing always backward and reiterating, " I learned this from Dr. Quimhy," etc., she began to acquiesce in the belief of her students, who regarded her as the source of what she taught. Her infatuated students, indeed, desired to see no further than their teacher, and doubtless would not have looked beyond her had she pointed. Consequently she said less and less about Quimby as time went on, and by 1875, when her first book, Science and Health, was issued, she had crowded him altogether out of his " science." ^ In the history of the Quimby manuscript, from which she taught during the five years, 1870-1875, one can trace the steps by which Mrs. Glover, starting as the humble and grateful patient of Quimby, arrived at the position of rival, and pre- tender to his place. We have seen that while she was in Stoughton, Mrs. Glover wrote a preface, signed " Mary M. Glover," to her copy of Quimby's manuscript, " Questions and Answers," and that she made slight changes in, and additions to, the text. In examining the copies of this manuscript which were given out to her students in Lynn, 1870-1872, we find that this signed preface has been incorporated in the text, so that the manuscript reads like the composition of one person, and that instead of being issued with a title-page, reading " Extracts from P. P. Quimby's Writings," as was the Stough- ton manuscript, the copies given out in Lynn were unsigned. This manuscript Mrs. Glover called " The Science of Man, or the Principle which Controls Matter." In 1870 she took out a copyright upon a book entitled : The Science of Man by which and^nValth °°^^ ^ *^^^"*^ mentton of Quimby in the first edition of Science HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 163 the Sick are Healed Embracing Questions and Answers in Moral Science Arranged for the Learner by Mrs. Mary Baker Glover. This seems to have been only a precautionary measure, however, as she took no steps to publish the pamphlet until 1876. Wlien it appeared, it contained allusions to events which happened after 1872, and it must have been largely rewritten after the date of the copyright. In Stoughton " The Science of Man " was the only manu- script from which Mrs. Glover taught. By the time she arrived in Lynn, however, she had worked out another treatise, which she sometimes entitled " Scientific Treatise on Mortality, As Taught by Mrs. M. B. Glover," and sometimes gave no title at all. Mr. Horatio Dresser and Mr. George A. Quimby, the two persons best acquainted with Phineas P. Quimby's writings, say that this second manuscript is only partially his, and seems to be made up of extracts from his writings, woven to- gether and interspersed with much that must have been Mrs. Glover's own. In her early teaching in Lynn she gave out this new manuscript, first requiring her pupils to learn it by heart, and following it up with " The Science of Man," which still formed the basis of her lectures. She occasionally rein- forced her instruction by giving to a promising pupil still a third manuscript, also a combination of Quimby and herself, which she called " Soul's Inquiries of Man." At first, however, Mrs. Glover gave Quimby credit for the authorship of the three manuscripts, even for the two which seem to have been partly her own composition. The next important change in her manuscript occurred in the spring of 1872, when Richard Kennedy left her. Mrs. Glover 164. LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND was then without a practising student — a serious disadvantage to her — and she was so angered that she conceived for Kennedy a violent hatred, from which, without the slightest provocation on his part, she suffered intensely for many years, and from which it may be justly said she still suffers. Kennedy simply changed his office, refused to discuss Mrs. Glover at all, and went on practising. His success so annoyed Mrs. Glover that she wished to repudiate him and his methods, and to do this it was necessary to repudiate what she herself had taught him. She therefore announced that she had discovered that the method of treatment which she had taught Kennedy (i.e., wetting and rubbing the patient's head) was harmful and pernicious. Mr. Wright's articles in the Lynn Transcript had apparently sug- gested mesmerism to her, and she now declared that Kennedy was a mesmerist and his treatment mesmerism.^ ^'^ In the first edition of Science and Health, page 193, she says: Sooner suflFer a doctor infected with smallpox to be about you than come under the treatment of one that manipulates his patients' heads, and is a traitor to science. And on page 371 : There is but one possible way of doing wrong with a mental method of healing, and this is mesmerism, whereby the minds of the sick may be controlled with error instead of Truth. . . . For years we had tested the benefits of Truth on the body, and knew no opposite chance for doing evil through a mental method of healing until we saw it traduced by an erring student, and made the medium of error. Introducing falsehoods into the minds of the patients prevented their recovery, and the sins of the doctor was visited on the patients, many of whom died because of this. . . . Soon after her break with Kennedy she had all her students strike out from their manuscript, " Scientific Treatise on Mortal- 4 \^'?71l^^ ^^PJ7 of the beginning and growth of Mrs. Eddy's belief in mesmerism is told in full in Chapter XII. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 165 itj," the passages regarding the manipulation of the patient's head. These passages are within parentheses in the following: That is, do not be discouraged but hold calmly and persistently on to science that tells you you are right and they are in error, (and wetting your hand in water, rise and rub their head, this rubbing has no virtue only as we believe and others believe we get nearer to them by contact, and now you would rub out a belief and this belief is located in the brain, therefore as an M.D. lays a poultice where the pain is, so you lay your hands where the belief is to rub it forever out) do not address your thoughts for a moment to their body as you mentally argue down their beliefs (and rub their heads) but take yourself, the Soul, to destroy the error of life, sensation and substance in matter to your own belief, as much as in you lies, etc. " Manipulation," as she called it, became a thing of horror to Mrs. Glover; it was the taint which distinguished the false science from the true. Now, manipulation had been Quimby's method of treating his patients, and as Mrs. Glover was a person of singularly literal mind, breaking away from that method gave her a sense not only of independence but of con- quest. She considered that she had improved upon the original Quimby method and left it behind her. She still taught her students to put their fingers upon the patient's head, but the rubbing and the bowl of water were now symbols of the dark abuses of " mental malpractice." Having abjured them, Mrs. Glover felt that this Science was hers as it had never been before. She felt that she had now a system which was practically her own, and told Dr. Spofford she considered that Quimby had been a detriment to her growth in Science. The more one studies the illogical and literal quality of Mrs. Glover's mind as evinced in her life and writings, the better one understands how she could readily persuade herself that this was true. 166 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND The progress of this assimilation is easily followed: First — The writing of a signed preface to and the amending of the original Quimby manuscript. Second — The incorporating of this preface in the text. Third — The composition of a second manuscript, partly her own, from which she was able to teach successfully. Fourth — The discontinuation of " manipulation " in treat- ment. Fifth — The belief, fostered by her students, that her inter- pretation of the Quimby manuscript was far beyond the manu- script itself in scope and understanding. Sixth — The writing of the book. Science and Health, begun in the later '60's and finished in 1875, in which Mrs. Glover undoubtedly added much extraneous matter to Quimbyism, and developed self-confidence by presenting ideas of her own. Although the Christian Science Church was not chartered until 1879, the first attempt at an organisation was made in 1875. Her students desired Mrs. Glover to conduct services of public worship in Lynn, and to this end formed an association, electing officers, and calling themselves the " Christian Scien- tists." In a memorandum book, kept by Daniel H. Spofford in the spring of that year, appears the following entry : May 26 — At a meeting of students, 8 Broad street, there was a com- mittee of three appointed, consisting of Dorcas B. Rawson, George W. Barry and D. H. SpoflFord, to ascertain what a suitable hall could be rented for, and the amount which could be raised weekly toward sustaining Mrs. Glover as teacher and instructor for one year. Committee to report night of June 1. This committee entered heartily into its labours and drew up the following pledge, which was signed by eight students; HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 167 Whereas, in times not long past, the Science of Healing new to the age, and far in advance of all other modes was introduced into the city of Lynn by its discoverer, a certain lady, Mary Baker Glover, And, whereas, many friends spread the good tidings throughout the place, and bore aloft the standard of life and truth which had declared freedom to many manacled with the bonds of disease or error. And, whereas, by the wilful and wicked disobedience of an individual,* who has no name in Love Wisdom or Truth, the light was obscured by clouds of misinterpretation and mists of mystery, so that God's work was hidden from the world and derided in the streets. Now therefore, we, students and advocates of this moral science called the Science of Life, . . . have arranged with the said Mary Baker Glover, to preach to us or direct our meetings on the Sabbath of each week, and hereby covenant with one another, and by these presents do publish and proclaim, that we have agreed and do each and all agree to pay weekly, for one year, beginning with the sixth day of June, A.D., 1875, to a treasurer chosen by at least seven students the amount set opposite our names, provided nevertheless the moneys paid by us shall be expended for no other purpose or purposes than the maintenance of said Mary Baker Glover as teacher or instructor, than the renting of a suitable hall and other necessary incidental expenses, and our signatures shall be a full and sufficient guarantee of our faithful performance of this contract. Mr. Spofford's memorandum book continues the story of this association : June 1 — On receiving the report of the committee it was decided to rent Templars' Hall, Market street, and the first regular meeting to be June 6. Also a business meeting appointed June 8. June 6 — There were probably sixty in attendance at the meeting this evening. June 8 — At the meeting this evening, George H. Allen was chosen presi- dent, George W. Barry, secretary, and Daniel H. Spofford, treasurer, the society to be known as the " Christian Scientists." ° For five successive Sundays Mrs. Glover discoursed to her pupils in the Templars' Hall, receiving five dollars for each address. The remaining five dollars of the amount subscribed * Presumably Richard Kennedy. " This, so far as can be learned, was the first time that Mrs. Glovcr'a Students were called " Christian Scientists." 168 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND went toward paying incidental expenses. After the first two meetings a number of Spiritualists were attracted to the services. In the discussions following Mrs. Glover's talks they asked questions which annoyed her, and she finally refused to continue her lectures and abolished public services. Toward the end of the same year the book, Science and Health, made its first appearance in print.*' Mrs. Glover was convinced that it was through this volume that she was to make her way, and that the most important task before her was to advertise it and push its sale. She accordingly en- trusted this work to her leading practitioner and chief adviser, Daniel Spofford, persuading him to hand over his thriving practice to one of her new students, Asa Gilbert Eddy. Mrs. Glover first met Mr. Eddy through Mr. Spofford, to whom Eddy had come as a patient. Although destined to become the husband of Mrs. Glover and his name to be indissolubly associated with Christian Science and made famous throughout two continents, this new student was personally un- pretentious and had no suspicion of his future greatness. He was of humble origin, coming from the village of South London- derry in the Green Mountains, where his father, Asa Eddy, was, according to his neighbours and friends, a hard-working, plod- ding farmer. His mother, Betsey Smith Eddy, was a more original character, and the children inherited many of her peculiarities. Farm life Avas not congenial to Mrs. Eddy or her children. Their tastes and inclinations were not for the established and the orderly, and they consequently had little or nothing to do with the routine work of cither farm or house. • A flotnilpfl account of the publlcalion of this important book is given in tbe nest chapter. ASA GILBERT EDDY Mrs. Eddy's third husband. He died in 18S2 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 169 Mrs. Eddy was not a very marked example of New England housewifely thrift, and she was pretty generally criticised for her " slack " housekeeping and her inattention to her children. The children, indeed, grew up as they would, satisfying their hunger from the " mush-pot " in which they boiled the corn- meal porridge which formed their main diet, and regulating their habits and conduct, each to suit himself. They met with no interference from their mother, who was much away from home. Every morning after the children had been sent over to the district school, which was only a few steps from the house, it was Mrs. Eddy's invariable custom to hitch up her horse and set forth on a trip through the country or to the neighbouring towns. This di'ive usually lasted all day, and it was the one thing that was performed with promptness and regularity in the Eddy menage. To protect herself from rough weather on her expeditions, Mrs. Eddy devised an ingenious costume. From the front of her large poke bonnet she hung a shawl, in which was inserted a 9x10 pane of window glass, so placed that when she donned the costume the glass was opposite her face. This handy contrivance kept out the wind or rain or snow, without obscuring her vision ; and thus equipped, Mrs. Eddy daily defied the vagaries of Vermont weather. The children of the village called her " the woman with the looking- glass." Neighbourly comment and rebuke were lost on mother and children alike. They themselves enjoyed the unhampered life they led. It was only those who had a sense of order and regularity who suffered from the Eddy method, and they were all outside the Eddy family, unless indeed, it were Asa Eddy, 170 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND the father, who may sometimes have grown tired of returning from his day's work in the fields to a deserted house, to make a fire and prepare his own food. As the boys grew older they were very ingenious about the house. They learned to wash and iron their own clothes as well as to make them, and while none of them would work on the farm with their father they all knew how to run the loom, which their mother kept in the kitchen, and upon which she sometimes wove. They took naturally to the trades, and when they started out for themselves one chose that of a carpenter, another became a cobbler, a third a stonecutter, a fourth a clock-maker, and Asa Gilbert, the future husband of the founder of the Christian Science Church, was a weaver. As a boy Gilbert had been much with his mother, often accompany- ing her on her drives and winding the " quills " for her loom on the rare occasions when she felt like spinning or weaving. At school, where he was nicknamed " Githy," ^ he was backward in everything except penmanship, in which he excelled and in which he took great satisfaction. He had considerable personal pride of a kind which showed itself in his odd choice of clothes, his mincing gait, and the elaborate arrangement of his hair, which he trained to curl under in a roll at the back and combed up into a high " roach " in front. Like his brothers he was fond of hunting and spent much of his time shooting at birds or at a target. Sometimes he hired out to a farmer, but only for a few days or weeks at a time, for he had no taste for farming. The family had no church connections or religious prefer- ' This nickname was won because Gilbert had a Usp and could not pronounce the words, " gccse eggs." HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 171 ences, but Mrs. Eddy had pinned her faith to a famous clair- voyant called " Sleeping Lucy," who lived up the valley at Cavendish. " Sleeping Lucy," ® whose real name was Mrs. Lucy Cook, possessed what she called " a gift of nature," by means of which she passed into a sleep or trance and was able, when in this sleeping state, to diagnose cases of sickness and to prescribe remedies for them. Mrs. Eddy's faith in " Sleeping Lucy " was profound, and whenever any of her family were ill she bundled them up and took them to Cavendish to see the clairvoyant. When Spiritualism was introduced, it appealed at once to Mrs. Eddy, and she and her son Gilbert became ardent believers, attending the Spiritualist meetings and seances for miles around. When Gilbert left home, about 1860, he went to Springfield, Vt., to run a " spinning jack " in a woollen mill, and later when the woollen mill burned, he found employment in a baby- carriage factory in the same village. Altogether he was in Springfield until late in the 'sixties, and after spending some time again in Londonderry, he drifted to East Boston and be- came agent for a sewing machine. In spite of the shiftlessness of his bringing up, Gilbert developed a strain of thrift and economy. While in Springfield he had worked regularly and hoarded his savings. He lived by himself in meagre quarters and did his own housework, including his washing, and he made his own trousers. His sister-in-law, Mrs. Washington Eddy of New Haven, Conn., says, that when he visited his brother, he always helped her with the housework, especially with the iron- ing. She says that " he could do up a shirt as well as any ' " Sleeping Lucy " later went to Montpelier and to Boston, where, under another name, she became well known and prosperous. 172 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND woman." By means of his good management Gilbert was able to purchase from his parents the deed of their farm, which at his own death went by will to his wife, Mary Baker G. Eddy, who sold it for $1,500 to Stephen Houghton, a neighbour of the Eddys in Londonderry. It was wliile Gilbert was acting as sewing machine agent in East Boston that he heard of Daniel H. SpofFord as a healer and went to him as a patient. Spofford talked with him about the method he practised and when Eddy became interested, SpofFord advised him to study the system and become a practi- tioner himself. Eddy eagerly accepted the advice and Spofford introduced him to Mrs. Glover, who at once enrolled him as a member of her next class. People who knew Eddy well in Lynn describe liim as a quiet, dull little man, docile and yielding up to a certain point, but capable of a dogged sort of obstinacy. He was short of stature, slow in his movements, and always taciturn. When he first came to Lynn people remarked upon his old-fashioned dress and singular manner of wearing his hair. He usually wore a knitted Cardigan jacket and a long surtout gathered very full at the waist and a light cinnamon in colour. From their first acquaintance he and his teacher manifested a cordial regard for each other. He alone of all her students was permitted to call her by her first name, Mary, and she addressed him as Gilbert, often speaking of him to other pupils, and extolling his willingness and obedience. After Mr. Spof- ford's patients had been transferred to Eddy, some of Mrs. Glover's students began to feel that her interest in the new practitioner was out of all proportion to his usefulness in the HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 173 Science. Mrs. Glover became aware of this jealousy and was greatly distressed by it. She felt that her students were lean- ing on her too heavily, and that by demanding her attention and even by thinking about her so constantly, they drained her powers and unfitted her for her work. She spoke much in these days of a temperamental quality which compelled her to take on the ills and perplexities of her friends and to suffer from them as if they were her own. She continually besought her students not to " call upon her " in thought when they were sick or in trouble. For some months before her marriage to Gilbert Eddy she seems to have felt completely at the mercy of her students' minds, and that she must find some way to put a barrier between their thoughts and her own. An almost in- coherent letter, written to Daniel Spofford two days before her marriage, indicates great mental distress, and she evidently felt that her favouritism toward Eddy had been the subject of criticism. " Now, Dr. Spofford," she writes, " won't you exercise reason and let me live or will you kill me? Your mind is just what has brought on my relapse and I shall never recover if you do not govern yourself and turn youe thoughts wholly away from me. Do for God's sake and the work I have before me let me get out of this suffering I never was worse than last night and you say you wish to do me good and I do not doubt it. Then won't you quit thinking of mc. I shall write no more to a male student and never more trust one to live with. It is a hidden foe that is at work read Science and Health page 193, 1st paragraph. " No STUDENT nor mortal has tried to have you leave me 174< LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND that I know of. Dr. Eddy has tried to have you stay you are in a mistake, it is God and not man that has separated us and for the reason I begin to learn. Do not think of returning to me again I shall never again trust a man They know not what manner of temptations assail God produces the separation and I submit to it so must you. There is no cloud between us but the way you set me up for a Dagon is wrong and now I implore you to return forever from this error of per- sonality and go alone to God as I have taught you. " It is mesmerism that I feel and is killing me it is mortal mind that only can make me suffer. Now stop thinking of me or you will cut me off soon from the face of the earth." Gilbert Eddy called on his teacher that same evening, and must have reassured the distracted woman as to the trust- worthiness of his sex, for on the next day he was the proud bearer to Spofford of the following note, even the date line of which breathes peace : Sabbath Eve, Dec. 31, '76. Dear Student: For reasons best known to myself I have changed my views in respect to marrying and ask you to hand this note to the Unitarian clergyman and please wait for his answer. Your teacher, M. B. G. Hand or deliver the reply to Dr. Eddy. When Mr. Spofford read the note he remarked: " You've been very quiet about all this, Gilbert." "Indeed, Dr. Spofford," protested the happy groom, "I didn't know a thing about it myself until last night." He then produced the marriage license from his pocket, HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 175 and Mr. Spofford noticed that the ages of both the bride and groom were put down as forty years. Knowing that Mrs. Glover was in her fifty-sixth year, he remarked upon the in- accuracy, but Mr. Eddy explained that the statement of age was a mere formality and that a few years more or less was of no consequence. On New Year's Day, 1877, the Rev. Samuel B. Stewart performed the marriage ceremony at Mrs. Glover's home on Broad Street. The wedding was unattended by festivities, but several weeks later Mrs. Eddy's friends and students assembled one evening to offer the usual bridal gifts and congratulations. An interesting picture of this friendly gathering is found in an account published in the Lynn Recorder, February 10, 1877. CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS' FESTIVAL Mr. Editou — A very pleasant occasion of congratulations and bridal gifts passed off at the residence of the bride and bridegroom, Dr. and Mrs. Eddy, at No. 8 Broad St., on the evening of the 31st ult. The arrival of a large number of unexpected guests at length brought about the discovery that it was a sort of semi-surprise party, and thus it proved, and a very agreeable surjirise at that. It afterwards appeared that the visitors had silently assembled in the lower parlour, and laden the table with bridal gifts, when the door was suddenly thrown open and some of the family invited in to find the room well packed with friendly faces; all of which was the quiet work of that mistress of all good management, Mrs. Bixby. One of the most elaborate gifts in silver was a cake basket. A bouquet of crystallised geranium leaves of rare varieties encased in glass was charming, but the presents were too fine to permit a selection. Mr. S. P. Bancroft gave the opening address — a very kind and graceful speech, which was replied to by Mrs. Glover-Eddy with evident satisfaction, when alluding to the unbroken friendship for their teacher, the fidelity to Truth and the noble purposes cherished by a number of her students and the amount of good compared with others of which they were capable. The happy evening was closed with reading the Bible, remarks on the Scriptures, etc. Wedding cake and lemonade were served, and those from out of town took the cars for home. Spectator. CHAPTER XI THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF " SCIENCE AND HEALTH " CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A SYSTEM OF METAPHYSICS ^AS A RELIGION AS A CURATIVE AGENT The book upon which Mrs. Glover had been at work for so long, was first published in 1875. For eight years she had been writing and rewriting, with unabated patience, and wherever she went she had enlisted the interest of her friends and had set them to copying her manuscripts and getting them ready for a possible printer. While she was staying with the Went- worths in Stoughton she carried her copy to Boston to look for a publisher, and when the printer to whom she showed it asked to be paid in advance, Mrs. Glover tried to persuade Mrs. Wentworth to lend her the money. Had Mrs. Glover then been successful in her search for a publisher. Christian Science in its present form would never have existed; for at that time she had not dreamed of calling the system anything but Quimby's " science." By 1875, however, Mrs. Glover had persuaded herself that she owed very little to the old Maine philosopher,^ and when her book appeared she said no more of Quimby or of her promise to teach his science " to at least two persons before I die." Neither Mrs. Glover nor the printer took any financial risk »The story of Mrs. Glover's absorpUon of Quimby is told in Chapter X. 176 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 177 in the publication of the book, when it was at last brought out ; but two of Mrs. Glover's students, Miss Elizabeth Newhall and George Barry, were prevailed upon to advance $1,500. Owing, however, to the many changes in the proofs which Mrs. Glover made after the plates were cast, the edition cost $2,200, which Miss Newhall and Mr. Barry paid. Mrs. Glover, in spite of her reluctance to risk money on it, believed intensely in her book, and from the first she declared that it would sell. Even when the first edition of 1,000 copies fell flat on the market and Daniel SpofFord was obliged to peddle them about person- ally, Mrs. Glover did not lose confidence in the future of her book, but immediately set about revising the volume for a second edition. Mrs. Glover and Mr. Spofford advertised the book by means of handbills and through the newspapers, printing testimonials of the wonderful cures made by the application of the science, and urging all to buy the book which would tell them all about it. Copies were sent to the leading New England newspapers for review, accompanied by a request to the editors to print nothing about the book if a favourable notice could not be given. This request was respected by some of the papers, but others criticised the book severely or referred to it flippantly. Copies were also sent to the University of Heidelberg, to Thomas Carlyle, and to several noted theologians and literary men. But the book made no stir, and outside of the little band of devoted Christian Scientists, its advent was unobserved. Whatever imperishable doctrine the book may have contained it was not suggested by the outward form of the volume, which was an ill-made, cheap-looking affair. It contained 456 pages 178 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND and sold for $2.50 at first, but later, when the sales fell off, it went willingly for $1. Mrs. Glover called her book Science and Health,^ an adapta- tion of Quimby's name for his healing system, " The Science of Health." It contained eight chapters entitled in their order : " Natural Science," " Imposition and Demonstration," " Spirit and Matter," " Creation," " Prayer and Atonement," " Mar- riage," " Physiology," and " Healing the Sick." In these chap- ters Mrs. Glover attempted to set forth the theory of her " Science " of healing and the theological and metaphysical systems upon which it was based. It was a serious undertaking, but Mrs. Glover, with no preparation but her study of the Quimby manuscripts, and no resources but an illimitable con- fidence in the success of her undertaking, felt equal to the task; and judged by Mrs. Glover's standard, her venture was a success. Even after her eight years struggle with her copy, the book, ] as printed in 1875, is hardly more than a tangle of words and theories, faulty in grammar and construction, and singularly i vague and contradictory in its statements. Although the book is divided into chapters, each having a title of its own, there is no corresponding classification of the subject, and it is only by piecing together the declarations found in the various chap- ters that one may make out something of the theories which Mrs. Glover had been trying for so long to express. The basic ideas of the book and much of the terminology were, of course, borrowed from the Quimby papers which Mrs. Glover had carried reverently about with her since 1864, and yet'w'rittc'''' ^° ^''^ Scriptures, which now forms a part of the title, was not HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 179 from which she had taught his doctrines. But in the elabora- tion and amplification of the Quimby theory, Mrs. Glover' introduced some totally new propositions and added many an ingenious ornament. On its metaphysical side Mrs. Glover's science went a step beyond the conclusions of the idealistic philosophers — that we can have no absolute knowledge of matter, but only a sense impression of its existence ; she asserted that there is no matter and that we have no senses. The five senses being non-existent, Mrs. Glover pointed out that " all evidence obtained therefrom " is non-existent also. " All material life is a self-evident false- hood." But while denying the existence of matter, Mrs. Glover gave it a sort of compulsory recognition by calling it " mor- tality." And as such it assumes formidable proportions. It is error, evil, a belief, an illusion, discord, a false claim, dark- ness, devil, sin, sickness, and death ; and all these are non- existent. Her denials include all the physical world and man- kind, and all that mankind has accomplished by means of his reason and intelligence. " Doctrines, opinions, and beliefs, the so-called laws of nature, remedies for soul and body, materia medica, etc., are error," Mrs. Glover declared ; but she tempered the blow by adding : " This may seem severe, but is said with honest convictions of its Truth, with reverence for God and love for man." In Mrs. Glover's system all that exists is an immortal Principle which is defined as Spirit, God, Intelligence, Mind, Soul, Truth, Life, etc., and is the basis of all things real. This universal Principle is altogether good. In it there is no evil, darkness, pain, sickness, or other forms of what Mrs. 180 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Glover called " error." Man is a Spiritual being only, and the world he inhabits is a Spiritual world. The idea that he is a physical body as well as an immortal soul, is an illusion introduced into the world by Adam and strengthened by all the succeeding generations. In this philosophy it is impossible for man to be both spiritual and material. " We are Spirit, Soul, and not body, and all is good that is Spirit." " The / parent of all discord is this strange hypothesis, that Soul is in body, and Life in matter." But by one of the contradic- tions which abound on every page, Mrs. Glover, in accounting for what seems to be the existence of the body, said that even Avhen man shall have attained the realisation that he is Spirit only, his body will still be here but that it will have no sensa- tion : " How are Ave to escape from flesh, or mortality, except through the change called death .? By understanding we never were flesh, that we are Spirit and not matter. When the belief that we inhabit a body is destroyed we shall live, but our body Avill have no sensation." To live by this " science " man must clear his mind of all his previous beliefs, and must understand that all he has be- lieved himself to be, is a falsehood, and that his conduct and the conduct of the whole human race from the beginning have been erroneous. He must ignore his physical body and the material things about him, and he must no longer depend upon the laws of nature or of man, but be governed by spii'itual law only. " There is no material law that creates or governs man, or that man should obey; obedience to spiritual law is all that God requires, and this law abrogates matter," wrote Mrs. Glover. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 181 What seems to be the physical world, Mrs. Glover said, is a vision created by " mortal mind," that error or belief in matter which is forever at war with Immortal Mind, and which Mrs. Glover's philosophy denied yet constantly recognised. " Ma- terial man," she wrote, " and a world of matter, reverse the science of being and are utterly false; nothing is right about them ; their starting point is error, illusion." The physical forces of nature are likewise illusory. They exist, according to Mrs. Glover, not in fact, but because mortal mind at some time imagined matter and imagined it to contain certain properties. " Vertebrates, articulates, mollusks, and radiates are simply what mind makes them. They are technical- ised mortahty that will disappear when the radiates of Spirit illumine sense and destroy forever the belief of Life and In- telligence in matter." " Repulsion, attraction, cohesion, and power supposed to belong to matter, are constituents of mind." " The so-called destructive forces of matter, and the ferocity of man and beast are animal beliefs." All this is a part of what Mrs. Glover called the " dream of life in matter." In time, when the world shall have accepted Christian Science, Mrs. Glover believed, all this will be changed : " All this must give place to the spiritualised understanding. . . . Material substance, geological calculations, etc., will be swallowed up in the infinite Spirit that comprehends and evolves all idea, structure, form, colouring, etc., that we now suppose are produced by matter." In Christian Science, as Mrs. Glover stated it, all human knowledge which, she held, has done so much hanii in the world, | will be wiped out, and as man proceeds in the Christian Science II 182 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND faith, he will gain a complete understanding of the true science of life. This understanding will come through spiritual insight w'hich " opens to view the capabilities of being, untrammelled by personal sense, explains the so-called miracles, and brings out the infinite possibilities of Soul, controlling matter, discern- ing mind, and restoring man's inalienable birthright of do- minion." When man shall have reached this summit of understanding he will be infallible, unable to make mistakes, for " Mistakes are impossible to understanding, and understanding is all the mind there is." In giving a religious foundation to her science, Mrs. Glover allowed herself a free hand, for here she was not restrained by the Hmits of Quimbyism. Quimby had not aimed to give his system a religious tone, but he dealt with the same problems that rehgion has tried to solve, and he believed that the severe doctrines of the churches overlooked the real solution of man's destiny, and did incalculable damage in the world by spreading fear and the belief that man was naturally born to sin. His own theory, it will be remembered, was that man had had these beliefs of sin and fear and disease so borne in upon him and impressed upon him that he was spiritually weakened and ^made impotent by an overruling conviction of his own unworthi- ncss. Quimby's gospel was the gospel of healthy-mindedness. He assumed that the vivifying principle which pervaded the universe was absolutely good and that goodness was man's natural inheritance. Quimby also taught that the mission of Jesus Christ was to restore to man his birthright of goodness and happiness and health; to point the way, as he put it, to HISTORY OP CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 183 Harmony ; and Harmony, in Quimby's philosophy, was Heaven. He also presented the theory of the dual nature of Christ. Jesus, he said, was the human man ; Christ, the man of God.^ In making out her theological system, Mrs. Glover took in'" these modest ideas of Quimby, borrowed something from the Shaker sect (see Appendix C) and the " revelations " of Andrew Jackson Davis (see Appendix B), and introduced new and quite original ideas of her own. She made argument futile at the outset by claiming for her religion the advantage of direct inspiration and revelation. " The Bible," she wrote, " has been our only text-book. . . . The Scriptures have both a literal and spiritual import, but the latter was the especial interpretation we received, and that taught us the science of Life outside of personal sense." " We can not doubt the inspiration that opened to us the spiritual sense of the Bible." * Mrs. Glover described the process by which she arrived at the true meaning of the Bible : " The only method of reaching the Science of the Scripture, hence, the Truth of the Bible, is to rise to its spiritual interpretation, then compare its sayings, and gain its general tenor, which enables us to reach the ascend- ing scale of being through demonstration ; as did prophet and apostle." By pursuing this method she came, inevitably, to some curious conclusions concerning the beginning of the world and the origin of man. Parts of the Bible she accepted liter- all}^, other parts were declared to be allegorical, and some of its statements she rejected altogether as mistakes of the 3 An exposition of Quimby's doctrine is contained in Chapter III of this volume. , . . ■" In later editions of Science and Health the idea of revelation is greatly enlarged upon and emphasised. 184. LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND early translators and copyists. " From the original quota- tions," wrote Mrs. Glover, " it appears the Scriptures were not understood by those who re-read and re-wrote them. The true rendering was their spiritual sense." And again : " The thirty thousand different readings given the Old, and the three thou- sand the New Testament, account for the discrepancies that sometimes appear in the Scriptures." In the chapter called " Creation," Mrs. Glover stated that the Trinity as commonly accepted is an error. " There is but one God. . . . That three persons are united in one body suggests a heathen deity more than Jehovah. . . . Life, Truth, and Love are the triune Principle of man and the universe; they are the great Jehovah, and these three are one, and our Father which art in heaven." In later editions Christian Sci- ence is said to be the Holy Comforter. The creation of the universe and man had its origin in this triune Principle. The creation was the Idea of Principle ; and man and the universe began to exist, not at the moment they received visible form, but before that — at the very moment, in fact, that the Idea of them occurred to Principle. " Intelli- gence " [that is, Principle], said Mrs. Glover, "made all that was made, and every plant before it was in the ground; every mineral, vegetable, and animal were ideas of the eternal thought." Their form was only a " shadowing forth " of what Principle or Intelligence had already mentally created; for all that was made and all that grew was not developed by natural law, but was literally ordered into being by the First Principle or Creative Wisdom : " The seed yields not an herb because of a propagating principle in itself; for there is none, inasmuch HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 185 as Intelligence made all that was made ; the idea was only to shadow forth what Intelligence had made." " Water," in Mrs. Glover's interpretation, was made to corre- spond to Love, out of which Wisdom produced the " dry land " which is, said Mrs. Glover, " the condensed idea of the universe." The statement in the Bible that God divided the light from the darkness is said to mean that " Truth and error were distinct in the beginning and never mingled." This statement was made without explanation of how " error " came to be co-existing with Truth in the beginning, or by whom it was created. Mrs. Glover apparently had forgotten for the moment that " error " is a belief only and that this illusion originated with Adam. The firmament which God placed in the midst of the waters to divide them, was, according to Science and Health, the understanding that divided the waters into those " above " and those " below," into the spiritual and material, that we learn are separated forever. . . . Understanding interpreted God and was the dividing line between Truth and error ; to separate the waters which were under the firmament from those above it ; to hold Life and Intelligence that made all things distinct from what it made, and superior to them, controlling and pre- serving them, not through laws of matter, but the law of spirit." Mrs. Glover did not mention even here why the " spiritual " should be separated from the " material " by the firmament of understanding, if, as she taught, there is and never has been any material life. But, " Unfathomable Mind," as Mrs. Glover said, " had expressed itself." " It was in obedience to Intelligence and not matter," that 186 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND the earth brought forth grass, and trees yielded fruit. Nature was like the setting of a stage, where scenes could be shifted at will. Intelligence brought forth landscapes * ^" " even as a picture is produced by the artist." " The grass and the trees grew," not from the ground, but " from out the infinite thought that expressed them." In the creation of the solar system Mrs. Glover saw a complete endorsement of her theory that vegetation lived by Intelligence only : " The Scripture gives no record of solar light until after time had been divided into day and night, and vegetation was formed, showing you light was the symbol of the Life-giving Creator, and not a source of life to the vegetable kingdom. . . . Matter never repre- sented God ; geology cannot explain the earth, nor one of Its formations." The animal creation, according to Mrs. Glover's Idea, was originally mild and harmless, " Beast and reptile," she said, " were neither carnivorous nor poisonous." Wisdom held do- minion over reptiles In those first days, and the savage traits of wild animals to-day are the result of erroneous human think- ing. Mortal mind has impressed these qualities Into the animal kingdom. It was because they understood this that Moses " made a staff as a serpent," and Daniel feared not the hungry lions. "When immortality Is better understood," Mrs. Glover said, " there will follow an exercise of capacity unknown to mortals." In the story of the creation of man as recorded in Genesis, «i.JMrR. Olovpi- also taught that the natural law which produces flowers and fruit can be clianffed at will, even now, if one has a grasp of her science. In a personal letter written in 181)6 she stated that she had caused an apple tree to blossom in .January, and had frequently performed "some such trifles In the floral line," while living in I^ynn. HISTORY OP CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 187 Mrs. Glover found much that would not fit into her plan of the universe, but she explained this : " In Genesis, the spiritual record of the universe and man is lost sight of, it was so material- ised by uninspired writers." And, " the scripture not being understood by its translators was misinterpreted." " The translators of that record v/rote it in the error of being . . . hence their misinterpretations. . . . They spake from error, of error . . . which accounts for the contradictions in that glorious old record of Creation." " A wrong version of the Scriptures has hidden their Truth." According to Mrs. Glover's version, man was formed as follows : When, as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, God said: " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let tJiem have dominion . . . over all the earth," He meant by the word " us " to indicate His triune Principle of Life, Truth, and Love. Tlie word, " them," referred to man in the plural. It " signi- fies plurality, for man was the generic name of mankind." Therefore, we have the conclusion that God, in his triune capacity of Life, Truth, and Love, made, not one man, but all mankind : " In contradistinction to the belief that God made one man, and man made the rest of his kind, science reveals the fact that he made all." " So God created man in His own image, male and female created He them," means, in the Science and Health version, that mankind thus created, merely " reflected the Principle of male and female, and was the likeness of ' Us,' the compound Principle that made man." It is to be understood that God, himself, not being a person, can have no " gender," " inasmuch as He is Principle embracing the masculine, feminine, and 188 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND neuter." Indeed, if one of these genders predominates over another in the triune Principle, it is the feminine, for " We have not," said Mrs. Glover, " as much authority in science, for calling God masculine as feminine, the latter being the last, therefore the highest idea given of him." Also : " Woman was a higher idea of God than man, insomuch as she was the final one in the scale of being; but because our beliefs reverse every position of Truth, we name supreme being masculine instead of feminine." ^ This creation of man, as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, and explained by Science and Health, was, according to Mrs. Glover, the only real creation of man. This man is not given a name in the Bible. He was mankind, the inmiortal Idea of the First Principle, and he inhabited the inanimate universe, and w^as given dominion over it. " All blessings and power," said Science and Health, " came with the creations of Spirit and as such they were to multiply and replenish the earth on this basis of being, and subdue it, making matter sub- servient to spirit, and all would be harmonious and immortal." That is, that as intended in the beginning, this spiritual universe was to continue its existence, and Idea or man was to " multiply and replenish the earth " solely by the will of the Spirit. The products of the earth were to come forth when and how original man dictated. " In this science of being the herb bore seed and the tree fruit, not because of root, seed or blossom, but because their Principle sustained these ideas." There were no laws of nature, or of man, for none was ° In moro rcoent years Chrisdnn Sciontlsts have declared their belief that Afrs. Eddy is the " feminine principh" of Deity," and much has been written by her followers in defence of this position. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 189 needed. All was Mind or Infinite Spirit. Man, the male and female Idea of God, was to bring forth his kind, through the law of Spirit only.'' " That matter propagates itself through seed and germination is error, a belief only." When God had thus made mankind, according to Mrs. Glover's version, he rested, and he had nothing to do with making anything that came later. Of the Bible statement: " Thus the heavens and earth were finished and all the hosts of them," Mrs. Glover said: " Here the scripture repeats again the science of creation, namely, that all was complete and finished, therefore that nothing has since been made." Having finished creation, God rested on the seventh day, and this again supplied to Mrs. Glover proof that whatever was created there- after was not of God, but a myth only. Creation was finished, and the Great Principle was at rest. But somehow, and because of the carelessness, no doubt, of the early translators, a second creation was started, after the seventh day. But the story of this supplementary creation, related in the second chapter of Genesis, is purely mythical and imaginary, Mrs. Glover declared. It is due entirely to mis- interpretation, and is wholly untrustworthy. How this belief in a further creation started is not explained, even in Science and Health, but it seemed to originate with the discovery that " God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was «Tbis theory is the ba?is of the Christian Srionco holiof that child ren_ born of tlie flesh are not born according to the " science of being." Christian Science discourages the birth of children in the usual way, but permits it as " expedient " for the present. In the future when, as they believe, the world shall be more spiritual, children will appear as products of Spirit only, and they will come by whatever means they are desired. " Should universal mmd or belief adopt the appearing of a star as its formula of creation, the advent of mortal man would commence as a star." " Belief may adopt any condition whatever, and that will become its imperative mode of cause and effect, " Knowledge will , . . diminish and lose estimate in the sight of man ; and Spirit instead of matter be made the basis of generation," 190 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND not a man to till the ground." Mrs. Glover had already pointed out that rain and light were not necessary to the growth of vegetation, and there was not a man to till the ground because, to quote Mrs. Glover, " there was no necessity of it," for " the earth brought forth spontaneously, and man lived not because of matter." " Man was the Idea of Spirit, and this Idea tilled not the ground for bread." " But," we are told in that fatal second chapter of Genesis, " there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground," That was error, " the figurative mist of earth," and " that which started from a matter basis," in Mrs. Glover's interpretation. " And," to quote Genesis again, " the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Here, then, was the beginning of a " belief of life in matter," and this belief has accompanied us throughout the ages. " The first record," says Science and Health, " was science ; the second was metaphorical and myth- ical," and " the supposed utterances of matter." Mrs. Glover thought it was unfortunate that whoever wrote the first reports of the creation had not, by making judicious comments, indicated which was the true and which the make- believe record : " Had the record divided the first statement of creation from the fabulous second, by saying ' after Truth's creation we will name the opposite belief of error, regarding the origin of the universe and man,' it would have separated the tares from wheat, and we should have reached sooner the spiritual significance of the Bible." But there was no clue, and the error went on. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 191 This man of error, who was formed after creation was fin- ished, was named Adam. The significance of his name is not explained in the first edition of Science and Health, but in later editions, Mrs. Eddy, ignoring the Hebraic origin of the word, gives it this literal interpretation : " Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads, A dam, or obstruction." Adam was to obstruct our growth in spirituality. Adam, the belief of life in matter, was the first " mortal man," and with him came sickness, sin, and death, and all the troop of error. Adam, being a " product of belief," and Eve a product of Adam, " both were beliefs of Life in matter." At once they set about their " mortal " mischief. They ate of the tree of knowl- edge, which was " the symbol of error," in which originated " theology, materia medica, mesmerism, and every other 'ology and 'ism under the sun." The fruit of the tree which Eve gave to Adam was, Mrs. Glover suggested, " a medical work, perhaps." The driving of Adam out of Eden is " a clear and distinct separation of Adam, error, from harmony and Truth, wherein Soul and Sense, person and Principle, Spirit and matter, are forever separate." The history of Adam and his descendants, then, is one of mortality and error, an evil dream that has no reality, and this is Mrs. Glover's contention. " There is no mortal man, or reality to error," she declared. We are not as we have thought, the descendants of Adam ; but we are the off- spring of that first nameless man who dwelt with God before Adam was. We have been so influenced, however, by the Adam belief that we have lost sight of our true inheritance. The immediate outlook for the sons of error is not encourag- 192 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND ing, for we are told that " error will continue for seven thousand years, from the time of Adam, its origin. At the expiration of this period Truth will be generally comprehended, and science roll back the darkness that now hides the eternal sun- shine and lift the curtain on Paradise, where earth produces at the command of Intelhgence, and Soul, instead of sense, govern man." Mrs. Glover believed thoroughly that, in the meantime, it was her mission to restore to man his original state of spiritu- ality. Throughout the centuries since Adam, there has been but one other who brought the message of " science " to man- kind. " Jesus of Nazareth," Mrs. Glover wrote, " was the most scientific man of whom we have any record." " The Principle He demonstrated was beyond question, science," and she refers to Him as " The great Teacher of Christian Science," and the " Pioneer of the science of Life." Mrs. Glover's explanation of the dual nature of Christ was like Quimby's. Christ she defined as God, or " the Principle and Soul of the man Jesus ; constituting Christ-Jesus, that is. Principle and Idea." But Mrs. Glover went farther than Quimby and presented a new explanation of the origin and birth of Christ. She said: "Why Jesus of Nazareth stood higher in the scale of being, and rose proportionately beyond other men in demonstrating God, we impute to His spiritual origin. He was the offspring of Soul, and not sense ; yea, the son of God. The science of being was revealed to the virgin mother, who in part proved the great Truth that God is the only origin of man. The conception of Jesus illustrated this Truth and finished the example of creation." The birth HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 193 of Christ without a physical father was, in Mrs. Glover's idea, an advance toward the science of being, which dis- penses not only with the physical father, but the physical mother as well, and declares that man is born of Spirit only. In support of her argument, Mrs. Glover referred to the fact that some of the lower forms of animal life propagate their kind by self -division, and she said: "the butterfly, bee, etc., propagating their species without the male element . . . corro- borates science, proving plainly that the origin of the universe and man depends not on material conditions." Self-division and parthenogenesis are, apparently, held to be less material methods of reproduction, and less in accordance with natural law, than methods in which the " male element " is employed. The idea that " God is the only author of man " came first, Mrs. Glover said, to the mother of Christ, and she demonstrated it, producing the child Jesus. " The illumination of spiritual sense had put to silence personal sense with Mary, thus master- ing material law, and establishing through demonstration that God is the father of man," she wrote. Also : " The belief that life originates with the sexes is strongest in the most material natures ; whereas the understanding of the spiritual origin of man cometh only to the pure in heart. . . . Jesus was the off- spring of Mary's self-conscious God-being in creative Wisdom." But the virgin mother, we are told, " proved the great Truth that God is the only origin of man," only " in part." If she had proved it completely she would have had to dispense with herself as mother; and in that case Jesus would have been a perfect demonstration of Mrs. Glover's " science of being." Being born, however, of an actual and visible mother, Jesus 194< LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND was not altogether free from the universal illusion of personal sense. He was the Idea of Principle, it is true, " but born of woman, that is, having in part a personal origin, he blended the idea of Life, that is, God, with the belief of Life in matter, and became the connecting link between science and personal sense ; thus to mediate between God and man." Although Mrs. Glover wrote many a page to prove that Spirit and matter cannot unite and must forever be separate, and was almost violently emphatic in her statement of this principle, she seemed unconscious of the fact that, in making God the spiritual father of Jesus, and Mary His personal mother, and their producing together, the child in whom was " blended " the idea of God with the belief of Life in matter, she was contradicting at all points the very thing she was so laboriously trying to prove. But Mrs. Glover was never afraid of contradicting herself, and her explanation accounted, in some manner, for the origin and nature of Christ, and such as it was, it was made to serve her purpose. It was, she said, the Son of God, or Christ, who " walked the wave and stilled the tempest," healed the sick, restored the blind, and declared that " I and the Father are one " ; and it was ]\Iary's son, or Jesus, who endured temptation, suffered in Gethsemane, and died upon the cross. " Christ, understanding that Soul and body are Intelligence and its Idea, destroyed the belief that matter is something to be feared and that sick- ness and death are superior to harmony and Life. His king- dom was not of this world. He understood Himself Soul and not body, therefore He triumphed over the flesh, over sin and death. He came to teach and fulfil this Truth, that established HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 195 the Kingdom of Heaven, or reign of harmony on earth." But the man Jesus was not unconscious of " matter conditions." Although, Mrs. Glover thought. He " experienced few of the so-called pleasures of personal sense ; perhaps He knew its pains." This illustrated, also, that " Truth, in contact with error, produced chemicalisation." Chemicalisation, in Mrs. Glover's vocabulary, meant that when Truth and error, which cannot mingle, first come together, the contact of these two opposing forces, like the two parts of a Seidlitz powder, sets up a violent agitation and eruption. This is chemicalisation, and during its process Truth may sometimes seem to be affected by error, but when it subsides it is found that error is van- quished, and Truth has prevailed. " Hence," said Mrs. Glover, " our Master's sufferings came through contact with sinners ; but Christ, the Soul of man, never suffered." She taught that " Had the Master utterly conquered the belief of Life in matter, He would not have felt their infirmities, but," she continued, " He had not yet risen to this His final demonstration." The death on the cross is interpreted as a " demonstration " of " science." " He r ermitted them the opportunity to destroy His body mortal, chat He might furnish the proof of His immortal body in corroboration of what He taught, that the Life of man was God, and that body and Soul are inseparable. . . . Neither spear nor cross could harm Him; let them think to kill the body, and, after this, He would convince those He had taught this science, He was not dead, and possessed the same body as before. Why His disciples saw Him after the burial, when others saw Him not, was because they better under- stood His explanations of the phenomenon." Christ had " tri- 196 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND umphed over sense, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, having solved being on its Principle." The atonement received a new interpretation. Atonement means " at-one-ment " with God, Mrs. Glover said. " Jesus of Nazareth explained and demonstrated his oneness with the Father, for which we owe Him endless love and homage." But that is all. There was no sacrifice on Calvary. Christ's mis- sion was to show us how to forsake the belief of life in matter, " but not to do it for us, or to relieve us of a single responsi- bility in the case." " ' Work out your own salvation,' is the demand of Life and Love," said Mrs. Glover, " and to this end God worketh with you." Prayer, as commonly practised, had no place in Mrs. Glover's religion, in which God is Principle and not Person. " To ad- dress Deity as a Person," she said, " impedes spiritual progress and hides Truth." " Prayer is sometimes employed, like a Catholic confession, to cancel sin, and this impedes Christianity. Sin is not forgiven ; w^e cannot escape its penalty. . . . Suffer- ing for sin is all that destroys it." " When we pray aright, we shall . . . shut the door of the lips, and in the silent sanctu- ary of earnest longings, deny sin and sense, and take up the cross, while we go forth with honest hearts, labouring to reach Wisdom, Love, and Truth." Mrs. Glover gave a spiritual interpretation of the Lord's prayer, converting it from a supplication to an affirmation of the properties of the Deity as she conceived them: Harmonious and eternal Principle of man, Nameless and Adorable Intelligence, Spiritualise man; Control the discords of matter with the harmony of Spirit. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 197 Give us the understanding of God, And Truth will destroy sickness, sin, and death, as it destroys the belief of intelligent matter. And lead man into Soul, and deliver him from personal sense, For God is Truth, Life, and Love forever.' When Science and Health was first published, Mrs. Glover believed that church organisations, church buildings, and " creeds, rites, and doctrines," were obstructions to spiritual growth. " We have no need of creeds and church organisa- tions." " The mistake the disciples of Jesus made to found religious organisations and church rites, if indeed they did this, was one the Master did not make." " No time was lost by our Master in organisations, rites, and ceremonies, or in proselyting for certain forms of belief." " We have no record that forms of church worship were instituted by our great spiritual teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, ... a magnificent edifice was not the sign of Christ's church." " Church rites and cere- monies have nothing to do with Christianity . . . they draw us toward material things . . . away from spiritual Truth." " Worshipping in temples made with hands ... is not the true worship." " The soft palm upturned to a lordly salary, and architectural power — making dome and spire tremulous with ' This praver has been re-interpreted in the successive editions of Science and Health, 'unci in the last edition (1909) it reads as follows, the lines alter- nating with the Lord's Prayer as given in the New Testament : Our Father which art in heaven, Our Father-Mother God, all Harmonious, Hallowed be thy name, Adorable One, Tliy Kingdom come, Thy Kingdom is come; Thou art ever present. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Enable us to know. — as in Hearen, so on earth, — Ood is omnipotent, supreme. Give us this day our daily bread ; Give vs grace for today; feed the famished affections; And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors ; And Lore is reflected in lore; And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil ; And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from am, disease, and death. For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. For Ood is infinite, all power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all and All. 198 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND beauty, that turns the poor and stranger from the gate, shuts the door on Christianity." " The man of sorrows was not in danger from salaries or popularity." ^ Mrs. Glover's theory of the origin of disease was based upon Quimby's science of health. Her fundamental proposition was, like Quimby's, that mind is the only causation, and that disease, as well as all other disharmonies of man, is due to man's stead- fast belief that his body contains certain properties over which his mind has no control. But, enlarging upon the Quimby theory, Mrs. Glover declared that the body itself is a mere supposition which mankind has imagined for itself and has come to believe in implicitly. Starting from her standpoint that man is an immortal, spiritual being, having a form, it is true, as he at present believes, but that form being a '' sensa- tionless body," an inanimate figure, which may live, breathe, and move, not in accordance with any laws of its own, but in response only to the will of its owner, who is Spirit, Mrs. Glover argued that this spiritual body of man cannot see, hear, feel, smell, or taste, except as Spirit desires. He can not think, or reason, or perform any of the physical or mental functions commonly attributed to man, only as Spirit wills. Spirit, in her idea, is the man. The body is the mere instru- ment of Spirit. This Spirit, which governs the body and owns it, is not an individual spirit. There are not just so many bodies and an equal number of spirits to govern them. Spirit, as described, « Since 1875 Mrs. Eddy's ideas of church buildings and church organisations have been considerably broadened. Her organised churches are now more than SIX hundred in number, and her congresiations worship in costly temples, and have a very cumplete ecclesiastical system ; and the founder of the church and the head of the entire church system is Mrs. Eddy herself. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 199 is singular, general, and pervasive; and mankind, as well as trees, animals, and all phenomena, is simply the furniture of the universe, made for the use and convenience of universal Spirit. These sensationless bodies of Spirit were not very clearly defined, but in some places in her book Mrs. Glover said that they are " immortal " and " indestructible." It follows that this sensationless body cannot, by any possi- bility, know, of and by itself, either sickness or health. It can have no sensation whatever, and in Mrs. Glover's system, this spiritual man, whose body is sensationless, is the only man that exists. Man, as we know him, a combination of brain, nerves, muscle, etc., is that false, hereditary image of physical life which we inherited from Adam. Along with our belief in this physical body, we have inherited a deeply-rooted conviction that this mythical body is capable of certain sensations, such as sight, hearing, etc., and is susceptible to the influences of the mythical physical conditions about it. This belief has given rise to other beliefs, and the result is that man has invented a very intricate and complicated system of physical life, giving names and attributes to various parts of his body, and clothing it and feeding it, in the belief that it requires clothes and food for comfort and nourishment. And, most remarkable of all, he has come to believe that his body can be sick, and can suffer from a derangement of its parts. Labouring under this de- lusion, man has imagined that, by administering certain rem- edies to his body, this mythical body will be pleased, and will often consent to get well. If not, if man believes very firmly that his body is very sick, and that it cannot get well, then the remedies do not please his body and it will not consent 200 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND to get well. Then man becomes convinced that his body ceases, of its o\vn volition, to live, and that it is then dead and has no longer power to see, smell, hear, think, or suffer. He be- lieves also that his spirit, which he imagined had been imprisoned within his body, is, by the death of his body, set free, and that it then goes off to a world inhabited by other spirits of other dead bodies, and there continues to dwell. This, according to Science and Health, is the status of " material mankind " to-day. The mission of Jesus Christ was to lead man back to the way of Truth and to restore to him his rightful spiritual character and the power over his body and over all created things. But the work of Christ was incomplete. Although He gave His message, and made His demonstration. He could not finish His task because of " the materiality of the age " in which He lived. He practised and taught Christian Science, and Mrs. Glover went so far as to call Him its " pioneer " ; but He left no written statement of its theory, no text-book, and no formula by which His disciples could permanently confound disease. That was left to Mrs. Glover, who, after centuries of ignorance, and when the world had lost sight of the real mission of its Saviour, appeared to " this age " to teach and demonstrate and write all Truth in its fulness. I In applying her principle to the present material conditions, Mrs. Glover was emphatic and radical ; and it must be admitted that her discussions showed a wonderfully scant knowledge of matters that are merely temporary and mortal. This, however, in the hght of her science, would have been considered a proof of her fitness for the task of demolishing mortality, for Mrs. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 201 Glover came, not to save, but to destroy all man-made knowledge and hmnan institutions. In her world of Spirit, knowledge was an outcast, and the less she knew about what she called the " 'ologies and 'isms " the clearer and more searching was her spiritual vision. If man would get out of his material state and into the realm of Spirit and Intelligence, he must first, she told him, unlearn all that he had learned. All knowledge is harmful, particularly a knowledge of physiology, for it creates false beliefs, and, like obedience to " the so-called laws of health," it multiplies diseases and increases the death rate. Materia medica, physiology, hygiene, and drugs were the deadliest enemies to Mrs. Glover's science. The hardly-won knowledge of the physical scientists was, she declared, the densest and most harmful ignorance. Again and again she repeated, " there is no physical science," and taught her readers that all the laws of nature were to be defied and set at naught. In accordance with his spiritual nature and origin, man should never admit the belief that he has a physical body, or that he dwells in a world of matter which can affect his body. All things are at his command, and the behefs of cold, heat, pain, or discomfort, should be dismissed at once ; and they will disappear. " Why," Mrs. Glover demanded, " should man bow down to flesh-brush, flannel, bath, diet, exercise, air, etc.?" The belief that man requires food, clothing, and sleep, she said, is strengthened by the doc- tors, and it is the doctors, too, who are principally to blame for the existence and continuance of disease. Disease is a habit, and the habit grows more prevalent as education and enlightenment spread, in proof of which she pointed out that 202 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND there is less sickness among the uncivilised races and among animals than among the highly cultivated classes. " The less mind there is manifested in matter, the better. When the un- thinking lobster loses his claw, it grows again." If man would- believe that matter has no sensation " then the human limb would be replaced as readily as the lobster's claw." " Epizootic is an educated finery that a natural horse has not." " The snowbird sings and soars amid the blasts ; he has no catarrh from wet feet." " Obesity," Mrs. Glover wrote, " is an adipose belief of yourself as a substance." " All the diseases on earth," said Science and Health, " never interfered for a moment with man's Life. Man is the same after, as before a bone is broken, or a head chopped off." But for the present, Mrs. Glover ad- vised, if such accidents seem to occur one might as well seem to call a surgeon. " For a broken bone, or dislocated joint," she wrote naively, " 'tis better to call a surgeon, until mankind are farther advanced in the treatment of mental science. To attend to the mechanical part, a surgeon is needed to-day . . . but the time approaches when mind alone will adjust joints and broken bones, if," she added, " such things were possible then." Food is not necessary to nourish and sustain the body. " We have no evidence," said Mrs. Glover, " of food sustaining Life, except false evidence." " We learn in science food neither helps nor harms man." Yet Mrs. Glover took care to warn her readers not to be too radical on this point. " To stop utterly eating and drinking," she said, " until your belief changes in regard to these things, were error," and she ad- HISTORY OP CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 203 raonished them to " get rid of your beliefs as fast as possible." In treating a patient, who is under the delusion of sickness, there is a stated method. It must first be thoroughly understood that his disease has its origin in the mind. His body may seem to suffer because it is at the mercy of his mind, and as long as his mind retains " a mental image " of toothache, cancer, tuberculosis, fever, dyspepsia, or any form of bodily discomfort, his body will respond and will seem to develop the particular belief of sickness that is in his mind. The object, then, is to abolish the mental picture of disease. The Christian Science healer " in case of decaying lungs, destroys in the mind of his patient this belief, and the Truth of being and immortality of man assert themselves . . . and the lungs become sound and regain their original proportions." The belief in the mind of the patient is not always easily destroyed, but the healer must be patient. " When healing the sick," said Mrs. Glover, " make your mental plea, or better, take your spiritual position that heals, silently at first, until you begin to win the case, and Truth is getting the better of error." That is, while the patient is lying before you, convulsed with pain, you must retreat within yourself and fight out the disease in a mental argument with error, contending that there is no pain and that the patient is deluded. This course, faithfully pursued, according to Science and Health, will result in an overwhelming conviction that the patient is not held in the throes of error, and the disease will begin to subside. " Then your patient is fit to listen," said Mrs. Glover, " and you can say to him, ' Thou art whole,' without his scorn." She advised the healer to " explain to him audibly, sometimes, the power mind has 204 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND over body, and give him a foundation ... to lean upon, that he may brace himself against old opinions." '* The battle lies wholly between minds, and not bodies, to break down the beliefs of personal sense, or pain in matter, and stop its supposed utterances, so that the voice of Soul, the immortality of man, is heard." As a preventative of disease. Christian Science is equally effective. " You can prevent or cure scrofula, hereditary dis- ease, etc., in just the ratio you expel from mind a belief in the transmission of disease, and destroy its mental images ; this will forestall the disease before it takes tangible shape in mind, that forms its corresponding image on the body." " When the first symptoms of disease appear, knowing they gain their ground in mind before they can in body, dismiss the first mental admission that you are sick; dispute sense with science, and if you can annul the false process of law,- alias your belief in the case, you will not be cast into prison or confinement." ', " Speak to disease as one having authority over it." " Not to ' admit disease, is to conquer it." One of the signs that the healer's efforts are successful, and that Truth is working against error in the patient is " chem- icalisation," which has been previously referred to in this chap- ter. In healing, chemicalisation first shows itself in a violent aggravation of all the patient's symptoms of disease, but neither the patient nor the healer should be alarmed at this. It is a beneficial process, and during it the error or poisonous thought in the patient's system will be thrown off, and when it is over the patient will be well. The patient can be treated just as effectively without the HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 205 bodily presence of his healer, for the healer's mind can work upon the mind of his patient equally "well, be he absent or present. Absent treatment is, therefore, regularly practised in Christian Science. Despite Mrs. Glover's protest against all " knowledge," she seemed to admit that her healers should know something of physiology and materia medica, sufficient, at least, to recog- nise symptoms and to understand the names of both symptoms and diseases. " When healing mentally," she wrote, " call each symptom by name, and contradict its claims, as you would a falsehood uttered to your injury," for " if you call not the disease by name, when you address it mentally, the body will no more respond by recovery than a person will reply whose name is not spoken ; and you can not heal the sick by argument, unless you get the name of the disease." That is, if a patient happened to be labouring under the belief that he was afflicted with yellow fever, and the lay healer, whose knowledge of medical science is, by the terms of his religion, as limited as he can possibly make it, did not recognise the disease, and was ignorant of its name, then the healer could not heal, and Truth would stand powerless while the patient died of this rare and un- familiar belief. In the contemplation of death, Mrs. Glover did not weaken in theory. Death is the great and final test of Christian Sci- ence. It is, she said, " the last enemy to be overcome," and " much is to be understood before we gain this great point in science." Healers must " never consent to the death of man, but rise to the supremacy of spirit." But whether or not they consent to it, Mrs. Glover recognised that death, although false. 206 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND is, for the present, an incontrovertible fact. " Contemplating a corpse," she wrote, " we behold the going out of a belief." One might conclude, from Mrs. Glover's reasoning, that a " corpse " might be exactly that " immortal " and " sensation- less " body which belongs to Spirit. The belief of Life in matter has " gone out." It is as " sensationless " as it is pos- sible to be. Yet the all-powerful and all-pervading Principle, of which she said so many things, never quickens a " corpse " nor works its wonders through the dead. But in spite of her statement that death is " the going out of a belief," Mrs. Glover said In another passage : " If the change called death dispossessed man of the belief of pleasure and pain in the body, universal happiness were secure at the moment of dissolution ; but this is not so ; every sin and every error we possess at the moment of death remains after it the same as before, and our only redemption is in God, the Principle of man, that destroys the belief of intelligent bodies." The system seems altogether hopeless if one attempts to follow Mrs. Glover's reasoning. If a mortal man's belief in material life continues even after his mortal and material life is dissolved, it being all the time understood that " belief," " material life," and " mortal man " are one and the same, then what chance has man to become separated from his belief in himself.? Mrs. Glover had a suspicion that all this was confusing and tried to help it out. " From the sudden sur- prise," she wrote, " of finding all that is mortal unreal, . . . the question arises, who or what is it that believes.? " " God is the only Intelligence, and can not believe because He understands. . . . Intelligence Is Soul and not sense. Spirit HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 207 and not matter, and God is the only Intelligence, and there is but one God, hence there are no believers ! " That is the an- swer. " So far as this statement is understood, it will be ad- mitted," said Mrs. Glover ; and who shall say that she is not right .'^ Among the many incidental ideas which Mrs. Glover added | to Quimbyism is her qualified disapproval of marriage. Quimby \ had a large family and saw nothing unspiritual in marriage ; and although Mrs. Glover had twice been married, and became a wife for the third time a year later, she believed that marriage had not a very firm spiritual basis. In defining the real pur- pose of marriage she said nothing about children. " To hap- pify existence by constant intercourse with those adapted to elevate it, is the true purpose of marriage." " The scientific morale of marriage is spiritual unity. . . . Proportionately as human generation ceases, the unbroken links of eternal har- monious being will be spiritually discerned." ^ In addition to the development of her " science," Mrs. Glover described a later discovery in regard to it. Some of her " false students," she said, were substituting mesmerism for " science " when healing the sick. The chapters called " Imposition and Demonstration," and " Healing the Sick," are largely taken up with an account of how this false doctrine, which is a per- version of Christian Science, originated, and a warning of its evil effects. This practice of mesmerism was the forerunner of what she later called " Malicious Animal Magnetism." The "In a chapter called "Wedlock." in Miscellaneous Writings < 1897V Mrs. Eddv, after an evasive discussion of the subject, squarely puts the question: " Is" marriage nearer richt than celibac.v? Human knowledsre inculcates that it is, while Science indicates that it is not." Also :_ "Human nature lias bestowed on a wife the risht to become a mother; but if the wife esteems not this privilege, by mutual" consent, exalted and increased affections, she may win a higher." 208 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND story of its origin and development will be told in the next chapter. The book, Science and Health, has, since 1875, been through nearly five hundred editions. It has been revised and edited many times since the original version appeared, and there have been important additions to the doctrine from time to time; but tlie first edition contained, in the main, the body of the Christian Science faith as it is to-day. The first three editions of Science and Health were marred by bitter personal references to those whom Mrs. Glover considered her enemies. These de- nunciations were summed up in a chapter called " Demonology," which was published in the third edition (see chapter xii). Mrs. Glover was persuaded by Rev. James H. Wiggin, her literary adviser, to omit this chapter from later editions, on the groimd that it was libellous. The " Key to the Scriptures " was added to the book in 1884. It consisted originally of a " Glossary," in which certain words in the Bible were given new meanings through Mrs. Glover's spiritual interpretation. For example, " death " is said to mean " an illusion " ; *-— i« Mother," should read " God " ; evening is " mistiness of mortal thought " ; " bridegroom " is " spiritual understanding," etc. This glossary was for the use of her students in reading the Bible. The most conspicuous addition to the doctrine is contained in the chapter called " Apocalypse," which was first printed in 1886. In this chapter Mrs. Eddy adopts a belief similar to the belief the Shakers entertain of their founder, Ann Lee, namely, that she is the woman referred to in the Apocalypse, and represents the " feminine principle of Deity." ^° "> For othor similarities to be found between tlie religious beliefs of the Shai£crs and Christian Science, see Appendix C. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 209 From the study of Quimby's theory, as given in chapter iii, and the foregoing statement of Mrs. Glover's more elaborate system, as contained in Science and Health, it will be seen that Quimby's " science of man," as he tried to teach and practise it, was simply a new way of applying an old truth; and that Mrs. Glover, in the process of making Quimby's idea her own, merely added to it certain abnormalities, which, if universally believed and practised, would make of Christian Science the revolt of a species against its own physical struc- ture; against its relation to its natural physical environment; against the needs of its own physical organism, and against the perpetuation of its kind. But in spite of the radical doctrines laid down in Science and Health, neither Mrs. Glover nor her followers attempted to practise them in their daily lives ; nor do they do so now. In relation to their physical existence and surroundings, Mrs. Eddy and all Christian Scien- tists live exactly as other people do ; and while they write and teach that physical conditions should be ignored, and the seem- ing life of the material world denied, they daily recognise their own mortality, and have a very lively sense of worldly thrift and prosperity. Mrs. Eddy's philosophy makes a double ap- peal to human nature, offering food both to our inherent craving for the mystical and to our desire to do well in a worldly way, and teaching that these extremes are not incompatible In " science." Indeed, as one of the inducements offered to pur- chasers of the first edition of Science and Health, Mrs. Glover advertised it as a book that " affords opportunity to acquire a profession by which you can accumulate a fortune," and in the book itself she said that " Men of business have said this science 210 LIFE OF IVIARY BAKER G. EDDY was of great advantage from a secular point of view." And in later and more prosperous days Mrs. Eddy has written in satisfied retrospect: "In the early history of Christian Science among my thousands of students few were wealthy. Now, Christian Scientists are not indigent; and their comfortable fortunes are acquired by healing mankind morally, physically, and spiritually." Whatever may be the Christian Science theories regarding the nothingness of other forms of matter, the various forms of currency continue to appear very real to the spiritualised vision of its followers. Mrs. Eddy insists that her healers shall be well paid. The matter of payment has, she thinks, an effect upon the patient who pays. She says : " Christian Science demonstrates that the patient who pays what he is able to pay is more apt to recover than he who withholds a slight equivalent for health." Worldly pros- perity, indeed, plays an important part in the Christian Science religion to-day. It is, singularly enough, considered a sign of spirituality in a Christian Scientist. Poverty is believed to be an error, like sin, sickness, and death ; ^^ and Christian Scientists aim to make what they call their " financial demon- stration " early in their experience. A poor Christian Scientist is as much of an anomaly as a sick Christian Scientist. " We were demonstrating over a lack of means, which we had learned was just as much a claim of error to be overcome with Truth as ever sickness or sin vas. — Contributor to the Christian Science Journal, September, 189S. The lack of means is a lupine ghost sired by the same spectre as the lack of health, and both must be mot and put to flight by the same mighty moans of our spiritual warfare. — Contributor to the Christian Science Journal, October, 1904. CHAPTER XII MRS. eddy's belief THAT SHE SUFFERED FOR THE SINS OF OTHERS liETTERS TO STUDENTS THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MALICIOUS ANIMAL MAGNETISM A REVIVAL OF WITCH- CRAFT Indeed, one of the most primitive and fundamental shapes which the relation of cause and effect takes in the savage mind, is the assumed con- nection between disease or death and some malevolent personal agency. . . . The minds of civilised people have become familiar with the conception of natural law, and that conception has simply stifled the old superstition as clover chokes out weeds. . . . The disposition to believe was one of the oldest inheritances of the human mind, while the capacity for estimating evidence in cases of physical causation is one of its very latest and most laborious acquisitions. — -John Fisice. At the beginning of 1877, her seventh year as a teacher in Lynn, Mrs. Eddy and her Science were httle known outside of Essex County, though the first edition of Science and Health had been pubHshed more than a year before, and the author was busy preparing a second edition. Her loyal students, however, believed that she was on the way to obtain wider recognition. Miss Dorcas Rawson, Mrs. Miranda Rice, and Daniel Spofford laboured unceasingly for her interests. Mr. Eddy, immediately upon his marriage, withdrew from practice, dropping the patients he had taken over from Mr. Spofford, and devoted himself entirely to his wife's service. Three days after her marriage Mrs. Eddy wrote to one of her students conceming Mr. Eddy : " I feel sure that I can teach my husband up to a 3U 212 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND higher usefulness, to purity, and the higher development of all his latent noble qualities of head and heart." In spite of the frequent jars and occasional lawsuits between Mrs. Eddy and her students, new candidates for instruction were constantly attracted by the Science taught at Number 8 Broad Street, where the large sign, " Mary B. Glover's Chris- tian Scientists' Home " still aroused the curiosity of the stranger. The Christian Science faith has, from the beginning, owed its growth to its radical principle that sickness of soul and body are delusions which can be dispelled at will, and that the natural state of the human creature is characterised by health, happiness, and goodness. The message which Mrs. Eddy brought to Lynn was substantially that God is not only all- good, all-powerful, and all-present, but that there is nothing but God in all the Universe; that evil is a non-existent thing, a sinister legend which has been handed down from generation to generation until it has become a fixed belief. Mrs. Eddy's mission was to uproot this implanted belief and to emancipate the race from the terrors which had imprisoned it for so many thousands of years. " Ye shall know the Truth," she said, " and the Truth shall make you free." Yet Mrs. Eddy herself was not always well, was not always happy. She used at first to account for this seeming incon- sistency by explaining that she bore in her own person the ills from which she released others. When sick or distraught, Mrs. Eddy frequently reminded her students that Jesus Christ was bruised for our transgressions and bore upon His shoulders the sin and weakness of the world He came to save. She HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 213 apparently did not realise that Christ, by the very act of His atonement, admitted the reality of sin, while she, having denied its existence, had forfeited any logical right to suffer because of it. The missionary who frees the savage from the fear of demons and witchcraft, and the nurse who assures the child that there is no evil thing lurking for him in the dark, do not suffer from the enlightenment they bring, and they do not assume the fear wliich the child casts off. Mrs. Eddy, on the contrary, for many years believed that she herself suffered from the torturing belief she had taken away from others. The reader will remember that in 1863 Mrs. Eddy wrote to Dr. Quimby that while treating her nephew, Albert Tilton, to rid him of the habit of smoking, she herself felt a desire to smoke. By 1877 Mrs. Eddy not only believed that she suffered from the physical ills from which her students were released, but declared that her students followed her in thought and selfishly took from her to feed their own weakness. The work upon the second edition of her book could not go on because they nour- ished themselves upon her and sapped her powers. By the 1st of April, three months after her marriage to Mr. Eddy, she was almost in despair, and on April 7th she wrote one of her students : " I sometimes think I can not hold on till the next edition is out. Will you not help me so far as is in your power, in this way.? Take Miss Norman, she is an interesting girl and help her through. She will work for the cause but she will swamp me if you do not take hold. I am at present such a tired swimmer, unless you do this I have more than I can carry at present. Direct your thoughts and every- body's else that you can away from me, don't talk of me." 214j life of MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND A week later she fulfilled an old threat, and, attended by her husband, went away for some weeks, leaving no address ; " driven," as she said, " into the wilderness." She felt that if her students did not know her whereabouts, their minds could not so persistently prey upon hers. The following letter to Daniel SpofFord is postmarked Boston, April 14th, but seems to have been written upon the eve of jMrs. Eddy's flight from Lynn. Dear Student— This hour of my departure I pick up from the carpet a piece of paper v/rite you a line to say I avi at length driven into the wilderness. Everything needs me in science, my doors are thronged, the book lies waiting, but tliose who call on me mentally in suffering are in belief killing me! Stopping my work that none but me can do in their supreme selfishness; how unlike the example I have left them! Tell this to Miss Brown, Mr. McLauthlen, Mrs. Atkinson, and Miss Norman* but do not let them know they ccm call on me thus if they are doing this ignorantly and if they do it consciously tell McLauthlen and them all it would be no greater crime for them to come directly and thrust a dagger into my heart they are just as surely in belief killing me and committing murder. The sin lies at their door and for them to meet its penalty sometime. You can teach them better, see you do this. O! Harry j^' the book must stop. I can do no more now if ever. They lay on me suffering inconceivable. Mary. If the students will continue to think of me and call on me, I shall at last defend myself and this will be to cut them off from me utterly in a spiritual sense by a bridge they cannot pass over and the effect of this on them they will then learn. I will let you hear from me as soon as I can bear this on account of my health; and will return to prosecute my work on the Book as soon as I can safely. I am going far away and shall remain until you will do your part and give me some better prospect. Ever trttly, Mary. v/..!!?"'" °^ ^^'T- ^f'i^^l's students. Miss Brown was an invalid of Ipswich. Miss Noinian was also of Ipswich, and a friend of Miss Brown. Mrs. Atkinson was nn.^nnf J!., „•''"/ ••^^'\".'='"» "^ Newburyport. Mr. George T. McLauthlen was a ni.TniifiU'tnror of niaclunory in Boston. him^''lla'iTv ""''^ ^^'l^^stian name is Daniel Harrison. Mrs. Eddy always called HISTORY OP CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ^15 Mrs. Eddy believed that her students not only depended upon her for their own moral and physical support, but that, when treating their patients, their minds naturally turned to her, in whom dwelt the healing principle, and unconsciously coupled her in thought with the ill of the patient, which was thus trans- ferred to her. Even after she had escaped into solitude, the book progressed but slowly, and she complained that whenever she had succeeded in concentrating herself upon her work, the beliefs (illnesses) of other people would seize her " as sensibly as a hand." From Boston, shortly after her departure, she wrote to a trusted student one of those incoherent letters which indicate the ex- citement under which Mrs. Eddy sometimes laboured. April, 1877, Sunday. Dear Student: I am in Boston to-day feeling very very little better for the five weeks that are gone. I cannot finish the Key ' yet I will be getting myself and all of a sudden I am seized as sensibly by some others belief as the hand could lay hold of me my sufferings have made me utterly weaned from this plane and if my husband was only willing to give me up I would gladly yield up the ghost of tliis terrible earth plane and join those nearer my Life. . . . Cure Miss Brown* or I shall never finish my book. Truly yrs. M. A letter to Mr. SpofFord, written a week after she left Lynn, and postmarked Fair Haven, Conn., shows that despite her sufferings she was eagerly planning for the second edition of her book and that, notwithstanding the cold reception of the first edition, her faith in its ultimate success was unshaken. April 19, 1877. My Dear Stotdent, ... I will consider the arrangement for em- bellishing the book. I had fixed on the picture of Jesus and a sick man — the hand of the former outstretched to him as in rebuke of the disease; ^ Key to the Scriptures. * The student from Ipswich referred to in the preceding letter. 216 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND or waves and an ark. The last will cost less I conclude and do as well. No rainbow can be made to look right except in colours and that cannot be conveniently arranged in gilt. Now for the printing — would 480 pages include the Key to Scriptures and the entire work as it now is? The book entitled Science and Health is to embrace the chapter on Physiology all the same as if this chapter was not compiled in a separate volume; perhaps you so understand it. If the cost is what you stated, I advise you to accept the terms for I am confident in the sale of two editions more there can be a net income over and above it all. If I get my health again I can make a large demand for the book for I shall lecture and this will sell one edition of a thousand copies (if I can stand it). I am better, some. One circumstance I will name. The night before I left, and before I wrote you those fragments, Miss Brown went into con- vulsions from a chemical, was not expected to live, but came out of it saying she felt perfectly well and as well as before the injury supposed to have been received. I thought at that time if she was not "born again " the Mother would die in her labours. O, how little my students can know what it all costs me. Now, I thank you for relieving me a little in the other case, please see her twice a week; in healing you are benefit ting yourself, in teaching you are benefitting others. I would not advise you to change business at present the rolling stone gathers no moss; persevere in one line and you can do much more than to continually scatter your fire. Try to get students into the field as practitioners and thus healing will sell the book and introduce the science more than aught but my lecturing can do. Send the name of any you can get to study for the purpose of practising and in six months or thereabouts we will have them in the field helping you. If you have ears to hear you will understand. Send all letters to Boston. T. O. Gilbert will forward them to me at present. Now for the writings you named. I will make an agreement with you to publish the book the three j'ears from the time you took it and have twenty-five per cent royalty paid me; at the end of this period we will make other arrangements or agreements or continue those we have made just as the Spirit shall direct me. I feel this is the best thing for the present to decide upon. During these years we shall have a treasurer such as we shall agree upon and the funds deposited in his or her hands and drawn for specified purposes, at the end of these three years if we dissolve partnership the surplus amount shall be equally divided between us; and this is the best I can do. All the years I have expended on that book, the labour I am still performing, and all I have done for students and the cause gratuitously, entitle me to some income now that I am unable to work. But as it is I have none and instead am sued for $2,700* '' Kefcreiue to George W. Barry's suit for payment for services rendered. See Chapter X. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 217 for what? for just tliis, I have allowed my students to think I have no rights, and they can not wrong me ! May God open their eyes at length. If you conclude not to carry the work forward on the terms named, it will have to go out of edition as I can do no more for it, and I believe this hour is to try my students who think they have the cause at heart and see if it be so. My husband is giving all his time and means to help me up from the depths in which these students plunge me and this is all he can do at present. Please write soon. As ever, Mary. Send me the two books that are corrected and just as soon as you can, and I with Gilbert will read them.* Please tell me if you are going to have the chapter on Physiology in a book by itself that I may get the preface ready as soon as I am able. I do nothing else when I have a day I can work. Will send you the final corrections soon. Think of me when you feel strong and well only, and think only of me as well Ever yrs. in Truth Mary. It is an interesting fact that, liowever incoherent Mrs. Eddy became in other matters, she was never so in business. Through hysteria and frantic distress of mind, her shrewd business sense remained alert and keen. When, upon receipt of this letter, Mr. SpofFord wrote her that he did not see how he could pay all the cost of printing, advertising, and putting the second edition upon the market, and still pay Mrs. Eddy her bventy- five cent, royalty upon each copy sold, she replied to him that her work upon the book would more than offset his invested capital : " The conditions I have named to you," she wrote, " I think are just. I give three years and more to offset the capital 0. ^Science and Health (1881), chapter vi. p. 38. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 219 philosophy from time to time, to meet this or that emergency, very much as a householder adds an ell or a wing to accom- modate a growing family. Christian Science as it stands to- day is a kind of autobiography in cryptogram ; its form was; determined by a temperament, and it retains all the convolutions of the curiously duplex personality about which it grew. When Richard Kennedy left Mrs. Eddy in 1872, she was confronted by a trying situation. It was inconceivable to her that, having broken away, he should not try to harm her, and she felt that his very popularity put her in the wrong. The means with which Mrs. Eddy met emergencies were often, in- deed almost always, in themselves ill-adapted to her ends ; but she had a truly feminine adroitness in making the wrong tool serve. When she thought it necessary to discredit Mr. Kennedy and to demonstrate that his success was illegitimate, she caught up the first weapon at hand, which happened to be mesmerism. Mesmerism loomed large in Mrs. Eddy's vision just then, for only a few months before Wallace W. Wright had pubhshed a number of articles in the Lynn Transcript, asserting that the Science taught by Mrs. Eddy was identical with mesmerism. She had been obliged to confess that there was an outward similarity. Here was the solution, ready made. When Ken- nedy left her, he left true Metaphysics behind. How, then, could he still succeed.'' By mesmerism, that dangerous counter- feit which so resembled the true coin. Mrs. Eddy thus ex- plained her discovery : Some newspaper articles falsifying the science, calling it mesmerism, etc., but especially intended, as the writer informed us, to injure its author, precipitated our examination of mesmerism in contradistinction \o our metaphysical science of healing based on the science of Life. Filled 220 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND with revenge and evil passiotis, the mal-practitioner can only depend on manipulation, and rubs the heads of patients years together, fairly in- corporating their minds through this process, which claims less respect tiie more we understand it, and learn its cause. Through the control this gives the practitioner over patients, he readily reaches the mind of the community to injure another or promote liimself, but none can track his foul course.'' Without a doubt Mrs. Eddy had speculated somewhat upon the possibility of a malignant use of mind power before Ken- nedy's separation from her, but she never got very far with abstractions until she had a human peg to hang them on. Her indignation against Kennedy gave her reflections upon the subject of malignant mind power a vigorous impetus, and she fell to work to develop the converse of her original proposition with almost as much fervour and industry as she had bestowed upon the proposition itself. She thus explained her discovery of Kennedy's " malpractice " : Some years ago, the history of one of our " young students, as known . to us and many others, diverged into a dark channel of its own, whereby the unwise young man reversed our metaphysical method of healing, and subverted his mental power apparently for the purposes of tyranny peculiar to the individual. A stolid moral sense, great want of spiritual sentiment, restless ambition, and envy, embedded in the soil of this student's nature, metaphysics brought to the surface, and he refused to give them up, choosing darkness rather than liglit. His motives moved in one groove, the desire to subjugate; a despotic will choked his humanity. Carefully veiling his character, through unsurpassed secretiveness, he wore the mask of innocence and youth. But he was young only in years; a marvelous plotter, dark and designing, he was constantly surprising us, and we half shut our eyes to avoid the pain of discovery, while we struggled with the gigantic evil of his character, but failed to destroy it. . . . The second j-ear of his practice, when we discovered he was malpractising, and told him so, he avowed his intention to do whatever he chose with his mental power, spurning a Christian life, and exulting in the absence of moral ' f^cicnce and Health (1875), p. 375. "TliroiiKhont this chapter on D(>mnnolosrv Mrs. Eddy usos the editorial In referring to herself. Mr. Eddy is designated as "bur husband." HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 221 restraint. The sick clung to him when he was doing them no good, and he made friends and followers with surprising rapiditj% but retained them only so long as his mesmeric influence was kept up and his true character unseen. The habit of his misapplication of mental power grew on him until it became a secret passion of his to produce a state of mind de- structive to health, happiness, or morals. . . . His mental malpractice has made him a moral leper that would be shunned as the most prolific cause of sickness and sin did the sick understand the cause of their relapses and protracted treatment, the husband the loss of his wife, and the mother the death of her child, etc." Mrs. Eddy had always been able to wring highly-coloured experiences from the most unpromising material, and she never V accomplished a more astonishing feat than when she managed to see a melodramatic villain in Richard Kennedy. Her hatred of Kennedy was one of the strongest emotions she had ever felt, really a tragic passion in its way, and since the cheerful, ener- getic boy who had inspired it was in no way an adequate object, she fell to and made a Kennedy of her own. She fash- ioned this hypothetical Kennedy bit by bit, believing in him more and more as she put him together. She gave him one grisly attribute after another, and the more terrible she made her image, the more she believed in it and hated and feared it ; and the more she hated and feared it, the more furiously she wrought upon it, until finally her creation, a definite shape of fear and hatred, stood by her day and night to harry and tor- ment her. Without Malicious Mesmerism as his cardinal attribute, the new and terrible Kennedy could never have been made. It was like the tragic mask which presented to an Athenian audience an aspect of horror such as no merely human face could wear. By a touch really worthy of an artist Mrs. Eddy made the ^^ Science and Health (1881), chapter vi, p. 2. 222 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND boy's youth, agreeable manner, and even his fresh colour con- ducive to a sinister effect. Given such a blithe and genial figure, and suppose in him a power over the health and emo- tions of other people, and a morbid passion for using it to the most atrocious ends, and you have indeed the young Nero, which title jNIrs. Eddy so often applied to Kennedy. Mrs. Eddy feared this imaginary Kennedy as only things born of the imagination can be feared, and dilated upon his corrupt nature and terrible power until her new students, when they met the actual, unconscious Kennedy upon the street, shud- dered and hurried away. During the sleepless nights which sometimes followed an outburst of her hatred, Mrs. Eddy would pace the floor, exclaiming to her sympathetic students : " Oh, why does not some one kill him.? Why does he not die.'' '' She afterward wrote of him : Among our very first students was the mesmerist aforesaid, who has followed the cause of metaphysical healing as a hound follows his prey, to hunt down every ^jroniising student if he cannot place them in his track and on his pursuit. Never but one of our students was a voluntary mal- practitioner; he has made many others. . . . This malpractitioner tried his best to break down our health before we learned the cause of our suflFerings. It was difficult for us to credit the facts of his malice or to admit they lie within the pale of mortal thought." To Richard Kennedy and his mesmeric power Mrs. Eddy began to attribute, not only her illnesses, but all her vexations and misfortunes; any lack of success in her ventures, any difficulties with her students. In the famous chapter on Demonology she enumerates a long list of friends whose warm regard for her was destroyed by Kennedy's mesmeric power. " Our lives," she writes, " have "-S'cic/icc and Health (1881), chapter vi, p. 34. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 223 since floated apart down the river of years." She charges this " mental assassin " with even darker crimes. The husband of a lady who was the patient of this malpractitioner poured out his grief to us and said : " Dr. K — has destroyed the hajiiiiness of my home, ruined my wife, etc."; and after that, he finished with a double crime by destroying the health of that wronged husband so that he died. We say that he did these things because we have as much evidence of it as ever we had of the existence of any sin. The symptoms and circumstances of tlie cases, and the diagnosis of their diseases, proved the unmistakable fact. His career of crime surj^asses anything tliat minds in general can accept at this period. We advised him to marry a young lady whose affection he had won, but he refused; subsequently she was wedded to a nice young man, and then lie alienated her affections from her husband." The real Richard Kennedy must not be confounded with the smiling Elagabalus of Mrs. Eddy's imagination. While she was perfecting her creation, the flesh-and-blood Kennedy was establishing an enviable record for uprightness, kindliness, and purity of character. In 1876 he became prosperous enough to move his office to Boston. There he was, as he had been in Lynn, an active agent for good. He had made many friends and had built up a good practice, when, in 1881, in the third edition of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy broke forth into that tirade of invective which she called " Demonology " — the flower of nine years of torturing hatred. Kennedy's old friends in Lynn were stirred to mirth rather than indignation when a passage like the following was applied to a man whose amiability was locally proverbial: The Nero of to-day, regaling himself through a mental method with the tortures of individuals, is repeating history, and will fall upon his own sword, and it shall pierce him through. Let him remember this when, in the dark recesses of thouglit, he is robbing, committing adultery, and ^^ Science and Health (1881), chapter vi, p. 6. 2U LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND killing; when he is attempting to turn friend away from friend, ruthlessly stabbing the quivering heart; when he is clipping the thread of life, and giving to the grave youth and its rainbow hues; when he is turning back the reviving suflFerer to her bed of pain, clouding her first morning after jears of night; and the Nemesis of that hour shall point to the tyrant's fate, who falls at length upon the sword of justice." In the beginning, then, Malicious Mesmerism was advanced merely as a personal attribute of Richard Kennedy, and was a means by which Mrs. Eddy sought to justify her hatred. In the first edition of Science and Health, though she usually links it with some reference to Kennedy, Mrs. Eddy occasionally refers to mesmerism as an abstract thing, apart from any personality. In coming years the person or mind that hates his neighbour, will have no need to traverse his fields, to destroy his tlocks and herds, and spoil his \'ines; or to enter his house to demoralise his household; for the evil mind will do this through mesmerism; and not in propria personw be seen committing the deed. Unless this terrible hour be met and re- strained by Science, mesmerism, that scourge of man, will leave nothing sacred when mind begins to act imder direction of conscious power. The sign of the mesmerist, however, the plague spot which he could not conceal, was " Manipulation " — ^the method which she had taught Kennedy and afterward repudiated. " Sooner suffer a doctor infected with smallpox to be about you," she cries, " than come under the treatment of one who manipulates his patients' heads." And again, " the malpractitioner can depend only on manipulation." From 1872 to 1877 Mrs. Eddy counted many victims of Kennedy's mesmeric power, but charged no other student with consciously and maliciously practising mesmerism. In 1877, however, an open rapture occurred be- tween Mrs. Eddy and Daniel SpofFord. Now, Mr. Spofford "Science and Health (1881), chapter vi, p. 38. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 225 was, like Kennedy, a man with a personal following, and his secession would mean that of his party. Though she never hated SpofFord as bitterly as she hated Kennedy, he was the second of her seceding students who was deemed important enough to merit the charge of mesmerism — ^a charge which conferred a certain distinction, as only those who had stood in high places ever incurred it. But in her book, published only two years before, Mrs. Eddy had clearly and repeatedly stated that the mesmerist could " depend only on manipidation," and could always be detected thereby. Now Mr. Spoiford did not manipulate — ^he had been so soundly taught that he would sooner have put his hands into the fire. Accordingly, Mrs. Eddy got out a postscript to Science and Health. The second edition, which Mr. SpofFord had laboured upon and helped to prepare, was hastily revised and converted into a running attack upon him, hurried to press, labeled Volume II., and sent panting after Science and Health, which was not labeled Volume I., and which had already been in the world three years. This odd little brown book, with the ark and troubled waves on the cover, is made up of a few chapters snatched from the 1875 edition, interlarded with vigorous rhetoric such as the following apostrophe to SpofFord : Behold! thou criminal mental marauder, that would blot out the sunshine of earth, that would sever friends, destroy virtue, put out Truth, and murder in secret the innocent befouling thy track with the trophies of thy guilt,— I say. Behold the "cloud, no bigger than a man's hand," already rising in the horizon of Truth, to pour down upon thy guilty head the hailstones of doom. The purpose of this breathless little courier — a book of 167 226 LIFE OF jVIARY BAKER G. EDDY AND pages — in looks very unlike the sombre 480-page volume which had preceded it — was to announce that mesmerism could be practised without manipulation — indeed, that the practice was more pernicious without a sign than with it. Mrs. Eddy thus explained her new light upon the subject: Mesmerism is practised through manipulation — and without it. And we have learned, by new observation, the fool who saith " There is no God " attempts more evil without a sign than with it. Since " Science and Health " first went to press, we have observed the crimes of another mesmeric outlaw, in a variety of ways, who does not as a common thing manipulate, in cases where he suUenly attempted to avenge himself of certain individuals, etc. But we had not before witnessed the mal- practitioner's fable without manipulation, and supposed it was not done without it; but have learned it is the addenda to what we have described in a previous edition, but without manipulating the head.*" Malicious Mesmerism, or Malicious Animal Magnetism, first conceived as a personal attribute of Richard Kennedy, was six years later stretched to accommodate Daniel SpofFord. By 1881, when the third edition of Science and Health appeared, a personal animosity had fairly developed into a doctrine, and Mrs. Eddy was well on the way toward admitting a general principle of evil — a thing she certainly never meant to admit. She had decided that mesmerism was not merely a trick em- ployed in practice, but a malignant attitude of mind, and that a person evilly disposed, by merely wishing his neighbour harm, could bring it to him — unless the object of his malice were wise in Metaphysics and could treat against this evil mind-power. Unless a man wore thus protected by Christian Science, his enemy might, through Mesmerism or Mortal Mind, bring upon him any kind of misfortune; might ruin his business, cause a ^BciencG and Health (1878), p. 136. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 227 rash to break out upon his face, vex his body with grievous humours, cause his cliildren to hate him and his wife to become unfaithful. Having instanced a few cases of the evil workings of the hidden agency in our midst, our readers may feel an interest to learn somewhat of the indications of this mental malpractice of demonology. It has no outward signs, such as ordinarily indicate mesmerism, and its effects are far more subtle because of this. Its tendency is to sour the disposition, to occasion great fear of disease, dread, and discouragement, to cause a relapse of former diseases, to produce new ones, to create dislikes or indifference to friends, to produce sufferings in the head, in fine, every evil that demon- ology includes and that metaphysics destroys. If it be students of ours whom he attacks, the malpractitioner and aforesaid mesmerist tries to produce in their minds a hatred towards us, even as the assassin puts out the light before committing his deed. He knows this error would injure the student, impede his progress, and produce the results of error on health and morals, and he does it as much for that effect on him as to injure us.^® The question is often asked, " How did Mrs. Eddy justify this evil power with her scheme of metaphysics.? If God is all and all is God, where does Malicious Mesmerism come in.'' " The answer is evident; when the original Science of Man, as she had learned it from Quimby, and as she at first taught it, no longer met the needs of her own nature, Mrs. Eddy simply went ahead and added to her religion out of the exuberance of her feelings, leaving justification to the commentators — and she has rapped them soundly whenever they have attempted it. No philosophy which endeavours to reduce the universe to one element, and to find the world a unit, can admit the existence of evil unless it admits it as a legitimate and necessary part of the whole. But the very keystone of Mrs. Eddy's Science ^^ Science ana Health (1881), chapter vl, p. 35. 228 LIFE OF jVIARY BAKER G. EDDY AND is that evil is not only unnecessary but unreal. Admitting evil as a legitimate part of the whole would be to deny that the whole was good and was God. Admitting evil in opposition to good would be to deny that good and God were the whole. Whenever a train of reasoning seemed to be leading to the wrong place, Mrs. Eddy could always drop a stitch and begin a new pattern on the other side. Since neither the allness of God nor the Godhood of all could explain the injuries and persecutions which she felt were inflicted upon her, she fell back upon Mortal Mind. " As used in Christian Science," she says, " animal magnet- ism is the specific term for Error, or Mortal Mind." Mortal Mind is Mrs. Eddy's explanation of the seeming exist- ence of evil in the world." Whatever seems to be harmful, — • sin, sickness, earthquakes, convulsions of the elements, — are due to the influence of Mortal Mind. Now, Mortal Mind, she says, has no real existence except as a harmful tradition ; she affirms that its very name is a fallacy, and she admits it merely for the sake of argument. Hence, though^ there is no such thing as evil, there is an accumulated belief in evil, a tradition which overshadows us, as Mrs. Eddy says, " like the deadly Upas tree." The belief in evil, then, is the only evil that exists. This belief is Mortal Mind, and Mortal Mind is Mes- merism. " Mortal mind includes all evil, disease, and death ; also, all beliefs relative to the so-called material laws, and all material objects, and the law of sin and death. The Scripture says, "The carnal mind (in other words mortal mind> is enmity against God : for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.'' Mortal mind is an Illusion : as much in our waking moments as in the dreams of sleep. The belief that Intelligence, Truth, and Love, are in matter and separate from God, Is an error ; for there is no Intelligent evil, and no power besides God, Good. God would not be omnipotent if there were In reality another mind creating or governing man or the universe. Miscel- laneous \yriiin(js, p. 36, Sixty-sixth Edition (1883-1896). HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 229 Mrs. Eddy says : The origin of evil is the problem of ages. It confronts each generation anew. It confronts Christian Science. The question is often asked, i-f God created only the good, whence comes the evil? To this question Christian Science replies: Evil never did exist as an entity. It is but a belief that there is an opposite Intelligence to God. This belief is a species of idolatry, and is not more true or real than that an image graven on wood or stone is God." But concerning the origin of the belief in evil, Mrs. Eddy is silent; and certainly with the belief we are immediately concerned, since that and that alone "brought death into the world, and all our Avoe." The cause of this knot or tangle in the human consciousness, however, remains unexplained down to the very last page of the very last edition of Science and Health. The Rev. James Henry Wiggin, for some years Mrs. Eddy's literary adviser, said that " Mesmerism was her Devil," and it does seem that she has routed Satan from pillar to post only to be confronted by him at last. By designating evil as Mortal Mind, and declaring that it was non-existent, Mrs. Eddy evidently believed herself well rid of it ; and she was bewildered to find that she was still afraid of it, and that it could do her harm. Unwittingly she was demonstrating Kant's proposition that " a dream which we all dream together, and which we all must dream, is not a dream, but a reality." Mrs. Eddy's method of protecting herself against Malicious Mesmerism — the " adverse treatment " which later became such a prolific source of scandal in the Christian Science Church — was first practised by her students about 1875. By now mes- merism had become an indispensable household convenience. ^« Miscellaneous Writings (1806) p. 346. 230 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND After she moved into her Broad Street house, Mrs. Eddy had a long succession of tenants and housekeepers, all of whom she at first found satisfactory, but against whom she soon had a grievance. She accused nearly all of them of stealing; of taking her coal, her blankets, her feather pillows, her silver spoons, and especially of taking her knives and forks, which kept magically disappearing like the food to which the clown sits down in the pantomime. It seemed as if the only way in which she could keep these knives and forks at all was actually to hold them in her hands. All this trouble she bitterly ac- credited to Kennedy. People came into her house well disposed toward her, she said ; he set his mind to work upon their minds, and in a few days she could see the result. They avoided her, looked at her doubtfully, and her spoons and pillows began playing hide and seek again. Mrs. Eddy talked of Kennedy continually, and often in her lectures she wandered away from her subject, forgot that her students were there to be instructed in the power of universal love, and would devote half the lesson hour to bitter invective against Kennedy and his treachery. This, of course, made an unfavourable impression upon new students, and Mrs. Eddy's advisers, Mr. Spofford, Mrs. Rice, and Miss Rawson, besought her to control her feeling and not to darken the doctrine of Divine love by the upbraidings of hatred. When thus advised she would tell her students how she had withdrawn herself from the world and laboured night and day through weary years, " standing alone with God," that she might give this great truth to men; and how Kennedy had perverted it and put it to evil uses. Not only did he rob her of her students and set HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 231 the minds of men against her, she declared, but he pursued her mind " as a hound pursues its prey," causing her torment, sleeplessness, and unrest. She explained that even his cures were made at her expense ; that when standing beside his patients and " rubbing their heads years together," he took up Mrs, Eddy in thought, united her mentally with the sick, and cured them by throwing the burden of their disease upon her. Thus weighed down by the ills of his patients, she could go no further. Unless some means were found of protecting her against Ken- nedy, she must sink under his persecution and her mission be unfulfilled. In this extremity she implored her students to save her by treating against Kennedy and his power. Those of Mrs. Eddy's students who did not know Mr. Ken- nedy believed that their teacher was suffering acutely at his hands. She so wrought upon their sympathies that they actu- ally consented to meet at her house and take part in this treat- ment, which they believed would injure the young man. One of the faithful students present in the circle would say to the others : Now all of you unite yourselves in thought on Kennedy; that he cannot heal the sick, that he must leave oflF calling on Mrs. Glover mentally, that he shall be driven out of practice and leave the town, etc. Mrs. Eddy was never present at these sessions, and her students soon discontinued them. One of the number, who used to meet with the others to treat against Kennedy, explains that he was unwilling to go on with it because he discovered that the more he wished evil to Kennedy, the more he felt the pres- ence of evil within himself. He writes that " while thoughts born of love or its attributes are unlimited in their power to 232 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND help both their author and their object, thoughts born of malice influence only those who originate them." Although no open rupture occurred between Mrs. Eddy and Daniel SpofFord until the summer of 1877, by the spring of 1877 Mrs. Eddy's feeling for him had begun to cool. It will be remembered that she had turned a number of her students over to Mr. SpofFord for instruction in the Interpretation of the Scriptures. As a teacher, Mr. SpoiFord proved so popular that Mrs. Eddy repented the authority she had given him. His success in practice also made her restive, — doubtless one of the causes which led her to insist upon his turning his practice over to Asa Gilbert Eddy and devoting his time to pushing the sale of her book. It would be scarcely fair to draw the con- clusion that Mrs. Eddy resented the success of her students in itself, but she certainly looked upon it with apprehension if the student showed any inclination to adopt methods of his own or to think for himself. Mrs. Eddy required of her stu- dents absolute and unquestioning conformity to her washes ; any other attitude of mind she regarded as dangerous. She often told Mr. SpofFord that there was no such thing as devo- tion to the principle of revealed truth which did not include devotion to the revelator. " I am Wisdom, and this revelation is mine," she would declare when a student questioned her decision. In July, 1877, Mr. SpofFord closed out the stock of Science and Health, which he had received from George H. Barry and Elizabeth M. Newhall, the students who had furnished the money to publish the book. Mr. SpofFord paid over the money which he had received for the books, something over six hundred HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ^33 dollars, to these two students, and although Mrs. Eddy had agreed to ask for no royalty upon the first edition, she was exceedingly indignant that the money had not been paid to her. She declared that Mr. Barry and Miss Newhall had advanced the money to further the cause, and that whatever was realised from the sale of the first edition should have gone toward getting out a second. Mr. Spofford told her that if Mr. Barry and Miss Newhall wished to put the money into a second edition, there was nothing to prevent their doing so, but that he had received from them a number of books which were their property, and he was in duty bound to turn over to them any money received for the same. Mr. Barry and Miss Newhall lost over fifteen hundred dollars on the edition, and Mr. Spofford paid out five hundred dollars of his own money for advertising and personal expenses, besides giving his time for several months. Mrs. Eddy made no effort to reimburse them. The estrangement thus brought about between Mrs. Eddy and Mr. Spofford continued until, in January, 1878, Mr. Spofford was expelled from the Christian Scientists' Association and received the following notice: Dr. D. H. Spofford of Newburyport has been expelled from the Association of Christian Scientists for immorality and as unworthy to be a member. Lynn, Jan. 19th, 1878. Secretary of the Christian Scientists' Association, Mrs. H. N. Kingsbury. A notice also appeared in the Newburyport Herald, stating that Daniel H. Spofford had been expelled for alleged immo- rality from the Christian Scientists' Association of Lynn. Mr. Spofford brought no action against the Association, as he £54 LIFE OF IVIARY BAKER G. EDDY AND thought the cliarge would be considered absurd and could do him no harm. " Immorality " was a favourite charge of Mrs. Eddy's ; she insisted it meant that a student had been guilty of disloyalty to Christian Science. The very special and wholly unauthor- ised meanings which Mrs. Eddy had given to many common words in writing Science and Health doubtless confirmed her in the habit of empirical diction. An amusing instance of this occurred years afterward, when Mrs. Eddy quarrelled with a woman prominent in the Mother Church in Boston, and de- clared that she was an adulteress. When the frantic woman appealed to her to know what in Heaven's name she meant, 'll j Mrs. Eddy replied gravely, " You have adulterated the Truth ; what are you, then, but an adulteress.'' " The test of loyalty in a disciple was obedience. " Whosoever is not for me is against me," Mrs. Eddy declared in an angry interview with Mr. Spofford. If a student were " against " her, there could be but one cause for his hardening of heart — Richard Kennedy and Malicious Mesmerism. Mr. Spofford was amazed, therefore, in the spring of 1878, to find that a bill had been filed before the Supreme Judicial Court at Salem, charging him with practising witchcraft upon one of IMrs. Eddy's former students, Lucretia L. S. Brown of Ipswich. Lucretia Brown was a spinster about fifty years of age, who lived with her mother and sister in one of the oldest houses in Ipswich, facing upon School-house Green. When she was a child. Miss Brown had a fall which injured her spine, and she was an invalid for the greater part of her life. Although not absolutely bedridden, she had often to keep to her bed for HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ^35 weeks together, and seldom walked further than the church. She conducted a crocheting agency, taking orders for city dealers, and giving out piece-work to women in the village who wished to earn a little pin-money. Miss Lucretia was noted for her system and her neatness. On certain days of the week she gave out this crochet work at exactly two o'clock in the afternoon, and whoever arrived a few minutes early had to await the stroke of the clock, as Miss Brown was not visible until then. The women who came for work gathered in the sitting-room, and one by one they were admitted to Miss Lu- cretia's sleeping chamber, where she received them in a bed incredibly white and smooth. They used to wonder how Miss Lucretia could lie under a coverlid absolutely wrinkleless, and how she could handle her worsted and give all her directions without rumpling the smoothness of the turned-back sheet, or marring the geometrical outline of her pillow. As the candi- date retired from Miss Brown's presence, her bundle of yam was sharply eyed by the other women who waited in the sitting- room, as there was a rumour that Miss Lucretia gave more work to her favourites than to others, and that they rolled their worsted up tightly to conceal the evidence of her partiality. In the matter of good housewifery, the three Brown ladies were triumphant and invincible. They carried their daintiness even into their diet, regarding anything heavier than the most ethereal food as somewhat too virile and indelicate for their spinster household. The assertion was once made that Essex was the cleanest county in Massachusetts, and Ipswich was the cleanest town in Essex, and the Browns were the cleanest people in Ipswich. Even when Miss Lucretia was suffering 236 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND from her worst attacks and was supposed to be helpless in bed, she was occasionally discovered late at night, slipping about the house and " tidying up " under cover of darkness. Before Miss Lucretia knew Mrs. Eddy and Miss Rawson, she was a Congregationalist, but after she was healed by Christian Science she withdrew from her old church. Her cure was much talked about. After she was treated by Miss Rawson, she was able to be up and about the house all day and to walk a distance of tv,o or three miles, whereas before she had made much ado to call upon a neighbour at the other end of the Green. After her healing she made some effort to practise upon other people, but Ipswich folk were slow to quit their family doctors in favour of the new method. Miss Brown, however, remained a devout Scientist until her death in 1883, and up to that time occasionally took a case. The story goes that she got the cold she died of by airing the house too thoroughly after having treated one of her patients. Fifty years of frantic cleanliness v/ere not to be overcome in an instant ; and although Miss Lucretia well knew that disease was but a frame of mind, that contagion was a myth, and that dirt itself was only a " belief," the moment a patient was out of the house, up went the windows, and the draperies went out on the clothes-line. In her last illness she called in her old family physician, but refused to let him prescribe for her, explaining that she merely wished liim to diagnose her case so that her Christian Science healer would know what to treat her for. Her death Avas as orderly as her life. When she felt that her " belief " (pneumonia) was gaining on her, she called in her mother and HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 237 sister, talked over her business, and put her affairs in order, telhng them where they would find all her things. When she had given all her directions, she asked them if there were any- thing about which they wished to question her. When they replied in the negative, she said, " Good-bye, Mother. Good- bye, Sister," and smoothing once again that never-wrinkled, turned-back sheet, she folded her hands and almost instantly died. In 1878, when Miss Brown believed that Mr. SpofFord had bewitched her, she was a patient of Miss Dorcas Rawson. Miss Rawson and her sister, Mrs. Rice, it will be remembered, were among Mrs. Eddy's first students in Lynn. They were daugh- ters of a large family in Maine, and when they were very young girls came to Lynn to make their way in the shoe shops. Miranda soon married Mr. Rice and left the factory. After the two sisters had studied with Mrs. Eddy, Dorcas also left the factory and became a practising healer. She was as ardent in her new faith as she had been before in Methodism. While a Methodist she had been one of a number who " professed holiness," that is, who felt that in their daily walk they were so near to God that His presence protected them from even the temptation to sin. Miss Rawson was a thorouglily good and unselfish woman, and so earnest and forceful that perhaps in a later day she would have been called " strong-minded." However devoted in service, such a firm and independent nature would almost inevitably clash with Mrs. Eddy's at times, and Miss Rawson had more than one painful difference with her teacher. But it was hard for Miss Rawson to give up a friend, harder than to bear with Mrs. Eddy's unreasonableness. After 238 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND these disagreements she always came back, telling her friends that she could not endure to be separated from Mrs. Eddy in spirit, and that, when she was, she felt her health failing and discouragement threatening to overwhelm her. Wlien, under her treatment. Miss Brown suffered a relapse, Miss Rawson, in her perplexity, went to Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Eddy had the solution at her tongue's end. Daniel SpofFord, in his general opposition to truth, was exercising upon Miss BrowTi his mesmeric arts. Miss Rawson was at first loath to believe this. Mr. SpofFord was an old and trusted friend; even had he been subsidised by Richard Kennedy, why should Mortal Mind, as exercised by Mr. SpofFord, prevail over Divine Mind as employed by Miss Rawson? But Mrs. Eddy convinced her, with her will or against it, and also convinced poor Miss Brown. Mr. SpofFord's acquaintance with Miss Brown had been slight. When she was studying with Mrs. Eddy, she, with other stu- dents, had entered his class in the Interpretation of the Scrip- tures. When Miss Brown's health began to fail, he had not seen her for some months and was ignorant alike of her illness and the supposed cause of it. After Miss Lucretia had begun to regard him as the author of her ills, Mr. SpofFord was in Ipswich one day and bethought him of calling upon his old student. Accordingly he went down to the Green and knocked at her cottage. Miss Brown herself came to the door and immediately fell into great agitation. Ordinarily a pale woman, her checks and forehead flushed so hotly that Mr. SpofFord innocently thought that she must be making preserves and had just come from the stove. She stood for a moment, very ill HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 239 at ease, and, without asking him to come in, begged him to excuse her and ran back into the house. When she reappeared, she seemed even more distracted than before, and Mr. Spofford now felt sure that he had intruded upon some critical moment in preserve-making, and told her that he would call again when he next happened to be in Ipswich. He went away, leaving Miss Brown to wonder whether he had merely come to see how his victim did, or whether he had come to do her further harm. By this time Mrs. Eddy had Mr. Spofford upon her mind almost as constantly as she had Richard Kennedy. In April, a month before the charge of witchcraft was made against him, Mrs. Eddy filed a bill in equity against Mr. Spofford to recover tuition and a royalty on his practice. This suit was still pending when the witchcraft case came up, and was dis- missed June 3d because of defects in the writ and insufficient service. The Newburyport Herald of May 16th, in comment- ing editorially upon the witchcraft case, said: "Mrs. Eddy tried, some time since, to induce us to publish an attack upon Spofford, which we declined to do, and we under- stand that similar requests were made to other papers in the county." In preparing to prosecute the witchcraft case, Mrs. Eddy first selected twelve students from the Christian Scientists' Association- — she has always been partial to tlie apostolic num- ber— and called on these students to meet her at her house and treat Mr. Spofford adversely, as other students had formerly treated Richard Kennedy. She required each of these twelve students, one after another, to take Mr. Spofford up mentally 24-0 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND for two hours, declaring in thought that he had no power to heal, must give up his practice, etc. Mr. Henry F, Dunncls of Ipswich was one of the chosen twelve. He says in his affidavit : " When the Spoff ord lawsuit came along, she took twelve of us from the Association and made us take two hours apiece, one after the other. She made a statement that this man SpofFord was adverse to her and that he used his mesmeric or hypnotic power over her students and her students' patients, and hindered the students from performing healing on their patients, and we w^ere held together to keep our minds over this SpofFord to prevent him from exercising this mesmeric power over her students and patients. This twenty-four hours' work was done in her house." Having thus prepared her case through the agency of Divine ^ !/ Mind, Mrs. Eddy next set about making the most of human devices. She went to her lawyer in Lynn and had him draw up a bill of complaint in Miss Brown's name, setting forth the injuries which Miss Brown had received from Mr. Spofford's mesmeric malice, and petitioning the court to restrain him from exercising his power and using his arts upon her. The text of the bill is in part: Humbly complaining, the PlaintiflF, Lucretia L. S. Brown of Ipswich in said County of Essex, showeth unto your Honours, that Daniel H. Spofford, of Newburyport, in said County of Essex, the defendant in the above entitled action, is a mesmerist and practises the art of mesmerism and by his said art and the power of his mind influences and controls the minds and bodies of other persons and uses his said power and art for the purpose of injuring the persons and property and social relations of . others and does by said means so injure them. And the plaintiff further showeth that the said Daniel H. Spofford has at divers times and places since the year eighteen hundred and seventy-five, wrongfully and maliciously and with intent to injure the HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 241 plaintiff, caused the plaintiff by means of his said power and art great suffering of body and mind and severe spinal pains and neuralgia and a temporary susijension of mind, and still continues to cause the plaintiff the same. And the plaintiff has reason to fear and does fear that he will continue in the future to cause the same. And the plaintiff says that said injuries are great and of an irreparable nature and that she is wholly unable to escape from the control and influence he so exercises upon her and from the aforesaid effects of safd control and influence. As Mrs. Eddy's attorney flatly refused to argue the case In court, she arranged that one of her students, Edward J. Arens, should do so. At the opening of the Supreme Judicial Court in Salem May 14, 1878, Mrs. Eddy and Mr. Arens appeared under power of attorney for Miss Brown, attended by some twenty witnesses, " a cloud of witnesses," as the Boston Globe put it in an account of the hearing. When they were assembled at the railway station in Lynn to take the train for Salem, one of the witnesses went to Mrs. Eddy and protested that he knew nothing whatever about the case and would not know what to say were he called upon to testify. " You will be told what to say," replied Mrs, Eddy reassuringly. Having arrived at the Salem Court House, Mrs. Eddy and her loyal band awaited in the jury-room the entrance of the chief justice. As soon as Judge Horace Gray had taken his seat, Mr. Arens arose and presented his petition for a hearing on the bill of complaint. He then made an exposition of the case to the Judge, who ordered that an order of notice be served upon Mr. SpofFord, and appointed Friday, May 17th, for a hearing of the case. Mr. Arens at once took the train for Newbury port to search for Mr. Spofford, as Mrs. Eddy feared that he might escape into another State. Meanwhile the Massachusetts press was making the most of 212 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND the novel legal proceedings at Salem. A reporter from the Boston Globe called at Miss Brown's house in Ipswich, but was told that she was away from home. Of this call the Globe published the following account : In an interview with a sister of Miss Brown, the latter being out of town, the lady informed the Globe reporter that she and her family believed that there was no limit to the awful power of mesmerism, but she still had some faith in the power of the law, and thouglit that Dr. Spofford might be awed into abstaining from injuring her sister further. That he does so she believes there is no possibility of a doubt. In answer to a query put by the reporter, she admitted that should Dr. Spoiford prove so disposed, even though he be incarcerated behind the stone walls at Charlestown, he could still use his mesmeric power against her sister. On Friday morning the crowd which had assembled at the Salem Court House was disappointed. Mr. Spofford himself did not appear, but his attorney, Mr. Noyes, appeared for him and filed a demurrer, which Judge Gray sustained, declaring with a smile that it was not within the power of the Court to control Mr. Spofford's mind. The case was appealed, and the appeal waived the following November. So, after a lapse of nearly two centuries, another charge of witchcraft was made before the court in Salem village. But it was an anachronism merely, and elicited such ridicule that it was hard to realise that, because of charges quite as fanciful, one hundred and twenty-six persons were once lodged in Salem jail, nineteen persons were hanged, and an entire community was plunged into anguish and terror. During the long years that the grass had been growing and withering above the graves of Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse and their wretched companions, one of the most important of all possible changes had taken place in the world — a change HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 243 in the mode of thinking. The work of Descartes, Locke, and Sir Isaac Newton had become a common inheritance; the rela- tion of physical effect with physical cause had become estab- lished even in ignorant and unthinking minds, and a schoolboy of 1878 would have rejected as absurd the evidence upon which Judge Hawthorne condemned a woman like Mary Easty to death. Mrs. Eddy's attempt to revive the witch horror was only a courtroom burlesque upon the grimmest tragedy in New Eng- land history. It is interesting only in that it demonstrates how surely the same effects follow the same causes. When Mrs. Eddy had succeeded in overcoming in her students' minds the tradition of sound reasoning of which they and their century were the fortunate heirs, when she had convinced them that there were no physical causes for physical ills, she had unwittingly plunged them back into the torturing superstitions which it had taken the world so long to overcome. The capacity for esti- mating evidence in cases of physical causation, which John Fiske calls " one of the world's latest and most laborious acqui- sitions," once denied, the Christian Scientists had parted with that rational attitude of mind which is the basis of the health and sanity of modern life ; which has abolished religious perse- cution as well as controlled contagious disease, and has made a revival of the witchcraft terror as impossible as a recurrence of the Black Death. This rational habit of mind once broken down, two good women like Lucretia Brown and Dorcas Rawson could suspect a good man of the malice of a fiend. Among this little group of people who had been friends and fellow-seekers after God, there broke out, in a milder form, that same scourge 244 LIFE OF ]MARY BAKER G. EDDY of fear and distrust which demoralised Salem from 1692 to 1694. In the attempt to bring the glad tidings of emancipa- tion from the operation of physical law, which is sometimes cruel, Mrs. Eddy had come back to the cruelest of all debasing superstitions — that of attributing disease and misfortune to a malevolent human agency. CHAPTER XIII THE " CONSPIRACY TO MURDER " CASE ARREST OF EDDY AND ARENS ON A SENSATIONAL CHARGE HEARING IN COURT- DISCHARGE OF THE DEFENDANTS From 1877 to 1879 Mrs. Eddy was in the law-courts so frequently that the Boston newspapers began to feature her litigations and to refer to them and to her with disrespectful jocularity. In March, 1877, George W. Barry,^ one of her students, brought his suit against Mrs. Eddy for twenty-seven hundred dollars for services rendered her in copying the manuscript of Science and Health, attending to her business, storing her goods, putting down her carpets, working in her garden, and paying out money for her on various accounts. This suit dragged on until October, 1879, when it was decided in Barry's favour, the referee awarding him three hundred and ninety-five dollars and forty cents, with interest from the date of his writ. In February of 1878, Mrs. Eddy brought suit against Richard Kennedy in the Municipal Court of Suffolk County to recover seven hundred and fifty dollars upon a promissory note which bore the date February, 1870, several months previ- * A full account of this action was given in Chapter X. 245 2-i6 LIFE OF I^IARY BAKER G. EDDY AND ous to the date upon which Mrs. Eddy and Kennedy went to Lynn to practise, and which read as follows: February, 1870. In consideration of two years' instruction in healing the sick, I hereby agree to pay Mary M. B. Glover, one thousand dollars in quarterly in- stalments of fifty dollars commencing from this date. (Signed) Richard Kennedt. Mr. Kennedy admitted having signed the note, but testified tliat when Mrs. Eddy asked him to do so she said that she would never collect it, and that she wanted the paper simply to shoAV to prospective students to convince them of the monetary value of her instruction. He further testified that though, when he signed the note, he had been studying with Mrs. Glover-Eddy for two years, he believed at the time that she was withholding from him the final and most illuminating secrets of her Science, and that he had reason to believe that, if he complied with her request in regard to the note, she would disclose them to him. In his answer he stated that Mrs. Eddy had " obtained the promissory note declared on by pretending that she had im- portant secrets relating to healing the sick which she had not theretofore imparted to defendant, and which she promised to impart after the making and delivery to her of said note, and she then had no such secrets and never afterward undertook to impart or imparted such secrets." The Municipal Court awarded judgment for the plaintiff of seven hundred and sixty-eight dollars and sixty-three cents, but the case was carried to the Superior Court and tried before a jury, which returned a verdict for Mr. Kennedy. In April, 1878, came Mrs. Eddy's suit against George H. Tuttle and Charles S. Stanley, two of her earliest students, to HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ^4<1 discover the amount of their practice and to recover a royalty thereon, which was decided in favour of the defendants.^ In April, 1878, Mrs. Eddy brought her action against Daniel SpofFord to discover the amount of his practice and to recover royalty thereon. Her original idea was to collect a royalty from all her practising students, which arrangement, could she have held them to it, would, in time, have been very remunerative. This case was dismissed for insufficient service. In May of the same year came the witchcraft case. Brown vs. SpofFord, of which Mrs. Eddy was the instigator, and in which she represented the plaintiff in court. These lawsuits reached a sensational climax when, in October, 1878, Asa Gilbert Eddy and Edward J. Arens were arrested on the charge of conspiracy to murder Daniel H. SpofFord. It will be remembered that Mr. SpofFord had been one of the most earnest and trusted of Mrs. Eddy's students. She had permitted him to assist in her teaching, had given him the pen with which Science and Health was written, and had intrusted to him the sale of her book. She seems at one time even to have considered the possibility of his being her successor. In a letter dated October 1, 1876, she writes: My joy at having one living student after these dozen years of struggle, toil and defeat, you at present cannot understand, but will know at a future time when the whole labour is left with you. . . . The students make all their mistakes leaning on me, or uiorking against mt. You are not going to do either, and certainly the result will follow that you will be faithful over a few things and be made ruler over many. 2 This suit has alroady boon rcforrrd to in Chapter TX. From .Tudgp Choate s finrtins it would seom tliat his decision was based largely on the fact that when Mrs Eddy taus^ht Tuttlc and Stanley in 1870 she still instructed her students to " manipulate " the heads of their patients, whereas she later repudiated this method and declared before Judge Choate that it was of no efficacy m healing the sick, thus discrediting the instruction she had given the defendants. 24.8 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND She continually consulted Mr. SpofFord in tlie prc2^^i'^tIon of the second edition of Science and Health (the little book which was eventually converted into an intermittent attack upon him), and in a letter written several weeks after the above she says: Lynn, Oct. 22, '76. Dk. Spofford — Dear Student — Your interesting letter just read. I am in a condition to feel all and more than all you said. The mercury of my mind is rising as the world's temperature of thought heats up and the little book " sweet in the mouth " but severe and glorious in its proof, is about to go forth like Noah's dove over the troubled waves of doubt, infidelity and bigotry, to find if possible a foothold on earth. ... I have great consolation in you, in your Christian character that I read yet more and more, the zeal that should attend the saints, and the patient waiting for our Lord's coming. Press on; You know not the smallest portion, comparatively, of your ability in science. . . . Inflammation of the spinal nerves are what I suffer most in belief.^ There was no middle ground with Mrs. Eddy, and it was her policy to strike before she could be struck. After her disagreement with Mr. SpofFord concerning his disposition of the money he had received from the sale of her book, she de- nounced him as an enemy to truth, had her students begin to treat against him, expelled him from the Christian Scientists' Association, tried to induce the county papers to publish attacks upon him, and launched two lawsuits at him within a month of each other. Mrs. Eddy and her husband gave such wide circulation to the charge that Mr. SpofFord had been dishonest in regard to the sale of the book, that the publishers of the book felt called upon to publish the following statement : » This refers to Mrs. Eddy's continued ill health. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE U9 TO THE PUBLIC Having heard certain malicious statements concerning our business transactions with Dr. D. H. Spoflford of Newburyport, we, the undersigned, original publishers of " Science and Health," written by Mary Baker Glover of Lynn, in justice to him desire to correct them. He settled with us July 25th, 1877, paying several hundred dollars cash and giving notes (which were promptly taken up when due) for the further amount of his indebtedness. His account had been carefully examined by coimsel and found correct and satisfactory. We desire to STOP the untruths which some person or persons have set afloat. George W. Barry, Jan. 21st, 1878. E. M. Newhall, Mrs. Eddy was now convinced that SpofFord was a mesmerist and openly denounced him as a malpractitioner.* Her students had orders to discredit him as widely as possible, and Mr. Spofford soon began to see the result of their efforts in the falling off of his practice. It was Mr. Arens' practice which Mrs. Eddy was now endeavouring to build up. Edward J. Arens was a Prussian who had come to Lynn as a young man, where he worked as a carpenter until he was able to open a cabinet-making shop. He was a good workman, but was not particularly successful in his business, and was fre- quently involved in litigation. Although his educational oppor- ■* She thus explained her position in the local press: " BOTH SIDES " Mr. Editor : — We desire to say through the columns of your interesting weekly, that certain threatening letters received by ourself,_ and an esteemed citizen of one of vour adjacent towns, had better be discontinued. "These letters are from a Mr. Noyes [Spofiford's attorney] of Newburyport, under orders of D. H. Spofford. who is already prosecuted by us to answer at a higher tribunal than the prejudice, falsehood or malice, before which some people would arraign others. " We have befriended this former student of ours when friendless, we have effected cures for him professionally, not only in the cases of Mrs. Atkinson, Miss Tandy, and Miss Ladd, but others, and we did this without any reward, but to gain some place for him in the public confidence. "As the founder of a Metaphysical practice, we have a warm interest la the success of all our students, and have always promoted it unless compellea in some especial instances, by a strong sense of our duty to the pubnc, to speaK of a MALPRACTICE. ' ^, c< ^ .,,. ii,..t-.mt" " Author of Science and Health. 250 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND tunitics had been limited, he had an active mind. He read a great deal, was restless, eager, and ambitious. When he be- came a student of Mrs. Eddy's, he gave up his cabinet business and, naturally hot-headed and impulsive, he threw himself into metaphysical healing with great enthusiasm. He came to Mrs. Eddy's succour in a critical hour, when she desperately needed a man who could devote himself effectively to her cause. Mr. Eddy had never been a man of much initiative, and his terror of mesmerism had cowed him beyond his natural docility. By this time Mrs. Eddy's hatred for Mr. Spofford had reached the acute stage, where it kept her walking the floor at night, declaring that Spofford's mind was pursuing and bullying hers, and that she could not shake it off. Mr. Eddy, a helpless spectator of his wife's misery, used to declare that the man ought to be punished for persecuting her, and be- lieved that Mr. Spofford's mind was on their track night and day, seeking to break down Mrs. Eddy's health, to get their property away from them, and to overthrow the movement. Mr. Spofford, on the other hand, was scarcely less distraught. He still believed that Mrs. Eddy had brought him the great truth of his life, and that, however unworthy, she had a divine message. He felt his separation from her deeply, and was amazed and terrified by her vindictiveness. He feared that Mrs, Eddy would not stop until she had entirely destroyed his practice, and he never knew what weapon she would use against him next. Only a state of panic on both sides can explain the developments of the autumn of 1878. One morning early in October a heavy-set, rather biiital- looking man knocked at the door of Mr. Spofford's Boston HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 251 office, Number 297 Tremoiit Street, and said he wanted to see the Doctor. Mr. Spoiford glanced at the man and, thinking he was not the sort of person who would be likely to consult a mental healer, asked him if he were sure that he had come to the right kind of a doctor. The man introduced himself as James L. Sargent, a saloon-keeper, took from his pocket a card which Mr. Spofford had left on the door of his Newburyport office, and, pointing to the name on it, said that was the doctor he had come to see. After taking a seat in the consulting-room, Sargent asked Mr. SpofFord whether he knew two men named Miller and Libby. Mr. SpofFord replied that he did not. " Well, they know you," insisted Sargent, " and they want to get you put out of the way. Miller, the young man, says you are going with the old man's daughter and he wants to marry her himself." Sargent went on to explain that these two men had offered him five hundred dollars to put Mr. Spof- ford out of the way and had paid him seventy-five dollars in advance. He declared that, while he meant to get all the money he could out of it, he had no intention of risking his neck, and said that he had already notified State Detective Hollis C. Pink- ham and had asked him to watch the case. Mr. Spofford immediately called upon Pinkham and found that Sargent had told him the same story. Pinkham said, however, that he had paid very little attention to the story, as Sargent had a criminal record, and he had thought that the man was up to some game to square himself with the Police Department. He promised to look into the matter more care- fully, and Mr. Spofford went away. Several days later Sargent came in and said that Miller and S52 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND Libbj were pressing him. He had gone to them for more money, assuring them that Mr. Spofford was already dead, but they had sent a young man to Spofford's office to investi- gate, and accused Sargent of playing them false. Mr. Spofford was now thoroughly alarmed. Sargent sug- gested that he accompany him to his (Sargent's) brother's house at Cambridgeport and conceal himself there while he (Sargent) tried to collect the money promised him by Miller and Libby. Mr. Spofford consulted with Detective Pinkham and then disappeared. Sargent, so he later declared in court, informed Miller and Libby, whom he identified as Edward J, Arens and Asa Gilbert Eddy, that he had dis- posed of Mr. Spofford, whereupon he received a part of the money promised him. Mr. Spofford left Boston Tuesday, Oc- tober 15th, and remained about two weeks at the house of Sargent's sister-in-law. Sargent had promised to come out and give him new^s of the case, but as he failed to do so, Mr. Spofford then returned to Boston, going first to his brother's store in Lawrence. Li the meantime his friends had been greatly alarmed at his disappearance, had advertised him as missing, and had published a description of him in the Boston papers. On October 29th Edward J. Arens and Asa G. Eddy were arrested and held in three thousand dollars bail for examina- tion in the Municipal Court on November 7th. As Mrs. Eddy af tenvard indignantly wrote, " the principal witnesses for the prosecution were convicts and inmates of houses of ill fame in Boston." A motley array of witnesses, certainly, confronted the judge when the Municipal Court con- HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 253 veiled on the afternoon of November 7th. Sargent was a bar- tender with a criminal record. George Collier, his friend, was, at that time, under bonds, waiting trial on several most un- savoury charges. Laura Sargent, the sister of James Sargent, who kept a disorderly house at Number 7 Bowker Street, appeared with several of her girls, all vividly got up for the occasion and ingenuously pleased at coming into court in the dignified role of witnesses for the Commonwealth. Mr. H. W. Chaplin appeared for the prosecution, and Russell H. Conwell appeared for the defendants. Mr. Chaplin briefly opened the case for the Government, contending that he should be able to prove directly that the defendants had conspired to take the life of Mr. Spofford, and that Sargent had been paid upwards of two hundred dollars toward the five hundred dollars due him for the job. The evidence adduced at the hearing was in substance as follows : James L. Sargent testified that he was a saloon-keeper in Sudbury Street,^ that he had become acquainted four months before with a man who called himself " Miller," but whom he recognised as the defendant, Arens ; that Miller, or Arens, came to his saloon to tell fortunes; that Arens had told him he knew of a good job where three or four hundred dollars could be made; that he, Sargent, Inquired about the job, and Arens asked him If he could be depended on; that Sargent assured him on that point, and Arens then told him that he wanted a man "licked," and "he wanted him licked so that he wouldn't come to again." » Sarpent stated in court that, when he first met Mr. Arens, he was a bartender in a saloon on Portland Street. He had been running a place of his own for about six weeks when the hearing occurred. 254 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND I told him [said Sargentl that I was just the man for him, and Arens said the old man [Libby] would not pay out more than was absolutely necessary to get the job done, as he had already been beaten out of seventy-five dollars. I met Arens the following Saturday at the corner of Charles and Leverett streets at five o'clock, and we walked down Charles Street into an alleyway. He said Libby was not satisfied and wanted to see me himself. . . . We selected a spot in a freight-yard where he and the old man [Libby] would meet me in half an hour. In the meantime, fearing that the affair might be a plot of some kind against myself, I borrowed a revolver of a friend and got another friend named Collier to go with me. Collier secreted himself in a freight-car with the door partially opened, so that he could overhear any conversation, and at the appointed time I met Arens and a man who was known to me as " Libby," but whom I recognise as the defendant, Eddy. . . . Eddy asked me how much money I wanted to do the job, and I told him I ought to have one hundred dollars to start with. He asked if I would take seventy-five dollars at the outset, and I said I would. He wanted to know if I would be square, and I told him yes. He then said he had but thirty-five dollars with him that night, which he would give me, and would send the remainder by Arens on the following Monday. I told him no, I must have the whole at that time. Just then a man came walking down the freight-yards, and Arens told me in a quick tone to meet him Monday morning. I did so, and Arens passed me seventy-five dollars. . . . A few days later I met Arens again, and he said he would bring me directions where to find Dr. Spofford. He gave me an advertisement, clipped from some newspaper, giving the days when I could find Dr. Spoff'ord at his offices in Haverhill and Newburyport. After telling in detail of his own delay in following in- structions and of spending the money and putting Arens off, Sargent's testimony continued: We went to the Hotel Tremont, and Arens gave me sixteen dollars, with which I went to the Doctor's office in Newburyport. I did not see the Doctor, but brought away one of his business cards; came back and called at Dr. Spofford's office and had a conversation with him. I after- ward met Arens on the Common by appointment, and told him I had made arrangements to have the Doctor go out of town. ... In a few days he met me on the Common again. He said I was playing it on him and that the whole thing was a put-up job, for Dr. Spofford was in his office. He had sent a boy to find out. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 255 Sargent said he met Arens several times after that, and finally they agreed that Sargent should take SpofFord into the country on the pretence that he had a sick child. He took the Doctor to his brother's in Cambridgeport and kept him there about two weeks. The fact that SpofFord had dis- appeared was published in the papers. Sargent said he had met Arens after that, and told him that he had made away with the Doctor, and that he had done it about half-past seven in the evening. Sargent said that Arens replied that he had known this — that he had felt it, and had a way of telling such things that other people knew nothing of. He saw him several times afterward, and finally Arens agreed to pay him some money. They met in Lynn on Monday, after the disappearance of Spofford. Mr. Eddy was also there, and Arens paid the witness twenty dollars. Their plan, Sargent said, had been to take SpofFord out on some lonely road and have him knocked in the head with a billy, afterward causing the horse to run away, first en- tangling the body with the harness, so it would appear that death was caused by accident. Another witness was Jessie Macdonald, who had lived as housekeeper with Mr. and Mrs. Eddy eight months. She had never seen SpofFord, but she had heard Mr. Eddy say that SpofFord kept Mrs. Eddy in agony, and that he would be glad if SpofFord were out of the way. She had heard Mrs. Eddy read a chapter from the Old Testament which says that all wicked people should be destroyed. James Kelly testified to holding a conversation with Sargent, who told him of the job he had on hand. 256 LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND John Smith, Sargent's bartender, testified that he saw Arens in Sargent's saloon four times. Laura Sargent, James Sargent's sister, who kept a house of ill-fame in Bowker Street, testified that Sargent had a room in her house, and that Arens had come there three or four times to see him; also that Sargent had given her seventy-five dollars to keep for him, saying he was going away to his brother's in Cambridgeport. Hollis C. Pinkham, the detective employed on the case, said that Sargent had laid the case before him, and that he had told Sargent to go ahead and find out what he could; that he had seen Sargent and Arens together in conversation on the Com- mon ; that he had followed Eddy to his home in Lynn, and had seen Sargent go toward the door of Eddy's house there; that he had asked Eddy if he had arranged to put Spofford out of the way ; that Eddy had denied having been in Sargent's saloon or meeting him in a freight-yard ; that Arens had main- tained he had never seen or known Sargent, even when con- fronted with Sargent. Detective Chase Philbrick, also employed on the case, testified to seeing Sargent at Eddy's house in Lynn ; saw him try to get in, but fail to do so. He corroborated the evidence of Pinkham. George A. Collier, a carpenter, was an important witness. He said he worked in Sargent's saloon when he was out of a job, and told of going with Sargent to the freight-house and concealing himself in an empty car, leaving the door ajar, so that he might hear a conversation between Sargent and another man. He corroborated Sargent's testimony as to what transpired. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 257 This closed the case for the Government. The defence offered no evidence, as this was a case where only probable cause for suspicion was to be shown, and it was then to go to a higher court. Mr. Conwell, counsel for the defendants, did not in- dicate what line the defence would take. Counsel for the Government submitted no argument, but called the attention of the court to the chain of circumstances which had been brought out by the evidence, and which he believed was strong enough to justify holding the defend- ants. Judge May remarked that the case was a very anomalous one, but that there was, in his opinion, sufficient evidence to show that the parties should be held to appear before the Superior Court. He therefore fixed the amount of bail at three thousand dollars each for the appearance of the defend- ants at the December term of the Superior Court. The case was called in the Superior Court in December, 1878, and an indictment was found on two counts.® The Superior Court record reads : This indictment was found and returned into Court by the Grand Jurors at the last December term, when the said Arens and Eddy were severally set at the bar and having said indictment read to them, they severally said thereof that they were not guilty. «The first read: "That Kdwarri J. Arens and Asa O. fW "f ,^fston ^/^'^^e^ said, on the 28th day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand e.^ht hundred and seventy-ei^ht. Boston aforesaid, ^itji Foice and Arms i^^^^^ persons of evil minds and dispositions did «!$", «"'5„„^^ere unlawfiUly cons,nrc combine, and agree together feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice atoie thought, to procure, hire, incite, and sohcit one •Tames LSgent, r«^/ -f^" ° sum of money, to wit, the sum of five hundred dollars to be paid to sad Sargent by them, said Arens and Eddy, felo'^ously wilfully, and of m Sargent's malice aforethought, in some way and "a^^^' onfol H Snoffo^-d to Instruments, and weapons, to said jurors unknown, one Darnel Hbpoffoid^ kill and murder Against the law. peace, and dignity of said Commonwf aitn. The second count charged the prisoners with hiring. Sargent '' with force an