Miscellaneous Documents
relating to Christian Science
And Its Discoverer and Founder,
Mary Baker Eddy

Compiled by Gilbert Carpenter




Table of Contents





Clara Elizabeth Choate’s Reminiscences of Dr. Asa G. Eddy

The first time I remember hearing of Dr. Asa G. Eddy, the husband of Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, and before seeing him personally, was through Miss Lucretia L. L. S. Brown, of Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Miss Brown had been very wonderfully healed, from spinal troubles, by the treatment and study of Christian Science as taught by Mrs. Eddy. Miss Brown was first introduced to Mrs. Eddy, the Author of the Christian Science Textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and the Founder and Discoverer of Christian Science, by Miss Dorcas Rawson of Lynn, Mass. Miss Brown had called Miss Rawson, else she was sent to treat her, by Mrs. Eddy, after Miss Brown had read a copy of Science and Health, 1875 edition, the first edition published. Mrs. Eddy was then Mrs. Glover, and she was living at No. 8 Broad Street, Lynn, Mass. She was married to Dr. Eddy sometime after this introduction in 1876 or 1877. The marriage seemed to meet with the disapproval of most of the students who had been in her classes, and had been taught by Mrs. Eddy sometime previously.

This was no new thing, for these earlier students objected to nearly every movement Mrs. Eddy made along progressive lines. No matter what the move was it seemed to provoke their displeasure somewhat, and this flutter of dissension appeared under the least effort of change, under any provocation of progress, or reform. But no doubt this was occasioned by our beloved teacher’s wonderful foresight in apprehending the needs of the work, and by her close and entire obedience to God’s leadings to establish Christian Science, and for the forthcoming of the great system into which the Cause was to develop.

This would all be, naturally, beyond the ordinary comprehension of a student at that time. My own thought of both Dr. and Mrs. Eddy was started with a personal prejudice against them, tinctured with a fear that Dr. Eddy might absorb Mrs. Eddy’s ways of doing and of teaching, into his own personal views or divert her work for the Cause. But these fears were subsequently met and overcome. I being younger in years and experience and quite unaware then of the magnetism of human personality, was more easily persuaded in judgment against Dr. Eddy, and often condemnatory of Mrs. Eddy, and of her wisdom in choosing such a helpmate so late in life. But I soon learned of my false conclusion. I soon found that Dr. Eddy was all, and more, than the few students that I had met had given me reason to believe, for on my first meeting him I was thoroughly convinced that he was a good man. He was of quiet personality, and unassuming in manners, with a reserved, thoughtful look, a most kindly air and genial, gentlemanly bearing.

His devotion to Mrs. Eddy was most ideal. He apprehended every wish of hers, although he often had most diametrical views, and plans for their execution. His ideas were at times quite original and fitted the occasion admirably sometimes, which always pleased Mrs. Eddy exceedingly. Being rather of a conservative habit, he withheld from voicing his views until the time seemed right for their advancement. He awaited the best opportunity to express these opinions, and then every one gave him strict attention. Even Mrs. Eddy would be pleased, and would listen attentively, directing others to do so in respectful silence, and they joined with her in admiration of his fine qualities. He was ever on the alert, quick to note a better way or a more convenient time for doing things. He was most reliable, be it in word, look or deed. He was able in argument, and often won Mrs. Eddy’s approbation in some earnest discussion over important affairs. His convictions were strong and he rarely changed his plans, except through the gentle, persuasive words or counsel of our beloved Leader. While assertive to some degree, he invariably deferred to Mrs. Eddy’s superior judgment, and would then strictly abide by her conclusion. These proved ever to be the best methods, for carrying out her spiritual plan for the work in the Cause of Christian Science. One noticeable trait was his calmness. He was not easily ruffled. He considered every point of demand in the Cause, that frequently presented itself expectedly, or otherwise. Many trying circumstances beset the work of Christian Science in its earlier establishment, in the Church, in the literature, in the home and in the work of the students in their teaching and demonstration of Christian Science, as it was not then understood by anyone aside from its Founder, Mrs. Eddy.

Dr. Eddy seemed to readily “leave behind the things that were behind” and to be ready to press into the future of the Cause which Mrs. Eddy was so faithfully and so unselfishly laboring for. He did much in the healing work of Christian Science, although he did not practice as a demonstrator exclusively. There was more than this to be done, more work than to heal the sick. Mrs. Eddy always felt she could safely appeal to him when other of her students, or practitioners did not carry through the case, to a perfect demonstration. He often helped the latest student to establish a practice, and wisely directed them in his buoyant hopefulness, argued well for his helpfulness and many cases were healed by him.

From the first I knew Dr. and Mrs. Eddy, I never remember Mrs. Eddy going out without the Dr. accompanying her. He went without discussion or questioning. The highest friendship seemed ever to exist between them, and proved the fine judgment of Mrs. Eddy in thus placing Dr. Eddy as a helper in Christian Science. If books were to be sold, or accounted for, Dr. Eddy’s services were indispensable. If finances were to be attended to, the cost of things estimated, he was the reliable helper. He was called to decide who should be received by Mrs. Eddy for he saw better than others her enormous work, with every kind of error trying to thwart her. She worked against every disadvantage in the world. She must stand alone with God. The most the Dr. or any student could do was to meet the error as best they could. Even her friends were enemies to her Cause, and she had to seclude herself from the very people who could have helped her most. Dr. Eddy at such times proved a decided defence. Often error would strike at the Dr. and cause them both trials, too severe to recapitulate. This was the situation of the students. It was indeed, “a warfare of sense with soul.”

Selections and locations for the association meetings, handling of properties, books, copyrights, etc., all had to be carefully looked after, and were guided by Mrs. Eddy. She always consulted with the Dr. first. She was ever looking for those who could fit the place best, as helpers in her steadily increasing cares and work. She knew the needs of the Cause, and hoped to find those who could stand firmly for and with the Truth.

No matter how high or wonderful were her demonstrations, supporting and proving her God understanding, the world did not then accept her personally, nor her advanced revelations. Every step was cross-bearing and crucifixion. If they did not come one way they did another. Mrs. Eddy in voicing the revelations was constantly misquoted to the hindrance of her work. The manuscript would be mislaid, wrong days, and dates, for appointments, and other like troubles had to be met, and Dr. Eddy must meet them. There were few who could be so trusted. Plans for publication of manuscript, and the manuscript itself had to be protected. The enemy stood ready to oppose the most spiritual revelations, and the use for which God intended them. To be off guard meant disaster. No wonder the Doctor and our beloved Leader were never off duty. These cares were endless. It is wonderful, as I review the situation, that the work was carried to its fulfillment, and only for Mrs. Eddy’s obedience to God could it have been accomplished. Here too, the unselfish work of her husband, obeying the minutest instruction of Mrs. Eddy was displayed. Mrs. Eddy regarded Dr. Eddy as a genius in his way. He suggested details, and their performance proved right. In court affairs, law had to be looked up, and officials seen, and costs to be counted, all of which took time. Dr. Eddy was a busy man, able to cope with much against the Cause none other could be trusted aside from Mrs. Eddy, and she often told him no one could fill his place. Mrs. Eddy deeply appreciated the Doctor and we all know his reverence for her. They were ever the watchman on the wall, and it cost sleepless nights, and harrowing days, to guard against the enemy, in this priceless labor for Christian Science.

No item could be slighted, and as Dr. Eddy was a methodical man, this was a valuable help. Up to the time of meeting the Doctor, Mrs. Eddy had struggled on alone, and she alone with God had brought out the textbook, Science and Health, which had then made some hold upon the resisting world. Through their healing of the sick, the book Science and Health was read more and new hopes came to these tireless workers. Higher revelations became clearer, though even Mrs. Eddy did not understand their full import, so she often declared. I do not know that Dr. Eddy would be called a highly intellectual man. But he certainly had Mrs. Eddy’s confidence, and she held his ability in high esteem. Dr. Eddy cared little for attire or appearances, though neat and tidy. He had a fine old school bearing, courtly and affable. He was never dull nor uninterested in Christian Science classes, church or association. He was very patient and kindly. They both had to hear the disagreeable side for seldom did anyone entirely agree with them or with Christian Science.

Dr. Eddy was careless in nothing but his own comfort. Mrs. Eddy often reminded him of his unselfishness. She would tell him not to neglect eating and sleeping properly and to walk in the park near by. She objected to his assiduous attention to the Cause or to herself. She felt it conveyed too great care of affairs. Yet amid all this I have heard Mrs. Eddy talk to the Doctor this way, “Now Gilbert dear have you had your breakfast? You must not undertake this business only in proper time and a right frame of mind. You know evil is only too glad to put in a wedge to disturb us and little things tell where we stand.” Dr. Eddy enjoyed this loving solicitation and with beaming face he would deferentially reply, “Now Mary, you think too much of me and not enough of yourself; how is it with you? Do you feel equal to the undertaking?” Mrs. Eddy would then answer in her sincere loving way, “Gilbert, you know what God has appointed me to do. He will give me strength, wisdom and ways of performing it.” I remember a like conversation once when the Doctor was to visit a publisher of Science and Health. I do not feel I can overestimate the helpfulness of Dr. Eddy any more than I can the spiritual achievements of Mrs. Eddy. These talks were impressive to me and opened a deeper insight of Mrs. Eddy’s clear directing from God. No one could help being benefited quite equal to class instruction if so minded. Dr. Eddy was very exact in his demands. This was an advantage and emphasized Mrs. Eddy’s trust. “If Gilbert said so it was true,” she always insisted. When she rebuked the students for lack of charity, Dr. Eddy would say, quietly and with his genial smile, “Mary, they are not all you,” and to the students, “She is right and it is our privilege to follow her example.” Then Mrs. Eddy would renew her talk till the next disturbance came and greater questions had to be answered. Dr. Eddy in the class room was at his best. As a teacher he was thorough. He was modest in assuming the place of instructor, but he accepted Mrs. Eddy’s decision. So the first lessons were given in my home January, 1878, in Salem, Mass., an important event to us all. We then studied from written manuscript prepared by Mrs. Eddy. We had only one copy of the first lesson book between the four of us. During these instructions he healed my baby, and other healing was done.

October 12, 1914

A Thanksgiving Meeting Memory with Mrs. Eddy at Dr. Williams’ Church

N an octagonal church, in the vestry on Shawmut Avenue near and opposite Hammond Street, a meeting of the Christian Scientists was held, about the year 1879. The time was in the cold weather, since Mrs. Eddy wore a fur trimmed velvet coat, and the Doctor an overcoat. There were present Mrs. Frothingham, a Mrs. Fletcher, Mrs. Rice, Dorcas Rawson, and several whom I have forgotten, in all perhaps thirty-five people, mostly women; I think four or five men were present.

Mrs. Eddy presided, I do not think it was on the regular Thanksgiving day, but Mrs. Eddy called this Thanksgiving Service. The opening remarks were made by herself to the effect that out of her own pure gratitude for the revelations of Science and Health, our present textbook, she felt she could not say enough of the omnipresence of God, or give it too wide publicity, hence she opened these meetings as an avenue for people who were not in other ways to hear and learn more of its truths. She felt it an advantage to the Cause, to the student and to the world as well as to her teaching, and healing by reading the book. Mrs. Reed asked if the teachings collided with her faith of the New Church or Swedenborgian. Mrs. Eddy as once replied, “The only collision would be in making God more to them, and the personality of the founder of THAT faith less.” She then in her scientific way led her audience to think how thankful we should all be, to be willing that God should guide our understanding, and take us away from prison. She looked so beautiful with her long black plume on her black velvet hat, and she kept on her grey kid gloves, which I noted because of the very graceful movement of her hands so unconsciously used when she was very earnest.

Mrs. Frothingham made the strongest impression upon me among the speakers at this meeting, by her testimony. She said she had not come into Christian Science because of any physical cure or healing but because her spiritual insight of God was made clearer, and more practical. While she was grateful others were healed, and that work was needed, she was thankful to know how to be a law unto herself, as Mrs. Eddy was teaching in Science and Health. God had formerly seemed afar off and now His nearness was a joy we all could know and feel, and gain our wisdom and direction from Him in daily affairs, and she wished to express her gratitude and to say how thankful she was for these blessings, and for the privilege of telling others. Being a modest woman of few words, this speech was quite electrifying to us all and brought the glow of love and a smile of hope to our beloved Leader’s face, and her voice showed strong emotion when she answered Mrs. Frothingham with inspiring words of confidence and told her how such an expression helped the Cause more than she could know. Some thought the healing was the greater blessing. One person, it might have been Rev. Williams, the pastor, asked if she could restore the blind. She replied no, but God could, if we would let Him do the work. I think Miss Julia Bartlett was present. There was no specified time for closing and we lingered on till quite dark. But though nearly every Christian Scientist was present, the audience was not over forty and some present were strangers. Others expressed their thanks to Mrs. Eddy personally, and the tears came when I told her she deserved them all and I wished she could have such meetings every day so people could hear.

The spirt of the meeting, rather than any words, was felt by all, and some wonderful healing was reported from this meeting. Mrs. Eddy claimed it as her thanksgiving to God, and was even loath to part or to close, but Mrs. Eddy told us if we were to be her followers we must be particular in the promptness and the proper hour for the meetings. From this time on a new impetus was given the Cause of Christian Science and the healing gained favor, the textbook sold rapidly and a new interest was created in the various denominations for Dr. Williams even could not help talking about Mrs. Eddy and her wonderful claims. Her lovely personality with her patient attention to opposers was winsome and attracted those who were prejudiced. One lady remarked to me at this meeting, “I like Mrs. Eddy very much and think her sincere but I don’t believe her book nor a word she says of Science.” After some years this lady became a devout follower of Christian Science.

I do not remember of other meetings being held in this vestry. Mrs. Eddy sat beside a table with the people gathered informally about her, so quiet and inconspicuous, that people about me asked which was she. But when she spoke, her voice and manner betrayed at once her unusual mind; one could not help listening for the words were with power, and one present wished to tell, she had come in a stranger, with dreadful headache but it left her, though no one knew but herself and she wondered at God’s impersonal power which to some degree Mrs. Eddy had awakened her to realize. Mrs. Eddy at this time was in full vigor and every word was a command of love, giving new inspiration to every subject to which she called attention. Her arguments for God as All-in-all were so convincing she always finding in the Bible or the teachings of Christ or by her wonderful experiences a confirmation for all she said.

I consider this little meeting one of the great events in the history of Mrs. Eddy’s work. She told me going home she had been led to do this thing by Spirit, and her obedience to God had led her aright, some feeling she would shipwreck her Cause by holding the meetings in this very orthodox church. It may have been Presbyterian denominationally. But with her divine persistence she met all obstacles. This heroic spirit of obedience to God was very wonderful, and I noticed after such an experience the Cause advanced and error was met and overcome. Dr. Eddy would remark, “Mary, is this expedient?” Mrs. Eddy so childlike, so unaffected would reply, “I don’t know; God does, and all we have to do is to obey Him.” This was such a help to me, for I then felt a great care over these two tireless workers for the good of mankind. Needless, perhaps, but the love prevailed and a sure reward followed, for her triumph was my triumph and triumph she must. She told me she was up all night holding to God lest error darken and discourage us in this undertaking, and we cried for joy when the meeting proved a success. I was proud of Mrs. Eddy. She looked the queen, so graceful with the rich costume, the bit of red in her hat, her face aglow, a new inspiration in her tone and manner, an indescribable power, I have never seen with another. Even the hard face of the Reverend softened as he looked at her, and it seemed hard for him to utter any disagreement from her conclusions of God and man. “Why,” he said, “if what you say is true, you will have man live forever.” Other questions about evil came up, the origin of sin, etc. Each subject was met and overcome so that Mrs. Eddy remarked, she had purified the temple.

On our way home I asked her if she was hungry. And then she revealed to me her strength in Truth outside of matter and replied, “I have a meat to eat ye know not of,” and I was convinced of the truth she uttered and understood. Again I asked, “Are you tired?” She turned upon me a radiant face, glowing with health and in charming freshness of voice and manner said, “Do I look so?” and I again was convinced that neither loss of sleep nor absence of food mattered to this wonderful woman, whose close and real association with God met every need.

Another person comes to my mind in a Mrs. Stackpole and Mrs. Firfield who were then present and who had studied with Mrs. Eddy because they had been healed. Mrs. Stackpole spoke saying her son was a Reverend, but she had outgrown the limitations placed on God and Mrs. Eddy had so beautifully confirmed her thought of God and though she was near eighty years she was full of life and inspiration from this meeting. These thanksgiving words were a help to Mrs. Eddy and she appreciated them more deeply than she could tell. All of these people were educated, refined, and seeking for Truth, and it was a joy to Mrs. Eddy to know her cross-bearing and her work in Christ had not been in vain. She remarked upon the courtesy of Rev. Williams and after this invited him to preach in her pulpit which he did at the Hawthorne Rooms, though against the wishes of the students of Mrs. Eddy.

Amid all these busy times Mrs. Eddy did not forget nor neglect duties the most trifling. She inquired about the cost of the room we occupied at the church, demanding that all services be properly remunerated. I do not think it occurred to her that she receive anything but the thanks of the people. This seemed to give her the greatest joy and spur us to greater work in the Cause. All the way home to Lynn she talked of widening the avenues for the work in Christian Science. Her great mind consciousness of God foresaw what we students had yet to learn of, God’s omnipotence and omnipresence as she was then teaching, and every now and then she would remark, “Now remember this will be needed,” like larger places to worship in or more students in the field or more editions of the textbook, always so confident, expectant and prophetic. Truly God led her and we are blessed forever.

November 26, 1914

Mrs. Eddy Talks on Healing the Sick

One of my most precious memories of Mrs. Eddy is an interview I had with her in 1877. She had invited me to call to confer about class instruction with her. I had been wonderfully healed and this fact kept our attention fixed upon the healing. She emphasized this work of Christian healing as laying the foundation for her future work in Science and Health, as we then termed the Cause, more often than its present term of Christian Science. As near as I can quote her from memory she said this: “Healing is what the world needs. Christ taught this healing. Our religious advancement or righteous living, one and the same, can be better gained by good healing than in any other way.”

“To be a good healer, or a true follower of Christ, you must demonstrate the law of God, for His law does overcome disease. In overcoming this you overcome sin.” I replied, why this will be glorious; and she remarked in her sweet, winsome and persuasive manner, “Your enthusiasm is just what I need to carry forward this work of healing to the hearts of the people, for healing is what they desire and what you and I and dear Gilbert and others of my students must give them. I must turn my attention from now on, to other departments of the work of Science and Health which I am trying to systematize. We must have system. This great Cause cannot progress in a desultory fashion. Everything must be done decently and in order.

She then explained how the students might be led or swayed into thinking of less important ways of the work but healing is the work needed first and last. She wished us all to follow her plans of healing the sick for in so doing she could bring the Cause and Science and Health into the acceptance of the whole world and this could not be done in any other way. She praised my voice, so earnest and honest, and said my work of healing the sick would be a great help to her in many ways, and of useful service to the world. The healing was the need of the hour, she strongly urged, just the faithful, patient healing work, by a life devoted and willing. This was what she prayed for, so she might rewrite, and form, and plan, for the wider spread of the Cause and the real uplifting of man.

I could not resist this appeal; who could? My healing had inspired me, and I longed to heal others, and by this wonderful Truth as taught in Mrs. Eddy’s book Science and Health. As she sat so unconsciously stately, in her modest rocking chair of black hair cloth, with the curls of brown ringlets tossing unnoticed upon her shoulders, her plain gown unornamented except by a long gold chain with which she toyed, and with eloquent upturned face, beaming with the glorious hopes of a soul inspired, I felt she was pleading for the sick world; the whole sick world, and is still pleading for the students to do this work, though now from an impersonal standpoint she still speaks. I was then a very young mother and oh this did touch my heart most deeply. She continued, “All the emoluments in the world, all the admiration that can ever be excited is not nor can be surpassed by the gratitude of a sick person healed, or, by the dejected, painful, suffering one relieved and restored.” Mrs. Eddy never belittled this part of the work. She always impressed upon me that soul-healing would inevitably come with the demonstration of bodily healing. “I join the work of Christ when I heal the sick.” As she said this she rose and laying her hand gently upon my shoulder, with tears in her deep glorious eyes, “Then are we the true soldiers of the Christ and His followers. What a help such work will be and how hopefully I am inspired to go on with my part and my writings.” She pointed to the groups of manuscript that lay in little piles about the floor around her chair, the black rocker in which she had been seated. Here let me say, Key to the Scriptures and the chapter on RECAPITULATION was not then in Science and Health, and she was considering including them so she told me. In concluding this all too short interview with Mrs. Eddy I resolved to join the class as she proposed, and remember the joy of my decision and the “God bless you my dear girl” which she so tenderly and impressively uttered as she accompanied me to the door of her house, 8 Broad Street, Lynn, Mass. All the way home I marveled at her faith in God, at her divine leading and still feel to this day Mrs. Eddy really walked and talked with God. The effect upon me was to read Science and Health, and that very night a clearer consciousness came to me of what her mission was, and of the purpose of her book Science and Health. The next day a demonstration followed. My baby was crying, a thing he did not often do. I asked for guidance as she directed me to do. I tried in every way to find the cause but finally found a needle protruding from the child’s knee. With my thought upon the meaning of, “no sensation in matter,” I bit the needle with my teeth and drew it forth to the delight of the child and myself. I at once read the book and knew “All is good” as she had therein said. No ill effects followed. I was not even nervous as I had been, and to me it was a proof of God’s ever healing power. I am sure a basis of true healing was already started in this interview and I have ever been deeply grateful.

“I Am Infallible Now”

Reading an article in The Christian Science Sentinel of September 13, 1913, No.2, Vol. VI, by Samuel Greenwood, brings to mind the first time I heard Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy say the above words.

In the parlor of Mrs. Eddy’s home, No.8 Broad Street, Lynn, Mass., one evening in the spring of 1878, were seated Mrs. Eddy; her husband, Dr. Asa

G. Eddy; Mr. S. P. Bancroft; his brother Henry Bancroft; Mrs. E. N. Taylor; Mr. Choate; myself, and two or three other students of Christian Science, as I now remember.

This was a regular Christian Science Association meeting, which had not been long formed, or not many years, and convened about once a week, mostly in Lynn but sometimes in Boston, Roxbury, and Salem, in the different homes of the students. Once at Mrs. Reed’s, in Roxbury, then at Mrs. Frothingham’s on West Newton Street, Boston, and at Mrs. Rice’s, and Miss Rawson, her sister, who were also at this meeting.

After the usual opening of repeating “The Lord’s Prayer,” of reading from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, its author, the business part was attended to, and questions for the good of the Cause were then propounded; remarks were made, with a discussion of the same following.

Among these questions, one was introduced by Mr. S. P. Bancroft, the oldest student of Mrs. Eddy, then present. In his cautious, but emphatic and impressive manner he said, “Should we say, or can we truthfully say, we as individuals are perfect, pure, holy, or infallible now?”

Mrs. Eddy who was then President of the Christian Scientist Association at once took up the subject. She arose quietly and with dignified composure of manner, in a firm, convincing though seriously pleasant voice, asserted, “I am infallible, I am infallible now; we are infallible, NOW.”

Of course we students were all more or less surprised and to some degree shocked at this great and then misunderstood statement, though we had read and studied Christian Science from the Bible and Science and Health, and heard the wonderful teachings of Mrs. Eddy our beloved teacher and seen their more wonderful effects in healing the sick and other grand demonstrations.

Mr. Bancroft began an earnest expostulation against such a statement. “It was not true. Everyone was expressing the very opposite fact. It would hinder, if not ruin the prospects and progress of Christian Science and its book Science and Health to make such statements, even if they WERE true,” he continued to argue. He grew very red in the face and quite vehement in dispute, declaring such thought preposterous. Other students present sided with him and with his thought, “we might be sometime but not NOW.” Even dear Dr. Eddy in his quiet, patient, manner and tender voice said, “Why Mary,” trying to enter a conciliatory compromise and very human explanation. But Mrs. Eddy heroically stood her ground, and with a gracious decision still declared, “I am infallible now.”

The power of this truth thus uttered by her was not lost upon the students and was more or less felt by all present. One said she had come with a headache, another with fear of spine, another with throat and a cough, and so each one thinking of their troubles suddenly found the air changed, and their consciousness of relief from evil. One or two felt worse, which Mrs. Eddy said was as good as if they felt better. This great thought had started an upheaval then and there. The solid ground of old beliefs was broken. The stir of love, of hate, smiles and tears in even that small company seemed like a battlefield between Truth and error. Mr. Bancroft almost in temper, with apparent disgust coldly left the meeting, Mrs. Eddy kindly saying “I have told the Truth.” Think of it, Mrs. Eddy manifesting such love, and stating the eternal Truth alone, and her own students were her strongest opposers. Surely this was a wonderful hour. It affected me seriously. I could not comprehend the fact involved; no more could the others. I felt it was true, it must be so, because she said so. I trusted her personally. The doubt expressed by the others was overwhelming and a hint was started of leaving her, which some of them did later on. The human attachment with me however prevailed over all other considerations. With loving loyalty to HER I decided to pursue her statements whatever others might do or say. I confess I felt that to say “man is infallible now,” and like her to boldly declare such a thing, was highly prejudicial to herself, her book, and her Cause. She then had more than she could bear and this added strong truth would kill the interest already aroused. The human conflict waged its warfare. This did not daunt our beloved Leader’s position, nor blind her inspired understanding of man and God. Not a student present grasped the divine import of her words, nor the glorious power they were awakening in them to health and the reality of their being. Surely she was working with dull disciples. But wherefore and to what end? Did one of us heal the sick instantly? Did one of us reveal or realize the Truth, the Christ-love that overcame sorrow, poverty, sin, disease or death, suffering or ignorance as she was doing?

Yes, that she was doing unaided and alone; so dreadfully alone. Even these her own students did not help in these higher demands of love for man and God, or for their own emancipation from evil!

“You are infallible now.” Some months later these very words uttered in the silent strength of divine Love by our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, who personally came to my bedside, healed me of a terrible attack of diphtheria instantly and has been already published. It was then she made me know that such a statement of Truth was not for FUTURE realization; Truth is NOW, here now.

What wonder Mrs. Eddy felt she was alone. Who but she could have attained this divine understanding of man’s real being! Do you who labor so earnestly, so unselfishly, and so faithfully for the Cause of Christian Science, who become tired and weary with unattained effort, lack of demonstration, unanswered hopes, ever longing for more of the true insight of divine Principle, know of these great battles fought, not with weapons of the carnal, the defeats heroically overcome, the unrecognized victories, that this one woman, Mrs. Eddy, so gloriously met and conquered with no help and no guidance except God? Just this one experience was a miracle and I witnessed it. A greater miracle than the world can now understand. Mrs. Eddy tells us in Miscellaneous Writings, page 355, “Less teaching and good healing is today the acme of ‘Well done.’ This absolute demonstration must be revived.”

God speed the inheritance this mighty woman with a mighty revelation has given to mankind.

This is the only copy I have written on this subject.

Patience Under Tribulation

OME recent experiences lead me to memories of our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy. During the winter of 1879 or 1880, Dr. and Mrs. Eddy decided to locate in Boston. They were then residing at No.8 Broad Street, Lynn, Mass.

This move would make it more convenient to attend to the printing and sale of the second and third edition of Science and Health, which the author, Mrs. Eddy, was then revising and improving. She had divided the first edition into two smaller volumes, the second being called the “Ark edition” on account of the picture on the covering – an ark on the water; a very pretty illustration of her book Science and Health as being the deliverer from matter. Then, too, this move was to be of general advantage to the Cause, and the rapidly increasing cares and responsibilities. That Mrs. Eddy must be on deck for every reasonable demand was evident to all interested in the Cause, or associated with the book Science and Health. So the home nest, at No.8 Broad Street, was rented, and Mrs. Eddy bravely, though reluctantly, stepped forth to the work with little to cheer and much to dishearten. To gain time, and do more mental work was one object. Another was the needful economy of money for courts, lawyers, and a thousand and one claims, upon her then poorly filled purse had nearly drained her resources. The income was restricted and the outgo was tremendous. I for one could not see how she could meet it all. But she was undaunted. She knew, as we students did not, the source of supply. The increasing expenditures caused many sacrifices. Only her divine determination could have met the hour successfully, as she always did. If one plan did not work another must be adopted. I have seen her in these days, walk the floor with her Bible in hand asking for guidance, or direction, sometimes for the trivial, but more often the most important issues.

The first move she and “dear Gilbert,” as she so fondly called the Doctor, would make was to take two rooms on Newton Street near Tremont Street; later moving to No.233 West Newton Street. Mrs. Eddy had completed the second edition, and was getting it well on sale, but owing to some unacceptable reference to a Mrs. Emma Hopkins the first half was being recalled. But this article is not to talk of Science and Health in either edition, so much as to tell of Mrs. Eddy and her experiences at this period. The duties began to show upon her personally and to me she did not look well, or in as good health as previously, and who can wonder? Her nights were often sleepless. Her eating was irregular, and myriads of unlooked for events occurred to perplex her. One very annoying thing constantly beset her, viz. her books, valued trinkets, and belongings constantly disappeared. She could scarcely lay down her purse, or money, or jewelry, over which she exerted great protection, before they would disappear, so she decided to move again. I do not think the thief was ever detected.

All of these occurrences made delays of the Christian Science work, and the harassing times seemed almost too much for her to endure. But to overcome and overcome was her aim and strong purpose. Every problem must be worked out in the order of Truth, she so firmly asserted. Important social and business engagements must be met, but the contracting parties often broke, or delayed them, interfering with the regularity of food, sleep or work till it seemed to me, a young student, as if the wonderful woman would go wild amid the tumult of error. Well has she written, “When Truth speaks, error screams the louder.” I personally saw and know this was her experience. The students did what they could to handle the situation, but it must be met on a more spiritual basis than any of us then understood. When Mrs. Eddy would assert to us that, “more and better work must done,” that, “in Mind alone lay the remedy for every ill,” we could hardly accept the statement. Personality, resentment, and human criticism, made the trials greater. As she often reiterated, that “Evil fanned the flames, and the students blew the bellows.” It is a joyful memory though, to look back, and realize the resolute heroism, and unflinching purpose, though misjudgment was ever at her heels, the world muttering condemnation on every side of her book, herself and the Cause. Few of us could stand firm and sometime I wonder we stood at all. It was in such a state of travail that the textbook, Science and Health, the Church By-laws, the Christian Scientist Association and the

Christian Science Journal were born, or successfully launched into their glorious being. Even then no one could predict the great future.

At this time the Christian Scientist Association met in the homes of students of Christian Science and members of the newly formed Church, or Association. Poor dear teacher, how I longed to comfort her in these trials. But the even patient attitude, the quiet, trustful looks of love are written plainly in my memory, and serve as inspirations when my own heart grows weary. Mrs. Eddy seldom complained; except now and then to say, “Clara I don’t feel quite well; relieve me of this or that error.” But affairs did not just then improve. Another move was made. Mrs. Eddy missed her home so she told me confidingly, “Would I take her into mine?” “Gladly,” I responded. We were then living in a quiet flat of five rooms in a new block on Hammond Street, myself, baby, husband and sister who did take excellent care of us all, made the family, and with the Doctor and dear Mrs. Eddy we were crowded. But never mind, we were together, and Mrs. Eddy was where I could look after her personally; getting the meals and protecting her when the Doctor was away on the various trips to and from the publishers, or getting a hall for the Christian Science Church services, or arranging for the Christian Science lectures and association meetings in the students’ homes. There were so many things to be attended to, and so few to do them. Mrs. Eddy must plan it all. She sometimes planned the family dinner and told us how to cook it and enjoyed these little diversions. Our part was to entertain her for we all sang and played the piano, and this caused a sunny vein amid the shadows. She once rebuked us all for singing “In the sweet bye and bye” so much, and tried to have us realize the NOW of things. “Here and now, God was, is, and ever will be.”

It was under the foregoing experiences that I saw Mrs. Eddy in her most patient frame of mind. The Doctor was slow to grasp the whole situation but immovable when he realized and took her stand. A very gentle man, but firm and quiet. Every mental, prayerful energy was required to combat the evil that pursued Mrs. Eddy. Hers was not a life of ease, nor of idleness. She would rather go hungry for food or your companionship than desert her post of duty. When writing the most valuable instructions or by-laws, or upon matters relating to the Christian Science Cause, error would attack her in the most insidious ways, making the students think she was their enemy, and causing personal divisions between themselves, terming the evils as coming from her instead of the enemy impersonal. I remember her saying to me with quivering lips and tearful eyes, “I can yet find it in my heart to say, ‘Father forgive them; they know not what they do,’ as Jesus did before me. But, how long, Oh Lord, how long will this error continue?” and then with patient forbearing voice would add, “O Father we turn like tired children to Thee. Thou wilt not leave us comfortless.” Then I would creep away to do the little I could in my limited consciousness of Truth. The dear fellowstudents did the same as far as they knew. I write these items to emphasize the fact of Mrs. Eddy’s untiring love, foresight, patience in hours of loneliness and almost isolation, except with God. Need her followers complain if the way is fraught with trials and tribulations and may they exercise patience and love as our beloved Leader did in the birth throes of the great Cause of Christian Science in these days of work without ceasing is my earnest wish for all.

Mrs. Eddy’s Original Sunday School of the First Church of Christ, Scientist

The passing events of today often seem of little importance to a Cause, but you must remember the building of a great work depends upon foundations. If these are laid correctly the whole structure is secure, are words Mrs. Eddy often said and followed them with the simile of the laying of granite, block by block, and we must give strict attention to small details. These impressive lessons served to make us honest even to a postage stamp she said and while it seemed exacting, the counsel proved in later years most valuable to us all in the Cause of Christian Science.

About the year 1880, Mrs. Eddy had joined with me in a home at 551 Shawmut Avenue, Boston, Mass.

The Church but recently joined in a corporated body held its Sunday services in the Hawthorne rooms No.2 Park Street. Dr. and Mrs. Eddy had furnished two large rooms up one flight of our home, our family occupying the first and third floors and the basement. On one of these Sundays, Mrs. Eddy was in a very thoughtful mood upon her return from these services. After our dinner was over we assembled in the parlor for a sing in which Mrs. Eddy joined us usually. My son Warren was about five years old, and everyone petted him more or less for he sang nicely and both Doctor and Mrs. Eddy delighted to hear him. This eve Mrs. Eddy grew silent as she often did when impressed by unusual thought arising for her consideration. The singing ceased and one after another left the room for various reasons. There seemed such good feeling we spoke of the progress we were making in the Cause and felt this was a demonstration of the love she was trying to establish. The boy had climbed into her lap and gave her some caresses. She began to talk to him in something of this fashion. “Now Warren dear you behaved splendidly today.” “Well,” he replied, “I know I did for you didn’t look at me any all the time you talked, and now you love me, don’t you?” To this Mrs. Eddy tenderly assented and she told him she had a plan for him to speak on the platform with her. This greatly interested myself of course as well as the boy, Mrs. Eddy still embraced with loving hugs now and then as their two heads leaned together as if in conniving confidence. Mrs. Eddy continued, “Well, we must have a Sunday school, Warren. You shall be the first scholar.” He fell in with the plans but immediately said, “How can we have a Sunday school with only me?”

Mrs. Eddy smilingly told him that was only to begin with, and soon other little boys and girls would come and he would have them to listen to and to play with, but he could not comprehend how so much was to follow, though if Mrs. Eddy said so, and they must come if she told them to.

I, the one onlooker, thought it all prattle to amuse the child, and gave no serious thought to either of them nor to what they were saying. I gave special attention though to Mrs. Eddy’s loving tenderness with the child and it found a like response in my own heart’s love for her, and at the time she was so beset and distracted by worldly trials and evils on every hand. The boy grew sleepy and was soon abed, while Mrs. Eddy retired to her apartments, to no doubt formulate plans so suddenly started then and there. The following morning Mrs. Eddy asked Warren if he would come upstairs to her parlor awhile to which he readily consented. We never questioned Mrs. Eddy why nor wherefore in those days. So, after Warren had an extra touch to his hair and a general looking over of face, hands and clothes, that he might not offend in any way we kissed and he went to keep his important appointment. To explain the extra care Warren continually reminded us that “Mrs. Eddy is fussy and won’t like it so and so.” After quite a stay the boy reappeared full of enthusiasm and fun. We asked him what it meant, and he mysteriously replied, “Mrs. Eddy has been rehearsing me.” Further questioning was for a time useless except that some important affair was afoot and the child was alive with its importance. Every little while he would recite in a most dramatic way a line from a song, later another line and with each subsequent visit with Mrs. Eddy during the next few days, new words and new lines were recited in all sorts of ways over and over. Then a message came from Mrs. Eddy, through him she would like him to look his best for the coming Sunday, for she was going to open her Sabbath school and he was to speak from the platform at the Hawthorne rooms on Park Street one verse before she began the regular services of the Church. We all gladly consented and the boy’s best frock, a white pique kilt with wide collar and cuffs and a wide blue sash was all carefully attended to for Warren continued to assert “Mrs. Eddy was terrible fussy,” and she told him he was just as important on the platform as she was and must look nice and behave nice and he thought her handsome if she was fussy. So each day of this very important and busy week was varied with plans and talk over the idea of a Sabbath school. Some praised and others discouraged the project. In the meantime Mrs. Eddy with all her manifold duties of church work, lectures forthcoming and manuscript to be revised, found time to rehearse the child in the verse he was to recite on Sunday at 3 p.m. Mrs. Eddy was, as we all know, quite particular in manners. She objected to our saying, thanks, and felt it better manners to say “thank you,” if occasion required.

So she taught the boy how to walk to the front of the platform, how to bow to the audience, how to scrape his foot or draw it backward and the general fine gestures before his recitation and I don’t know which enjoyed most these times, he or Mrs. Eddy. In giving these details his attention and which he practiced daily, he caused us endless amusement and many a laugh and scream in which Dr. and Mrs. Eddy joined heartily. But the boy did finely in them all and with the watchful coaching of such a woman as Mrs. Eddy, is it any wonder he should meet the excellence she expected? The wonder to me is she could ever find time to attend to these details. It all enforces the fact however of her thoroughness in laying foundations. In her mind the idea of the Church with a Sabbath school was a truly engrossing affair, so she frequently said, and to this end we must help her. The starting was not easy and members, or material to work with, was not then plentiful. Most of those interested or attracted to the Cause were above the age desirable for such a movement. The younger element being Miss Lilly, Miss Potter, Mr. Orne, Mr. Bancroft, my young sister and myself. I knew of only one other child besides Warren, the son of Mrs. Rice, about my boy’s age, but he was living in Lynn and quite a care as he did not come to the services regularly with either his mother or his aunt, Miss Rawson, who usually attended. I do not now remember so much of the services on this particular Sunday only we assembled at three o’clock as usual, for Mrs. Eddy was very prompt. She had taken greatest pains to look nice as an example to us who were not as the boy termed, so fussy. She even placed a rose in her hair to the delight of the boy whose beaming face betrayed not the least anxiety but a consequential air pervaded him which pleased Mrs. Eddy who so wisely said to us, “We don’t know where this will all end, do we?” but we as ever unthinkingly replied, “Well, it won’t amount to much anyway,” at least not impressively for the Church or for the Cause. But Mrs. Eddy made no reply and with undaunted quiet refrained from argument. With her reticule containing some leaves for her sermon she entered the hall from the dressing room in the rear hand in hand with the boy. They ascended the few steps at the side of the platform. With a graceful bow to an ever respectful audience she stepped to the front of the platform at the side of the pulpit, and spoke of the Sabbath school in a few words, and as if it already existed. She then introduced this little boy Warren as one of the representatives of the school, who would recite a short verse. He had followed in her wake and stood deferentially quiet beside her and as she retired, he with a face full of smiles, bowed profoundly. In the most assured tones he then recited the following verse Mrs. Eddy had taught him to say, and had so often rehearsed him, that full credit might be done to her, and to the school he represented –

“For right is right since God is God And right the day must win.

To doubt would be disloyalty To falter would be sin.”

Then another graceful bow and he came down to sit with Dr. Eddy, who seldom was on the platform with Mrs. Eddy, and who enjoyed the company of the boy, relieving me of care, while I sang a solo part, or led the congregational hymns with the quartet.

The sermon was beautiful, full of the glory of Truth, the healing truth of Christ. She seemed inspired and it uplifted us all by her positive and explanatory revelations. She referred to “A little child shall lead them.” The Doctor looked with admiration from her to the boy who had done so well, for “a sensitive little chap,” as the Doctor said, and by her directing. The singing was fine and the contribution generous. We all felt a new era of the Cause was coming. As the audience of less than one hundred parted, more harmony was manifest and a mutual resolution to loyally abide by Mrs. Eddy’s leadership.

Upon our return at the dinner table the Doctor remarked with so much love, “Mary you have done a great work today, a grand work,” and she turning to the boy with a smile said, “It is because I let this little child lead me.” Of course we all looked the adoring love of her we could not speak and retired to the parlor for our singing with a God praise few companies can ever know.

July, 1915





Recollections of M. Adelaide Still

I went to Pleasant View, Concord, New Hampshire, in May, 1907, to assist the housekeeper and started my duties as Mrs. Eddy’s personal maid on July 14th of the same year. I had not seen Mrs. Eddy during my stay in her house until a few days before this date when I met her in the doorway between the dining-room and the kitchen. She said, “Good morning,” and looked me straight in the face as if she would read me through. She stood with her hand on my arm while she spoke to each one in the kitchen and then went into the library where she rang the bell for Mrs. Sargent and asked who I was. On Friday, July 12th, when she took her morning walk through the downstairs rooms, Mrs. Eddy sent for me and after asking me a few questions as to why I came into Christian Science, who was my teacher, etc., she asked me if I would be her maid. I told her that I would gladly do anything for her but that I had never filled a position of that kind before. She said, “I know it dear, but I will teach you.” She also said, “I have been asking God to send me the right one and I believe He has.”

It was Mrs. Eddy’s custom when she came into her study in the morning to open her Bible and Science and Health and read the verse or paragraph on which her eyes first rested. Sometimes after she had read aloud the selections to those in the room with her she would call the other students and give them a little lesson from what she had read or instruct them as to what it was necessary to handle at that particular time. During the first days I made a few notes of the lessons she gave which I will copy here. They may not be her exact words as they were written after the lesson.

July 15, 1907. Opened to Romans 14:22, “Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.”

Mrs. Eddy said, “We should allow nothing which we cannot justify. He who sees sin and condemns it not will suffer for it. Can we work out a problem correctly if one figure is not in accord with the principle of mathematics? Can I enter the kingdom of heaven if I allow one sin? Will not that destroy the whole problem?

Some days later a student was out walking and gathering flowers at a time when Mrs. Eddy needed him to do something. When he came in she called all the students together and gave them a lesson from which I made the following notes:

Art thou a Christian Scientist? Then prove it in Principle, practice and demonstration. Is it easy to tell another his fault? Having a good time is not fighting the devil. Having a good time and dwelling in the pleasures of the senses will not bring you into heaven.

July 26, 1907. Read Science and Health 38:21-30 next page.

July 27, 1907. Give no intelligence to sin, disease and death. Is God all in all? Do you believe this? Then is it not a sin to give intelligence and power to anything else? Then know that there is no hypnotism to make you forget or me suffer. Give it no power; destroy it utterly.

On several occasions I saw Mrs. Eddy subdue a storm and I well remember the first time that I witnessed this demonstration. It was the 3rd of August, 1907, between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. The sky was overcast with heavy clouds and it was very dark. Mrs. Eddy sat in her chair in the study at Pleasant View watching the clouds with a smile and a rapt expression on her face. It seemed to me that she saw beyond the storm and her present surroundings and I do not think that she was conscious of my presence. In a few moments the clouds broke and flecked and the storm was dissolved into its native nothingness. About half an hour later I had occasion to go to her room again when she said to me, “Did you see the sky?” I said, “Yes, Mrs. Eddy.” Then she said, “It (meaning the cloud) was never there. God’s face was never clouded.”

One thing that impressed me very much was the amount of time and labor which Mrs. Eddy gave to any letter or article intended for publication. She would call one of us and dictate the words as they came to her, then she would take the paper and ponder over it and correct it until it was crossed and recrossed and interlined from beginning to end; she would then dictate it from the corrected copy and again go over it. This was often repeated until she had dictated it several times; then it was typewritten and corrected again. Every word and even the punctuation was carefully and prayerfully pondered so that nothing should go out which could possibly be misunderstood or misinterpreted. I was often tempted to keep the discarded copies which she threw into the waste basket, but my sense of right would not permit it. On one occasion however I copied a portion which she did not print and I will give it here: “The Christian Science student’s affection, fidelity and devotion are born in the furnace and blossom in wisdom won by experience. This is the price and reward of taking one’s treasure out of material vessels.” Another little thought-gem which she dictated to me and which I found after she had passed away was this, “Whenever there seems to be a need or lack in your experience this simply indicates the scientific fact that this seeming need is already supplied by God’s gracious abundance. Then give thanks with your whole heart because you have learned in Christian Science that God’s supply is on hand.”

Mrs. Eddy was very exact in all that she did and she demanded that everyone around her should demonstrate this sense of order and exactness; consequently, any manifestation of disorder, forgetfulness or carelessness was looked upon by her as a sign that we were allowing animal magnetism to govern us and this error merited and generally received a severe rebuke. She would never allow us to excuse error, and on one occasion when someone told her that they had done their best she said, “If you had done your best it would have been right.” Once or twice when she asked me to do something which looked difficult to me I told her that I would try to do it, when she immediately rebuked me by saying, “Try? Do it.” When I thought this over I saw that to say that I would try was to admit the possibility of defeat at the outset and I was grateful for the correction. Mrs. Eddy sometimes quoted the saying attributed to Michelangelo, “Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle.” Occasionally when smarting under a mortal mind sense of resentment after some such rebuke I have gone into her room in answer to her call and found that she had completely forgotten the circumstances and she would look at me in astonishment and say, “What are you crying for, Adelaide?” At other times she had seen that error was trying to take me away from her and she would say, “You won’t leave me, will you, Adelaide? You will stay with me as long as I am here?” At such times one would feel such a sense of love in her thought that all sense of hurt or resentment was wiped out and I would say, “Yes, Mother dear, I will stay with you as long as you need me.” A look of satisfaction would come over her face and she would reply, “Thank you dear.”

During the last few years while she was struggling with a belief of age she (like many others) did not like any change from the usual routine, so rather than cause her any unnecessary trouble, Mrs. Sargent and I very rarely left the house unless we were absolutely obliged to do so. Some Sundays Mrs. Eddy would say (I think probably to test us), “You may go to Church this morning if you wish Adelaide,” or “Laura,” according to whom she was speaking. We would invariably answer, “Thank you Mother dear, but I would rather stay with you,” sometimes adding, “This is our Church and we have our divine service in serving you.” She always looked very happy and would say, “That is right, thank you dear.” On more than one occasion when Mrs. Sargent or I had done some small thing for her she would say, “God will bless you dear ones for your kindness to me.”

I have a few fragmentary memories of interviews with others to which I have been a witness, and which will probably interest some future reader who has not had the privilege of knowing Mrs. Eddy. My earliest memories date back to the time that she was examined by the alienists in July, 1907, at Pleasant View. She wore a black grenadine dress with a white chiffon vest and collar and white ruching in the neck and sleeves. A detailed account has been published so I shall only write of the few things which impressed me most. The same malicious element of mortal mind which persecuted the early Christians and crucified Jesus had decreed that our beloved Leader, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, in belief a lady of eighty-five years, should face the ordeal of proving that she was sane and capable of taking care of her own earnings, that which had come to her as a result of years of self-sacrificing labor and love in behalf of mankind. Yet as one looked at her that hot July afternoon there was no sense of fear expressed, but her face was calm, clear and confident and the moment that the opposing lawyer saw her sitting there in her study he knew that he had not the ghost of a chance of winning his case. About a month before this she called all her household and referring to this case said, “During forty years I have had many trials and when this came up I was not disturbed. If the world says I am a fool that does not make me so. The senses say that we dwell in matter but you know and I know that we dwell in Mind.” The alienists, of course, were not Scientists and I was amused at one thing that Mrs. Eddy did with them. After talking with her for a few minutes they asked her how she discovered Christian Science. She told them about her study and experiments in homeopathy but before she got to the principal part of her narrative they interrupted her to ask business questions as to whether she preferred to invest in stocks or bonds, which she considered best, etc. She answered them wisely and intelligently and they being satisfied, rose to go. She then asked them if they would like to see her singing machine, meaning the graphophone. Almost as soon as they had left the room she remembered that she did not finish telling them about her discovery of Christian Science, so she sent a messenger to them saying she would like to speak with them again. They came back, she requested them to be seated and they could not do otherwise than listen to the rest of her story.

Mrs. Eddy always enjoyed talking with cultured or literary persons and I loved to see her at those times. Her face would be animated and her eyes shine or flash with pleasure, especially when she carried her point or asked her opponent a question which he could not answer. When she saw, however, that she had clinched her argument she would say something witty or humorous which would cause a laugh and take the keen edge from it. I remember just such an interview with a cousin, a lawyer, who was not a Scientist. Mrs. Eddy asked some questions about matter and Mind which he had to admit that he could not answer; then she said something which made him laugh and kept him good humored so that when he left he was smiling and happy and evidently felt that he had had a good time with her. After he had left the room, however, Mrs. Eddy looked up at me with a smile on her face and said, “I have given H––– a dose of Truth that he will not get rid of for a long time.”

Since writing the first of this, one or two things have come to my thought that Mrs. Eddy said to me when I was first with her. One was, “Adelaide, know that divine Love thinks my thoughts and I cannot forget.” At another time she said, “Know that divine Love is all and because it is all I cannot be robbed of my love or made to forget.”

Dear, dear Leader! As I look back over the years that I spent in her home I feel that I must say something about the sacrifice which she made for mankind, a sacrifice which is little understood by anyone today. It is easy to criticize or condemn but who knows or understands even a tithe of what it cost our beloved Leader to come down from the mount of revelation to investigate and uncover malicious animal magnetism and show us how to meet it. She told us that she found herself on this mount of revelation where all was good; there was no evil to her consciousness, but she did not know how she got there. She healed everything that her thought touched but after a time she saw that she would have to probe the false claim of evil to the bottom before it could be intelligently handled and destroyed. In speaking of this experience she told us that she walked the floor for three days and nights with the perspiration pouring from her. In Miscellaneous Writings 222:29 Mrs. Eddy says, “I shall not forget the cost of investigating, for this age, the methods and power of error.” Again we may ask ourselves, do we appreciate or understand one tithe of her life of love and self-sacrifice? She has shown us in her writings how to meet every phase of animal magnetism or malicious mental malpractice that can ever come and we owe her undying gratitude, and continuous, watchful, intelligent obedience. Her life on earth was a tragedy just as much as the Master’s for her faithfulness in uncovering error caused it to turn its full force of hatred on her. On page 126 of Miscellany she says, “At this period my demonstration of Christian Science cannot be fully understood, theoretically; therefore it is best explained by its fruits, and by the life of our Lord as depicted in the chapter Atonement and Eucharist, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.” As she said of Jesus she “experienced few of the pleasures of the physical senses.” Science and Health, 38:21, also 48:10; 50:26-31; 40:17-19; 104:3; No and Yes 34:11-16;

Retrospection and Introspection 30:21. But through all the struggle with error shone the gold of human character reflecting the divine qualities of courage, confidence in Truth and unswerving obedience to the commands of divine Love; yea, those qualities of Spirit which enabled her to discover and establish Christian Science and to preserve the Word of Truth pure and unsullied all through the many years of adversity and persecution. These same qualities, all included in the spirit of Love which guided and governed her, enabled her to perceive and take the necessary steps for the growth and establishment of our Cause. I remember on the last Sunday that the Communion service was held in The Mother Church she seemed restless and unsettled during the day, and calling Mrs. Sargent she said, “What is it, Laura? I have always suffered for what was not right in my Church.” A day or two later she called the students and showed them the By-law abolishing the Communion service. One of the students present who could not understand the step remonstrated with her, but she said that God had told her to do it. A little later Mrs. Sargent showed her the Message for 1902 p.19:21-25. Mrs. Eddy said, “There! See that,” then she called the student who had remonstrated with her and showed it to him. In one lesson she gave us in 1909 she said something like this, “Whatever spiritualizes our thought is for our spiritual growth.” Then she spoke of her own condition and said, “The world need not jest because I am thus for I am being disciplined. If I call it sickness it will be that but when I understand what it means it becomes to me what the Scripture saith, “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”

M. ADELAIDE STILL

November 29, 1915.

384 Beacon Street, Chestnut Hill, Mass.





Janet T. Coleman

April 27, 1914

First Experience Recorded from Old Records Made at the Time I Heard the Sermon and Saw Her

Studied Christian Science in January 22, 1883 with Mary Baker Eddy

I desire to record a few of some of the beautiful experiences which I remember in connection with our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy.

I never shall forget my first experience when my mother and myself called upon her. After talking with her for a while, I said I would like to study with you, and then the wondrous purity of the one before me came to my thought, and I added, if I am good enough. Such a look as came into her face, and she answered, that for my answer, she would teach me. I never had been in such an atmosphere of thought in my life before. I felt my own shortcomings. It was unfolded to me a glimmer of the divine inspiration which encircled her, and this is what gave me the blessed privilege of becoming her student, which I never have regretted. I can truthfully say, that the light that shone into my thought has never left me, and I never doubted our Leader’s inspiration or her wisdom in guiding our Cause. Such wisdom is not of this world. I afterward was called by our Leader to become one of the first twelve members of our Church, “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston,” and to stand and to see the waves go down, which seemed to be mountains high, before our blessed Leader’s understanding of God’s allness which gave us the courage to trust God more; and to know whatever came up, “Love was at the helm,” (M. B. Eddy) because she had proved it over and over to us. I remember well the time when our beloved textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, was threatened by error, and when the Courts gave the verdict on the side of right, and 2,800 I think it was, of the false pamphlets which stole or tried to steal the precious truths from Science and Health, and claimed it to be of man and not of God, were ordered to be cut across thus. I never saw God forsake her, and I never saw her forget God. Think I had a piece of one of these books at the time. We were very fortunate those who lived here in Boston, when I first studied.

Our beloved Leader met with us once a week in a students’ meeting, we would bring up our cases and she would show us how to treat them; she lectured and preached to us. She mothered us so kindly. At last she began to tell us we must go out and teach this truth to others, which we did, after awhile. It was such a wonder to us at the lectures she gave, to see the learned men of all denominations, Catholic and all, ply her with questions and I heard two priests say after talking with her for a long time, that they had never met her equal; they could not get the best of her. When she was asked a question from the Bible, no matter where it was, she would lift up her eyes for a moment, and the answer would come as clear and true, and those who had the slightest understanding of Truth, would understand it. I can remember when one of our members had not done just right, how she counselled us to “Be ye merciful as ye hope to obtain mercy.”

I remember the day when I was first brought in contact with one who had been healed by the reading of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. She had been an invalid in bed for about fifteen years, and a friend had gone to the College and bought Science and Health and read it to her just a few pages (think it was fifteen pages) and she rose up and walked; her eyes and other claims had been healed also. As I walked into Hawthorne Rooms this Sunday, I saw a beautiful young lady go towards our Leader and embrace her. She walked as though she was on air, she was so happy and she was telling of her healing by her friend reading to her from Science and Health. It was a happy time for us all. I knew that Science and Health could heal, but this was the first one that I had seen. Now I know it is the Christ in that book that heals all mankind. There were fourteen in my class when I studied in 1883, in our Leader’s back parlor, on Columbus Avenue. There were about the same number when I joined the Church in the same back parlor. To look back and see how few we were in numbers and now to see our magnificent temple wherein to enter and pray. CHOOSE YE, The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany (Mary Baker Eddy) shows the fruit of her labor in serving God as All-in-all, and she has pointed out in CHOOSE YE what we should go to Church for: “to enter and pray.” Are we obedient to this command?

Second Record

Another Sermon as Remembered from Our Teacher and Leader Mary Baker Eddy from Luke 14th Chapter, 25th Verse to End of Chapter

Chickering Hall

She said the great multitude with him was a congregation of thoughts. She explained to us what a terrible thing it would be if we were to take this verse literally to hate father, mother, sister, brethren, wife and children, and our own life also. She brought out the verse where the Bible had promised long life to those who honored father and mother, yet we could not be Christ’s disciples unless we did hate them. She then showed us how to hate them. The father and mother is the origin of every evil thought, everything material, discordant, sinful; we are to hate this origin. The wife is the thought wedded to matter, sin, love of self, selfishness, in fact whatever form of error we are wedded to, we will be held by it, and will not hate it. The children are the offspring of our thought wedded to error, all that our personal sense says is real, the pains and pleasures in matter. We are to hate all these. We are to hate the father and mother, the thought, origin of the belief that their life is truth, substance and intelligence or substance in matter. We are to hate being wedded to this thought, we are to hate all that springs from such thoughts. The brother and sister, those who believe the same way. We must also lose our love for our life in matter, by hating it. We never can love God and our neighbor until we hate all error, and forsake it. Then we can see that God or good, Life, Truth, and Love is our Father and Mother; our wife is good, is Love, our children the offspring of being wedded to Love.

And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. She said we must carry our cross, not take it up and then lay it down. We must carry it until we faint; then another could ease us of it for a little, and then we must take it up again and carry it until we could see that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. We are to be sure and see if we really are bearing our cross. It shows us to be His disciples if we have a cross to bear. Never treat self for belief of sickness, but treat self for sin. Be thankful you can suffer when you do wrong. We must have our Father and

Mother good and love them, and be wedded to Truth and Love and then our offspring will be God’s idea, and we shall love our neighbor as ourself.

In building a tower we are to be sure that we are carrying our cross, and we should see whether we are willing to bear it enough (moral courage) before we begin to build. Then she said we had better stay at home and keep peace with the world than to go out and antagonize it, and not have enough of Truth and Love and understanding of Christian Science to overcome their twenty thousand. We do not want to dishonor Science. She begged us with tears in her eyes not to let the world mock and cry out, we could not finish our building or that we had not soldiers enough to overcome their twenty thousand. By that she meant the claim of error which will (if we fail of bringing out what we say Science can do) mock and deride the sacred Cause of Christ. She warned us of the impending danger. She said that we were making merry, eating and drinking, etc. in error, and we could be so happy if we would only look to the true source of happiness. She said Sodom was belief of pleasure in matter, beliefs of all kinds. Lot’s wife looked back to these beliefs, and was turned into a pillar of salt. Then she showed us when salt has lost its savor it is not fit for anything. She said Lot’s wife became a monument of unsavored salt, by looking back into beliefs, error. Then if we look back or go back into matter we will turn into a pillar of unsavored salt, fit neither for the land nor yet for the dunghill, and will not make either a good Scientist or a good carpenter. Those who have ears (spiritual understanding) let them hear. She told us that she should come often among us without warning and said a messenger from God would go to each one who was waiting for Him.

Third Record

This Experience and Sermon Came After the Sermon, Luke 14:15, to End of Chapter

Another experience that has stayed with me these long years. Our Leader had told us that she would not tell us when she would be with us on a Sunday, but she might come to us unawares. Of course this made us all the more earnest to attend the service. On the Saturday before this day I had ripped the trimming off my bonnet, and could not seem to get it fixed for Sunday; and I said well I guess I will stay at home, but I did not sleep well, and I decided that I would borrow my mother-in-law’s bonnet which seemed very old for me, and so I was a little late. When I entered Chickering Hall, our beloved Teacher was there. Oh how happy I was that I had conquered self and gone. She began her sermon with these words: “The chemist comes out of his laboratory with his fingers all bleeding from a broken retort.” I will have to put the rest of this in my own language. She said if the retort had been whole, he would not have cut his fingers. She said that all religions had some good in them. She named Mohammedanism, Buddhism and others; did not speak of any of our day; but she said they did not have the whole robe or garment, so they would be like the broken retort that would cut the fingers. We must have on the undivided garment, or we would cut our fingers. So if we accept this Science in part, it would be like the broken retort – liable to cut the fingers.

Fourth Record

In writing about A Message from God, I remember when our Leader sent for her students to come to the National Students’ Association held here in Boston. She said she had “a message from God for us.” To leave all and come. I was teaching a class at the time. I asked the students what I should do. I intended to give them back their money, and go if they were not willing that I should, but they were all glad for me to obey. So I left the money in the bank that they had given me from the class, so as to make it easier for them, and came to the meeting. She gave us a prayer, but we did not seem to have it to carry home with us, and no one else that we knew did either. Our Leader had us come to her house; did all that she could to have us wake up and hear. Just before I went back West to my class, I had to go back to get my certificate made out right. The man had written it Jane instead of Janet T.; so I went to the College to see Mr. Frye about it; at that time we had one every year. I had been away for quite a while, and the desire to have a word with our beloved Leader came very strong and I asked Mr. Frye if he thought that Mrs. Eddy would see me. So he asked her on her way down to her supper (this was on Columbus Ave., 581). She came into the back parlor and spoke to me. She rebuked us all for not listening to what God had for us, that we were so happy to see each other, that we made merry, and paid no heed to God’s message, after all she had done for us. She turned from me and went down stairs to her supper. I burst into tears, I felt the rebuke so keenly; I felt she had told the truth. Soon I heard a step, which I knew was hers, and I turned my face so as not to watch her go through the entry; the first thing I knew her dear arms went around me, and she kissed me and gave me a beautiful American Beauty Rose; the perfume lasted for a very long time. This rebuke that she gave me went so deep that I never again felt the pleasures of the world the same. If one rebuke from our Leader brought out such results, what a harvest must be theirs who lived in her home with her! The sorrow over my thoughtlessness in not hearing “God’s Message” to us did not leave me and later on one evening as I had been studying our textbook I heard a voice say, “I will bring all things to your remembrance” and then this prayer began to unfold: “Oh Lord, give me higher, purer, holier desires. Oh Lord, give me more self-abnegating desires. Oh Lord, give me a desire for more Love.” (M. B. Eddy). The last line given to me by our clerk, Wm. B. Johnson; he remembered it after I told him what came to me. Have always believed that this came to me because I took the needed rebuke in the right way. Before this prayer came to me in our Obstetric class which had eighteen students (all ladies), our Leader said that she had taken us into the holy of holies. She spoke of one in that class that had heard that prayer and that they had grown twenty years in those few years. If we are Christian Scientists, “left all for Christ” as our Leader did, it is not her fault, we did not hear. It was just after this class that this prayer came to me. She told at the time she gave this prayer we must improve our models, ideals.

Fifth Record

I remember going to see our Leader one day; it was six years to a day since I studied with her. The night before I had been struggling with a hard belief. I saw a mental picture of a dirty hand, with a string tied to each finger. I saw the fingers move, and a Scientist would jump up at the end of the string. I heard a man chuckle, and saw hand-writing of two men. When I was in the hardest physical struggle I heard a voice say, “when the enemy shall come in like a flood, then the Lord will lift up his standard against him.” I was at once healed. The next day I went up to see our Leader. I made up my mind if it was something that I should tell her, that she would see me, and she did. She told me I had seen the working of m.a.m. and I saw the personality through whom it came through, although I never had met them. The writing was correct for both and she said the chuckle was like one of them. She said she wished that all of her students could see it as I had seen it. This same person’s effort was to control all of our Leader’s students when possible. Thank God, it isn’t real. Our Leader told me at this time to always remember that there was no personified good and no personified evil.

Sixth Record

I well remember an experience at Christmas time some years ago. I, for a wonder, had not received a present. I was left all alone, and I suddenly began to thank God for all the Christmas presents that He had given me. When suddenly a beautiful butterfly began to come out of its cocoon before my eyes, mentally. I never had seen one. It came out and was blue and white and gold, and I was so happy. I knew it meant something spiritual, and I went in a few days to see our Leader, and she told me what it meant. I had seen it correctly that I could not heal from a physical standpoint any longer, that I was in the rule of sin, and that the time was coming when I would heal sin with one thought. I was not wise about keeping this thought. I told it to others. In a short time I saw the butterfly on the ground with earth on its wings struggling to get up again. Oh, for wisdom to ponder the deep things of God! I have seen the butterfly again up above its earth load, in the pages of Science and Health, blue and white and gold, where all true healing of sin can be found. I had a butterfly of blue, white and gold made to remind me of what our Leader told me. The man who made it for me, said he had to work harder to bring it out, than he did to heal a man who it was said was dying. The manufacturer where this man made the pin was anxious to have the pattern so as to have others made from it, and asked the man who had made it for me to let him have the pattern. When he took it out to show him it fell in pieces. I told the man he could not give it to anyone; it was given to me on the mount. Have worn it constantly ever since.

Seventh Record

Another experience I remember: She rebuked one of our members who always wanted to go ahead of God’s time; she said, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” They did not wait God’s time.

She said there were two extremes her students had to contend with; one was pride, the other fear. She said when pride came to her she remembered her origin in matter and pride fled. She said when fear came to us we were to remember our past successes; and this has been such a wonderful help. To remember all the times that Christian Science has helped us stills fear. What God has done once, He will do again.

Eighth Record

A Statement of Truth About Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy

CAN say one thing truthfully, that if I were asked today after all my experiences with our Leader, which was the greatest of them, I could say this: I always found her loving her enemies, always ready to do them good, always would see those who had injured her if she could help them before one who had been loving to her. I have proved this over and over. I have learned the lesson well from our Leader to love your enemies. It is the only way, and throughout her life she practiced it. May we always overcome our enemies with love as our Leader did!

Ninth Record

In one of our classes she spoke of a beautiful white bridge underneath was all slime, mud, venomous snakes, reptiles, all that was unclean, wild beasts, etc. She asked us which path would we take – go over the white bridge, or go under? We all answered that we could go over the white bridge. She smiled and said that we would go over it after we had been underneath, and demonstrated over it all. The whole of mortal mind must be overcome first.

Tenth Record

Chicago Convention, 1888

Another wonderful experience of what our beloved Leader was, came to me at Chicago. She had spoken to her students the first day alone, and to me she seemed more like a man as she spoke to us; her strength, her manner, impressed me with great strength; the next day she spoke in Music Hall to the multitude. Many were healed; that day I saw her as a woman. That night as I was getting into bed, had not laid down, when at the foot of the bed I saw Jesus’ form rise up in white, then our Leader in white rose up beside Him. She put out her arms and embraced Him. He melted into her, then she rose up beyond my gaze. I became so cold, although it was quite warm weather; it took a long time for me to get normal. I came down to Boston a short time after and I went to see our Leader at Commonwealth Avenue. I was ushered into her parlor upstairs. Two traitors sat there; will not name them. I told Mrs. Eddy that I had something to tell her. At first she said I could go on, then changed her mind and said for me to go into her little room with her. So I did. After I finished, she told me not to speak of it to any one, not even to her students; it was too far beyond the age at that time. When Christ and Christmas came out, the picture CHRISTIAN UNITY expressed more what I saw at Chicago. God has been so good to me to let me see our Leader in her right light. When we came out into the other room, she said to the others, that she had advised me not to speak of it. It was at this visit that our Leader, with traitors (which proved themselves so later on) on each side of her, asked me this question. Would you like me to tell you the meaning of an Intermediator? I said I would. She said it was one that understood the good and understood the evil; that the error would come up to the Intermediator and would get the good, and would go out a little farther away, then would come up again, get more good and each time would go out farther until it would come up, and then go away out. God certainly went with me because one of the parties (a lady) went when I did, and tried to get me to tell her what I had just told our Leader, but I was protected and did not tell it. Some three weeks after, it kept coming to me that as I was so impulsive, that I might be like Peter, so I went again to see our Leader, and I told her what troubled me. She said, “You will never deny me.” Oh such comfort this has been to me, and God helping me I never will! I never feel that our Leader ever died. How could she? Her Life is good, her Life is God, that never left her; her teachings are true, and can be demonstrated. I feel that this demonstration that Life never dies will be proved to the glory of God in some way. Until that time, I never will believe that she ever died. This is eternal Life.

Eleventh Record

I heard our Leader say once, at Pleasant View, one loyal student is just as much to this Cause as another loyal student (M. B. Eddy).

One time the first members were asked up to our Leader’s home; she asked us to go to the Fair with her; we were invited to sit in her sewing chair; we were all like children, so glad to be with Mother. Oh, that blessed name that we had taken away from us because the world did not see it right. Oh, the happiness of being with her. One of the students said how happy we all were to be with her two days in succession. Mother replied perhaps when we are good enough we will see you all the time – “I see you all every day.” Yes, she was watching over us every day.

One time she called us to her; we were late in getting there. She said if we had had on the wedding garment, that the train would have been on time.

I remember what she said to me to comfort me at the time my husband passed away. She had called the first members up to her, and when she saw me she asked me how my husband was. I could just answer her, that he was gone. She had been telling of the working of error that week. When I said that, she said for us to go. When we had gone as far as the gate from the house, she sent for us to come back. She said, “Mrs. Coleman, I will say this for your comfort: your husband is far better off than you are, and in much better company” (M. B. Eddy). I knew what she meant. When I saw his face in the coffin I said, he has found out that m.a.m. cannot kill. This was a few days before our Leader told this to me.

Twelfth Record

Our Leader once told us that the difference between a Christian Scientist and a mind-curer was this: “The Scientist could be a Christian, and the mind-curer could not” (M. B. Eddy).

She once told us we could tell by a person’s eye when they were under mesmerism. The eye looks dead; no life in it.

She told us it was m.a.m. that makes us talk the error when we feel sick or in a discord, and makes us desire to talk about it (M. B. Eddy).

I heard our Leader say, that when she was asked if she did the healing, she answered, “No. A thousand times no. It is the Christ that does the healing” (M. B. Eddy).

Thirteenth Record

Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, once told me of three visions she had about Science and Health.

The first: She saw a beautiful young maiden, joyous and happy.

The second: A voluptuous, low necked, short sleeved, sensual woman, very dark.

The third: She was going up a very steep stair and she had a little child by the hand. When she reached the top, she looked at the child, and he was all ragged, and skin and bone.

What does this mean? Answer ye that may. Have we crowned the power of Mind in Science and Health as the Messiah?

Fourteenth Record

I well remember two questions sent up in Chickering Hall, to our Leader written on a slip of paper which she answered.

One was: Why do you wear purple and diamonds? Such a look of love came into her face, and she took up a piece of her dress and looked at it and said, “Why do I wear purple velvet: I like purple velvet; it is velvetine,

$1.25 a yard.” Then she looked at the large diamond on her finger. She said, “you call this a diamond. I call it a metaphysical thought. A lady who had been long years bedridden I was able to heal through God, and she arose and walked. She gave me this out of gratitude to remember her by” (M. B. Eddy).

The other question was: Why do your students dress so gay? She said in answer she would like her students to dress as beautifully as the flowers, and be as unconscious of it (M. B. Eddy).

In The Mother Church, this question was asked her: Why do the students wear glasses? Her answer was, it is just as much a belief to see through these eyes – and she pointed to her eyes – as to see through glasses (M. B. Eddy).

Fifteenth Record

Our Leader’s words (from Mary Baker Eddy) to me as remembered.

I went and saw her at Roslindale the day before she left for Concord, N. H., again. She took me all over the house. Everything had been fitted up beautifully. I had Ruth as a little baby with me. She had desired to see her. In speaking of the beauty of the house and grounds, she said, “The new ‘Adam’ is a wilderness; not flowers and roses.” In speaking of the beautiful chamber that had been fitted up for her: “The bridal chamber is drinking the cup.” Advice from our Leader: “Stop making error real and equal to God”

She said, “Take these verses and live them. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths. Stop looking back and bringing up past sins every day. You would not go to the grave and look at a putrid corpse every day. Let God direct. Let the little one be a child not forcing her to be grown up before the time. Fear is less than mind, and Mind controls fear. The whole prayer that is needed: And leadest us not in temptation but freest us from sickness, sin and death. God leads us out of temptation.

A dream I had, she interpreted it for me at this time.

I told her I thought she was going up the stairs, and I was going behind her pushing her up with my hands; in doing so my cloak would keep falling off from me. So I asked her if she would give me a pin to fasten the cloak, she turned and stooped down and fastened my cloak together. When I looked at it I saw a very large diamond shining on my breast. Then I said, Oh I only asked for a common pin; then I awoke. She said that the diamond was clasping peace on my breast; that the effect of my nature would all pass off, and I would be calm.

End of my visit to our Leader.

Janet T. Coleman

Sixteenth Record

A Few Extracts from Mother’s Letters to the Evening Meetings

AKE broader your bounds for blessing the people. Learn to forget that which you should not remember, namely self, and live for the good you do.

Let this be your motto in these meetings: to seek to be least, and to be a servant.

Speak of the Founder of Christian Science, and note her self-sacrifice and give testimony, as the way in Christian Science.

Seek to be meek. Little children, love one another.

Seventeenth Record

Written February 4, 1915

HE last dream that our beloved Leader interpreted for me was this: I told her that I thought we were all up at Pleasant View. The older ones and she were cutting off pieces of cake very white, filled with all kinds of fruit. Every time she would give out a piece, they would make such a scramble for it, so I could never get a piece. When some one in haste to get a piece moved too quick, and I came into view, and our beloved Leader took and cut a very large piece off the cake, much larger than the others and said, This is for her, pointing to me; then I woke up. I saw her soon after, and she told me what it meant. Then she said you got the “Benjamin Portion.” I looked it up, and Benjamin gets five times as much as the others in his sack.

This has been such a help to me when I have seen things seem to go wrong.

May Love bless all mankind and may we all give our blessed Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, the honor due her. She has brought eternal Life to the world, therefore all who have this hope in them, will purify themselves, even as He is pure. We can believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Janet T. Coleman





Notes from Mrs. Eddy’s Primary and Normal Class of 1888 and 1889 by Martha H. Bogue

Before going through Mrs. Eddy’s Primary Class I had studied with Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Webster in Chicago and practiced two years. After each lecture I went immediately to my room, taking my notes and writing out in full everything that had been given that morning, and so can say that these notes are authentic statements of our Leader.

Class opened Monday morning, November 12, 1888. Mrs. Eddy gave us a beautiful greeting. Mrs. Pierce and I both endeavored to remember every word, but when we tried to express it we found it impossible to write it down, showing it was the Spirit and not the letter that made the impression.

Our class numbered thirty. Mr. Stewart of Toronto began with us, but was called home. With him our Association had three representatives; Mrs. Linscott two; Mrs. Noyes one; four were from Kansas City; three from Peoria; one from Galesburg; one from Jackson, Michigan; one from Des Moines, Iowa; one from New Hampshire; two from Baltimore. The remainder were from New York and Massachusetts.

Joshua Bailey and his son Frank were of interest – one gray-haired, the other a bright boy of twelve and a most apt student of Christian Science.

Mrs. Sellers and son of Baltimore deserve a word here. They had heard of Christian Science, but had never studied it or seen a demonstration. He had just finished a course of physical science and was looking forward to a life of fame and wealth. He came out of curiosity to find what kind of a science Christian Science could be, and learned that it was all Science, the manifestation of the All and in all, and that physical science was a myth. His life work was changed as in the twinkling of an eye.

Dr. Strickland, a Baptist minister, a D.D., a classmate of Dr. Lorimer of Chicago, and a student of Filbert’s, was a great help to us in many ways.

Mr. Clymer, a Methodist minister, had never read a word of Science and Health, and it was wonderful to see him – like a little child he grasped the Truth.

The subject of our first lecture was “God,” and Mrs. Eddy wished just the abstract synonymous terms for God, those purely scientific, and gave them herself as divine Principle, Eternal, Supreme, Individual Being, Soul, Substance, Mind, Life, Truth, Love, divine Intelligence. She said Spirit and Substance had one meaning – they are one word. These words to a Scientist must mean “God,” just as much as God is God and can be used in no other sense but God. Upon the truth of these terms for God rests the basis of the Science; in fact they are the Science. To personal sense they are not God. Personal sense cannot name them as God or comprehend them as God.

When she first commenced teaching, it was impossible for her to give her students these terms and have them in any way comprehend or apply them; she could only talk to them on the lowest plane of healing the sick. That thirty of us nearly all understood them at once, showed the wonderful advance Christian Science was making, and the universal education through this work.

Science is not God except in the sense of Omniscience, all Science, but it is the manifestation of God. God is individual. God knows Himself, because He is All and in all. She said when the magnitude of the infinite began to dawn upon her she could not see how God could know Himself, but when she saw that He was All and in all, she knew that He knew Himself. She said at times she would have to wait and could not go further, and then one of the terms for God would come to her and she could go on, and so she knew that every term was given to her through inspiration.

Good is individual, and individuality is separate from personality. A table, a dog, a man, are all individual in themselves, but the personal sense makes mortal man less than individual, robs him of his individuality by giving him personal sense of personality.

Sight is both subjective and objective. The subjective sight determines the objective sight. If the subjective sight could be material, the objective would be material, but the subjective sight of Mind, God, is forever spiritual

– hence the objective must be spiritual. Whatever you see in others is simply the objective state of your own subjective thought.

In determining that Spirit could not reflect matter, she gave the anecdote of the Irishman who said he had discovered a wonderful echo. He called “How do you do” and the echo answered back: “Pretty well, I thank you.”

This completely settled the question of God being the creator of matter, of it being possible for Him to see a material world. Whenever we wanted personality to be the image of God, she asked us for our echo.

She said we must answer these malicious attacks and books. In order to answer them we must understand what they were. You could not reply to something you had never read, so we must read enough of these things to know how to answer them and then send them back to the writer or publisher. They are always sent with a thought, and if you keep them or burn them, you have not destroyed the thought. Send them back and then they have received their vomit back again and you are free. It is cowardice not to, – not charity. Of all these writers, Ursula Gesterfeld is the most dangerous, the most subtle – and why? Because she talks so much truth as to almost deceive the very elect and then poisons the whole by her terrible theosophical terms. It is not her personality that Mrs. Gesterfeld is attacking, it is the Truth. Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” No one can rob Caesar and give God the glory. All she asked of anyone was that we obey that command to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

If Jesus had not declared his divine origin he would not have been crucified. If she had not declared that Science was revealed Truth, mortal mind would be proud of it. She had feared that the Truth was to be crucified again

– that is, would be so mixed with error that it would be lost – that was what Mrs. Gesterfeld was doing in trying to simplify her book, but she hoped and felt that it would not be.

On being asked what she meant by being “crucified,” if she was to be taken from us, she said “No,” and then she said she thought best to tell us of three visions she had had that were as visible to sense as we were. She saw them with her eyes open. The first vision was, I think, in 1878:

She saw a beautiful maiden clad in pure white standing at the altar being wedded to a terrible sensuous man. She cast herself down weeping and implored that it should not be, but she was forced back.

About three years from that time this same man came to her for treatment. She knew the man when she saw him and shrank back from taking him, but Dr. Eddy felt it was not right, and being over-persuaded she yielded and took him as a student. He was a terrible infidel and a great sinner.

Shortly after this she had the second vision:

She stood with a beautiful babe in her arms clad in beautiful garments of spotless white, and this same man came and tore the lower part of the garment away and dragging it in the mire took it and put it about the neck of a negro.

Following this came the time when this student went into Boston and commenced the most terrible malpractice under the cloak of Christian Science, giving public lectures and opposing her in every way he could. She and her husband broke up their home and came to Boston to meet it, and had met it ever since. It had cost him, Dr. Eddy, his life, and her the struggle that she had had.

Her third vision was Sunday morning, November 11, 1888, the day before our class began:

She saw herself again with the child in her arms. It was stripped naked now with the garments all gone. She was standing on a precipice with a high ledge in front of her so high that she could not climb with the child in her arms; she must go higher; she could not turn back, move either to the right or left, the way was so narrow, so she dropped the child at her feet and held it by one finger.

At first she thought this was the last and the Truth was to be crucified again, but now she saw clearly, and she thought there would be one more vision when she would have climbed the cliff and would be above all animal magnetism, lifted above all error, and this would and must depend upon the faithfulness of her students. She was not severe only when her child was in danger; then she would fight. She had answered Mrs. Gesterfeld; because her students had demanded it of her. If she had read the explanation of her book (Ursula Gesterfeld’s twelve statements of Christian Science) she would have saved much, but her students must treat these things and not leave it for her. They must do it or fail.

She said she felt wonderfully impressed by this class. She talked until nearly one o’clock and said she had fully forgotten the time.

SUBJECT: All-in-all

Because God is All, there is nothing else beside Him. God is Life, the only Life, and there could be but one. There can be no organic or animal (which means brutal) or intellectual life. The supposition of more than one life comes from going outside of the focal radius, as in optics; if we go outside of the focal radius everything looks upside down, so that if we get outside of the focal radius of Science we see the claim of life separate from God. If we hold to the Science that God is Life, and All-in-all, we cannot see the false claim, because being inside the radius, the objects must be right side up and we could not see the inverted image or testimony of sense. There is but one Soul, and it is God. “The soul that sinneth shall surely die.” Soul cannot die because it is eternal Life. The error of souls many and being in the body must die, must be punished, must be annihilated, as long as the claim lasts. This is everlasting punishment, the everlasting fire. It was just as everlasting as the claim; as long as any chaff remained to be burned the fire would last. The one point above all others to be held was that God is All, and to hold it and know it, and see no other claim. This was instantaneous healing. She had raised the dead and dying by knowing it. If she had looked for one instant at the claim she would have failed.

In the sepulchre Jesus demonstrated over the weight and density of matter, over surgery, hygiene, anatomy, physiology. Astronomy is nothing.

To see only the All-in-all would make us seem heartless to sense. It must bring persecution – we must accept it and we must not think it hard, but be glad to be counted worthy to drink of his cup. We need not look for any better treatment now than the disciples of old received. The highest demonstration of Jesus was the morning meal. The disciples had gone back to their nets. In their evening meal they had said good-bye to him, but they had not realized it was not the supper that brought the Pentecost – it was the breakfast. They had toiled all night with the old nets and the leaky boat. He had told them they should be fishers of men and they had gone back to the sea for food and even then did matter, mortal mind, mock them. When they heard God speak, “Children, have ye any meat” and then when they came to the shore they found the meal prepared, fish and bread and coals. Before he had increased the loaves and fishes; now he had created, revealed them, produced them through Mind, and now he demonstrated to them that all was Mind and there was no matter. She said we would go out and use the old nets, the meal and monad, the arguments, but when we saw that God was All, we would need no arguments – that was the physician for all error, and it would be instantaneous healing.

She has no knowledge of the schools, no teacher but Jesus Christ and God, no authority but the Bible.

God never created the heaven and the earth – there was no such word in the original. It was revealed, – reflected. He reflected Himself in the universe and man, one universal good. In the first chapter of Genesis He reflected the heaven and the earth, and it is good, good, good, all good. In the second chapter it is the Lord God, Mr. God. Then followed a tribal God.

She saw the difference between the two versions, and knew there were two manuscripts, one the Elohistic, the Elohim whom Jesus claimed, and to whom he called, and the other the Jehovistic, but it was long after she had printed Science and Health that some one sent her the two separate manuscripts. They were written entirely separate, one to be all good, the other to be all false, but in this, as everything else, the rule of animal magnetism had come and so we found it later on, the true and false mixed together, the wheat and the tares. She said if Eve had asked the serpent who he was and where he came from, there would have been no error.

At the close of the lesson she said this was the most wonderful lesson she had ever taught, so many lines of thought brought into one at one time. During the lesson she said she did not know but she could dismiss us tomorrow.

SUBJECT: Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother

She said as she rode there that morning she thought of the commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” That this was our first duty in all things, in all ways. It had been brought out by one of the answers that God was our Father and Mother, that we could not dishonor our earthly parent and honor our divine Father and Mother. We must render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. She saw clearly that the one Mind meant one Fatherhood, Motherhood and Brotherhood, which must lead to the law of Science, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” We must come into a common brotherhood; as numbers could not be separated, it was so with us; each one had their place, and there could be no envy, pride, vainglory, crowding or jostling – that at present there was as much of this apparent in the ranks of Christian Scientists as among those outside. Then she stopped and said: “Students, there are enough in this room to convert the whole world to Truth if you will hold together,” each one in their own place – not try to do what had already been done, write a new Science and Health and the Bible, unless Truth was revealed to us; not to try to write books, but to study what we had and be content to grow; that those who were explaining and simplifying her books might better be studying them and demonstrating what was there, and she said, “Will you do it?” That as we come into the higher sense, the spiritual sense of being, we would not feel the error; we would not feel it or see it; that not one word of Science and Health was her own thought.

At night after she had read what she had written through the day, she had wondered if the time would ever come when she would understand it. She had not demonstrated the whole that it claimed. The rules of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division were all based on calculus – that she had demonstrated enough to show that the Principle was God, and that it was all true and the sphere unbroken; first, that Soul was individual, God. Second, that man was the reflection of Soul; that as in numbers 1 could not be 2, or 2 be 1, so each individual idea or reflection in the Principle of Science could not be lost any more than this, that it was infinitely responsible for itself to Principle – that as the principle of mathematics in itself held each numeral in its place and duty, every one to the infinite calculus, so the divine Principle or Science held each idea and it could not shirk it without destroying the whole or breaking the sphere.

Sphere means life, and it must mean a complete circumference. She showed us the Trinity by the figure of the mirror, taking the one standing before the mirror as the Ego, Principle, God; the mirror as the Holy Spirit, divine Science. The reflection is the son, man; the Science, the Truth, the Mediator, reflection between God and man.

She asked each one of us to be in our place in this example, problem of being – not one try to be 9, not a unit try to be in the 100’s, but each one to stay where Principle places us, and if that seemed to be a zero, to be sure that we were on the right side of the unit, and we would multiply there faster than anything else. Be a good round zero; the Science, the Principle, the Mediator, reflection between God and man.

Sense is to be used in the place of soul where you could not use God. You could not say, “As the heart panteth after the water brook so panteth my God for Thee, oh God;” so you would use sense for soul.

She begged us not to get into the way of trying to spiritualize everything in the Bible; it has its history and we cannot destroy that. If we did, we destroyed the whole. The children of Israel walked over the Red Sea just as much as we were here, and Adam and Eve were as real beings to sense as we were. We must believe the history of the Bible as literally as we do other histories. The tendency of this age is to extremes. There can be an intermediate state, and God works in the intermediate. The children of Israel crossed the Red Sea just as literally as Washington crossed the Delaware – it is just as much a matter of history. God works in the intermediate, remember that; the mediator must be between.

It is much better and more scientific when a man is healed to say that if he was lame he can now walk, than to say it was all Mind. If we did not say he was lame and healed and that he was walking, we deny the Science that healed him. If you break a bottle you will be cut by the fragments, never by the whole vessel. There is a little truth in all creeds, isms and ologies, but if you try to find the truth in a part of the vessel, you will get cut. Study the Bible and Science and Health and leave the fragments alone.

She believed in the total depravity of sense. She was taught it over a century ago. It was totally depraved, and must be annihilated by Truth. She had labored with a chronic sin in a student for ten years. It would have been better for him if she had dropped it at the end of three years. You could not interfere with God’s ways of working. When you could carry a chronic disease so far and no further, you must cease and let it alone. They had not been punished enough if they would not give up the sin. Not for anything would you take away the punishment to such. If they would confess their sin it must be between you and them; never tell these things. They must be absolutely between you and your patient. Speaking of this patient she said she did not believe the orthodox hell would be any too long for such a one who had defied the Truth and led so many astray; but God makes the wrath of man to praise Him. It cannot be more powerful or enduring than God and God will come out ahead.

No one had had more prayers offered for her than she had; an invalid from childhood; a church member when very young – she had been a child of the church. The minister, when he was too feeble to come to her room, would be taken under her window and pray for her there, but she grew worse instead of better.

In answer to the question why were not these prayers and those others of good Christians answered, she showed us that first came blind belief in some power beyond personal sense; this was followed by faith. When you ask according to your faith, if the belief was strong enough and you did not lose your faith in the belief, you would receive. Peter had faith in Jesus, and believed that he could walk the waves, but when he looked away from Jesus, he failed. If you were faithful over a few things you should be made lord over many. Out of belief and faith came understanding, and then you knew that you had it already. We apply it to Christian Scientists. Our belief leads us first to be healed, than having some faith we begin to demonstrate. If the belief and faith work together, we heal, but sometimes we do not. When we had reached the understanding, we could not fail, but would heal all the time. Jesus had the understanding all the time; it was his consciousness. She said that when our faith was equal to our know-so we would do better work.

Man and Mortal Mind

The questions and answers were all in the line of Recapitulation with no discussion at all until we came to the question “Do brains think, and nerves feel?” Mrs. Eddy said there was no more feeling or life in her hand than in a knife, a table or stove. This awakened Pastor Clymer. She said man could not get outside the focal distance of Spirit. If you get outside the focal radius, everything is upside down and you have an inverted image. Whatever concept you hold in mind you will bring out. You cannot think one thing and be another. You cannot stand upside down before the mirror, and you cannot get an inverted image of God unless God is upside down. Everything within the focal radius of Spirit is spiritual. You must get outside of God to be material, and you cannot get outside of the infinite. God is All and in all, and there is no vacuum. He, Mr. Clymer, thought that brains and nerves were mediums. She said, “What is this that telegraphs a message through your body saying ‘I am cut, I am inflamed, I am in pain?’ What is this I, me, or my? Is it Mind? Can God give evil? No. Then what is it that uses brains and nerves? Is it something in the body?” He said: “It is –– why

–– it is –– Ah –– why it cannot be in the body, it is too big.” Then she said: “How can you use the brains and nerves; if you are too large to get into a house how are you going to do the work in that house?” He said: “Why, at arm’s length.” No, he could not do that, and finally said, “Well, with tongs and shovel.” Then he gave up and said he had been in a mental earthquake since the day before, that he could not think or pray. She showed him so gently that the audible prayer was nothing. Then what could he do in his pulpit; there was a class that needed a sensual prayer; that demanded it. She said: “Learn the Truth, then be honest in it, no matter what it costs you. How can I, how dare I ask God to love me? He does love me. He is Love. How dare I, how dare you deny it by asking?” “Yes,” he said, “He does love you, He does.” It was such a giving up, such a surrender. She wished she could have every minister in Boston where they would be obliged to listen to twelve lectures in Christian Science.

Referring to Mrs. Gesterfeld’s twelve statements on Christian Science with its seal on the cover, she said she did not, like Mrs. Gesterfeld, want a chain about the eye of God and hold it in her hand; she did not want to chain the Truth, but she did want to chain the pulpit with Truth.

Theology was the most bitter enemy of all the schools that Truth had to fight against – it would crucify the hardest, and be the last to yield – it was worse than medicine. The world would accept Truth quicker if it had been revealed through a man rather than a woman, but she thought if it had been revealed through a man it would have been lost. A woman was like the grass

– she would bow down when walked over and not retaliate and wait her time to spring back again stronger than before. A man would talk back, but woman would wait.

We must empty a vessel before trying to fill it, and that was what the world did not want. She had found that if we could not empty it first she could keep putting in, and as you put in the new the old must slop over until at last it would empty itself as the darkness disappears before the light. If you keep pouring in and spilling out, possibly one drop will be added each day.

We could not call the claim of sickness, sin and death mind or matter. As we must name it in order to destroy it, we could call it mortal mind, the antipode of the immortal Mind, knowing it to be nothing, keeping it nothing.

Here the question was asked: “Why is it that we are so prone to turn back to it, and if nothing, why do we so persistently go back to it?” I thought the student would be annihilated then and there. She said, “Do you want me to tell you what nothing is, when God is All and in all?” There never was any more desire in that class to ascertain where a lie started from. We were content to leave it a lie and the father of lies.

She said there were the liberated powers of mortal mind – mortal mind, animal magnetism, taught to know itself, while it claimed to be both good and evil. It was not as dangerous as when aroused, when it knew it was not encased in matter, not confined or limited to the body. This liberated mortal mind was the red dragon of the Revelation – that the time was coming, indeed was here now, when we need not get on the cars to do evil, to poison, to murder and steal, to do all manner of evil, but would do it in and through mortal mind. Never was there a time when hell was so apparent and crime so subtle and so terrible.

Even the material scientists were coming to know that so-called material force was mental force. Agassiz was too good to live after he knew what mortal life was. He could not see the antipode, and the knowledge of what he was doing killed him. He was, at the time of his death, tracing the fountain of life through a fish. When he found there was no life in matter and could not see that Life was God, he had to die. He found that he had no life.

There were many ways of this mental poison being employed. Who had not had old beliefs that were terrible to think of! Now if something kept saying to you: “Your old beliefs are back on you – you cannot destroy them – you cannot be healed. You must go to a doctor – Christian Science cannot destroy this.” We must meet it as malicious animal magnetism. Never meet together to treat each other, or to take up anyone. The only thing that would destroy it was the allness of God.

She spoke of Dr. Eddy’s experience. It began to tell in his habits, in his language, his business, and in the return of old beliefs. He would not listen to her – he would not believe what she told him. He thought she was under the influence and she was wrong, but at last he saw and acknowledged it, and then said, “Oh, how easily I might have escaped this; it was nothing.”

A lady who was a friend of Christian Science came to her for help, and she told her that she was suffering from arsenical poison. She was indignant and would not admit that it could be, but finally acknowledged that she had been to a doctor and he had declared the same thing, and yet coming in fear to her she was so under the influence as to dare to deceive her.

Is there no antidote for this mental poison? Yes, and it is Truth, and the Truth that God is All-in-all, and there is no evil, held faithfully by Christian Scientists will save the world, and it is all that will save it. If these malicious minds make sickness, they do it in order to be called upon to heal it. Can that which makes sick make well?

On the platform in Boston before the public, Professor Carpenter and others will take a well arm and make it stiff and crooked. Then he will seem to make it well again. Does he make it well? Can that which makes it sick make it well? Will that arm ever be made well by any other means than the Truth? These malpractitioners are sending these thoughts of evil, and it is educated evil; it knows its power; sickness will come and medicine cannot heal it. Then will the time come when these hypnotists and malpractitioners will be sought out to heal the diseases they have made. A house divided against itself must fall. This is here now; it is being done now. Then what will you do – let it alone or expose it? Meet it and expose it, no matter what it costs you. Tell your neighbors, tell every one what sickness is. Oh, how I have begged and entreated my students to do this, but they have not had the courage to do it, to answer these things and expose them and have left me to be the only mouthpiece against it. You must make error nothing through the allness of God. Do not argue against sickness too long. The wheat and tares must grow together, but do not let it mix. Do not get good and evil together and call it one. You cannot mix it – all is good – there is no evil.

Fifth Lecture

She wished to have it fully impressed upon us – what is man and what is mortal man. All force is spiritual. There is a spiritual law and for that very reason there can be no physical or material law. The natural law is the spiritual law – cannot be broken. Personal sense admits that God makes the heavens and governs them and we admit them to be harmonious and all right, because God takes care of them and we are content to leave them to God and His government, but the terrestrial bodies, we think, must have a government of their own, and so they become discordant and diseased, and then we turn to physiology and materia medica until we come to the only alternative – dust to dust. It is the knowledge of good and evil.

As we are healed and observe the good, we must reflect that good – we must begin at home. You must cast the beam out of your own eye before you can see the mote in your brother’s eye, and when you have destroyed the beam, the mote will be gone. You must see where you walk. If you are walking toward God and in God, you will reflect it. God can do the most good by being and remaining God. If He was other than God He must reflect less than God. He must eternally be God and we must eternally reflect God, and that is all the work there is to it – reflecting God. Think good, and it is enough. The more we reflect this thought the more good we will do. It begins and ends with ourselves. If we are not reflecting the Truth it is the blind leading the blind. We do not need help to do this – we must work it out alone with God. We must not take her up or expect that she would take us up in treatment. We must not expect her to remember our material names or our material faces. We must not treat each other. We must learn of our Father in heaven. One plants, another waters, but God giveth the increase.

Animal magnetism is the claim of both good and evil, and this is the rule by which you may detect it. Anything that is both good and evil, that will work both ways, is animal magnetism. If it is good in both premise and conclusion, all the way through, without beginning and without end, it is very good, and is God. All good is God. If not this, it must be the antipode of God, or animal magnetism. The snake around the tree is the animal magnetism of now. It must be educated to know itself, to become a Judas, and the Judases of the 19th century are far worse than the Judas of Jesus’ time, because they will not hang themselves. When we see this error we must expose it and meet it. We must not pass it by or run from it. If we see it in anyone, meet it; if in our Association it must be cast out; it is not charity to let it alone or cover it over. There must come a reaction. God will make the wrath of man to praise Him.

When you have held to the Truth and to the best of your understanding have done all, and still meet no response, then what will you do? Examine yourself first, and if you find nothing there, meet it as animal magnetism. If you are healing through the methods of Christian Science and someone else is working right against you with a counter argument, they know your method but you do not know theirs. What would be the result? You must expose malicious animal magnetism, malicious mental malpractice. She must teach us to meet it – she must send us out armed, then we must use our weapons. She so hated the name “mesmerism” that she had taken the name “hypnotism.” She hated it so she did not like to call it at all, but she must meet the claim in order to destroy it, and it had been revealed to her that the term animal magnetism would make it nothing and keep it nothing.

Sixth Lecture

This was a general review of what we had had. Mrs. Eddy will not explain Science and Health – we must study it out ourselves – each one for himself. If we study it carefully, it will explain itself, and it does not pay to take up the time of the class arguing or debating certain things that may seem contradictory. No one can grow without demonstration. You must demonstrate it to realize it, and it is not yours until you have demonstrated it.

If a patient is worse after you have begun treating, you will not interfere with the working of Truth by checking this chemicalization. Make yourself master, but do not interfere with God’s way of working.

On being asked what was to be done with the tyranny of glasses, she said: “The tyranny of glasses ––” and then laughed and said: “Oh, the glasses, yes, we want to talk about that – what shall we do with it?” She did not want to talk about the glasses. They were a double lie. The trouble was back of that – that we used the eye to see at all. She had her sight practically, when she was healed. Before that she had worn a pair of glasses, the weakest that could be made. She shrank from talking in public, and at first could not do this, but found one day on putting on her glasses that she could not see at all, that they absolutely blinded her. From that time on when she went before the public she hid behind her glasses; she would put them on and shut out the audience. After a time she found that she was seeing through them, and from that time she had found the need of using them at times, that it was the lesser evil to use them and do your work well than to not use them and slight your work – that if any one in that room believed they had good eyesight and were seeing with their eyes, they were in a worse position than the ones who were having to prove their spiritual sight, that the eye really did not see at all. Sight made the eye – the eye did not make the sight.

She said we must pray to be delivered from human sympathy. She had prayed for that more than anything else. It is not sympathy with error that heals, but the utter lack of it. You cannot sympathize with nothing, no thing.

If you know it is a lie you will not want to sympathize with it. Sympathy is self-mesmerism.

When the question was asked “Why cannot we do without food, clothing, sleeping and drinking,” she did not spend much time on it – she told the one who asked it to try it himself and see if he could do it.

In asking the questions of how we would heal certain cases, asking a student how she would treat an infant – she said she would treat it through the parents. The question was asked, “Will you not give the little one anything?” and then she illustrated a case of her own healing where she was called to a child and it had seemingly passed on – she knew the truth of that child’s being so thoroughly that the child was healed in her arms, and while the child had never walked, it had so developed that it walked and met the mother at the door. We must give the child the Truth, but we had to separate the parent from it.

She teaches with authority; gives the Truth and then leaves it.

I was glad she did not wish us to leave our grammar school. When we asked her if we should break our relationship with Mrs. Adam’s and Mrs. Webster’s Association, she very lovingly said, “You would not go back upon your grammar school because you had gone to college.”

In our seventh lecture she called us together and said that in six days God finished His work and rested on the seventh; that when she began our class she expected to give twelve lectures just as much as she had in any class before, but that we had taken so much in the short time that she had covered the full teaching in the six days, but we had come expecting the twelve lectures and if we demanded of her that she should sit with us the remaining five days, she would do so, because it was our right, but she had nothing more to give us, we had covered it all, and now if the class wished, she would ask us to take a rising vote and dismiss it. This was the one and only class that she taught in seven lectures.

Tuesday morning, the eighth day, she met us at the college and vouched for us as her students, and we signed the Association Book. She gave us each a few moments alone. In my talk with her I asked her why the demonstration had not been made for which I came into Christian Science, why my child had not been healed – what was the trouble? She replied: “You have to learn patience, child.” I said: “But I have been patient, Mrs. Eddy. I have been waiting almost three years,” and she said: “You do not know what patience means. I have been waiting twenty years for an answer and I have not it yet, but I will have it,” and then she told me that what she was waiting for was to find a pastor for the Christian Science church that could stand against the wiles of the devil, animal magnetism, and preach clear Christian Science, unadulterated. At this time she knew that the present pastor, Frank Mason, was not true and that she had to find another pastor. I knew, five years after this, when she ordained the Bible and Science and Health as the pastor of this movement, that she had found her answer – not in personality, but in Spirit.

Normal Class Opened May 21st, 1889

Mrs. Eddy met us in the back parlor and gave us a warm pressure of the hand and a kiss. As she came to me she said she had promised herself that she would not kiss anyone, but she had commenced and she must go through. I think she saw my wish that she did not have to.

Mrs. Eddy opened with thoughts brought out by the 14th chapter of Matthew. No one can give her thought – I simply want to put down what I can. She said Jesus constrained them to go before him and they were not ready, because they were not transfigured. Transfiguration is impersonalization. He went apart to pray. God has done all for us, all that He is going to do. He will work with us but we must each one do our work. If we do not, God will not do it for us; He will never do our work for us. The disciples were looking only at the personal Jesus. They went out on the sea and met the contrary winds. One was Truth, the other animal magnetism, and they were tossed about. Then in the fourth watch, the last watch, Jesus came, but it was the impersonal Jesus that walked the waves, and they called him a spirit and cried out in fear, but Jesus spake saying, “It is I, be not afraid.” Then Peter asked him to bid him come, and he did so, but Peter all the time believing in the personality of Jesus, failed, and cried again, “Lord, save me” and Jesus stretched forth his hand (the only power) saying, “Oh thou of little faith (understanding).” Why did he cry, Lord, save me? The dependence upon personality instead of Truth. We can learn nothing from personality.

In the Primary Class the intellect is trained. We learn the letter and as much of the Spirit as we are able to grasp, but the Normal is our spiritual awakening. Was she constraining us to go before? Were we able to bear what she had to say? The disciples were not ready. They went back to the old nets and toiled and suffered on until after the morning meal when he came to them again, and then they went out to do their great work. Her students were looking to her to do their work for them, and she saw that the only way for her was to withdraw herself from them. This she is going to do. While they have her they will not fast and pray. We can never do anything until we impersonalize both good and evil. There is no personality in this warfare; it is all Mind, the eternal, omnipotent Principle of Truth, impersonal good, God, the omnipotent All. The impotent false claim of the principle of evil, impersonal, ignorant and malicious animal magnetism you must meet. You must pay your tribute to Caesar first. Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s in order to render to Truth the things that are Truth’s.

If you are in Boston and want to go west, you will have to start from Boston, not New York. You must start where you are in fighting a battle. Meet animal magnetism, its claims, annihilate it to self before you go to your patient. It is a poor time to struggle when there is an object in view. It must be all the time, and the work is all with ourselves.

This talking about letting mortal mind, animal magnetism alone, is the devil’s best cry; saying “God is All” and not meeting animal magnetism is pharisaical and will meet no response.

Never ask anything of your patients. She is thoroughly disgusted with this asking patients to work, expecting them when they are sinking to pull themselves out, trying to teach them Christian Science before they are healed, standing on the dry land themselves and calling to them in the water to come out, instead of pulling them out, when they will want to know how you did it. Clothe them in their right mind and then they are ready to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn. She is so sick of the arguments, the quaker meeting. If you must have a quaker meeting, have it at home before you go to your patient. To think of the patient writhing in pain and the Christian Scientist having a quaker meeting beside them. She wished they had to pay

$1.00 an hour to the patient for having to endure the quaker meeting. I shall never forget how she looked as she swayed back and forth in her chair seemingly giving a silent argument. We are in our first treatment to teach our patient mentally the Truth, and then let God give the increase. Feel and know that it is done and then hold the patient from fear and wait patiently. The argument is all with ourselves, if there is any, and we have no business to go to our patient until our own house is in order.

Naming animal magnetism is confessing our sins, overcoming and annihilating them, too.

If we love ourselves (unselfishly) as we do others, we can do for our own as well as for others.

She said she did not want to constrain us and so she had put off the Normal so long. She dreaded to teach any more Normal classes until they could see the Truth impartially. She knew we had not come by force – that was one thing in our favor.

We must study Christian Science and the Bible. She cannot see that there is any change to be made in Science and Health, nothing to take out or to put in. If we are struggling all the time, fasting and praying, and are unsatisfied, it is a very hopeful condition. We were not forced to come, and if our motive in coming was unselfish, impersonal and good, of the heart, we would receive our reward.

If a patient is not healed the Scientist is to blame. Science must be taught uniformly. We must get words in their proper places, and use them scientifically. Soul must be God and must always be used as God, and we must never use the term, “You poor soul” and so on. Never call animal magnetism God’s child.

She insisted upon each one in the class asking her a question; they had to ask a question; it was peremptory.





Notes from Mrs. Eddy’s Lessons Primary, November, 1888 Recorded by Fannie L. Pierce

Mrs. Eddy’s greeting was beautiful. We endeavored to remember every word; but when we tried to express it, found this impossible, neither could we write it; showing it to be the Spirit and not the words (letter) that makes the impression.

Mrs. Sellers and her son (of Boston) deserve mention; Mrs. Sellers had not studied nor seen a demonstration. Her son had just completed a course in physical science, and was looking forward to a life of wealth and fame. He came to the class out of curiosity, and learned that Christian Science is all-Science, the manifestation of the All-in-all, and that physical science is a myth. His life-work was changed as in the twinkling of an eye.

Dr. Strickland, a Baptist minister, a classmate of Dr. Lorrimer, and a student of Mr. Filbert, was a help to us in many ways. Mr. Clymer, a Methodist minister, had never read a word of Science and Health, and it was wonderful to see how like a little child he grasped the Truth.

Mr. Bailey and his son, Frank, were of interest. One gray-haired, and the other a bright boy of twelve years, and a most apt student of Science.

Our class numbered thirty.

Mrs. Eddy first asked the abstract synonymous terms for God; then gave them herself as divine Principle; Eternal, Supreme Being; Soul, Spirit; Substance; Mind; Life; Truth; Love; Intelligence. Spirit and Soul are synonymous. These words to a Scientist must always mean God, and can be used in no other sense than God. Upon the truth of these terms for God, rests the whole structure of Christian Science. To personal sense they are not God – personal sense cannot understand them as God.

When Mrs. Eddy began to teach she found it impossible to give these terms to her students, and have them (the students) comprehend or apply them. She could only talk to them on the lowest plane – healing sickness.

That thirty of us understood these terms at once, proved the wonderful advance that Christian Science was making and the universal changes of thought through the Science.

Science is not God except in the sense of omniscience, which is the manifestation of God. God knows Himself – which is to know all, because He is All-in-all. God is individual, and individuality is the opposite of, and is separate from personality. Personal sense makes man less than individual, robs him of individuality by giving him personality and personal sense.

Subjective sight determines the objective sight. If the subjective sight could be material the objective sight would be material. The subjective sight of Mind is forever spiritual; hence the objective sight must be spiritual. Whatever we see in others is simply the objective state of our own mind. (Whatever we see objectively is simply the subjective state of our own belief of consciousness.)

In illustrating that Spirit could not reflect matter, Mrs. Eddy gave the anecdote of the Irishman who said he had found a wonderful echo. He called out: “How do you do?” and the echo answered: “Pretty well, I thank you.”

God could not be the creator of a material world.

We must answer false and malicious literature and attacks. To answer these we must comprehend them, i.e., what they claim. We cannot reply to what we have not read, therefore we must acquaint ourselves with them sufficiently to know how to refute them, then send them back to the sender or publisher. They are always sent out with a thought and if kept, or burned, the thought is not destroyed. To ignore them is cowardice, not charity. Of the authors of such literature, Ursula Gesterfeld is the most dangerous, the most subtle – and why? Because she voices enough Truth to deceive the very elect, then poisons the whole with her terrible theosophical terms. It is not personality she attacks, but Truth.

Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” No one can rob Caesar and then give God the glory. If Jesus had not proclaimed (declared) his divine origin, he would not have been crucified. If Mrs. Eddy had not declared Science to be the revelation of Truth, mortal mind would be proud of her.

Lesson II

Because God is All-in-all, there can be nothing beside Him. Because He is Life, there can be but one Life. There is no organic animal life, no brutal, or intellectual life. The supposition of more than one Life is the result of going outside of the focal radius of Spirit. As in optics, everything outside the focal radius seems inverted, so if we look outside the focal radius of Spirit, we seem to see a life separate from God.

If we hold to the knowledge that God is All – and All-in-all, we cannot see the false claim, because being within the radius of Mind, we cannot see any inverted image, or false testimony of the senses.

The error of souls many, and of Soul in the body must die, must be punished, annihilated. So long as this claim lasts there is punishment, fire as lasting as the claim. So long as the chaff lasts to be burned, the fire will last to burn it.

The one thought to be held before all others is, that God is All. To hold it, and to know it, and to see no other claim as real – this will bring instantaneous healing.

Mrs. Eddy has raised the dead and the dying, through the power of the realization of the Allness of God. Had she looked for an instant at the claim of error, she would have failed.

In the sepulchre Jesus demonstrated over the weight and density of matter, over surgery, hygiene, anatomy and physiology.

To see the All-in-all will make us heartless to sense. This will bring persecution. We cannot expect to escape it, but we must not quail before it, but feel glad to be counted worthy to drink of his cup. We cannot expect anything better than the disciples of old received.

The highest demonstration of Jesus was the morning meal. (John xxi.) The disciples had gone back to their nets after the evening meal. They had said farewell to one another, but they had not realized Truth. The Pentecost did not follow the evening meal, but the morning meal. The disciples had toiled all night with the old nets and leaky boat. Jesus had told them they should be fishers of men; but they had gone back to the sea for food. Even then matter, mortal mind, mocked them when God spake: “Children have ye any meat?”

When they reached the shore (certain sense of Truth) they found the meal prepared – fish, bread, and coals. Before Jesus had increased their loaves and fishes, now he created them, produced them through Mind. Now he demonstrated that All is Mind. There is no matter. Mrs. Eddy said we also would use the old nets and the word (the argument), but when we realize that God is All, we shall need no argument, the realization of the Allness of God will be the physician for all error. Then will come instantaneous healing.

She had no knowledge of the schools to impart. She had no teachers but Jesus the Christ and God – no authority but the Bible.

God did not create heaven and earth. The word “created” was not found in the original manuscripts, but stands for “revealed” or “reflected.” God reflected, or revealed Himself in man and the universe – one universal good. In the first chapter of Genesis, God is described as reflecting heaven and earth and it was good.

In the second chapter it is the “Lord” God (Mr. God). Then follows Jehovah, a tribal God.

Mrs. Eddy perceived the difference between the two statements and knew that there must be two separate manuscripts, one describing the Elohim whom Jesus acknowledged and upon whom he called, and the other, the Jehovistic; but it was sometime after the publication of Science and Health that some one sent her the separate manuscripts. They were distinctly, differently different; one describing the All-good; the other the error. In this as in everything else, could be traced the workings of animal magnetism – the true and the false, the wheat and the tares.

Lesson III

“Honor thy father and thy mother.”

As Mrs. Eddy had read these words that morning, she had realized that this is our first duty in everything – in every way.

God is our Father and Mother. We cannot dishonor our earthly and honor our divine Father and Mother. We must render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.

She showed us clearly that Mind means one Fatherhood and Motherhood and brotherhood, and that the law of divine Science is: “Thou shalt love (the) Lord thy God with the whole of thy heart (understanding), and with the whole of thy soul (sense), and with the whole of thy might (will); and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” We must come into the true sense of one common brotherhood.

As numbers are inseparable yet distinct, so it is with us. Each one has his place in the infinite; each necessary to the whole, and there can be no envy, pride, vainglory, crowding or jostling. Yet these evils are as apparent in the ranks of Christian Scientists (?) as among others.

Mrs. Eddy paused here and said impressively: “My students, there are enough of you in this room to convert the world, if you would hold together

– though each one in his own place.”

She says we must not attempt to do that which has already been done; to write another Bible or Science and Health; unless led by Truth we must not take it upon ourselves to write for publication – but study what has been given us and be content to grow thereby.

Those who undertake to explain and simplify Science and Health would be better employed in its study, and demonstrating what they find in it. Then she asked, “Will you not do this, my students?”

As we progress in the higher sense – the spiritual, or true sense of being

– we will come to where we will neither feel the error, nor see it.

Not one word of Science and Health is the product of Mrs. Eddy’s own thought, or invention; but discernment of Principle prophesied of Principle. At night when she read over what she had uttered through the day, she wondered if she should ever comprehend its meaning. She has not demonstrated all she has expressed in Science and Health.

The rules of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division form the basis of calculus. Mrs. Eddy has demonstrated enough to prove that the Principle of All is God, and that the sphere of Truth is unbroken.

Soul is individual being – God and Man is the revelation, the reflection of Soul.

As numbers are distinct from one another, so each entity, idea or reflection in divine Principle could not be more nor less than itself and Principle be infinite and the ultimate of all. (As the recognition of principle called mathematics.)

As principle, in mathematics, holds each digit, and combination of digits in its order and place, from unit to the infinite calculus, so does Principle as God hold each idea, and the idea could not be separated from it without the destruction of the perfect whole, or sphere. Sphere signifies Life, hence its circumference is complete – eternal Life.

Mrs. Eddy illustrates the Trinity by the reflection in a mirror. The person standing before the mirror is the symbol of the Ego – Principle – God. The mirror is the Holy Spirit – understanding – the Love that reveals, or reflects

– divine Science; the reflection is the Son – man. Truth is the mediator between God and man.

The word sense is to be substituted for soul when the latter does not stand for God. It would be impossible to say: “As panteth the hart for the water brooks so panteth my God for thee, O God!”

Mrs. Eddy cautions her students not to fall into the habit of spiritualizing everything in the Bible. It has its historical features and these must be considered as historical only. If we attempt to spiritualize its history we shall confuse its meaning and lessons. The Children of Israel walked through the Red Sea. This is as much a matter of fact as that we were seated in that class room. Adam and Eve were no less real to sense than we are. The history in the Bible must be accepted as literally as any other history.

The tendency of the age inclines to extremes. There is an intermediate state and God works in the intermediate. The mediator is between.

It is only by breaking the bottle that the fragments can inflict wounds. The whole vessel cannot injure. There is some Truth in all creeds and ologies; but if you attempt to find the infinite in a fragment you will get hurt. Leave the fragments alone, and devote your time to the study of the whole Truth as revealed in the Bible and its key, Science and Health.

Mrs. Eddy told us she believed in the total depravity of sense. Sense is wholly a lie and must be annihilated by Truth.

She had labored with a tenacious sin in a patient for ten years. It would have been better for him had she ceased her endeavors at the end of three years. One should never interfere with God’s methods. When a chronic belief of disease yields to a certain extent, and then resists the declaration of Truth, it must be let alone. The sinner has not been punished enough. The sin is the sinner and brings its own suffering. If the sinner will not give up the sin, do not interfere with the penalty.

The Truth must be declared. If the patient confesses the sin, let the matter rest between yourself and him. Never betray the trust. Never relate these things. They must be absolutely between yourself and your patient.

The orthodox hell would be none too hot, or too long, for one who attempts willfully to defile the Truth, or to lead others astray. “God will make the wrath of man to praise Him.” Error cannot be more enduring than Truth, good, and good will finally triumph.

In answer to the question: “Why are not the prayers of other good Christians answered?” she explained – how first comes blind belief in a power beyond personal sense; then follows faith. If we ask according to our faith, and our belief is sufficiently earnest, and we do not lose our faith in our belief, we will receive. Peter had faith in Jesus and behind that faith (upheld by it) he could walk the waves, but the moment his faith wavered, he failed. If faithful over a few things we shall triumph over many. Out of belief comes obedience, out of obedience comes knowledge, from knowledge comes faith, and out of faithfulness, or obedience full of faith, comes understanding, and with understanding comes the consciousness that understanding has always been our possession.

Our belief (more than half a mere hope) leads us first to be healed, then having gained some degree of faith we begin to demonstrate, and if the belief and faith are equal, we heal, but when belief and faith have given place to understanding, we cannot fail, but will always heal. The understanding of Jesus was never clouded; it was his perpetual consciousness.

Lesson IV

The questions and answers in this lesson were in the line of “Recapitulation,” with no discussion but in answer to the question: “Do brains think and nerves feel?” Mrs. Eddy said there was no more feeling in her hands, than in a knife, table or stove. This stirred up Pastor Clymer. Man cannot go outside the focal distance of Spirit. Outside the focal radius (and this is mere belief) everything is upside down, and the image is inverted.

Whatever conceptions you hold in thought will be manifested. You cannot think one thing and be another. Your reflection in Mind is not upside down, and you cannot be an inverted image of God, unless He is upside down.

All that is within the focal radius of Spirit is spiritual (Spirit is infinite, and there is no outside of Spirit). You have to go outside this radius to be material and to be outside of infinity is impossible. God is All-in-all – there is no vacuum.

Pastor Clymer said, he thought of brains and nerves as media. Mrs. Eddy asked, “What is it that telegraphs a message through your body? That says, I am cut! I am injured! I am in pain? What is this I, my, or me? Is it Mind? Can God send evil? No! Then what is it that uses brains and nerves? Is it something in the body?” Mr. Clymer, after some hesitation, replied, “No, it can’t be in the body, it is too big.” Mrs. Eddy asked, “Then how can you use brains and nerves? If you are too large to get into a house, how are you to do the work of (in) that house?” He said: “At arm’s length; well, no, that could not be done.” Then added: “With shovel and tongs,” but then faltered and said, “I have been in a mental earthquake since yesterday and cannot think or pray.”

Mrs. Eddy said, “Audible prayer avails nothing.” He said, “But what could I do in my pulpit; the congregation needs a sonorous prayer, even demand it?” Mrs. Eddy said, “Learn the Truth, then be honest in it no matter what it costs you. How could I, how dare I, ask God to love me? He does love me! How dare I, how you, deny it by asking Him to love us?” “Yes,” he cried, “He does, He does!” This admission was a complete surrender on the part of Mr. Clymer.

Scholastic theology is Truth’s most bitter enemy. It would crucify Truth and will be the last enemy to yield. It is far more obdurate than materia medica.

Science would have been more readily received had it not been revealed through woman; but had it been revealed through a man it would have been lost; woman is like the grass, which bows itself when trodden down, and does not retaliate. It bides its time to spring up once more in its freshness and strength. Man would retaliate; woman waits with patience.

A vessel must be emptied before it can be filled again. The world does not want to be emptied of its contents, but though it will not be emptied of the old, the new may be poured in by degrees, causing the old to spill over; thus it will finally be emptied, just as darkness disappears before light.

The claim of sickness, sin and death cannot be termed either Mind or matter, therefore to destroy them they must be named “mortal mind” or the antipode of God – immortal Mind – and knowing it to be nothing we must make nothing of it.

Here the question was asked: “Why do we turn back so persistently to it if it is nothing?” Mrs. Eddy replied: “Do you want me to tell you what nothing is, when God is ALL?” This quenched any further desire to ask the origin of a lie. The students were satisfied to recognize it as a “lie and the father of lies.”

There is a claim of liberated power of mortal mind (animal magnetism) taught to personality. Mortal mind is never so dangerous as when it learns that it is not confined or limited to matter. This is the red dragon of the Revelation. The time is coming – indeed is now here, when personality need not travel by water or rail to accomplish its evil deeds – to poison, to murder, steal, and do all manner of evil – but will work its ends through mortal mind.

Never was there a time when hell seemed a greater reality, and crimes more subtle and terrible. Even physical scientists are acknowledging that the so-called forces of matter are mental. Agassiz was so honest that he could not live after he had learned to know the signification of mortal life. He could not see the antidote for evil, and the revelation of what he was doing killed him. He was endeavoring to find the source of Life in matter, and when he discovered that there was no life in matter, and failed to see that Life is God he had to die. He found that there was no life in mortal man.

Mental poisons are manifest in many ways – old beliefs will sometimes return – this is one of the manifestations of mental poison, or mental malpractice. This is a terrible thing to contemplate but Science and Health tells us never to fear it, but rebuke it fearlessly.

If the argument presents itself: “My old beliefs are upon me again, I cannot destroy them; Christian Science cannot heal me,” we must recognize this as a false claim of malicious animal magnetism.

Never gather together to treat one another or to treat against any personality; for the Allness of God alone can destroy this claim.

Mrs. Eddy related to us the influence of this false claim in the case of Dr. Eddy. It began to manifest itself in his habits, his language, his business relations, and in the return of old beliefs. He would not heed her warning, but believed she was deluded, and in error, but finally he uncovered it, exclaiming: “Ah! how easily I might have escaped from this.”

A lady interested in Christian Science once came to Mrs. Eddy for advice, and was told that she was suffering from arsenical poison. She indignantly refuted the assertion, but finally acknowledged that she had been told the same thing by a doctor; but she was so completely under the influence of fear as to be self-deceived, and would not admit the claim.

What is the antidote for all mental poisons? Truth! If Christian Scientists would hold faithfully to the consciousness of the Allness of God, and the unreality of evil, they would redeem the world.

When these malicious minds create sickness, it is that they may be relied on to heal it. Can that which causes sickness cure it? In Boston, before an audience, Professor Carpenter will stiffen and distort a perfectly formed limb, then change it back to its normal condition. This shows that mortal health and sickness are only beliefs. Knowing this, mental malpractitioners are using the power of evil thought for selfish ends – to gratify covetousness, lust, hatred, or revenge. It is educated will. It is conscious of its power to do evil. Sickness, crimes unnamed and unnamable will come and go, and humanity will be defenseless indeed until the Science of being be learned and obeyed.

Medicine will not cure these sicknesses and then the hypnotizers, magnetizers and mesmerists will be sought to heal the diseases they have created; but “a house divided against itself” must fall.

This evil is here. This is being practiced now; what shall we do with it?

Shall it be ignored or exposed and destroyed?

Meet it! Expose it! No matter what it may cost you. Oh, how I have begged and implored my students to do this, but they have not had the moral courage to meet these malicious thoughts and expose them, but have allowed me to be the only mouthpiece against them.

Through the consciousness of the Allness of God, you must see the nothingness of this claim of error. We must not argue too long against sickness – that tends to make it real to you, when only its unreality is to be brought to your sense, before it can come to the sense of the patient.

The wheat and the tares must grow side by side, but they must not be seen as being the same. Do not mix them. Do not confound good and evil, and call them good. Good is All – there is no evil – there is but a claim of evil and that is false.

Lesson V

In this lesson Mrs. Eddy showed the difference between man and mortal man. All force is spiritual. Law is spiritual, hence there can be no material or physical law. Spiritual law is the only natural law, and it is never broken. Personal sense admits that God made the heavens and governs them, and we say they are harmoniously governed, because God is the governor. We are content to leave them to the government of God, but think the terrestrial bodies must have a government of their own, and are liable to become discordant and diseased, then turn for help to physiology and materiality as the only alternative. “Dust to dust,” is the knowledge of good and evil.

When we are healed by Truth, we absorb good – we reflect good. “Cast the beam out of your own eye before you attempt to cast the mote out of your brother’s eye.” Destroy the beam, and the mote will be destroyed also – will have disappeared. If we are walking Godward we will reflect God.

God being good, and eternally good, can bestow only good. If He were less than good then His reflection would be less than good. Being eternally good we eternally reflect good, and to realize this is all the work there is to be done. We can do no more than reflect God. The more conscious we are of this the more good we will do. If we are not reflecting good we are as the blind leading the blind.

To accomplish this good we must work alone with God. We must not expect to help Mrs. Eddy, or expect her to treat us, and we must not treat one another, except in emergency, but must be taught of our Father. One plants, another waters, but God giveth the increase.

Animal magnetism is the claim of the knowledge of both good and evil. This is the rule by which it may be detected. Any method that will work apparently both good and evil is animal magnetism. If it be good and eternal in premise and conclusion, it is from God – and is God – good is God. If it be not, it is the antipode of God, or animal magnetism.

The serpent, coiled around the tree, is the type of the animal magnetizer of our times. The Judases of this period are far worse than the Judases of Jesus’ time, for they will not hang themselves as he did.

We must expose the evil belief of animal magnetism wherever we see it. We must not pass it by or ignore it. If we see that anyone is in this error, or influenced by it, we must meet the evil and rebuke it. If found lurking in our associations, it must be cast out. It is a false sense of charity that would bid us let it alone. God will make the wrath of man to praise Him.

When you have held faithfully to Truth and have done all according to your highest understanding, and the desired response does not follow, what must you do? First examine yourself, and if the cause of the difficulty is not there, take up the claim of malicious animal magnetism.

If you are employing Christian Science methods to heal, and someone is working against you with a counter argument, and this evil mind knows your methods and you are not cognizant of his, what is the duty of Mrs. Eddy toward you?

To uncover animal magnetism, to teach you how to handle this claim of error, and to send you into the world armed against it. She had so hated the term mesmerism that she substituted the word hypnotism, which proved just as abhorrent to her, and she would have willingly ignored it altogether but was compelled to recognize and name the claim in order to destroy it.

Lesson VI

This lesson was a review of the preceding lessons.

Our Teacher will not interpret Science and Health to her students; they must study it for themselves. If studied carefully its meaning will be revealed, and it is useless to take up the time in class to discuss and debate questions that may seem contradictory.

Growth in Science is through demonstration. To demonstrate is to realize what you know, and understanding is not ours until we demonstrate.

If a patient seems to become worse after you have begun the treatment, do not interfere with the methods of Truth. Be master of the belief, but do not attempt to check God’s way of working.

On being asked what was to be done with the tyranny of glasses, she replied: “The trouble is back of the belief that we need glasses, in the belief that we see with material eyes.” She had regained her sight perfectly when she was healed, but before that she had worn glasses. When she was asked to speak in public she shrank from doing so, but found she could hide behind her glasses, through which she could not now see at all. Satan tempted her to resort to this method to save herself and she yielded, not realizing what she was doing until she found that she needed them again. Every Scientist should dispense with glasses.

There is a vast difference between the meaning of the words human and mortal. When you become human you are approaching the divine. Jesus was divinely human.

On Tuesday Mrs. Eddy met with us and read the 91st Psalm. We joined the National Association and said goodbye – each realizing that we would be without excuse if we failed to work scientifically.

We cannot afford to parley with Truth. We cannot change the infinite to suit the finite. If we are reluctant or afraid to take up a certain line of work, we must immediately attack it, and require the same of the patient. Sympathy impedes our progress. We must watch and pray to be delivered from human sympathy. Mrs. Eddy said she had prayed more fervently to be delivered from that evil than any other. It is not sympathy with evil that helps us to heal, but utter lack of it. You cannot sympathize with nothing, and if you know the belief from which your patient is suffering, you should know as well that sympathy is self-mesmerism.

When asked: “Why can’t we do without clothing, eating, sleeping, etc.” she did not waste time in discussion and explanation; but told the student to try the experiment if he wished.

Mrs. Eddy teaches with authority, declares the Truth and leaves the implanted seed to grow. Only spiritual consciousness (the only consciousness) of dominion, can make the material world a footstool for man.

There is but one Mind. We are one with God in Love, power, essence, intelligence, Life, strength, Truth, harmony.





Extract from a letter dated November 22, 1888 to Julia Field-King

“I long to get some of those students in my late classes, well qualified for important posts in this great work that is being so abused by the charlatanism of this period. I want to hear from you by letter occasionally and dear Mrs. Bouton. I wish – O, so much, that her dear husband had been in my last Primary. I had a Methodist clergyman in Boston in it and a D.D. from the West. They tell me that one day was a Pentacostal hour. It certainly was a very remarkable occasion. I felt the power of God lifting me up, and you know the Scripture saith in the words of Jesus, when I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me.”



Interview with Mary Baker Eddy at Pleasant View

August 31, 1890

I was then residing in Lynn, and my experiences up to then had been of the saddest history almost that a mortal could have: death, all passing away that I had leaned upon, and finally I was going to a Good Templar’s lodge, and I slipped upon the pavement, fell across the curbstone, and that induced an injury that they considered as fatal as if my head had been severed. The papers I have clippings from advertised me as fatally injured, and the doctors said they could do nothing for me, but chloroformed me and took me home on a mattress. When I got home the dear ones around me said, “If you can’t live, tell us something, do tell us something as you always do, of your views,” and I said to them, “Why, I can’t conceive in this vestibule that there is death.” I was then in a position that I do not like to name, because I want to dismiss it from my mind, but it was called spinal dislocation. I said, “It does not seem death to me; life seems continuous, and my Father’s face dearer than ever before,” and as I talked they did not know what to make of it. Finally I said to them, “Won’t you leave the room a little while? I am getting oppressed.” The clergyman was just about to come and see me, and he entered, and then he talked with me a little, and he said, “You seem near heaven. Do you realize that you cannot recover?” I said, “They tell me so, but I cannot realize it,” and he said to me, “I must see you again; I am engaged now, but I will call in a little time. I want to see you again living if I can.” He stepped out, and was gone perhaps a half hour. I requested the others to leave the room and they did. Then I rose from my bed perfectly sound; never knew health before, always an invalid. I went downstairs, and met mother. The clergyman returned. He was so startled he did not know whether to conclude it was me in the body or out. He said, “What does this mean?” I said, “I do not know.” The doctor was sent for, who had given me up and was not coming again. He said, “How was this done?” I said, “I cannot tell you in any wise whatever, except it seemed to me all a thing or state of my mental consciousness. It didn’t seem to belong to the body, or material condition. When I awakened to this sense of change I was there, that is all I know.” It came to me in a bit of Scripture, that is now absent from my thought, and I immediately arose from my bed, and before that, my feet were dead, and they kept something to heat them, for fear they would be stiff utterly, and it seemed to me as I talked to him that I was a little weakened, and finally there was another one came in, and it seemed that while I was talking with him that I was more weakened, and he said, “It is impossible that that could have been. It must have been the medicine.” I said, “Your medicine is every bit in the drawer, go and look.” There it was in my drawer, and I had not taken one bit of it. When I showed him that, he said “This is impossible,” and immediately I felt I was back again, and I staggered. He caught me and set me in a chair and he said, “There, I will go out. If you have done that much, you can again.” My limbs crippled under me just like that. This is veritable. There are people living in Swampscott now who can tell. It was in 1872, I think. When I found myself back again I felt more discouraged than ever. As I sat there it all seemed to come to me again with such a light and such a presence, and I felt, “It is all the mind. These are spiritual stages of consciousness,” and rose right up again. And then I felt I never could be conquered again, and as they came rushing in I said, “Do not talk with me much at present; wait a little, and I will tell you all I can,” and they would keep me up till 12 o’clock talking, and I stood it, and at that time I had a big task of material duties – my husband happened to be gone – and I seemed in such a bother I did not know what to do, until at last I got away a little while, and then I began to steady down, and say, “I can tell this, and the world can know what it means,” and from that time I have demonstrated it….

…I married Col. George Washington Glover, of Charleston, South Carolina. I went from my home to reside there, and in one year my husband passed suddenly off with yellow fever. I returned home. In about eight months thereafter, my babe was born, my only son, George Washington Glover. My mother died that year, and father married. I had to give up my little boy. Afterward he was taken to the west. I did not really know how to meet the world. My husband was very wealthy, but I lost all of his property, and I didn’t know how to get along and maintain my child, and he went away with his nursemaid who married and moved west. They knew that he had an inheritance from his father and grandfather, and they seemed to desire to get his guardianship away from me, and then they told him I was dead. At 16 years of age he enlisted in the army under the idea that I was dead. I sought him everywhere. They wrote me that he had run away. I could not find him. When I found I could not reach him anyway, I took to my bed, and was confined to my bed and room seven years. Then George heard his mother was living. By accident he wrote to his cousin, Albert

Baker Tilton, to know where my grave was, that he wished to visit it. Albert answered him that I was living. Then we were both almost wild with joy, and George tried to get to me, but found he could not go from the western to the eastern division, as he had enlisted in the western division. He stayed and served his time out, and I never saw him until he was twenty-three years old, from the time he was eight, I think it was. He expected to surprise me, and of course he looked nothing as he did, but I knew him instantly, and he said, “Mother, you have found me out.” I said, “My son, my son.” He was confined after he got out of the army with sickness. He had a bullet wound that was very bad. We saved his life, too, but then that doesn’t go in.





Reminiscences of Mary Baker Eddy by Edward Everett Norwood

It seems expedient to set down in writing while fresh in my consciousness, some account of my experiences in Christian Science and my relations with the Discoverer and Founder thereof, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. Being an humble follower of Jesus, the Christ, a partaker with him of the divine nature, and a student of Mrs. Eddy, it is a joy to enter upon this narration. And it would seem important, and carrying out our dear Leader’s desire in the matter, for the wonderful future of the Christian Science movement is founded upon the Rock, Christ, and will be more fully demonstrated as the ages pass. And the account of those who have had personal instruction of her and personal dealings with her should be peculiarly valuable, giving future history rich reminiscences and authentic rehearsal of the many wonderful and helpful manifestations of divine glory that filled the entire life of that remarkable woman.

I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. My father was S. Marion Norwood, an architect and builder, a native of South Carolina, of Scotch-English ancestry. The name Norwood was formerly “Northwood” – an old English name. I am advised that we have the right to bear the Norwood coat of arms, howbeit have never done so. My mother’s maiden name was Mary Jane Peake, of the Virginia family of that name. Both were Methodists, and I was raised in that faith and at an early age was set aside for the ministry. But more or less continual ill health in early life prevented my systematic studies at college, and entirely interfered with taking the theological course at Vanderbilt University.

But I was ever a student, and the studies faithfully carried on, under physical difficulties, perhaps more than equaled what seemed lost at college. In the Spring of 1893 I found Christian Science. My dear mother was condemned to die of an internal, incurable disease, and a friend, Mrs. Stella A. Lamb, told her of Christian Science, and later brought a practitioner to call. The practitioner was Mrs. Laura B. Aiken, and her clear, loving explanations of the Truth at once interested me. I began to read Science and Health first to my mother, and later for myself. I was amazed at it. Like a shining light, (which it indeed was) the Truth led me on, and I literally could not read fast enough. The first year the book was read sixteen or eighteen hours a day. At the end of about three weeks, I realized that I was entirely healed, and this joyful experience was wonderful. And with the healing came a most gracious spiritual uplift, which to a greater or less degree, has remained. The new heaven and earth were appearing to my enraptured gaze, and I still cherish the memories of those first months. In less than a month after beginning the reading I had quite a number of healings. My first patient was my brother’s bulldog, then my Jersey cow, and then our colored cook. Of course it was more love and faith than understanding, but some of the demonstrations made then were as quick and satisfactory as any since. For these early proofs of God’s presence and power, I thank God!

My dear mother was wonderfully helped during the first few weeks, and indeed, we fondly hoped she was entirely healed. But (at the suggestion of the minister who called one day and who remarked upon her wonderful improvement) she again took morphia to allay a sense of pain, and in November passed on. I had written a very fervent, grateful letter to Mrs. Eddy, telling her of my mother’s being so wonderfully helped, and my own healing, and desired to do something to show my gratitude. The letter was addressed, “Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, thou who art highly favored among women!” – the salutation the angel gave Mary.

My mother lingered during the summer and fall, and passed on November 3. Just two days before she left I had a letter from Mrs. Eddy, as follows:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., October 25, 1893

Mr. E. Norwood, Memphis, Tenn.

Dear Sir:

Your favor interests me. Nothing is more desirable than to learn of those in early life choosing the good part.

The sketch of yourself was highly gratifying. It is quite common to hear of those healed by reading Science and Health. Are you thinking of making Christian Science a study and practice? The spirit of love you manifest inclines me to ask this.

Please write again and tell me how you are getting along, and if you know Mrs. Mims of Atlanta, Ga.

Very kindly,

Mary B. G. Eddy

The spiritual impetus that came with this letter carried me through the trying experience of my mother’s demise, and helped me to make a demonstration, both over the sense of grief, and also over what human sense might call the highest claim in mortal mind, namely the dying request of a mother. My dear mother called me to her bedside the day before she left and taking my hand said, “Son, you’ll give up this Christian Science for me, won’t you?” Though I knew but little, then, of the workings of error, I answered not, but silently declared that Love protected and sustained me, and that error could not tempt me through any channel, and to show how well I was protected, my father and sister stood near me, and neither heard one word of the request! So I was spared any reproaches.

The simple question in the letter, put in as an afterthought, “and if you know Mrs. Mims, of Atlanta, Ga.,” was the cause of my writing to her, and the organization of the church at Memphis. And Mrs. Mims and I later sat together in Mrs. Eddy’s class.

An interesting experience may be related: Sometime before this I had withdrawn from the Methodist church, and felt their prayers and appeals quite forcibly – the mesmerism of old theology. In fact for some time I was utterly miserable – knew the cause – but could not seem to meet it. At this time, in response to Mrs. Eddy’s invitation, to “Please write again and let me know how you are getting along,” I wrote her, and mentioned the mental darkness. I have not forgotten the wonderful freedom that came to me three days later when she read my letter, and the claim was instantly healed. I rejoiced with joy unspeakable, and thanked God.

The little church was organized, and I was elected Assistant Pastor, and a year later, at the change of order of service, was made Second Reader. In the meantime, in the spring of 1895, I went to New York City, and went through a class with Carol Norton, and again in the fall of 1897, went through another class with him. The following year, November 1898, both of us studied Christian Science in the wonderful class with Mrs. Eddy.

The invitation to the class was as follows:

Pleasant View, Concord, N.H., November 15, 1898

Beloved Student:

I have a great blessing in store for you if you will be in Concord on Sunday, Nov. 20th, at Christian Science Hall, 4 p.m. Strictly confidential.

With love, Mother,

Mary Baker Eddy

I got my notice just in time to catch the very last train that would take me there, and it began to lose time the minute it left Memphis. My, but I worked to know the Truth, and got into New York City late, and had to literally run across town to catch a Sunday morning train for Boston and Concord. Every mile of the trip was a demonstration, and many, many blessings gained on the way. The morning stars were singing together as I passed through Boston at 5:00 o’clock Sunday morning, and a happy Southerner (albeit a tired one) took the train at North Station for Concord!

How well do I remember that blessed experience! The happy throng at the Eagle Hotel on Sunday morning, November 20th; the beautiful service at Christian Science Hall in the morning, when dear old Brother Ezra M. Buswell was the First Reader, and the eager, expectant dear ones assembled at the Hall at 4:00 o’clock! The air was fairly vibrant with divine Love, and the consciousness of God’s presence and power most wonderfully clear. After all were seated, Mr. Kimball read the statement from Mrs. Eddy (as given in The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany) and later the Fairest Among Fifteen Hundred Million and Altogether Lovely, came in. Although I had seen her several times before, she looked more radiantly glorious than ever, and the glory of her countenance was unspeakable. She came in, attended by Miss Clara Shannon and Mr. Calvin Frye, and as we arose in respectful greeting, she stepped up to the platform with the agility of a child and the grace of a queen. She began by saying, “I am very glad to see you all, especially the dear ones whom I’ve never met before.” She also said, in the beginning, “I have been waiting fifteen years to teach this class, and those whom God has appointed, I have called to teach.” This evidently was a special class of seventy (three were absent) that she had in mind, for the college had been closed but nine years before – or in 1889.

She taught from Recapitulation, but quoted many times from other parts of Science and Health and much from the Bible. She told many things in a funny way that caused all to laugh. One instance, in speaking of literal interpretation of the Bible she said, “A farmer and his hands were hoeing corn, and one of the helpers laid down his hoe to go to the house for a drink of water. The farmer said, ‘Oh, don’t do that, it’s agin the Scriptures.’ ‘How so?’ asked the man. “Wa’ll don’t the Scriptures say, ‘Ho everyone that thirsteth!’” And she told of the fallacy of philosophy. A tanner had a fox’s tail stuck in a hole in his barn door. One day he noticed a very fine, intelligent appearing man standing earnestly gazing at the fox’s tail in the door. Finally the tanner’s curiosity was aroused, and he went out and said, “My friend, you seem much interested; may I ask why?” The other one answered, “Well, sir, I’m a philosopher” (Mrs. Eddy said the tanner thought there was something wrong with him, and now he knew it). “And I was just puzzling over the remarkable phenomenon I see before me.” “What’s that?” quoth the tanner. “Well, to think that an animal as large as a fox can get through such a small hole.”

Of course we all laughed most heartily, and the dear Teacher clapped her hands and enjoyed the story as much as anyone.

The first day of the class (it lasted two whole afternoons), the chief question was “What is God?” The second day, the leading question was “How would you heal the sick, instantaneously?” Each one arose to answer, and each one of the sixty-seven present agreed, one great thing, among others, was to “realize the presence of Love.” Mrs. Eddy listened very patiently. Then she said, “You have answered very well; very well, indeed. But you don’t get quite close enough. Now let me tell you how I’d heal instantaneously.” (We all listened very intently). “It is not so much to realize the presence of Love – but LOVE! Love enough, and you’ll raise the dead! I’ve done it!” And it just looked like an angel from heaven sat there before us!

Just before that, Harold Frederic, the English novelist, had passed on in London, under Christian Science treatment. Mrs. Eddy expressed her great regret, saying she would not have had it happen for all of her possessions. And immediately after, speaking of material so-called substance, she said, “I wouldn’t give a button, I wouldn’t give a button for all the materiality there is, for I already have too much of earth, and not enough of heaven.”

I am not entirely certain whether she said it in our class, or in a previous one, and one of her students told me this. She lifted herself up in her chair and said “I am right here. Where this seems to be, the real child of God is.”

And she told of the beautiful incident in her early experience when she healed the sick, the most desperate cases, before getting to them, and none would acknowledge that she did it. She was troubled at this, for she feared God would not get the glory, and Christian Science be slow in becoming established. One day she was sent for to go to a dying man, and before starting to his house she knelt by her bed and asked God that the patient might not be healed till she got there, so that God’s power be acknowledged and Him glorified. She said, “When I got there, I couldn’t do a thing. I couldn’t do a thing. I went home, and put my face upon the carpet, and there I stayed, until I found Jacob’s ladder, from the bottom to the top. Then I saw that God, in His own time and way, would take unto Himself the glory, and it was not for me to say.”

There was not a dry eye in the hall when this dear woman finished her story.

She also spoke of man being co-existent with God, and used this illustration: If one stands before a mirror, his reflection does not grow into full size. It is so, at once. So is man co-existent with God – the image of Mind.

The whole class was a remarkable demonstration of God’s power and presence, as manifested in one of His saints. She spoke so lovingly and tenderly of the children – the child-thought, and said, “When I pass them out driving, they make me the most graceful bows, for they know that I love them!”

All through the class the spiritual teachings of the Scriptures were emphasized, and she said: “Every word in the Bible is capable of spiritual interpretation.” And she dwelt much upon God as divine Mind. An experience I had during the class may be of interest, and I shall relate it.

I had prayed earnestly for a great unfoldment of good, a clearer and broader vision, and suddenly, during the second day’s lesson it came. I do not seem to remember whether she quoted from Retrospection and Introspection, page 88 – “Mind demonstrates omnipresence and omnipotence, but Mind revolves on a spiritual axis, and its power is displayed and its presence felt in eternal stillness and immovable Love. The divine potency of this spiritual mode of Mind, and the hindrance opposed to it by material motion, is proven beyond a doubt in the practice of Mind-healing.” Whether she quoted it or not, it was very clear in my thought. Suddenly it did seem a veil was lifted or a window opened, and I could see, in one of those supreme moments (that never leave one where it found him) the reality of things – the majestic oneness of the spiritual universe – its vast quietness – the infinite Mind – the eternal stillness, which is really primal energy. And as I looked, the symbols around me, the personalities, the class, all externals, seemed to fade, and a wondrous sense of reality appeared – and ah, my friends, it was awesome! I understood somewhat what our Leader means by “The unlabored motion of Mind,” and that what mortal mind calls activity is lethargy inaction, inertia, and is the seeming obstruction in the way of the operation of divine law. I realized, to some extent, the joy and activity of what is forever going on in Mind, and all that hides it is the misty curtain of false belief, which lifts at intervals. I got such a glimpse of the Way – the road our great Leader trod – the first one since Jesus walked in it, and my heart yearned to go on! But anon the veil dropped down, and I was back again. Let me add that this last summer (1918) while standing beside a little stream in Maryland, I had a similar experience, and because the first was being caught up in Mrs. Eddy’s concept of good, and the last was more of demonstration – the latter experience has been clearer and remained longer.

Upon relating this once to Mr. Joseph Armstrong, (then Publisher of Mrs. Eddy’s books) he told me of a similar experience when, just before the class, Mrs. Eddy called him to Pleasant View to consult about substitute First Reader (in Judge Hanna’s absence). She told him about the coming Class, and what she hoped it would do for the world. He said as she talked, the wonderful vista opened, and for a few moments he saw what she saw, and he said, “I never dreamed of such a heaven on earth.” And this was the mental state in which that God-blest woman abode in more or less all the time!

Well, after the Class, I returned home, and my work was on a higher basis, better healing, and began to teach students.

Some time after the Class, I received the following explanation of the Trinity with a note from Mr. McKenzie, as below:

The Trinity – Father, is man’s divine Principle, Love.

Son is God’s man, His image or spiritual idea.

Holy Ghost, is Divine Science, the Messiah or Comforter.

Jesus in the flesh was the prophet or wayshower to Life, Truth, Love, and out of the flesh Jesus was the Christ, the spiritual idea or image and likeness of God.

Mary Baker Eddy

Concord, N.H., January 3, 1899

Beloved in Christ:

By request of our beloved Mother and Teacher the enclosed jewel of truth, luminous with love, is sent to enrich with light the members of her last class.

Your fellow-worker,

Wm. P. McKenzie

For a time I had a strong desire to leave Memphis, and wrote Mrs. Eddy about it. In reply she wrote:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., December 24, 1898

Mr. Edward E. Norwood, C.S.B.

My beloved Student:

Why do you anticipate being removed from your field and the Readership in church?

Do you desire to change your location? I know of no reason why you should change your place. When any strong impression comes to you in such lines “try the spirits” before you submit. Mentally treat yourself that nothing can govern your actions or come to your thought that is not from the divine Mind. Be strong there.

So many sinister suggestions come to mind, watch! And each day commit yourself to the care of our one Parent, trust Him, turn to Him in all your ways for light to direct your footsteps and wisdom to enable you to separate the tares from the wheat – so that you can judge well between the human or evil “suggestion” and the good or divine impulse.

With love to Mrs. King.

Yours tenderly truly

M. B. Eddy

It will be observed that while she did not advise yet the way was clear, and I remained there for over a year, and then the way was so clearly opened, there was no doubt as to the wisdom of my going. I was unanimously invited to be First Reader of First Church of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and read there for about fifteen months, when I was firmly resolved to retire from the reading and devote my whole time to the practice and teaching of Christian Science. And it was in Chattanooga I married Miss Rose Hamilton Barnwell, daughter of Major Jesse S. Barnwell, C.S.A., of the South Carolina family of that name. She and her sister had been interested in Christian Science for many years. We came to Washington, D.C., for three months, and then felt led to go (and the dear Christian Scientists there invited us to come) to Charleston, South Carolina. There we were unanimously elected to be First and Second Reader; but declined most positively. Finally we agreed to read for three months until Mrs. Elizabeth T. Bell (the next choice) could be eligible by becoming a member of The Mother Church. This was done.

It was during this time that I secured the data relating to Col. George W. Glover’s Masonic affiliations. While living in Charleston, I was Committee on Publication for South Carolina. A very scurrilous article, from a North Carolina paper was sent me, reflecting upon Mrs. Eddy’s good name, her moral character, and denying that her husband was ever a member of Union Chapter No. 6 – and also that there was ever such a Lodge of Masons in Charleston known as “St. Andrew’s Lodge No. 10.”

I went to Capt. Charles Inglesby, Secretary of Grand Lodge of South Carolina and told him a Masonic widow’s good name was slandered, and who she was (Mrs. Glover) and the circumstances. He said, “Brother Norwood, St. Andrew’s Lodge has been defunct since before the Civil War (he had been a captain in the Confederate army), and the records of that Lodge were sent to Columbia at the outbreak of the war for safe keeping. When Sherman captured and burnt Columbia, they were destroyed, and so far as I know, there is not one line of writing extant to prove that there ever was a St. Andrew’s Lodge.”

I replied, “Will you authorize me to search, and perhaps we may find something at the Temple?” He did, and the Tiler, Mr. John Harleston, and I began our search. There were many records there, but after several hours’ search we could find nothing. At last he got tired, and said, “There’s no use going any further; I am quite sure there is nothing to be found.” I announced my intention of continuing, and did so. At last, in an obscure locker, I found a bundle of papers, tied with an old faded blue ribbon, and one of them was just what I desired. It was the “return” (list of membership) of St. Andrew’s Lodge No. 10, for 1844! In it gave the name of George Washington Glover, Past Master, and a marginal reference stated that he had died in August of that year (confirming what Mrs. Eddy had stated in Retrospection and Introspection).

Of course I was much gratified, and went to Captain Inglesby, who gave me a certificate, with the Grand Lodge seal, stating the above facts.

While it was pleasant to know that Truth was protecting its own in this beautiful manner, I laid no especial stress on it. Related the incident at Wednesday evening meeting at the church, and all were pleased. In getting ready for the Annual Meeting of The Mother Church that year (1902), Mrs. Louisa Hart and myself were appointed a committee to write a report of First Church. We both agreed to state the incident of the research, and its success. It was made impersonal, and merely stated “a local Scientist did it.” At the annual meeting at Mechanics’ Hall, this report was read by John Carroll Lathrop, and was roundly cheered. In the following Sentinel’s report of the meeting it was mentioned, and “local Scientists” (plural) used. A few days later a beautiful letter came from Mrs. Eddy, addressed to the church as follows:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., July 16, 1902

To First Church of Christ, Scientist, Charleston, South Carolina

Beloved Brethren:

It is impossible for pen to portray the depth of tears, love, and joy this dear church gave me, when reading the narration in our Journal of that grand, successful search for the records of St. Andrew’s Lodge, of which my late husband, Col. George W. Glover, was the master in Charleston, South Carolina. Not all the utterance of love and reverence from those who knew him, nor the reticence of storied pile, could say as much for the dear departed as your persistent, faithful search for those few sacred words. They stir the soul of a Free Mason, and fill this heart of mine with memories saintlier for their years.

The effacing mold, the noiseless steps of time, touch not our deathless dead whose works survive to tell of the past. My love for the South and its noble sons and daughters is ever allied to the memory of my early loved and lost. May the presence and power of Truth and Love rest in holy benediction on this dear Church, and peace, prosperity and unity hallow its inner sanctuary.

With love, Mother,

Mary Baker G. Eddy

The church through its Clerk, Mrs. Elizabeth Bell, wrote Mrs. Eddy, and said that “while the Church claimed the blessing of her letter the credit belonged to the temporary First Reader, (E. E. N.), as he alone made the search, and the membership knew nothing of it until related at Wednesday evening meeting.” Immediately Mrs. Eddy wrote me a beautiful letter as follows:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., August 1, 1902

Mr. E. E. Norwood, C.S.B.

Beloved Student:

Pen cannot express my thanks for your fidelity and defence of our Cause in the dark South.

My late husband, George W. Glover, was born in Boston, Mass. If living, his sister, Charlotte Glover, now Mrs. Shute, resides in Quincy, Mass. I understand that he went to the South when quite young. He was an architect of the rarest kind and a builder. At the time of his attack of yellow fever he had a contract for a cathedral in Haiti for a large sum of money.

His title might have come either from the Governor of the State of South Carolina, given because of his being a member of his staff, or he may have belonged to the State militia. I cannot say as to that, but I know it was military. Before I left the South I gave some of his military equipment, and elegantly decorated coat and a fine sword to one of his many friends. I cannot now recollect who it was.

He was in Wilmington City, North Carolina, on business (where he had taken me with him) when attacked with the “yellow jack,” as ‘twas called. I never attempted to remove his remains to the North. I was not allowed to take them to his home in Charleston, South Carolina, on account of their fear of the contagion. The dear Masons did all that could be done for him. They conducted the funeral with music and a large procession. I never knew where his body was allowed to be laid.

Let the tragic history of my dear departed drop now. His character and reputation stood high – it is above the enemy’s aim and above all need of further research. I kept for many years his diploma as Royal Arch, etc., but cannot find it now. I shall keep the sacred evidence of his standing in Masonry that you have forwarded to me in grateful memory of your noble, persistent search after them. I have in my Scrap Book a leaf taken from the Masonic Magazine in 1844 containing the date of his death and a tender obituary.

I have written to Miss Swazey, of Washington, D.C., to know if her church changes its Readers, and if so, I have recommended you for its Reader. I am willing you should leave the South if you so desire. You will please remember me kindly to Mrs. Norwood, and accept my warm wish for your prosperity wherever you locate.

With love, Mother,

Mary B. G. Eddy

(In explanation of her last sentence, let me say I asked her advice about returning to Washington, as the people there desired me, and as the work was quite slow in Charleston, it would seem wise to be in a more active field).

Second Church of Washington immediately held a meeting and unanimously invited me as their First Reader and Mrs. Norwood as Second Reader. We accepted, and came to Washington September 2, 1902.

Some time after coming to Washington, she wrote me the following beautiful letter (and the “small sum” mentioned therein was a check for five hundred dollars).

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., December 21, 1903

Mr. Edward E. Norwood, C.S.B.

My Beloved Student:

You will accept from me a small sum in payment for your expensive search for the items regarding my loved and lost husband.

I can never pay you but in gratitude what I feel in the remembrance thereof, and for your noble grand discharge of the divine duties of a Free Mason.

With love, Mother,

Mary B. G. Eddy

Mrs. Eddy always loved the Masonic craft, and some time before she left us, sent me a copy of The New England Craftsman, with an article by Leon Abbott marked saying, “Written by a Christian Scientist,” and ever after the demonstration of finding the records of Colonel Glover in Charleston, she always made some Masonic reference in her letters to me. I dare say she better understood the symbolism of Freemasonry than even the cleverest Mason of the 33rd!

As I understood the question, there was a great need for unity of the two churches, and we steadily worked for it. This was opposed by a minority in Second Church, who were quite strong in their opposition. They argued that as Mrs. Eddy had sent me to be First Reader and the term was for three years, it would not be wise nor obedient to disrupt the Church until the time expired. This was finally agreed to, but the work of harmonizing the two branches went on, and just before my term was ended, I wrote Mrs. Eddy, rehearsing the facts, and asking if she had any counsel in the matter. The following letter was her reply:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., July 15, 1905

Mr. Edward Everett Norwood, C.S.B.

Beloved Student:

Your request for my permission to unite the two churches in Washington, D.C., I hereby give you; but this does not settle the question, because I have no right to do so. I hope that you all will see clearly your duty in the case and do it in the interest of Christian Science.

Lovingly yours,

Mary Baker Eddy

A meeting of Second Church was held, and the minority seemed so violently opposed, they offered no hope of unity, even though First Church, which had over three times as many members, offered to disorganize, elect new Readers, adopt new by-laws, if Second Church would lovingly come in. So the majority (lacking just two votes of the necessary two-thirds to disorganize) lovingly took letters of withdrawal and joined First Church as individuals. I had the satisfaction later (by word of mouth of Mr. Joseph Armstrong) that Mrs. Eddy highly approved this action, and later she lovingly counseled Second Church to unite, which of course was done. Thereafter the Church prospered, and in the course of time, as a legitimate and needful unfoldment, at this date, 1918, there are three strong congregations here in Washington.

In the Summer of 1904, a publishing house of New York issued a most sumptuous and elaborate volume (the edition de luxe costing $1,000 each) called The Book of the Presidents. It was devoted to the biographies etc. of our Presidents, and also of other prominent Americans, and contained accounts of four women, one being Mrs. Eddy. I was commissioned by our Leader to arrange for the Christian Science manuscript to be in it, and in course of the work, had to interview Hon. Charles H. Grosvenor, Representative in Congress from Ohio. Through a misunderstanding, he seemed quite resentful of Mrs. Eddy, and we had an argument, which seemed for a time about to culminate in a fist fight. It became necessary for me to defend our Leader most vigorously, and to remind Mr. Grosvenor that he was talking to a Southern gentleman, who was used to being treated as such and expected to be on this occasion. He very quickly cooled and apologized. It became necessary to write the incident to Mrs. Eddy’s secretary, whereupon she wrote me the following letter, enclosing a twenty-dollar goldpiece:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., September 18, 1904

Mr. Edward E. Norwood, C.S.B.

Beloved Student:

Please accept this symbol of my thanks to you for obedience to Golden Rule, and great kindness to me.

Sincerely yours,

Mary Baker Eddy

I forget to say, that while living in Memphis, I felt impelled to send her a stalk of cotton in bloom, knowing she had formerly lived in the South where it grew, and would appreciate it. As Mrs. King was First Reader, I invited her to participate with me in it. So had a long pasteboard box made, placed the cotton therein, and wrote a note which we both signed, and sent it on. In a short time Mrs. Eddy wrote the following beautiful letter, and with it came a blessing which Mrs. King shared with me:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., August 21, 1896

Frances J. King, Edward E. Norwood

My dear Children:

You will pardon this delay when I tell you I had on hand what God called me to do before giving a moment to pleasure. Accept my thanks for the pretty cotton branches. You cannot know how they touch my heart with tender tones. I have seen them for the first time since I looked on them with my loved one who has gone to the realm of the departed. Oh, may the Father of all bless you, heal you, mind and body, make you white as the cotton blossoms, bud, blossom, and fruit all on one branch of being; even that vine of which our Father is the husbandman.

With love, Mother,

Mary Baker Eddy

From 1844 until 1906 – it was fifty-two years since she had seen cotton stalks!

Some time in October, 1906, Mr. Joseph Armstrong, publisher, rang me up from Arlington Hotel to come over to see him. He then informed me that Mrs. Eddy had selected me (“as a good Christian Scientist,” she said) to have charge of the making of the plates of a revision of Science and Health. Of course I gladly assented to the work, and selected Mr. William S. Campbell (since then, First Reader of First Church), a former newspaper man of the West, and then an expert proof reader in the Government Printing Office, to assist in the work.

Mr. Armstrong and I called on Mr. Charles B. Stillings, then the public printer, who referred us to Judd and Detwiler, the largest printing house in Washington. They took the contract at $1.08 a page, to which Mr. Armstrong agreed, placed the work in my hands, and went home. The six hundred pages of Science and Health mounted on larger sheets with margins, with changes in Mr. Lewis C. Strang’s handwriting, were turned over to the printers as they needed it. This firm (of Judd and Detwiler) agreed to do the work in two weeks. Mr. Campbell and I would wait and wait, wondering at the delay in copy, and finally, after much mental work, discovered that Judd and Detwiler had “farmed out” the work to the Globe Printing Co., though pretending to do the work themselves! (I may say, in passing, that I dismissed all patients, locked my office door, and Mr. Campbell and I were there alone. We were on duty from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 or later p.m. during six weeks. The work, of course, was profoundly confidential, and the printers were enjoined to secrecy also).

As soon as we found out the work had been sublet, Mr. Campbell and I went over to the Globe Printing Co., and remained everyday and evening, until the work was finished. It was most trying, for the type was set by machine, instead of by hand, and every mistake corrected necessitated resetting a line, and generally several other mistakes would appear. We had to correct some paragraphs as many as thirty times.

Three weeks went by, and one day a letter came from Mrs. Eddy by special messenger, Miss Mary Tomlinson, as follows:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., November 3, 1906

Mr. E. E. Norwood

Beloved Student:

I hope that Mr. Armstrong has not interrupted the harmony of my business arrangement with you regarding the plates for the revised edition of Science and Health. Please read carefully all the testimonials in the copy and select those which you consider the best and place the most attractive testimonials at the commencement of the chapter on FRUITAGE. The number of pages in this chapter can be accommodated to the testimonials even if this should make my book exceed a little the seven hundred page of the present edition.

N.B. – The great point to attain was the time it should take to make the plates. Two weeks was agreed upon and now it is three weeks, and the need of my plates is imperative now. Please shorten this delay if possible.

Lovingly yours,

Mary Baker Eddy

Another word to you. Mr. Norwood, C.S.D. Beloved:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H.

If there is not enough new Testimonials of the new ones to make out the 700 pages of Science and Health you can retain some of the old testimonials that are now in this book. Be sure to have 700 pages in this edition and if it over runs this a little in the make-up, no matter. But the original number must not be lessened.

Lovingly and gratefully

Your leader, and a Free Mason’s widow,

Mary Baker G. Eddy

Give my love to Mrs. Norwood.

It was very trying to have our dear Leader disappointed, and we did all we could to hasten the work; but it did seem that m.a.m. was on hand and active every minute. In the meantime a large number of pages of Sentinel testimonies was sent me, and I was directed to select the best of them, revise them, prime them, mentioning not more than two diseases, and giving each a title. In fact, a new FRUITAGE was put in. This, itself, was quite a job, but of course I was glad to do it. (This same chapter remains intact as this time, November, 1918).

It may be of interest to note that during this time, my watch, a very good one, began to gain in time, until it was three hours a day. Regulating did it no good, so I let it go, and as soon as the work was finished, it resumed its normal condition. Mr. Armstrong told me he had the same experience in the building of The Mother Church, and the jeweler told him, “It is you, not the watch.”

When the time came to send, first the proofs, and later the plates, to Concord, our dear Leader sent me a sacredly confidential letter, giving minute directions as to the manner of doing it. This letter was a most remarkable proof of her wonderful understanding of God – and of the illusion of mortal mind, and its so-called activities. In the letter she said, “Let no one see this but your own dear self,” and when I read it, I had such a glimpse of ineffable good and the supreme spiritual height that our God-crowned Leader had attained, it was transcendental! God bless her!

How well Mr. Campbell and I kept the secret was shown when I say that while Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Norwood both knew (in a general way) that we were doing something for headquarters, Mrs. Norwood first knew of it when Mr. Strang informed her at Pleasant View late in November, and she told Mrs. Campbell upon her return to Washington.

The beautiful letter our dear Leader wrote me at the completion of the work follows:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., December 1, 1906

Mr. Norwood, C.S.B.

My beloved Student:

Words are weak to express my gratitude for your strict demonstration and success in conveyance. Also, your fidelity in all entrusted to you. I was not mistaken in my man if I were in some men.

My prayer is for all that learn through suffering, and for all who learn by enjoying, to enter into the rest of rightness; for every experience human is met, compensated or punished by divine Love. Dear one, learn with me to have but one God, to know of no other Mind, for this will bring peace and spare us the sorrow and agony that so-called mortal mind has in store.

One Mind, and loving others as we would be loved is the panacea for all our wrongs, trouble and strife.

I hope sometime to reward you for your dear heart and your helping hand in my behalf.

Give my love to Mrs. Norwood.

Lovingly, gratefully yours,

Mary Baker Eddy

Mr. Armstrong told me to send in a bill to Mrs. Eddy for my work, I said: “I have none. I want to do it for love, for she has done so much for me.” He replied, “Well, if you wish to send her a receipted bill, do so, but send it, and name your own terms.” So I sent her a bill, marked “paid,” for $150.00 for six weeks’ work (at same rate the staff at Pleasant View were paid). In a few days I received a letter from Mr. Calvin Frye as follows:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., December 13, 1906

Dear Brother Norwood:

Our beloved Leader sent to you yesterday by Am. Ex. a small box containing $100 in gold, and she desires to thank you for your receipted bill for services in connection with work done on Science and Health.

Yours Fraternally,

C. A. Frye

The box contained $100.00 in gold. So I saw how foolish to try to get ahead of Mrs. Eddy!

A few weeks later I received the following letter from her, which I answered at once!

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., December 13, 1906

Mr. Edward E. Norwood, C.S.B. Washington, D.C.

Beloved Student:

You will send immediately to me, the lone widow of a brother Mason, the agreement that I repeated to Mr. Armstrong to be as my agent, made between him and the Press at Washington, D.C., as to the making of my plates for my book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

With love

Yours,

Mary Baker G. Eddy

Sometime later just before the “next friends” and the Glovers brought suit against the Directors, etc., I received the following letter from our Leader:

Pleasant View Concord, N.H., February 6, 1907

Mr. E. E. Norwood, C.S.B.

Beloved Student:

My son is not a Christian Scientist. He, Mr. George W. Glover, is said to be in Washington. I wish he would return to his home in Lead, Dakota. The m.a.m.’s are at work to prevent it. I am giving him a large sum to help him at this home in Lead, Dakota.

To meet the lies let me inform you. After his father passed on I went immediately to my paternal home.

After I thought of such a thing – I asked my father to help me to get some of my husband’s property, for I had not anything of it and would not sell his slaves.

My father went to a man in Bow who had done business of that kind in the South and asked him how he should accomplish getting me what belonged to me as his wife?

This man said to him, “Under the present laws of the South she can recover none of his property; it would take eight years to even get out an execution.” So father dropped the matter and I never received any means to help me in that way.

Please assert this if it becomes necessary.

Lovingly yours,

Mary Baker Eddy

Mrs. Norwood and I called upon Mr. Glover and his daughter Mary at their hotel, and a few days later they returned the call. I could plainly see that the poor old man was being worked, and the following Sunday the papers were filled with the accounts of the suit. Of course this suit, like the will suit, following her demise, were both won by the Cause of Truth, and the error (which desired possession of the copyrights even more than the money) were defeated.

It had been our custom to visit Charleston nearly every spring since we left there. In the spring of 1909 just after Miss Wilbur’s Life of Mary Baker Eddy came out, I was reading it carefully before starting south, and was wonderfully impressed by the great biography. So I wrote Mrs. Eddy a grateful letter, and enclosed therein a brand new $100.00 bill as a little token of love for her. Also in the letter, I mentioned that Mrs. Norwood and I were going to Charleston on a visit, and asked her permission to call my students there together and talk to them, as many were in moderate circumstances and could not often get to Washington for Association. The following letter was received from Mr. Dickey, her Secretary, in reply:

Chestnut Hill, Mass. March 12, 1909

Mr. Edward E. Norwood

Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. Norwood:

Your letter of the 9th instant addressed to our beloved Leader in which you enclose one hundred dollars is at hand. Mrs. Eddy wishes me to thank you deeply for your kindness, and also to say that she appreciates your references to her early experiences. As nearly as I can recall her words they were, – “I know Mr. Norwood very well. Tell him that while I acknowledge the receipt of the hundred dollars in money, I acknowledge the receipt of thousands in value in his correct recital of past events, to which I have reverently said, in the words of our dear Master, ‘Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.’ ”

I asked our Leader if you might call your students together when you visited in the South, and she readily gave her consent.

Sincerely yours,

Adam H. Dickey, Secretary

In answer to my question, once Mrs. Eddy wrote me that the Church at Washington should cost $5,000,000. This was when H. Cornell Wilson was assistant Secretary at Pleasant View. She also sent me a copy of Katherine Yates’ little booklet On the Way There, with her visiting card therein, “Mary Baker Eddy’s love.”

Mary Baker Eddy was the most remarkable woman in the history of the world. Her eyes were blue, but when animated, seemed dark brown. Her features were strong, nose and chin distinctively firm and characteristic, her carriage and manner of gestures most graceful. Her height was about five feet six inches, but her person possessed and expressed a dignity and majesty indescribable. Her voice was most musical, and manner gentle and compassionate, yet withal positive and firm. As one on her staff many years told me, “You would not tell Mrs. Eddy more than once that a thing could not be done.”

Like Jesus, she could say, “I (this is) am the Way. All who come after me are thieves and robbers.” The brood of mental systems counterfeiting Christian Science are mainly plagiarisms of Science and Health mixed with a medley of superstition, hypnotism, spiritualism and speculation. Mrs. Eddy’s work was to show God as divine Mind, and conversely, uncover the error of mind in matter, or animal magnetism. What Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Berkeley and Emerson dimly say, Mrs. Eddy fully expounded. When Mary Baker Eddy was raised from her dying bed, she got a glimpse of the great fact that God is All, the infinite and eternal Mind, and there is none beside Him. Then she set out to learn and demonstrate the Principle and rule of it. Jesus showed that dying didn’t kill us, and Mrs. Eddy showed that “being born” doesn’t cause us to live. The Scientific Statement of Being is the most wonderful paragraph in any language, and will revolutionize human consciousness. The truth in that remarkable Statement is man, for man is the true understanding of God. In other words, man isn’t something that knows God. Knowing God is being man. And we find God only as we find our real selfhood. And Mary Baker Eddy showed us how to do it. She came that we might have Life and Truth and Love, and joy and purity and humility, and honesty and substance and peace, and have them more abundantly.

The Christ, the Spiritual Idea, comes to the moral, that which believes in matter and is held by it, and cuts it off from the physical. The moral, thus freed, unfolds to the spiritual and is saved. And we don’t die out, dream out, or toted out on someone’s else shoulders – but we must live out, think out, love out – there’s no discharge in that war!

Thank God for Mary Baker Eddy! She has set before me an open door, and no man can shut it, and going on therein, I find and walk in the path of Life, in whose presence is fulness of joy, at whose right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

With unspeakable humility and joy these pages are signed this, the 20th day of November, Year of Salvation the 1918th.

EDWARD EVERETT NORWOOD, C.S.B.

Normal Course Graduate of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College of Boston, Mass., whose President is Mary Baker Eddy.

Addenda

hristian Science being exact and demonstrable, its followers need to be careful, of course, not to give anything out as coming from its Leader that is not properly authenticated. The sayings and incidents which I quote and relate in the following pages were either told me by her, or by her good students, namely: Kimball, Armstrong, Easton, Weller, Baker, Frye, Mrs. Linscott, Hammond, Farlow, Buswell, Carol Norton, Ira Knapp, and others, whom I know to be honest and clear. In that sense, therefore, it may be safe to assume they are authentic. So, read in this light, they may be a help to future generations to come. We know our dear Leader’s words were always wise, and meant much, even in the little things. For instance, she closed a letter to a student by signing herself “Honestly yours.” The student began to look into her consciousness to find how much honesty she had, and found so much dishonesty, she felt she ought to go to the police to give herself up!

It is said that when Mary Baker was but eight or ten years old, her aged grandmother suffered from the delusion that a big black dog was under her bed, and she could not go to sleep until Mary came in and drove him out. So every night, “Mary, come in and drive the dog out” was the request from her. Mary would come in and go through the motions of driving out the dog. Finally, she resolved to pretend no longer in supporting a falsehood, and went and reasoned with her grandmother so earnestly and successfully, by showing her there was no dog under the bed, that she was healed of the claim!

(Mr. Kimball told me this): Once a new edition of the Church Manual with new by-laws was printed, but not published, as Mrs. Eddy directed it to be held until further notice. At last one Saturday it was put on sale, and that day he was at Pleasant View. He said he never saw such a thunderstorm and lightning in his life, and afterward it developed to be but local. He told me that Mrs. Eddy pointed out the window to the storm, and said, “This is mortal mind’s answer to my Manual.”

I have heard of several restorations from the dead made by Mrs. Eddy, but as they were not given at even second hand, I refrain from quoting, except that Calvin Frye told me that Mrs. Eddy had restored him (in answer to my question).

She said, “Often I sent out an angel (a new by-law) and it would come back bruised and bleeding, and I’d have to take it in and cherish it until the Field was ready for it.”

It is related that once, when some of the Scientists were at Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy started out on her drive. One of her horses became quite restive, dancing around. Mrs. Eddy called out sharply, “Mind your own business,” and he quieted at once.

She told a student that if he desired his neighbor’s children to succeed and prosper at school and elsewhere, his own would also.

A student from the West was calling on our Leader, and her talk was ultra-metaphysical – everything said was in the absolute. Mrs. Eddy listened for a time, saying nothing, then quietly turned to Mr. Frye and asked him about the prizefight soon to come off between Fitzsimmons and Corbett!

She said that when confronted by two or more courses to pursue, and a sense of doubt as to the wise course, as a general rule the thing least pleasant is the one to do.

The first time she met one, who afterward became her student, she said, “Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee.”

A student told her how she had “demonstrated” a pair of black horses, just like Mrs. Eddy’s, going into lengthy detail about it. Mrs. Eddy listened very quietly to it all, and then remarked, “Well, I’ve heard God used for about every imaginable thing, but this is the first time I have heard of Him being used as a horsejockey.”

To a visitor one very warm day, she handed a fan, saying, “Use this: I know you are warm.”

And another student, drinking a glass of lemonade, said, “This seems very good.” Mrs. Eddy said, “It is good; enjoy it.”

Talking to several students she said, “You will heal instantaneously when you believe what you say.” How well this corresponds to what Jesus said, explaining their failure to heal, “Because of your unbelief.”

To another student she wrote, “Just where mortal mind says ‘I can’t,’ you must know, ‘I can’ – for ‘I can’ is the son of ‘I am.’ ”

In a letter to a student she defined love (verb) “as giving all, asking nothing, nothing in return, unselfish, impartial; the opposite of human love.”

Talking to two students concerning closing her college in ’89, she sat musing. Then all at once she said, “They tried to catch me, but they couldn’t.” (This was just after talking about the three temptations in the wilderness).

She said, “If I had rebuked my students as Jesus did his, I’d have been crucified long ago.”

She once said in a class in Columbus Avenue, College, “Were it not for the minds around me, I could step out of this (second story) window, and not fall to the ground.”

In 1894, the first time I was at service in The Mother Church, Mrs. Laura Sargent was in charge of Mother’s Room. She told me of an incident the Sunday before. She said a lady and her daughter, a young woman, were there, and told Mrs. Sargent this: that Mrs. Glover lived with her for a while, and healed her baby of membranous croup instantly. She knew Mrs. Glover was the best woman in the world, and she also knew Dr. Asa Eddy was the best man in the world, and determined that they should meet. So one Sunday she invited Dr. Eddy home to dinner to meet Mrs. Glover, and they soon became firm friends, and afterward married.

Mrs. Eddy once said, “I am trying to be a Christian Scientist.”

An engineer came to her whose eye had been put out by a hot cinder. Mrs. Eddy gave him a treatment and an eye was manifested; but it was smaller than the other and deficient. She looked at it, and said, “Is it possible that my understanding of God is as little as that?” Again she treated him and the eye was perfect.

Mrs. Eddy raised a dying person, and turning thought away from all material props, took her pillow from under her head. A person in the room who witnessed the wonderful healing, said, “Well, that’s the hardest-hearted woman I ever saw. Took a poor dying woman’s pillow from under her head!”

She said that human reasoning is as material as pain.

She was once asked if she was demonstrating over death. She replied, “I am trying to understand what Life is.”

She once said, “We must know that the world is ready for Christian Science.”

She once defined Soul as “God’s eternal recognition of Himself as Allin-all.”

Col. Eldridge Smith, who was formerly publisher of the Journal, lived in Washington. He had about seventy letters from Mrs. Eddy, and it was my privilege and duty to read them. The following is an extract from one of them:

“A lady educated in a convent, a Catholic – just as secretly wicked? as that theory naturally makes one, was healed, mind and body, by a few minutes conversation with me in Chicago. She changed her whole life, and her letter to me since my return alludes to it.”

Mary Baker Eddy

At the inauguration of the Testimonial Meetings in 1895 (first held on Friday evenings), Mrs. Eddy sent the following letter to some of the larger churches:

My dear Students:

Make broader your bounds for blessing the people. Learn to forget what you should not remember – self, and live for the good you do. Conduct your meetings by repeating and demonstrating practical Christian Science. Tell what this Science does for yourself and will do for others. Speak from experience of its Founder, noting her self-sacrifice as the Way in Christian Science. Be meek – let your mottoes for these meetings be, “Who shall be least and servant,” and “Little children, love one another.”

Affectionately yours,

Mary Baker Eddy

About 1909 I wrote Mrs. Eddy and quoted this letter, saying I rarely attended an experience meeting without thinking of this letter. Immediately after I received a letter enquiring where I had obtained it. Afterwards, Mr. Frye told me (in January, 1911 while a dinner guest at my home) that it had got away without a copy having been kept, and they were grateful to get this one.

Mrs. Ellen Linscott told me this: She lived with Mrs. Eddy at the College on Columbus Avenue and one day a woman called to see (then) Mrs. Glover. On that day Mrs. Glover had directed she was not to be disturbed. The woman expressed her regret, saying she was in town only for the day, and wished to see and thank Mrs. Glover for healing her of cancer in the throat.

Afterwards when Mrs. Glover was told of it, she said (about this): “Oh, I am so sorry not to have seen her. Sometime ago she came and showed me her throat with an awful cancer eating into the jugular vein. The sight was so awful, I turned away and knew in the most positive way that God knew nothing of such a thing. That was all the treatment I gave her,” and she quoted the incident in Unity of Good. Mrs. Linscott said (in 1903) “not long ago I had a letter from Mrs. Eddy asking me to find out about this woman, and the incident that happened fifteen or more years ago.”

Mrs. Linscott also said, “From early girlhood I had an infirmity in the limbs that prevented me walking up stairs easily. One day at the College, I was going up to my room on the third floor, groaning and complaining, and as I reached the landing on the second floor said aloud, ‘I know I’ll never get up to the next floor.’ Just as I said it, the door opened, and Mrs. Glover came out and heard me. She gave a sweep of her hand, and commanded, ‘Run up those stairs! run up those stairs!’ I started running, and have been running up stairs ever since.”

Another student (Edward H. Hammond) also lived at the college for a time. He told Mrs. Norwood and myself this incident: “Mrs. Glover turned a patient over to me for treatment (I think he said it was cancer) and though I worked as best I could, the woman passed on. I was much troubled, and said to Mrs. Glover, ‘How do you explain it – two months work gone for nothing.’ Mrs. Glover laid her hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Gone for nothing! Why my dear man, you have saved that woman centuries of work!”

She said to a student at Concord, “God has just told me what age is. Age is God’s open door to eternal Truth.”

Mrs. Mims, of Atlanta, was deploring the lack of spiritual progress among Southerners, and Mrs. Eddy said, “Yes, my dear, but they have love.”

She said, “Some people are like wheelbarrows – they need to be pushed along.”

She was lecturing in the early days, and had a question box. One was, “How is it, that Mrs. Eddy, a professed follower of the lowly Nazarene, wears diamonds and velvet?” Mrs. Eddy smiled, and replied, “I will say to the friend, who asks this, that this diamond cross at my throat was given me by a gentleman whose wife was raised from a dying bed; and this dress, which he calls velvet, is velveteen, cost $1.75 a yard, and has been made over three times!”

A man brought his wife to Mrs. Eddy for treatment for dumbness. Mrs. Eddy looking at her, detected the devil of stubbornness. She said, severely, “It is well madam, that you have not been talking these years,” and the woman opened her mouth and began to defend herself!

To a widow, a student who had lost her husband, also a student, she said, “You have lost nothing; he has gained much.”

And to another one under the same condition whom she met in a meeting of “First Members of The Mother Church,” she said, “He is better off than you are, and in better company.”

A child was brought to her with a cataract on each eye, blind. Mrs. Eddy began to talk to her of God, Truth and Love, when the child, animated by error, stamped her foot and said, “I hate you. I hate you. I could sit up all night to hate you!” Mrs. Eddy replied, “My darling, I love you. I love you, why I could sit up all night to love you!” and at once the cataracts fell out and the child saw.

One of the staff at Pleasant View (still living) said Mrs. Eddy once took their books from them for over a week. Said she “was tired of hearing them going around mumbling a lot of things they neither believed nor understood.”

And to the same person she said: “Do you believe in God?” “Indeed I do, Mother,” was the answer. “You don’t, you believe in evil!”

She said, “My students as a rule, meet error when it comes, but do not always do their work and prevent it coming.”

She told a student but six months before going away: “I feel I am just really beginning to understand Science and Health.”





Statement of Miss Nemi Robertson

Mrs. Eddy expressed her deep disappointment because the healing all over the field was not quicker and better. She appeared very sad over this, hence my letter of comfort to her and her reply. She said to me, “Never be satisfied until you can heal in from one to three treatments. I rarely gave more than one.” She told me she had granted me more than the usual time she allowed to visitors. She told me much of her healing work. The cases were instantaneous. One a compound fracture of the leg. The surgeons were in waiting to amputate the limb. Another of the immediate restoration of a dying girl to perfect health. Another of her own healing of the claim of functional laws, etc., and she concluded with the statement that “Divine Love alone can heal and to know that God is All, covers the whole ground.” When she said this she seemed transfigured and glorified. It was wonderful.

In a former interview in her home on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, she spoke of several remarkable healings which she had demonstrated. One the healing of a child of four years of age who was dying of consumption. He was so emaciated his bones could be counted through the skin. Mrs. Eddy had to pass through a room where the father of the child was lying in bed helpless from the same dread disease; a daughter was sitting in this room who was deaf. Mrs. Eddy went to the little boy and the mother left them alone. In a few moments she returned and saw her child running toward her laughing and looking the picture of health and as Mrs. Eddy described him “with his cheeks sticking out like two rosy apples.” The mother put her hands up to her head and said, “My God, have I gone mad?” When she stepped into the other room she saw her husband sitting on the side of the bed a well man, and her daughter was holding her hands to her ears to shut out the sound. On this evening Mrs. Eddy said to me, “I will tell you something which may seem to you unloving. I could not live with the materiallyminded.” How clearly she made us see that human love hides divine love from view.

Letter to Miss Nemi Robertson dated August 13, 1904

“Your letter I do not understand, but I know your tenderness, and trust it will help you on. You mistake, dear one, in thinking I am sad! I am the very opposite – am filled with gladness and gratitude for the unsurpassed prosperity of Christian Science.

“It was only when naming the need of more and better healers in the field that my face expressed my disappointment. Do not think I am not the happiest of the happy, for I am, and I should be; but address yourself and fellow students to leave behind the fashions and foibles and pride and vanity of the world, and to demonstrate Christian Science. Teaching, and church-making and leading, will never demonstrate what is taught.”





Statement of Miss Abigail Dyer Thompson

Mrs. Eddy always referred to her writings as an absolute revelation of Truth. Once she said to me after we had spoken briefly of an erroneous thought that had been voiced to me by a worker in the movement, “No matter from what source of apparent prominence in our Cause an authoritative statement is made, do not accept it as of sterling value unless you can verify it in Science and Health or in some of my other writings.” Our Leader once said to my mother, “I have suffered more from the impressions cast out by students who have more zeal than wisdom than from all the outside forces of criticism combined.”

In class I heard Mrs. Eddy ask a student how he would meet a certain condition of disease, and he replied that he would try to realize some particular statement of Truth which he quoted. She said, as a shadow of disappointment passed over her face, “I hoped you would not need to realize your way into Truth, but would start there.”

The following treatment is my memory of the way our Leader described her work in Christian Science in this same class: “I saw the love of God encircling the universe and man, filling all space, and that divine Love so permeated my own consciousness that I loved with Christlike compassion everything I saw. This realization of divine Love called into expression ‘The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being,’ which healed and regenerated and saved all who turned to me for help.” The way our Leader said the word “love” made me feel that she must have loved even a blade of grass under her feet.

My mother used to speak of an experience that Mrs. Eddy once told her, of walking along the street and coming upon a cripple piling wood. As she passed him, she touched him on the shoulder and said, “God loves you,” and instantly the man was healed.





Statement by Helen W. Bingham

Became interested in Christian Science through being healed in the year 1886.

In 1887 it was my privilege to become acquainted with Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

Mrs. Eddy appointed an hour for me to call upon her at her residence on Columbus Avenue.

Mrs. Eddy’s manner was so gracious and cordial, so exquisitely refined, and so contrary to the impression given me of her severity, that it was a great and happy surprise. I was much impressed with her humility when speaking of herself as the Discoverer of this Truth. She said, “It is not because I have been specially chosen to reveal this Science, but it is as if there were those standing near a window, and because I was nearest the pane, the light fell upon me.”

A year later I applied to Mrs. Eddy for class instruction and I enclose her reply.

I have had occasion to know personally, of Mrs. Eddy’s tenderness, her loving sympathy for those in trouble.

In one instance, when Mrs. Eddy learned that the husband of one of her students had passed on, she wrote a beautiful letter to her, and which I can quote, though the original has been lost. It is as follows:

“My dear Student:

Can the dull pen tell the heart’s errand, can words depict feelings and convey the language of love? If so, then will this message comfort you – God is never so near, so dear to His loved child as when she needs Him most.

Your husband is not dead and your thought of him need not be necessarily sad. He lives and is wiser for this lesson, and Love is doing more for you both in this seeming affliction, than Love though boundless, could do in any other way.

Rest and rejoice.

Ever tenderly and lovingly yours,

Mary Baker Eddy”

Mrs. Eddy knowing that I had been the victim of malicious malpractice through a student of hers sent for me and questioned me closely as to the symptoms of the effect upon me physically and otherwise. In the first interview relating to this she began talking of malicious malpractice and the handling of it. She said, “One of my loyal students was under a physical claim, and was being treated by another loyal student and they refused to recognize through whom the error was coming, and were calling it good, but the patient passed on. They called it pneumonia.

“Now I will illustrate what I mean by handling malicious mental malpractice.

“When my father, Mark Baker, was a boy, his father went one day to see a neighbor to transact some business. He was delayed so long that the wife became alarmed, and called Mark, gave him a gun and told him to go and search for his father.

“The boy going in the direction that he knew his father had taken, finally saw his father in the distance. He seemed to be walking back and forth, going in one direction, then retracing his steps, all seeming unexplainable, until Mark came close enough to see that there was a serpent in the path obstructing his father’s progress. What did Mark do? He shot the serpent. Now my dear, this is what I mean by handling malicious animal magnetism and whenever this specific error is directed to you – know that it cannot come in.”

In my personal experience with Mrs. Eddy, I had many proofs of the greatness of her love, and its expression, in various ways, the unselfishness, the generosity that could stop in the midst of the pressure of her busy life, to do, or say something, that visibly expressed her understanding of the infinity of Love. For instance, when my little daughter was in Germany she visited Hoffman, the painter, heard him talk about his concept of his paintings of Jesus.

My daughter was so impressed that she got a copy of the one where Jesus was older, his hand raised in speaking the Truth. She wished it to be sent to Mrs. Eddy. My daughter passed away and I sent the picture with a letter explaining the gift. The letter was not given to her, and about two years later, I received a letter saying she had searched and learned through the firm who did the framing of the picture, in another city who had purchased the picture, and wrote me of her interest in the picture. The interest and taking the time to do this was a beautiful testimony to me of our Leader’s wonderful exquisite character.

She always expressed in words and deeds to me, what a loving mother would to her loved child.

Very truly yours,

HELEN W. BINGHAM

Santa Barbara, Cal.





Statement by Judge William G. Ewing

June 11, 1918

The first time I ever saw Mrs. Eddy or had any conversation with her was about six months after the lecturers were first appointed. I had gone to New York on business. I received a letter from her in New

Jersey where I was on some special political business. This letter was simply a request that I would come to her house immediately. She said she wanted to talk with me about the welfare of her church. She wanted me to be a guest of Dr. and Mrs. Baker, and would like to have me occupy her room. She asked that I be at her house at nine o’clock on the morning after my arrival.

I went to the Baker’s and spent the night there, and before retiring I compared my watch with Dr. Baker’s because I wanted to meet her at exactly nine o’clock the next morning. Dr. Baker and Mrs. Eddy compared the time in their homes every morning.

I started in due time for my nine o’clock engagement, tied my horse at the gate just a half minute before I knocked at the door, and while I was approaching the door I could see, through the little glass at the side of the door, Mrs. Eddy stepping off of the last step to the floor, but three or four feet from the door. Immediately she opened the door, and as I entered she put her two hands on my arms and said, “I want to tell you that you are the first man that ever entered that door during my administration at the time they were invited.”

I was advised that I had been invited to her house with reference to becoming a part of the Lecture Board.

She first invited me to sit down in the front parlor, and looking around said, “I think we would be more comfortable in the other room” – the back parlor – “and we can look down at my little lake there.” So we went in there and there were a few words about the business, but still there was a little interruption such as someone passing through the hall or something, and then she said, “I don’t want to be disturbed. Suppose we go into the library; nobody will disturb us there. I had that planned for a resort from interference in any way, so that I could be undisturbed there.”

I had as I believed a very severe cold and during our conversation, was constantly troubled with this little hacking struggle to get rid of what seemed to be a peanut shell which was lodged in my throat. I thought every time I made any effort I would get out of it. We sat on the sofa, and I turned in my conversation two or three times making assaults upon this peanut obstruction, and after the last one as I again faced her to resume the conversation, her whole expression had changed and I thought she was entirely out of humor with me, and she said very sharply, “Why do you do that?” I hesitated for an instant and then said, “I am in doubt as to my ability to answer your conundrum, so I give it up.” And then her face just smoothed out and came back to its natural expression and she said, “Well, that’s what you should have done long ago.”

Then she asked me if I would lecture, and I told her that I would be very glad to contribute whatever service I could render, but that I did not believe I had the ability that she was looking for, and turning to the wall, I saw a beautiful, small picture of Paul, the world’s ideal orator, and I said, “I do not think I am the person you are looking for. There’s a gentleman hanging on the wall. He is my ideal of the kind of man you want.” She said, “Dear Paul,” and stood up before the picture on the wall and pronounced a eulogium upon Paul that was the most touching and beautiful picture of words I ever heard, ending by saying, “O, dear Paul, you ‘have fought the good fight, you have kept the faith,’ henceforth your work shall follow you.” Then I replied to her, “If you think that I will be of any value to you on the Lecture Board, I will be very pleased to accept the service.”

Addenda

Judge Ewing speaks of one time when he was in Mrs. Eddy’s home; she called his attention to the picture hanging on her wall of Daniel in the lions’ den, and going towards the picture as they talked, she pointed to one lion saying, “This is the big, sleek, designing one in the group,” and pointing to another, she said, “This small lean lion is being influenced and needs the care of his mother.” Pointing back to the larger one, she said, “You can see that the other lions are being influenced by his apparent power. I know by the very twist of his tail that he is saying to himself, ‘If Daniel turns, I will crush him.’ But Daniel stands firm.” As she described the lion’s tail, she waved her hand in imitation of the action she was describing.

In speaking of Mrs. Eddy’s power of throwing herself into whatever she might be saying, Judge Ewing expressed it in these words, “She would have made a wonderful comedian had she chosen the stage as her profession.” He said she would enter so completely into her subject that for the time being she seemed to step out of her usual character.

When Judge Ewing sent his written lecture to our Leader to be passed upon, he wrote a note stating that he wished she would use the blue pencil liberally, as he was sending it not for exhibition, but for correction and information. But when the lecture was returned to him, the only blue pencil found on the pages was at the end, where our Leader had written simply the statement, “Entirely satisfactory.” After this lecture had been given some little time, a Christian Scientist was calling at Pleasant View and commented upon Judge Ewing’s lecture in a spirit of criticism, saying that when your thought was dwelling upon the holy subject of God, it was very disturbing to have a funny story told and everyone about you burst into peals of laughter. It was not in keeping with the dignity of Christian Science to have a lecture given in so light a vein. “Why,” she added, “he spoke for fully fifteen minutes on the subject of electricity.” Our Leader asked her, as she related the conversation afterwards to Judge Ewing, if she understood what had been said of electricity, and she said, “No.” Then our Leader asked her if she could refute any of the lecture, and she replied, “No.” Mrs. Eddy said, “Did you not understand any part of it?” and again she shook her head. Then our Leader told her very simply that she had passed upon that lecture and saw no occasion for making any changes, and added further, “I never went to church, to an opera, or to a lecture without expecting to laugh a good deal and cry a little.”

The year that our Leader attended the Fair in Concord as a guest of the mayor of that city, Judge and Mrs. Ewing were in Boston and received a message from Mrs. Eddy to come at once to Concord. When they reached there, she told them that she had been invited to share the honors of the day with the mayor at the Fair and would like to have them accompany her. Later in the same day when arrangements were being made for the party, Judge Ewing spoke of one serious objection that had arisen in his mind as to their driving in the party, stating that nowhere were people more careful to observe strict customs of etiquette than in New England, and had he known he was to attend a function of this kind, he would have dressed differently and certainly would have brought a silk hat. He endeavored to purchase one in the city of Concord, but had found only two which had been traded in to the stores in exchange for other wearing apparel, and he had explained to the storekeeper that if he bought a hat, he should insist upon its being a new one. “But, he added, “I think it would be entirely proper for me to wear no hat at all, for from the time we enter the fair grounds no man will enter your presence except with bared head.” But our Leader was not satisfied that he should go without a proper hat, and Mr. Tomlinson was appealed to. He gladly responded by sending his own silk hat out for Judge Ewing, but when it was placed on his head, it was several sizes too large in addition to being several years old in point of style. Later, as they were finishing the noon meal, Mrs. Eddy walked around the table to Judge Ewing as though an inspiration had come to her, and encircled the crown of his head with her hands saying, “I think we have a hat that will be a perfect fit for you.” Then she explained that Mr. Frye had insisted upon sending to Boston for a new hat for the occasion, and his old one would be entirely in keeping, so he could spare this new one for Judge Ewing if it proved all right. The new hat was a perfect fit and so accordingly was borrowed.

Then, our Leader had ordered two sunshades – one for herself and the other for Mrs. Ewing’s use. They were identical save that a red ribbon had been tied on one handle. This she handed to Mrs. Ewing, and when Mrs. Ewing remonstrated with her lest she should have the one which was the more decorated, our Leader replied, “No I have changed that ribbon since you came myself, to match that ornament you are wearing.” This is an illustration of her fastidious taste, and although she gave but little time or thought to clothing, still a discordant color, like a discord in music, always jarred upon her sensitive nature.

The following morning Judge and Mrs. Ewing were awakened very early by a knock on their door, and when Judge Ewing opened it, he found Mr. Frye who apologized for the early hour of his call, but explained that our Leader had told him the night before that she wanted him to go to the hotel the first thing the next morning and inquire from Mrs. Ewing where Judge Ewing’s gloves had been purchased and also to get if possible a sample of the exact shade. These gloves had been selected from several pairs of different shades of gray as matching more nearly the ladies’ gowns, and our Leader had immediately noted the harmony of color. Judge Ewing told Mr. Frye that he had bought those gloves in Paris, and gave him the name of the French maker, then presented him with the gloves saying that they were an exchange for the use of the hat the day before. Later he learned that Mrs. Eddy had succeeded in buying a whole box of the same make and shade of gloves for Mr. Frye’s use. This is a little touch in the life of a great nature to show how perfect and harmonious every thought was made in the details of our Leader’s everyday life.





Reminiscences of Sarah Clement Kimball

The hush and peace of puritanical New England was disturbed toward the middle of the nineteenth century by the advent of stirring political problems and strange new theories of life which conflicted with the accepted dogma of the past century or more. In Tilton, N.H., there were among the better educated and influential families of the day, two whose business and social life brought them in close touch. Mark Baker, father of Mary Baker Eddy, and Zenas Clement, a lawyer and staunch Episcopalian were the heads of these two households. Mr. Clement had married Katharine Allison Holmes of Tilton, a daughter of Sarah Hoar Holmes of the celebrated Hoar family who intermarried with the Adams family of the day. Mrs. Clement’s brother, Judge Nathaniel Holmes, was a judge of the Supreme Court of Missouri and at one time a professor in the Harvard Law School and concerned in the famous controversy on Shakespeare.

Folk of the well-bred, well-educated class of English ancestry, they greeted the political problems of the day with more than a passing interest and although not radically affected by the new theories of the times, they were courteously attentive and open-minded to a degree. Mr. Holmes was, for a time, Democratic Representative to the Sanbornton Legislature and later manager of the Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad. Among his friends was President Pierce with whom his acquaintance was life long and intimate and at whose funeral he was one of the pallbearers. Born in Concord, N.H., in…he moved to…marrying Katharine A. Holmes in….Their children were Sarah J. H. Clement and Nathaniel Holmes Clement. The daughter was born in Concord, N.H., May 8, 1840, and the son four years later in the Holmes homestead at Tilton. This house was sold about 1848 to Hamilton Tilton, husband of Abigail Baker and brother-in-law of Mary Baker Eddy. Cotton and flannel factories built by Nathaniel Holmes, father of Mrs. Clement, were afterwards sold to Alexander H. Tilton by Zenas Clement. Mr. Tilton turned them into a factory for woolen warp and cotton filling (the process applied by him).

Sarah J. H. Clement, who is the present Mrs. Kimball of Brooklyn, N.Y., was taken to Tilton when she was three years old and lived there for nine years. It was just a year later, in 1844, that Mrs. Glover (Mary Baker Eddy) returned to her father’s home in Tilton after the death of her husband, George W. Glover. During the ensuing nine or ten years little Sarah Clement was closely associated with Mrs. Glover’s daily life. In referring to those days, Mrs. Kimball says: “Mrs. Eddy had a decided influence on my life, I am sure. I was with her so much and she was so very literary.”

The news of Mrs. Kimball’s birth was written in a letter to her aunt E. Augusta Holmes (later Mrs. Samuel Swazey, wife of the former speaker of the House of Representatives) from another aunt, Abbey E. Holmes (Mrs. Edward Damon, mother of the present Mrs. Gil-Wiley, the wife of Dr. GilWiley of Manhattan). The letter, which was dated Concord, May 8, 1840, announced the birth of the baby girl, the good health of the mother, and the ministering attention of a Dr. Renton.

Mrs. Kimball speaks of Mrs. Eddy with the deepest admiration and affection: “I saw her daily in those years of my childhood. The Tilton house was directly across the street from our house and Mrs. Eddy was a frequent visitor, while I ran over to her house any time of the day, hanging about as children will, sometimes unobserved, but always observing. Mrs. Eddy was never too absorbed in what she was doing to be gracious and interested in my childish conversation. Tall, slender, and exceedingly graceful, she was altogether one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her hair was wonderful, soft, silky, of a reddish brown tint, and very curly, the sort that is dark in the shadow, but has a gold or reddish tint in the sunlight. Both she and Mrs. Tilton wore it looped up in ringlets, parted in the middle of the forehead, and drawn toward the back of the head where it formed a cascade of curls. Her complexion was of the sort that goes with the reddish blond hair. She had beautiful eyes, bluish gray I should say. As I remember, her features were rather small, her teeth even, white, and very lovely. As I have said, she was altogether one of the most charming and beautiful women I have ever known. My uncle, who died only a few years ago, said that as a boy he used to sit in church without thinking of the service, his thoughts being busy contemplating Mrs. Glover’s beauty. She was always neatly, but simply dressed. Mrs. Tilton was inclined to be the dressy member of the family. She was peculiar in her dress; she would wear white when no one else thought of doing so. I remember a white veil she wore to church which attracted much attention in those days.

“Mrs. Eddy had a happy disposition; she was always cheerful. I never saw her when she was the least depressed, and I have seen her at all times and on all occasions. She read a great deal and used to borrow books from our library. Her laugh was very sweet and I often used to hear her talking to my mother and laughing. She had a nice sense of humor. I remember once overhearing her discussing a prize story, ‘Pauline or Sybil of the Arno,’ which had been published in the …Ledger, Robert Bonner’s paper. The story was written by Martha Ann Clough and its scene was laid in sunny Italy. When mother asked Mrs. Eddy what she thought of it, she said that since everyone was dressed in velvet she should have thought they would have suffered from the heat. I remember I was quite annoyed as I had thought it was a beautiful story and did not like to have it criticized.”

Mrs. Kimball attended the little infant school which had such a brief career in those early days of Mrs. Eddy’s life, and her description of the tiny red building is interesting. She says:

“Yes, I attended the infant school in my very young days, from the time I was about four until I was seven years of age. I remember it was a small building and was at one time used as a shoemaker’s shop. It was painted red and situated on the land owned by Mr. Tilton. The walls were of plaster and there were little chairs and desks. It consisted of just one room with a brick chimney in the middle. Two pretty big shade trees stood out in front. I do not remember anything unpleasant about the life there, but then I knew Mrs. Eddy very well and was not at all afraid of her. I had no playmates and as I loved Mrs. Eddy, I spent much of my time with her. I do recollect, however, being afraid of her once. I was an ‘enfant terrible’ at times and one day Mrs. Eddy said she would have to whip me so to go out and choose a stick. I went out in fear and trembling and brought in a little twig, the smallest I could find. When I took it to her, she looked at it and then at me and then she smiled – and I don’t have to go way back to remember her smile because no one who has ever seen it would be likely to forget it, for she had the most beautiful smile. She told me to go and take my seat and that ended the incident.

“I do not remember much about what we did at the school except that we marched about singing, ‘I go to Mrs. Glover and tell her that I love her,’ an adaption from an old German song:

‘Lightly row, lightly row O’er the glassy wave we go;

Smoothly glide, smoothly glide O’er the flowing tide.’

I was quite a pet of Mrs. Eddy’s and sometimes when I went over she would read to me. I remember her reading Longfellow’s ‘Hyperion,’ a little German tale, especially.”

Mrs. Kimball’s mother was a Unitarian, Unitarianism being the popular religion of the day. At that time Mrs. Eddy was a Sunday school teacher in the Congregational Sunday school, her class being held in Mrs. Kimball’s father’s pew. Not being in accord with the teaching of Unitarianism, Mrs. Eddy was concerned for the spiritual welfare of the little Sarah Clement and Mrs. Kimball says that one day Mrs. Eddy asked her if she had ever read the New Testament.

“I think she was worried over our lack of religious interest for we were not an especially orthodox or religious family,” says Mrs. Kimball.

“When Mrs. Eddy put the question to me, I replied in the negative and she then asked me if I would read a chapter every day until I had finished the four Gospels. I replied that I would and she promised me a present as a reward. Like all children, eager for the present, I started in immediately, but I soon got tired of my bargain and stopped. Finally, one day, Mrs. Eddy asked me how far I had gotten. I replied, ‘Not very far,’ but that I had read a few chapters. Mrs. Eddy said that I had done very well and that she would give me the present anyway. It was a heart with a cover of cardboard paper, about three inches the longest way; it opened and you pulled out texts from the Bible and little verses on leaflets. I liked the verses better than the texts, and the painted flowers which encircled them best of all, but taking it all in all, the present was something of a disappointment.”

Mrs. Eddy was exceedingly fond of flowers, Mrs. Kimball says. The Tilton house stood up from the street and Mrs. Eddy cultivated a garden around it.

“Toward night,” said Mrs. Kimball, “I would see her working in the garden. She always wore gloves with the finger tips cut off. I used to run across the road and hang over the gate and discuss things. Mrs. Eddy seemed to like to have me near and was always willing to talk. It was the fashion at that time to make herbariums, and I remember Mrs. Eddy working over hers for several years. The flowers were pressed, tabulated, dated, and pasted in an album.”

Mrs. Kimball’s family moved to Portsmouth in 1852 where her father was Collector of the Port, and ten years later to Concord, her father being State Treasurer there for sixteen years. During those years Mrs. Kimball saw little of Mrs. Eddy, although she visited Tilton frequently and often heard her family speak of her. In her recollections of Mrs. Tilton, Mrs. Kimball says:

“She was also a handsome woman, but extremely determined and very fiery when angry. She, too, had curly hair, brown, with a reddish tint in the sunlight, pearly teeth, and the complexion that goes with that hair. She was a domineering nature and her influence was keenly felt. An incident or two may illustrate these traits. Politics ran high at the time, and the Tilton home was the center among the well-educated folk of the day who gathered there to discuss the political situation and other current topics. Mrs. Tilton was a leader in everything. It was she who managed Albert Baker’s marriage. At the time of the wedding a picture was sent from a Boston picture house to decorate Albert’s home. It happened to be a picture of Lincoln. Mrs. Tilton rolled it up in a rage and sent it back. She would have nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln. Another incident which illustrates her strong prejudices and likes and dislikes was her intense antagonism to Dr. Ladd who she declared neglected her mother during her last illness. (Dr. Ladd is related to the Pratts of New York and Brooklyn – Helen Ladd Pratt).

“Mrs. Tilton was always most unbending and as she and Mrs. Eddy did not agree on many things, they were not on good terms at the latter part of Mrs. Tilton’s life. Mrs. Tilton left $10,000 to Mrs. Eddy’s son when she died.”

In speaking of circumstances connected with the boy’s adoption, Mrs.

Kimball says:

“I have often heard my mother discussing the circumstances; in fact, we talked the matter over often in later years after Mrs. Eddy became famous. It was mother’s belief that knowing so well the sordid and degrading influence of the life of a country town of those days, Mrs. Eddy felt any sacrifice would be better than to let her boy grow up in such an environment. Mrs. Eddy’s brothers, despite the refining influences under which they were brought up, went the way of so many young men of those days whose horizons are limited, the monotony of their lives driving them to the wine cup for consolation. Realizing this influence and especially sensitive to its possibilities, Mrs. Eddy may have felt she should remove her boy from it at whatever cost to herself. I have also often wondered if when she became conscious of the great work she was to do, she may not have risen above the purely maternal in her desire to serve mankind and feeling the care of the boy might hinder, been more willing to part with him. Whatever her motive, mother always insisted that it must have been a good one, as Mrs. Eddy’s disposition was too kind and refined to permit of her doing anything from a base motive. People often ask me if she was an educated woman. She and her whole family were refined and very bright, intellectual people of their day. Mrs. Eddy herself was better educated at that time despite its limited opportunities than half the girls nowadays. Not many girls of today can translate the Iliad, and she did. It was this very superiority to the average woman of the times which led her to be so frightfully misunderstood and misjudged. Gossip was busy, and wild reports spread. A Professor Richard

S. Rust called on Mrs. Eddy frequently, but because he was a married man, the fact was the source of much comment. Mother said that no one who knew Mrs. Eddy would dream of commenting upon the incident, but the factory hands, a low lot themselves, made a great deal of it. Her own friends, however, paid no attention to it and she was in good standing in the church, teaching in the Congregational Sunday school at that time. Professor Rust, whose son, Richard Rust, is still living, was President of the New Hampshire Conference Seminary and Female College (now Tilton Academy). My father gave the land for this institution which was supported by the Methodist Conference. I suppose Professor Rust called at the Tilton home because Mrs. Eddy was intelligent and could discuss books with him; there was scarcely anyone in the village he could discuss them with. The many silly stories of the town arose from that circumstance entirely. The Professor used to call on my father frequently, too.”

To illustrate the provincialism of the little town, Mrs. Kimball told of some of the quaint old customs which existed there.

“The farmers,” she says, “used to bring their luncheon to church, coming to the morning service and remaining for the one in the afternoon. In between sessions they sat around on a bench which went in a semi-circle around the back of the church, eating their luncheons. Do you wonder that such unprogressive people took exception to a man dressing up and calling on a woman in the evening. There were, however, a class of well-educated folk who were conventional enough to observe the most formal customs. Most of these people were Mrs. Eddy’s friends.

“That queer old Congregational church remains very clearly in my thought. The Rev. Corbin Curtis was the minister and he used to cause me and the other children no end of amusement. He met with two accidents, injuring first one and then the other of his legs. After that when he would go up into the pulpit he would fling out first one leg and then the other in such a funny fashion that we children enjoyed watching him. He sat on a high chair through his lengthy sermons and when he had sent every one to hell, he would weep sadly out of the wrong corner of his eyes, a fact which never ceased to be a source of intense interest and curiosity to me.”





Reminiscences of Mary Baker Eddy and Personal Recollections in Connection with the Establishment of the Christian Science Movement by Miss Julia S. Bartlett

East Windsor, Connecticut, was my native town. My father, Otis P. Bartlett, and my mother, who was before her marriage Samantha Dorothy Allen, belonged to good old New England families. On my father’s side we are descendants of Robert Bartlett who came to this country from England, September 19, 1632. He was one of the settlers of Hartford, Connecticut, in 1639 and 1640, and his name is on a monument erected by the citizens in 1836, in the cemetery back of First Church, Main Street, Hartford, Connecticut. He was killed by the Indians in King Philip’s War, March 1676. The family name can be traced back eight centuries to Adam Bartlett 1060, and their genealogy can be seen in the pavements of an old stone church on the ancestral estate in Sussex, England. This large estate has been in possession of the Bartlett family for over eight hundred years. Our ancestors in America left no direct line of family history or records, and I consider material history of value only as it shows the leadings of the divine Mind and that real being is in God.

My father, who was a progressive, prosperous young man of his day, was highly respected by all who knew him, and of my mother he remarked to a friend that he had never heard his wife speak an unkind word. She was a sweet, lovable woman, and a woman of ability and strength of character. They were devoted to each other and to their children; both were united in making our home a very happy one. There are pleasant memories of my childhood days, of the dear parent’s wise and loving care, and the joy and happiness they brought into my life. It is a bright spot in my earth life for which I am grateful. Neither of my parents were church members until after my father went from us, when my mother became a member of the Congregational church where they had always been regular attendants with their children, and active supporters.

Suddenly the change came. After one week’s illness my dear father passed on at the age of forty-one years. My mother survived him but three years, when she, too, was taken from us to human sense, at only thirty-eight years of age. This all came as a great blow to their family and to the community in which they lived. They were greatly missed, but the teaching and example of those dear ones can never be lost. They had a strong influence on my early life, which has never left me. There was much gained during those few short, happy years that was the beginning of greater things to come; but there were deep waters to pass through before I would be ready to see the great light that was soon to appear to the world which would dispel the darkness of error – sorrow, sin, sickness, and death.

We were left six fatherless and motherless children. I, the eldest, was sixteen years of age, while the youngest was but a babe of three years, a delicate little girl who needed much a mother’s care and love, as did all. I would pass lightly over the few years of my young life that followed, and the change that came so suddenly from loving care to cold and heartless treatment. We were able to make remuneration for all that was done for us, but that seemingly made no difference. The sad, little faces told the story of the hardships that were endured, and while my heart ached for the little ones more than for myself, I was powerless to save them from it. All this experience was not lost on me, and I am very grateful that the time came when I could forgive and forget all the seeming hardships of the past and love sincerely those through whom they came while they returned it in full measure. Who will say that this experience was not just what was needed to learn this great lesson?

These first great trials were the means of turning my thought more to spiritual things, and although I was like a child groping in the dark, there was always a glimmer of light that brightened my path and sustained, comforted, and cheered me. I felt God was caring for me in ways I knew not and when the way seemed hard it was God’s will and all for my good. Oh, how little I knew what God is, and that it is not His will that any should suffer!

These experiences during my schooldays probably served to develop and strengthen my character and make me more thoughtful and earnest in every line of action. I believed that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well, and endeavored to work on that principle. As a child I attended public school, then had a little private teaching, and afterwards went to a nearby academy a short time; then I went to a boarding school for about three years, was ambitious, standing high in scholarship and deportment during that time. However, interest in my school work did not prevent my thinking of higher things. I loved to go sometimes with my dearest school friend to some beautiful spot where we would be by ourselves, and there we would talk of spiritual things and wonder what was truth and what was not, always looking forward to a future world happiness, not knowing it was a present possibility.

I found that to be converted according to my orthodox belief brought no lasting peace or happiness and that I was the same girl as before, with the same faults and failings still with me. I had not learned that I must work out my own salvation as the Scriptures command and that our great Master taught the way which must be understood instead of merely believed.

As time went on and I was beyond the schooldays, my thought continued to open to the truth sufficiently to drop some of my old theological views, and when my friends inquired as to my creed, I told them I did not think I had any. I felt there was a truth beyond what I knew or had been able to find, and more and more there was a longing and reaching out for it, trying to find it. Many times a day the thought would come, “What is Truth?” until it was the one great question in my mind which I was unable to solve. I then thought “I can only live the best life I know how and trust,” but that did not satisfy. I must see my way, have something to hold to and to rest upon. While this evolution was going on in my mind I was not made sad or gloomy thereby, but on the contrary, was cheerful and hopeful.

At this stage of experience I was taken very ill and at different times my life was despaired of by physicians, and friends sent for expecting it to be the last time. The case was one of great suffering to human sense and when I saw it lengthening into months and years, I resolved to do my best under the condition in which I was placed that those years of my life might be profitable and no unnecessary burden to others. Completely shut out from the world for five years, helpless on my bed, weakened by suffering, I could still be patient and cheerful and not a complaining invalid. I made it a point not to talk disease nor wear a long face, but to have a smile for everyone. The physicians remarked that they seldom saw a patient bear suffering with so great fortitude and that mine was the most cheerful sick room they entered. It was God’s dear love that was sustaining and fitting me for the truth that was soon to come, although I knew it not. Twice I was removed on my bed to different cities to be treated by other physicians. All were most interested and kind, and I appreciated their efforts, but material remedies could not heal me.

After seven years there was improvement, but no hopes were given of a final recovery and the remedies used were having no effect. Then I told my friends I was waiting to find something besides material remedies that would heal, when one day a letter came from a friend telling the first I had ever heard of Christian Science. This was in April, 1880, when the Science was little known. She also sent a little circular giving account of the first Christian Science Church which was organized with a membership of twenty-six and the charter of which was obtained in June, 1879, the preceding year. On reading the circular which said, “This church is designed to perpetuate the teachings of Jesus, to reinstate primitive Christianity, and to restore its lost element of healing,” I was much interested, and considering the letter which said this healing was done through Mind, I said I saw no reason why the sick should not be healed in this way.

I asked my friend to recommend a practitioner to take my case, and at the same time I sent for the book, Science and Health. She went to Mrs. Eddy for advice, and she put me under the care of her husband, Dr. Asa G. Eddy. I began to improve immediately and was getting my freedom. I felt like one let out of prison. The fetters of material beliefs and laws were giving way to the higher law of Spirit and the sufferings were correspondingly disappearing. I never could describe the sense of freedom that came with a glimpse of this glorious Truth. The world was another world to me. All things were seen from a different viewpoint and there was a halo of beauty over all.

I never had seen a Christian Scientist, but my one desire above all others was to see and know the one through whom all this great good had come to the world and to be taught the truth by her, that I might help others. This came about in due time. In about four months from the time I first heard of Christian Science I applied to Mrs. Eddy for class instruction and was accepted. She made an appointment with me at her home in Lynn, and when I went there, her husband, Dr. Eddy waited on me. He said Mrs. Eddy was engaged just then, but would see me soon. She came in almost immediately, however, with her hair (which she was arranging) partly down, and said she would not keep me waiting. I felt her love which always made her thoughtful for others, and was perfectly at ease in her presence. She was beautiful, but rather more slender at this time than at a later period. She made arrangements with me about entering her class, and as I knew she had much to attend to, I made my call short. I think what most impressed me at this first meeting was her spirituality and the place she occupied in the world, and yet she met me just where I was, so simply and sweetly, mindful even of the little things for my comfort. As I went from her presence, I was thinking of the days when I could go to that little home and listen to her wonderful teachings. This home in Lynn was very simple in all its arrangements, but immaculately neat. They kept no servant at that time but Dr. Eddy did much to help in every way for the Cause that would otherwise take her time, and attended to business outside. He was always the kind husband and friend and ready helper in all things pertaining to the Cause of Christian Science and our beloved Leader.

My first instructions from Mrs. Eddy began September 30, 1880. This class consisted of only three members. Her classes were all small in those days, but she spoke of how much she enjoyed teaching this little class. Her teachings were a wonderful unfolding of Truth to her students. I can seem to see her now as she sat before us with that heavenly spiritual expression which lighted her whole countenance as she expounded the truth contained in her book, Science and Health. In teaching one member of the class she told me she always saw a halo over his head, then she said, “Dear, I see white roses in your thought.” When the class was through, my friend, who first told me of Christian Science and who was also in the class, and I lingered a little and were sitting beside our dear teacher while she was talking to us of mortal mind’s hatred of Truth and the evil to be overcome. She mentioned an incident of a person coming to her door armed against her, but he was not able to perform his evil work. We were seeing a little what it meant for her to stand where she did – a representative of Truth before a world of error – the cost of it and the glory of it, but we said in a playful, childlike way that amused and comforted her, “They shall not touch you; we will help you.” My greatest joy today is that I may have been the means of lightening her burdens somewhat in the years that followed.

While in Lynn Mrs. Eddy took a walk with us one day to Red Rock, a beautiful spot by the sea where she sometimes loved to go by herself. We were glad to see her get away from her constant work for a short time, and her conversation when with us was always an inspiration and instructive. Any time when I was called to be with her for any purpose whatever, I considered it a very great privilege.

The first Christian Science Sunday service I ever attended was at this time and was held in the little parlor at 8 Broad Street, Lynn. There were about twenty people present. Mrs. Eddy preached the sermon which healed a young woman sitting near me of an old chronic trouble which physicians were unable to heal. Her husband, who was present with her, went to Mrs. Eddy the next day to thank her for what had been done for his wife. That was the greatest sermon I had ever heard, but few were there to hear it.

The following are the Tenets of that time and the first ever in print of the Church of Christ, Scientist:

Tenets and Covenant

To be signed by those uniting with the Church

1st – As adherents to Truth, we take the Scriptures for our guide to Life eternal.

2nd – We rest our hope and faith on God, the only Life, Truth and Love, depending for salvation not on the person of God, but on the understanding of the Principle or Spirit that is God, and the demonstration of this Spirit or Principle according to those commands of our Master, “Go ye into all the world, preach the Gospel, heal the sick, and these signs shall follow them that believe (understand). They shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover.

3rd – And we solemnly covenant to faithfully obey the Ten Commandments; to walk worthy of our high calling, to deal justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God; to abhor a lie, to love truth, to do good to man, to have but one God, and to strive habitually to reach that higher understanding of Christian Science contained in the Sermon on the Mount, whereby to cast out error and heal the sick. We give no credence to Spiritualism or Mediumship, and object to mesmerism and medicine, never in any case using any ourself.

I was much interested in conversation with other students to learn somewhat of their experience before Science and Health was published or there was anything in print on this Science. They said that whenever they were to see Mrs. Eddy they would take pencil and paper with them and at the first opportunity would write down what she said to them, and they pondered over those words and treasured them. They had wonderful cases of healing and their work was easily done until all at once they were not successful and it was said the Scientists had lost their power to heal. Then our great Leader discovered that evil minds were at work to hinder the progress of Truth in its healing power and that the students must be taught how to meet and overcome this evil. As this was done, their patients began to improve and their work went on as before.

After class Mrs. Eddy advised me to go to my home in Connecticut and have a little experience in healing, which I did. During this time I often went to Lynn to attend the meetings of the Association and to aid our dear teacher as I could in the work of the Cause, although I was only a beginner. The following is a copy of her letter to me at that time, which shows her tender love for her students and the deep experiences of those days of early pioneer work.

8 Broad Street, Lynn December 17th, 1880

My own dear Child:

You will pardon me I know for not writing sooner. I have Sunday services, two meetings sometimes in the week, and writing, have calls all the time and so do neglect what I love to do answer you at once. I am more than glad when I hear anything favorable from a student these times “that tries men’s souls.” I have not seen Mrs. C. yet nor heard from Mr. S. You dear can do much in every direction and when you are getting a bit disheartened come to Mother, I will try to help you. Please remember in a scientific way the members of your class. If you love me, feed my sheep, our dear Master said. Write often and unless your letter needs an immediate answer you need not be surprised if it does not get it. I am so busy now until after my book is published.

Love from my husband.

Ever your affectionate Mother,

M. B. G. E.

Early in 1881 she called me to Boston to establish my work there. I became acquainted with Mrs. Abbie K. Whiting who had been taught Christian Science by Mrs. Eddy a short time before, and we both thought it would be well to start our work together and went out to engage rooms suitable for that purpose, little knowing the opposition we were about to encounter. We had no difficulty in finding desirable rooms in a good locality and a readiness to receive us until it was learned we were Christian Scientists, then objections were made to taking us. Nothing was known of Christian Science and it was looked upon with suspicion. When refused in one house we would try another, and we spent days in this way hoping to find a place in Boston to do our work, but no one would receive us. Then we went to Charlestown and finally were attracted to a house where we were kindly received by one who granted us all the privileges needed to carry on our work, which included the use of the parlor on Friday evening of every week when we would invite people to come and hear the talks we would give in explanation of Christian Science, what it is, and what it would do for them. The good lady said she would help us in notifying her friends, which she did, and we ourselves were active in doing all we could to reach the people, but with all our efforts none came. I then said, “If they do not come to me, I shall go to them,” and dear Mrs. Whiting was ready to join me. We obtained a good number of the pamphlets on Christian Healing which was all there was published on Christian Science at that time aside from Science and Health, and with these we started out on our mission, selecting one of the best streets and going from house to house, she on one side and I on the other. This was a bold measure for a timid retiring person, costing many a struggle with self, but that was put one side on meeting the lady of the house who in every instance seemed much interested in what I had to tell of Christian Science and expressed a desire to meet with us and to learn more about it, and a pamphlet was left for each family to read in the meantime.

Although we were happy in knowing good had been done, not one came to us from this work. My friend then decided to go to her home for a little, while I was studying what step to take next. I said in the beginning, “There is a world before me needing the truth. If I fail to get work to do, it will be my own fault and if I do not succeed in my first attempt, I will keep on until I do.” I might be tested and proven, but I knew if I did my part and God was with me, there could be no failure.

My next attempt to call attention to Christian Science was to have a sign made and put up in the vestibule with this notice neatly painted in gilt letters:

Meetings held here for the purpose of explaining Christian Science on Friday evening of every week at 7:30 p.m.

All cordially invited

This attracted much attention and many who passed by stopped to read and apparently wondered what it meant, with the result that the following Friday evening we had an audience of eight curiosity seekers as they themselves confessed, but said they were interested in what was said and would come again and bring their friends with them.

There probably were no happier people in Boston than my friend and I at this first sign of interest. It required much courage and many sacrifices of self before we reaped the fruits of our labors, but the reward came and abundantly until the rooms would not hold the people who wanted to know something of Christian Science and to be healed.

In October, 1881, eight students who had allowed error to enter their thought, united in writing a disloyal letter of false accusations to their Leader and signed their names to the same. This cruel letter was read by one of their number at a meeting of the Christian Scientists Association in the presence of Mrs. Eddy who was the President of the Association. She made no reply, and when the meeting, which was held in her house, was closed, she went to her room and all the students went to their homes with the exception of two. These two remained with their beloved teacher to comfort her in her sorrow and anguish for the sins of those who were persecuting their Leader and forsaking the cause of Christian Science when so much needed.

I was in Salem at that time and could not attend the meeting, but the next morning on hearing what had transpired I took the first train for Lynn, desiring to be with my dear teacher and to be of some service in her hour of trial. Dr. Eddy admitted me to the house. I found Mrs. Eddy seated by the table and the two students who had spent the night with her sitting near. I quietly took a seat near them as did Dr. Eddy also, and listened to Mrs. Eddy who was talking with a power such as I had never heard before. They were wonderful words she was speaking while we young students were receiving of the great spiritual illumination which had come through her glorious triumph over evil.

Just before I had entered the room she was sitting with the others and the burden was still heavy upon her, when all at once she rose from her chair, stepped out in the room, her face radiant and with a far-away look as if she was beholding things the eye could not see. She began to talk and to prophesy of the blessings which would reward the faithful while the transgressor cannot escape the punishment which evil brings on itself. Her language was somewhat in the style of the Scriptures. When she began, the three with her, seeing how it was, caught up their pencils and paper and took down what she said. When she was through speaking, she put down her hand and said, “Why, I haven’t any body,” and as she came back to the thought of those about her, they were so moved by what they had seen and heard their eyes were filled with tears and one was kneeling by the couch sobbing.

It was at this point, as she sat down and began talking to them, that I arrived. When she was through, she said, “I want you three to stay with me three days.” She said she did not know what might be but felt there would be a great deal for us.

Those three days were wonderful. It was as if God was talking to her and she would come to us and tell us the wonderful revelations that came. We were on the Mount. We felt that we must take the shoes from off our feet, that we were standing on holy ground. What came to me at that time will never leave me.

November 9, 1881, Mrs. Eddy was ordained pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist, at 8 Broad Street, Lynn, in her little parlor, with about fifteen present. Mrs. Abbie K. Whiting extended the right hand of fellowship. A table stood in the center of the room and Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Whiting, and I were on one side while on the other side were the few students standing. Mrs. Eddy stood so meek, with her head bowed and a beautiful spiritual expression on her face, while this young student took her hand and talked to her like one inspired, as she was. It was all very impressive. Mrs. Eddy had preached five years, but was not ordained until the date given above.

It was in the same little house in Lynn that I united with the Church, December 25, 1881. Mrs. Eddy was soon to go to Washington for a time to lecture and teach and to do what she could to start the Science in that important city. For this reason she called a special meeting of the Church to be held in the evening, to admit me and one other as members, that we might take our place in the church work during her absence.

Mrs. Eddy’s household goods were nearly all packed and taken away to be stored while she was gone, as she knew she would not return to Lynn again, but would go to Boston. The floors were bare. There were a few chairs, a small writing desk, and a packing box in the room. There was a lamp on the packing box which stood on end, and Mrs. Eddy sat beside it. There were about ten church members to occupy the available seats. Mrs. Eddy read the seventeenth chapter of John, and her parting remarks to us on the event of her leaving the city and her admonitions in regard to the care of the Church and the Cause sank deeply in our hearts. We were saddened at the thought of parting with our beloved teacher, but were brave and courageous in taking up new responsibilities, resolving to be faithful in following her instructions, knowing that God would give us strength according to our needs.

The following letter is a correct copy of one written by Mrs. Eddy to me:

January 20, 1882

Julia S. Bartlett

My dear Student:

Your precious letter I have just finished reading and never was I more thankful than to hear that one of my students whom I know is exercised by love to God and man is at work after the long night of struggle. Like Jacob you have wrestled and prevailed and now I will rest in hope once more. This sheet is all I have unpacked. Like the stone for Jacob’s pillow was your entrance into our church and the dear associations with it. O! my darling girl, all I ask is that the ladder of light shall rest upon it and on this ladder you go up higher until the things that eye hath not seen appear and we meet in Spirit no more to part.

There should be a substitute for me to lead this people and now, dear student, I ask you will you take this place, not that you can unloose the sandals of my shoes, not that you can fill my place but only that I think you rather more fit for it than any one whom I leave. Now do not yield to temptation and say you cannot but “if you love me keep my commandments.”

The charge is simply this – see that the Christian work of this church is preserved and dear Mrs. Whiting will help you. She has qualities of inspiration that are glorious and this is needed. Now, dear, remember that Mrs. Choate is a sister in our church and doing much good for our cause in selling books and bearing testimony for Christ.

This I beg that you “love one another even as I have loved you,” that no root of bitterness springs up among you. That no pride comes up or vain inquiry “who shall be greatest” but remember: I have made myself the servant that I might lead others to Christ.

Farewell, may our Father bring us together again to co-operate in His cause.

Lovingly––

M. B. G. Eddy

During a part of the year 1881, because of much opposition to Truth, I was having a severe struggle, which explains the first few lines of this letter.

The following poem was written by Mrs. Eddy on the eve of her departure to Washington, and mailed to me. She requested me to read it to the members of the Church. At that time the few church members consisted mostly of women.

To the Church of Christ, Scientist

With Love’s battle flags unfurled,
With hope’s cause before the world,
We are going on,
Though the stormclouds thunder o’er us,
Though the path seems dark before us,
Though the foeman strive to kill us
We are going on;
For our Master led the way,
Fought the fight and won the day;
Follow, follow all who may,
Going on, going on.

Stand ye only back, who dare
Not the cross of Christ to bear;
We are going on;
Triumph’s star above us gleaming
Victory on our foreheads beaming,
For fresh duties hourly reaching,
We are going on,
To fulfil each hope and aim,
Conquer sickness, sin and blame,
And each erring heart reclaim,
Going on, going on.

From the darkness of the night;
Into morning’s golden light;
Sisters, labor on;
With the aid of God’s own Science,
With no heed of hate’s defiance,
Truth and right my sole reliance,
I shall labor on.

Your loving Teacher –– Mary Baker Glover Eddy

I was one of four appointed by Mrs. Eddy to conduct the Sunday services during her absence. These four were to alternately prepare a sermon and lead the meetings which were held in the private houses of two of the number chosen who had homes of their own, one in Boston, the other in Charlestown. The services, which were simple, were opened by singing a hymn accompanied by the piano; then followed the reading of the Scriptures, silent prayer and the Lord’s Prayer, and the sermon; and they closed with a hymn. The little congregation seemed touched by the simplicity and devotion manifested in these meetings and expressed an interest in the words spoken, and some were healed.

Our work went on very harmoniously as we tried to be faithful and follow as best we could the tender admonitions of our beloved Leader. Mrs. Eddy’s approval of the work done is shown in this extract from a letter I received from her dated March 14, 1882, shortly before she returned from Washington:

My very dear Student:

You don’t know how much joy your letters give me. I knew it was best for me to do as the husbandman, go away and then see if you all did not add many more talents to those you already had. Yes, dearest one, you and Mrs.

W. are deserving all praise….

Signed – Lovingly my dear child

Mother Mary

My practice at this time had increased to about thirty patients a day which, with church work and whatever came up to be attended to, made a busy life.

Early in the month of April, Mrs. Eddy came to Boston and received a warm welcome from all her students who were rejoiced to have their dear Leader and teacher with them again. She and her husband, Dr. Asa G. Eddy, stopped at the Parker House in Boston until a suitable place could be found for the Massachusetts Metaphysical College which was chartered in 1881.

One day as I was returning from a call on a patient I could not dismiss the thought that there was a need for me to see Mrs. Eddy. I told Mrs. Whiting, and she said, “If I felt that way, I would go to her by all means.” This I did, and when she opened the door to let me in, she said, “You are just the one I want to see,” and that she wanted Mrs. W. and myself to go with her to the College. This came as a great surprise and seemed almost too much for me. I felt my unworthiness and replied, “I do not know as I am equal to filling that place.” But my desire was to be of the greatest service possible to her and the Cause, so I said I would do the best I could. I felt it was a great privilege, but I also saw there were great responsibilities. However, I was reassured by her talk with me and when I returned home to Mrs. Whiting, we were both filled with joy to know we could be with our dear teacher and be of such service to her and the Cause of Christian Science. We then made arrangements to discontinue our work in Charlestown. It was in April, 1882, that we entered the College with Mrs. Eddy at 569 Columbus Avenue, Boston, and the next year moved to 571.

Mrs. Eddy’s time was filled with the great work which lay before her – in teaching, conducting Sunday services, Friday night meetings, writing, receiving callers, and many other duties connected with the Cause, and Dr. Eddy was constantly of assistance to her. Aside from him there were four students with her at the opening of the College – Mr. Hanover P. Smith, Mrs. Whiting, myself, and one other. It was arranged that I should have a large, pleasant room opposite hers where she could call upon me at any time for assistance, and I endeavored to be alert in finding ways and means to help in the progress of the work, and many were the needs that continually unfolded to us.

One day, when having a talk with her concerning the work, she mentioned something that should be done which was of great importance to the Cause, but she said she did not see how we could do any more. I thought a moment, then said, “I think I can do it.” I can now see her beautiful face as she looked at me so earnestly and said, “No, I think you are already doing all you can.” Her dear love would not let me undertake more, although I would have been so glad to.

There are so many pressing needs and so few to meet them that the moments were precious. There was work to be done at all hours, but it was a privilege and a great happiness to in any measure lighten the burdens of the one we loved and to be instrumental in laying the foundation of a great work in truth which was to be the saving of the nations. If I in proportion to my worthiness drank of her cup, I also rejoiced with her in her marvelous triumph over the claims of evil as they appeared, and her wisdom, spiritual discernment, and courage were an inspiration at all times. I could not come into her presence without feeling an uplift and the love and purity of her thought. I have seen students come from her room so softened and chastened and in tears saying they never saw such love. We saw her teachings exemplified in her life and in the love which heals and saves. Could a greater privilege come to mortals?

Mrs. Eddy soon taught a Primary class and invited Dr. Eddy and me to sit through this, the first Primary class taught in College. As we had before been taught by her, she said there were questions in our thought which had to be answered before she could proceed with the class. It was all a rich feast for us, for which we were most grateful.

June 3, 1882, Mrs. Eddy’s husband, Dr. Asa Gilbert Eddy, passed on. He as nearest her, was a target for error, but he met it manfully and courageously, and the last day seemed to be his best. I accompanied him that day on a little car ride which he enjoyed as a pleasant change, but that night he went quietly while sitting in his chair, the two students with him supposing him to be asleep.

This was a sad experience, not only for our beloved Leader, but for all her students who loved Dr. Eddy for his beautiful, strong character, his gentleness and unselfish love. He was always ready to patiently help another with his clear realization of Truth. His calm, gentle, strong thought comforted our dear Leader and was a great help to her in her work for the Cause.

In July, Mrs. Eddy went away for a short time, taking with her two students, one of whom was a young lady companion, Miss Alice Sibley. Mrs. Whiting and I remained at the College to attend to whatever must be done for the Cause while Mrs. Eddy was away. The following is a copy of a letter I received from her at this time:

My darling Student:

Barton, Vermont, July 19th

Your letter was very welcome and I thank you very much for the good care you take of your College. I can’t yet feel much interest in anything of earth. I shall try and eventually succeed in rising from the gloom of my irreparable loss but it must take time. Long after I shall smile and appear happy shall I have to struggle alone with my great grief that none shall know, if I can hide it. I think of you at the fort and always as little, or rather great heroes and pray that my coming shall be a joy and not a sorrow to you. I know you will hail it but O! I hope I shall be more useful to you all than a mourner is apt to be. I shall never forget dear, dear Gilbert his memory is dearer every day but not so sad I think as when I left home. It is beautiful here the hills, vales and lakes are lovely but this was his native state and he is not

here. The lady companion is very comforting with her merry manners and kind heart. I long to see you and dear Mrs. W. Will inclose a line to her. Has

H. gone? and do you hear from him and what? Are the meetings successful and won’t you help dear Mrs. Choate in every way that you can and do yourself no harm? Write soon and often and

I am ever thine ––

Lovingly, M. B. G. E.

In Mrs. Eddy’s parting with her nearest and dearest loved one on earth I saw her wonderful triumph in marking the way for others out of grief and loss of all things earthly, as in her complete reliance on God she rose with a strength and power that was marvelous. This we witnessed on her return home as she went on with the great work of the Cause. No matter what obstacles there were to be met, or the difficulties of the situation, and regardless of the cruel persecutions that beset her every step of the way, she was always equal to whatever came and we marveled at her great wisdom and understanding.

She made known to her students the needs of the hour and the snares and pitfalls that lay in our path in our warfare against error and how to avoid them. Happy was the student who obeyed her instructions, for in obedience to her teachings and commands was his salvation, and through disobedience many lost their way. They were not ready to recognize the error that was blinding them and to yield up their material views, love of self and worldly ambition and follow the leadings of the divine Mind, and became persecutors of the Truth and of their great teacher. This was her experience with many with whom she had labored long and patiently in the early days of Christian Science. Then there were others who had not been watchful and had wandered back into their old material thought and ways, until I was the oldest loyal student of Christian Science in the world, and when Mrs. Eddy saw this coming, she said to me, “And will you leave me also?” I replied, “I think if I have been able to stand against what I have so far, I will be able to, whatever comes in the future.” She said, “I think so too.” I have always found God sufficient for all things, and like Paul I would say: “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Dear Mrs. Whiting passed on, and Mr. Calvin A. Frye soon was added to the number in the College. He remained our Leader’s faithful helper as long as she was personally with us.

September 8, 1882, it was voted to hold Sunday services at the College where they were held until December, 1883, and then at Hawthorne Hall which seated about two hundred and fifty. As Treasurer of the Church I often found the subscriptions insufficient to meet the bills. This lack I supplied from time to time from my own purse, in order that the payments might be made promptly and that there be no debts. There were many uses for what we had and not a great abundance to draw from. The greater part of my time was given to work that brought no material remuneration. This I considered a privilege. I took a few patients and had good success in healing, and this supplied me with necessary funds, until all at once not one came to be healed. I understood the cause of this and worked assiduously to overcome the error in realizing God’s government and that He is the source of supply and in actively doing my part to start my practice again, yet with no apparent result. To be sure I had all I could do with work for the Cause, but my little practice which had met my daily expenses, was taken from me. To reduce expenses I then began to take my meals out and to reduce the supply as well, and for the first time I knew what it was to suffer from hunger day after day. I did not trouble dear Mrs. Eddy or any one with the extreme conditions, so far as I could hide them. It was my problem to solve. I finally thought relief must come soon if I was to remain in the College, and taking my Bible for my guidance, I opened to these words: “Thou shalt remain in this house.” It was no longer a question with me. I must and could work it out. Then one day patients began to come. The attempt to take me away and deprive Mrs. Eddy of the help she needed had failed and I had no more trouble that way, and she said I never would.

This experience which was new to me, and my dependence for relief wholly on God, was a most valuable lesson for which I have always been grateful. I remarked to Mrs. Eddy, “We are commanded to take up our cross daily, but I am not doing so, for I do not see any to take up.” Her answer was, “It is because it has ceased to be a cross.”

We had very happy, restful times together when Mrs. Eddy would sometimes come with us in the parlor after the day’s work and we listened to her sweet voice while she sang hymns or some sacred song with Mr. Frye accompanying her on the piano. We had no Christian Science hymns then, but one of her favorites was the song by Mary S. B. Dana, the first lines of which are:

Flee as a bird to your mountain,
     Thou who art weary of sin;
Go to the clear flowing fountain,
     Where you may wash and be clean;

We all enjoyed hearing her sing this lovely song, and when time would admit, she would sit with us and by ourselves we would have wonderful heart to heart talks. Her conversation gave us much to think of and left its impress on my thought which has been ever with me. Sometimes she would show us how it would be with us and others when farther advanced in our understanding of Truth. The thoughts she expressed were so beautiful, pure and good.

One time when two or three of us were with her she began to talk to us in an unusual way, and I listened to her every word lest I should lose any. It was a wonderful, beautiful glimpse of the real that she was unfolding to us until one of the students present questioned her; then she stopped and said, “O, you can’t understand me.” I said, “Do, please, go on. We will try.” She replied, “But you can’t.” That experience made me see there are wonderful revelations in store for us all when we are ready for them. In later years, when I talked with Mrs. Eddy, she said no one knew how much was revealed to her every day, but there was no one to whom she could talk it; they could not understand, not even her most advanced students, and it would not work well with them. I replied that I supposed we could understand only so far as we have demonstrated. She said, “Yes, so far and no farther.” She could say like our dear Master: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” She was so far above the world she was utterly alone in it, and sometimes felt that loneliness and would express the desire for the time to come when she could voice the Truth she saw.

Mrs. Eddy would sometimes be amused at our little pleasantries, and we enjoyed seeing her sweet, happy smile at what was said. I can see her now as she looked at this time, – her face radiant with that spiritual beauty that never could be put on canvas. Her light brown hair which was naturally curly, was arranged becomingly. Her eyes had a wonderful spiritual expression, and she had the fair, delicate complexion of youth with often a pink color in her cheeks, but I have seen all this change to the appearance of an aged woman bearing the burden of the sins of the world which, however, would suddenly disappear as her thought was lifted above it.

From time to time Mrs. Eddy told me many incidents of her childhood. Her mother, to whom she was devoted, was a lovely, spiritually-minded woman who had wonderful glimpses of Truth, but fearing that anything so far from her religious teaching and the doctrines of the church might be an error, she prayed to be forgiven. Mrs. Eddy was the youngest in the family, and before her birth her mother was in constant prayer for this child, who from the first was a remarkable, spiritual child.

Mrs. Eddy’s cousin, Mrs. Fannie McNeil Potter of Washington, visited Mrs. Eddy at the College, and while there I asked her if she knew and saw Mrs. Eddy when a child and if it could be seen then that she was more spiritual than other children. She replied, “O, yes, the precious one, she always was.”

It was Mrs. Eddy’s custom to pray seven times a day. Her little playmates sometimes tried to tease her and did the most aggravating things, saying, “We will see if we cannot get her to say or do something she ought not.” But instead of this she would go away and pray over it. She learned that if she could go to any little playmates who were suffering, they would get well, and she would beg her mother to allow her to do so. She was fond of her books, and her father thought that as she was a rather delicate child, she was giving too close attention to her studies and must be induced to do less. This, however, was not an easy matter, so he had the books hidden from her, but she would always find them without any difficulty. Finally they were put between the mattresses of a bed to see if this unusual place would make any difference, but she went directly to them just the same. Children playing their games discovered they could hide nothing from her and when playing “hide the thimble,” they conceived the idea of hiding it in the ashes of the stove, but she went at once and took it out. When her father, who was a good man and a deacon in the orthodox church and for whom she had great respect, saw these things and heard her express her views in a way he could not understand, he would rebuke her and tell her it was the work of the devil and that she must pray to God to forgive her. But her more spiritual mother saw a little more what they had for a child, and was her greatest comfort.

At this time, when a child, Mrs. Eddy enjoyed writing her little poems under her favorite apple tree near the house and running with them to her mother who would take her in her lap and talk with her. One time when passing her old homestead she pointed this apple tree out to me and told me this little story of her childhood.

At another time she related this experience to me: When about eight years old she frequently heard a voice calling Mary three times, and supposing it was her mother ran to her and asked her what she wanted, but always to be told she had not called her, until one time when her little cousin was with her, she too heard the voice and asked her why she did not go to her mother who had called her. Then she went to her and told her she did call because her cousin heard her. Her mother, who had been much perplexed before, read to her that night the story of little Samuel and told her she must reply as he did, “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.” She was afraid and did not answer when it came again, and wept and prayed God to forgive her. The next time was after her mother had put her in her little bed for the night. The voice called, “Mary,” and she replied, “Speak Lord; for thy servant heareth,” and it was as if she was gently lifted up. It never came again to the material senses.

Work seemed to be accumulating constantly, and it was marvelous what our Leader accomplished. It was in April of this year (1883) when she started The Christian Science Journal, acting as its Editor and Publisher. She saw the great need of such a publication, but it seemed almost incredible that it could be added to the work already being done. Nevertheless she did not falter or delay. She must consider and meet the great problems of the hour as they appeared, fill her place at the Sunday services and Friday night meetings, meet with her students as President of the College Association, receive numerous inquirers for the Science, write a great number of letters all of which had to be written by hand, and with the many perplexities of the students to be settled with the needed advice and rebuke to the wayward ones and many more things to be done, it would seem that half had not been told. She never appeared in haste, but I marveled at the pile of letters she would write or the amount of work she would do in a little time.

Sometimes Mrs. Eddy would dictate letters to me, and one day just at night she came to my room and asked me to write a letter for her. I felt that it was almost impossible for me to do more, but sat down to the table while she dictated the letter. I wrote a few lines, then my pen would go no farther. She sternly rebuked the error thus enabling me to continue my work until it was done. Then on leaving the room she said, “I did not like to speak to you in that way, but I had to.” I was thankful for the love expressed by her and for the help given which continued with me.

I never saw a grander demonstration of Truth than I witnessed as a young student when I saw our Leader stand before one who had for a long time seemed to be held by a very stubborn error. When it did not yield, she gradually rose to a greater and greater power until she seemed a tower of strength, not sparing the error the sharp, cutting rebuke necessary for its destruction, until this woman whom Satan had bound was free, and she has since been a faithful worker in the Cause of Christian Science.

In my own experience the following, which are copies of Mrs. Eddy’s letters to me, show her dear love in correcting and showing her followers the way:

Miss Bartlett

My very dear Student:

My last letter written to you was a message from a higher love than the human and was designed to do you more good than all praise can bestow. God grant me my desire.

With great love,

M. B. G. Eddy

Extract from a letter of later date:

My precious Student:

Because I love you with unfailing affection I speak as I do and cannot apologize nor take back what I say lest it will harm you.

So trust my love and God’s holy, faithful means of blessing us ––

Lovingly,

M. B. G. Eddy

For a time Mrs. Eddy had the students who were in the College meet with her in the parlor each day for Bible study. She would select a chapter and have us explain each verse in turn giving our best thought of it. Then she would explain farther than we were able to see of ourselves. We looked forward with interest to this instructive, helpful study with her, which was specially needed at that time. It better fitted us to do our part in giving the true meaning of the Scriptures to others when called upon by her when for a short time the Sunday services were changed and Bible lessons were given instead of the regular sermon. In listening to her wonderful, spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures the audience was privileged beyond what it knew.

The following notice was prepared and circulated by me, with Mrs. Eddy’s approval:

MRS. MARY B. G. EDDY

PASTOR OF CHURCH OF CHRIST,

(Scientist)

Gives Bible lessons at Hawthorne Rooms, 2 Park Street, Boston, every Sunday at 3 p.m. to which you are cordially invited.

Her explanation of the spiritual meaning of the Word elucidates the principle of Christian healing.

SEATS FREE

About March 1, 1884, a young woman whom physicians were not able to heal was sent to me for treatment in Christian Science by a physician in New Hampshire who was attending her case. In nine days she returned to him a perfectly well woman and remained in his house two weeks. When this physician and those who knew the woman saw what Christian Science had done for her, a great interest was aroused among them. They had no understanding of the Science, but many chronic invalids and others who needed help were desirous for the treatment and wished me to go to that place and take their cases. When they wrote to that effect, I sent them word that I could not go, that I had all that I could do at the College. But they would not take “No” for an answer and continued to urge me to go, until finally I asked Mrs. Eddy what had better be done. She replied, “Write them you will go for one week,” which I did and also that I would give them a talk on the Science the first and second evenings after my arrival if they would engage a hall for that purpose and be willing to do something for themselves in subscribing for The Christian Science Journal for one year. My object in doing this was first for the aid the Journal would be to them after I left them as they were starting in a new and untried way. Then, the Journal itself was in its first year of growth and needed our best efforts to support it and extend its circulation. Its worth was gradually seen, but the way must be made for it.

I found these people very ready to do what was asked of them, and the hall was well filled the two evenings I spoke to them. A large number of subscriptions were given for the new Christian Science periodical, each one subscribing. When through, people crowded about making appointments for the next day until every minute of the day was spoken for. When the time came, they were there promptly, beginning early in the morning and continuing through the day until late at night, with a room filled with people waiting perhaps two or three hours before they could be seen.

I was staying at the home of one who had been my patient and was healed and whose case it was that led the physician above mentioned to think favorably of this method of treatment. She made herself very useful in receiving those who came, and her time was fully taken in this way. I was seeing and treating seventy patients a day, my work taking me far into the night, and although I could give each one but a few minutes of my time, most of them were healed quickly. I had much sympathy for the large number who came from the surrounding towns begging that I take their cases, whom I had not the time to even see. I then sent a telegram to Boston for help, but could find no one to come. I took little time to eat or sleep. My one desire was to do the best and all I could for those dear people during my short stay with them, and God wonderfully blessed my efforts.

Christian Science was the one topic of conversation in town and on the outbound trains, and much antagonism was expressed by certain clergymen and M.D.’s when their people and patients rejoiced in the proof of the great healing power of Truth and trusted in it for their help. On one occasion a gentleman whose wife and daughter were being benefited by the treatment, was met by his minister who bitterly denounced Christian Science and among other things said it was the work of the devil. The gentleman replied, “If it is the work of the devil, then I only wish there were more devils and less ministers.” The minister much amused by his quick wit took it good naturedly.

Many who became interested in Christian Science at that time later were teachers and healers themselves, going out into different cities and filling responsible positions, and one was made one of the first Directors of The Mother Church by our Leader.

I remained in New Hampshire eleven days, then returned home to the College. The young lady had gone to her home in Vermont where her many friends who had known her condition and that she was healed in Christian

Science went to see for themselves, for as some of them said, it seemed a miracle had been performed. They were amazed at her appearance of perfect health and strength. The result was an urgent call to go there, and I went for a short time. I wrote them I would give an informal parlor talk in the evening. Arriving at the time appointed, I was met by the young woman who said there were so many who wanted to hear about Christian Science that I was to speak in a church. She little knew what that meant to me. I felt wholly unprepared to address such a body of people from the platform, having given no special thought as to what I should say as I expected to meet only a comparatively small number in a private house. When we reached the church and I saw a well-filled house, my courage almost failed me. Then I thought, “This is God’s work and He will take care of it,” and took my place fearlessly, addressing the audience with no difficulty, and many believed and several were healed. One, an extreme case of double curvature of the spine, heart disease and other troubles, whom the doctors had given but a short time to live, was instantaneously healed and soon had class instruction and has since been a successful worker in Christian Science. Another, a case of accident from which the man had long been a sufferer, declared he had come expecting to oppose all that was said, but he not only believed, but was healed. Others expressed their thanks for what the Truth had done for them. A good number of patients came for treatment in this place, and many subscriptions were given for the Christian Science Journal.

Although this was in the early days of Christian Science and I had had but a short experience, it has never ceased to be a help to me as another proof that God is ever-present with us and that however difficult the situation His great love is right here sufficient to fill the need if we put our whole trust in Him, and a greater work is done than mortals are capable of doing.

August 8, 1884, I again had the great privilege of being taught by Mrs. Eddy, this time in her first Normal class, and September 2, 1884, I opened the first class in Christian Science taught by a Normal teacher. This I was at first reluctant to do, having before me only the wonderful, spiritual teachings of our great Leader. I felt how far short I must come, and hesitated to take the step. As she said, she had hard work to get me to teach, until I went to my Bible for my final answer which was given in such plain terms I could no longer doubt and immediately I began my work in that line and have continued it to the present day. I have never had any cause to regret this work, but rather to rejoice because of the good done by the noble, faithful students who if they have brought added cares and responsibilities to their teacher, have been the source of her greatest comfort and encouragement.

It was customary for a few of Mrs. Eddy’s students in those days to remember her at Christmas time with a few gifts that would be useful or enjoyable to her. I had a picture of Jesus which was said to be copied from the portrait carved on an emerald by order of Tiberius Caesar. The face was such as I had never seen in ideal pictures of him, so I decided to have one painted from it for Mrs. Eddy for Christmas, 1884, but when the time came, it was not finished and was not to be mentioned. The other gifts were arranged in her reception room and she was asked in to see them. As she looked she seemed surprised and turned immediately to me and said, “I thought it was a picture.” I replied, “I do not see why you should think it was a picture.” “Well,” she said, “I did.” Then I told her there was one, but it was not done, and she said, “I thought so.” She said every time she had seen me for some time, there was a most beautiful picture in my thought and it was a picture of Jesus and there seemed to be a history connected with it, and that it was so beautiful it almost filled her with awe. What she said interested me very much, but there is more to be said about it later.

In the year 1885 the Rev. A. J. Gordon and Joseph Cook made a peculiarly bitter attack on Christian Science before a large audience in Tremont Temple, warning the public against it, and Mrs. Eddy requested an opportunity to reply at their next Monday meeting. She was reluctantly granted ten minutes in which to meet all their false accusations with explanations of the truth of Christian Science. It was a hard ordeal for her, to encounter this hatred and antagonism to Truth, and when the time came I rode in the carriage with her to the Temple. When we reached there, we were met by Joseph Cook who was very abusive and insulting in his remarks to her, but she made no reply and took her place on the platform. The large house was filled when she rose to speak, and the time was short, but her work was completed and she stopped at the end of the ten minutes allotted her, although she had not consulted her watch. As we were leaving, I heard some say, “She is a wonderful woman.” We rode quietly home. I saw she must be left to herself and her help came from a higher than a human source, and when we reached home she went to her room where she remained alone. I thought if I could only have shared some of the burdens how gladly I would have done it, and if the world only understood, these trials would not have been put upon her. No one but herself could know the burdens of that hour.

At another time she expressed it in these words: “Never, never will a mortal again drink my cup.”

I now felt the time had come to give her the painting of Jesus above referred to, but we had a church meeting that evening to which I must go, so I asked one of the students in the College not to disturb her by going to her door, but when Mrs. Eddy returned to her room from supper to please take the picture to her and tell her it was from me. Mrs. Eddy was so affected by it that she wished to see me at once and sent this student for me. When I met dear, dear Mrs. Eddy, she was deeply moved, and expressed her love and gratitude and joy. I could not say all that this picture brought to her thought of the real Christ Jesus as one who had suffered and triumphed over all claims of evil, but she at once rose above it, and I rejoiced with her in that great love which she reflected and which is sufficient for all things.

Mrs. Eddy sometimes talked with me of the time when she was engaged in healing, and I was much interested in cases she related, the following among the number:

She was called to the bedside of a little boy four years of age, who was at the point of death. As he laid with his eyes closed, she stood at the foot of the bed, when suddenly the child rose up and said, “I am sick.” She said she must confess she was startled somewhat, but said to him, “You are not sick,” and took him up and stood him on the floor and sat beside him. The child declared vehemently that he was sick and foamed at the mouth, while she met the error with the Truth until the stubborn will yielded and he laid his little head in her lap as gentle as a lamb, and she took him in her arms and he was healed.

Another case was that of Mrs. Eddy’s little niece. Her mother had a great hatred of Christian Science and would not have it until all other means failed and her child lay dying. Then she called for Mrs. Eddy who immediately went to her in her trouble. She asked her sister to leave the child alone with her, and after a little time when the mother returned she found the child having a frolic with Mrs. Eddy who was very fond of her. Then the mother whose dying child had been instantaneously restored to health and strength, said it was the work of the devil.

Mrs. Eddy would sometimes be called to find the little one in its mother’s arms had already passed on, but only to be brought back and healed.

Although she could not long give time to the special work of healing, yet through her works there has been continual healing. I saw a man who came to Hawthorne Hall to hear Mrs. Eddy speak, come up the steps on his crutches with great difficulty, a person on each side assisting him, but when the services were over he went out by himself carrying his crutches under his arm. This is only one of many cases of healing at her services.

One day when I was taking dinner with Mrs. Eddy the doorbell rang and on learning that a lady had called to see her, she said she would not keep her waiting, so left the table and went to her. This lady proved to be a physician who had been to see her some time before and had now come to tell her that she had had a chronic trouble of long standing that drugs failed to heal, but that she had been entirely free from it from the day she first met Mrs. Eddy. She wished to give her something in return, so had brought a diamond ring which had been an heirloom in her family and which she prized most of anything she had. She had therefore chosen it as best showing her appreciation of what had been done for her.

December 5, 1887, I entered Mrs. Eddy’s second class in obstetrics. It was a large and interesting class that nearly filled the room, and as we sat waiting for our teacher there were some who felt they could hardly bear the touch of mortal thought about them, so rapt were they in the expectation of what was in store for them through their teacher. As she came into the room her face shone with a light that was heavenly and betokened the spiritual illumination that would come to these waiting students as she taught them the truth of being. She began as it would seem, by sounding the thought of each one, as one would touch the keys of a piano to get the true tone. She spoke a few words to each in turn until she had gone through the whole class. When she reached me, then I understood, she so perfectly expressed my attitude of thought. What she gave us in that class was wonderful as were all her teachings, and to be with her and personally taught by her was a greater privilege than words can express. But I have heard her say repeatedly, “They who know (understand) my book, know me.”

In the year 1889, when our teacher had decided to close the Massachusetts Metaphysical College at the height of its prosperity, there were those among her students who did not see the wisdom of this move, and three of the number consulted as to what should be done. One of these was considered a successful business man, another was a general of Civil War fame, and the third was our pastor. They said as far as spiritual things were concerned there was no question as to our teacher’s judgment and ability, but in matters of business it was not expected she would understand and to close the College when a large number were only waiting the opportunity to enter was to them a great mistake, and they decided it was their duty to go to Concord and advise her what to do. Accordingly on the day appointed the three men went to 62 North State Street, Concord, where Mrs. Eddy then resided, and asked to see her. They were told she was busy, but would see them soon. When she entered the room, she sat down and had a few minutes conversation with them which opened their eyes and their understanding. When she was through, she turned to one and asked what it was he wished to see her about. He hesitated, not knowing what to say, and replied, “Oh, nothing in particular.” She then turned to the next one and asked him what it was he wanted, and he said the same – that there was nothing, and so said the third, and as they related this occurrence to me they said they would have been glad if the floor had opened and let them down out of sight. Their own lack was uncovered and they were ashamed of the step they had taken. Surely, “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”

The following notice of a special meeting of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College Corporation of which I was a member, was sent me by the Clerk, Calvin A. Frye, and I was present at this meeting at which the corporation was dissolved.

62 N. State Street, Concord, N.H. October 22, 1889

Miss J. S. Bartlett

Dear Sister:

There will be a business meeting of the Mass. Metaphysical College Corporation, on Tuesday Oct. 29 at 11 a.m. at 62 N. State St., Concord,

N.H. As business of great importance will be transacted, you are urgently requested to be present.

Let this be strictly confidential.

C. A. FRYE, Clerk

Our teacher was much gratified to find the Board strongly with her in this move.

When our Leader went from Boston to Concord in 1889 she needed to go in order to have an opportunity to revise her book, Science and Health, without the constant interruptions arising from the work at headquarters. It was also time that students should be less dependent upon the watchfulness and care of their teacher and learn to rely more on God. She knew they must learn sooner or later to guard themselves, to watch and not be misled, and knowing better than we what her going would mean to us, she dictated the following few lines for me to write, while having a talk with her before leaving: “If there is anything pending for the Church or Association and you feel an inclination of duty to go away before it is accomplished, remember malicious animal magnetism suggests these things. Then stop and consider the consequences and take it up that your mind shall not be influenced or swayed from God’s line of action and that your teacher is not with you now to forewarn, but God is.”

I then decided, no matter what the needs might be outside, not to leave my post in Boston, and as time advanced I found there was a growing need that I adhere to this decision, as much was at stake for the Cause and much to contend against on all sides. In a letter written March 8, 1890, our Leader says, “I have a cup to drink that ye know not of. Spare me all you can till I go hence.”

The claims of evil seemed to be in full force in an effort to break up the Church in Boston and to destroy the cause of Christian Science. Dissensions arose. Many of the well-meaning younger students were blinded, not seeing their way, while the older ones, suspicious, counted them disloyal and shut them out from their company, thus only increasing the disturbance.

I understood what was doing this, for had not our teacher taught the need of watching against this subtle influence? She also taught that Christ’s way was the only way, that divine Love would destroy all evil, for to Love there is no evil. I tried to bring this into practice to the best of my knowledge, knowing that “I can of mine own self do nothing.” The dear ones saw and gained confidence and came to me in their perplexities, for was not I having the same persecutions in a much greater degree, and I pointed out to them the error as impersonal, to be met with Love, and God was with us helping us all the way until the error vanished in the sunshine of Truth and Love.

The following are letters from Mrs. Eddy to me during the time of this experience:

My precious Student:

Pleasant View, Concord, N.H.

June 21st

I asked Mr. Frye to say a word for me to you till I get time to do it. There is no truth in that report. You never was as near to me before as now you are. Hence, you begin to feel my solitariness, “alone in the Wilderness.” But not alone when God is with us, the dear Love caring for us every moment, the Love that never faileth.

With love unfailing,

My precious Student:

Mother

M. B. G. Eddy

Concord, N.H.

I have long wished I had time to write you and today I have it, thank God. When you said that those formerly estranged were now warm friends I just rejoiced. The foundation stone, even the stone rejected is Love. We can build on none other. May God bless and comfort and strengthen you all the way, dear one. I hope sometime to have you come and visit me.

With love,

Mother

Mary Baker Eddy

On visiting Mrs. Eddy in Concord after the experience related above she said to me, “There is one thing I know, and that is that you saved Boston after I left.” God’s dear love is ever with us, and obedience to our Leader’s teachings and reliance on God is sufficient to meet every condition.

The following are copies of notes written at the time of the church services mentioned and of Mrs. Eddy’s visit and attendance at services:

December 30, 1894 – Had a glorious service today. Judge Hanna read Mrs. Eddy’s letter on the change in the order of services in which she says she ordains the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures pastor of this Church and to continue to be as long as the Church is satisfied with its pastor. This change was received with joy by the greater part, especially by pastors and Sunday school teachers. Students felt that this first service in The Mother Church was as important to them as the dedication service would be next Sunday, January 6th.

We also had our communion today, and it is thought there were about five hundred admitted to membership.

Judge Hanna announced that this was the last Sunday he would officiate as Pastor. The church was crowded, many having to stand.

January 6, 1895 – The Mother Church was dedicated.

January 13, 1895 – On this day was the first Christian Science Sunday service held under the new order, viz.: reading the references from the Bible and Science and Health as given in the Christian Science Quarterly. This first lesson in The Mother Church happened to be my lesson as I was on the first Bible Lesson Committee appointed. The references which were read by Judge Hanna, explained each verse of the “Lesson Text,” Mark 6:30-44. Subject, “Feeding the Multitude.” Some of the people wanted the personal preaching, but the greater number thought it the best sermon they ever heard. The church was full and some were standing, many having remained in the city after the dedication to attend the first service under the new order in The Mother Church.

April 1, 1895 – Mrs. Eddy came from Concord to see the church for the first time. She came soon after noon. Only a few saw her and attended to her needs. She went first to the Mother’s room, then to the auditorium where she entered alone and remained about a half hour as we may suppose in communion with God. She said the church was even more beautiful than she expected.

May 26, 1895 – Mrs. Eddy first attended the church service in the new church. She arrived at the church Saturday about twilight and spent the night in the Mother’s room. No one was supposed to know she was in Boston excepting the few it was necessary should know, but Sunday it was soon whispered from one to another as they entered the church that Mrs. Eddy was there, and all were quietly happy waiting to see her and possibly to hear her. There was no excitement and all were asked to take their seats early in order to clear the vestibule, which they did. When about half through the lesson, the Readers stopped and the soft, sweet strains of the organ filled the room as our Leader walked up the aisle to the platform, leaning on the arm of a student. The large audience rose to their feet with one accord and remained standing until she was seated. She was then introduced as the author of Science and Health and the Pastor of The Mother Church, after which a solo was sung by Miss Elsie Lincoln. Our revered Leader then rose to speak while the audience listened with rapt attention, eager to catch every word which fell from the lips of the inspired speaker. We caught the spirit of her words and went out from The Mother Church conscious of the sweet presence of Truth and Love, to commune one with another on the wonderful discourse we had heard and to ponder it in our hearts.

Our Leader remained in the Mother’s room until time to take the five o’clock train to Concord. A special car was engaged for her, the quiet of which she appreciated and enjoyed.

June 5, 1895 – I attended the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College Association. One hundred and eighty were present at this meeting, from the different states and Canada. Our Leader and teacher opened the Bible at the 68th Psalm and sent word to have it read at this meeting. A long, instructive, and beautiful address was also received from her and read, after which an invitation was read, inviting all present, with the exception of one, to visit her at her home, “Pleasant View,” in Concord, New Hampshire, the next day. This invitation was joyfully accepted by all, and it was considered the happiest, most harmonious meeting we ever had. The address was read twice, after which we returned to our homes feeling we had had a feast of good things and anticipating the greater joy of the morrow in meeting face to face with our beloved Leader.

Early the next day, June 6th, we started for Concord. It was a very stormy morning, but the clouds soon began to break away and the day was fine. Our little journey on the special train of six cars was especially harmonious; everyone quietly enjoyed the ride, feeling the Mother-love which was bestowing so much on her children. When we reached “Pleasant View” our dear teacher was waiting to receive us, and taking each by the hand, she spoke a few endearing words which we remember because of the love expressed. Her words to me were simply, “Bless you dear Julia.” After she had seen all she made some general remarks that were most helpful and interesting, then went to her room for a while, but soon returned and we enjoyed a little singing by Miss Lincoln, after which she prepared to go out, leaving us to do as we liked about the house and grounds; and waving her hand and kissing us good-by, she went with the words, “Parting makes tender.” We returned to Boston on the five o’clock special with hearts filled with love and gratitude to the one who with all her world-wide cares and responsibilities still found time to bring us together with her in this loving, helpful, happy way.

January 5, 1896 – Mrs. Eddy came to The Mother Church, the third time since its dedication one year ago. The house was full and extra seats were brought in to the gallery to accommodate the people. Many were present who had never seen her, and words could not express their joy and gratitude for this great privilege of seeing the one whom they had so long hoped to see. It was Communion Sunday, and her words of love brought hope and comfort and lifted the heavy burdens from many a weary heart. Many were deeply moved and watched with earnest attention every word that fell from the lips of their Leader and Mother in Israel. She taught them the true communion and spoke to them as one having authority, and some who were present testified to having been healed.

It was dear Mrs. Eddy’s custom to invite me to visit her from time to time after I was with her in the College, and I have treasured the sweet memories of the hours spent with her when the cares of the day were laid aside as much as possible and we were free to talk of the things we loved to speak of. This was a rare privilege. She was so lovingly thoughtful for my comfort and happiness, and all her conversation was so dear, uplifting, and helpful, it was a joy to be with her. She was always mindful of the little things. No kind act or loving thought escaped her notice and appreciation; such things only helped to brighten her pathway. If it was nothing more than to take her a bouquet of roses, she would think it was so kind of me and would thank me perhaps two or three times, although she had an abundance of flowers on her own grounds. I always felt how little I was doing for her who was doing so much for me and for all mankind.

The last time she invited me to be with her in this way she had many interruptions and I saw how difficult it was for her to get any time from her work. She said she so hoped to be able to visit with me quietly that day. When at the dinner table, we enjoyed her conversation while the students expressed themselves freely. One in speaking of the good life of a certain man whom he knew, said, “That is oldfashioned Christianity.” She corrected him by saying, “That is Christianity.” Again, in speaking of chemicalization, the aggravation of evil in its destruction, I said, “I suppose that is inevitable.” Her face lighted up as she smiled and said, “Yes, from your standpoint, but no.” Then she expressed herself beyond what I have ever heard her on this subject which brought out so clearly the Allness of God and the nothingness of evil.

I told Mrs. Eddy how much I always enjoyed and appreciated my visits with her, but that I felt I should not take her time and thereby add to her burdens with all she had to attend to, and that if she did not invite me any more, I would understand, but I would be glad to go at any time I could be of any service to her. I said to her, “I love you, and I know you love me, and I do not have to see you personally to know this.” When I saw the beautiful expression that came over her face and heard what she said, I knew what it meant to her and was glad. I was never invited to visit her again in the old way, and only went when I could be of some help to her or to the Cause.

The last time I saw our dear Leader was a short time before she went from us to personal sense, and the memory of it is very dear and sacred to me. Never was she so tender and loving, and never did I so desire to be to her all that I should and wish that I might do more for her, but I said in talking with her, “You know that I love you, don’t you?” She said, “I well know that. Yes, I well know that.” I little thought that was the last time I should see her personally, but I have never felt that she, our dear Leader, was parted from us, for she had taught us it was not her personality to which we must look for the real, but to the spiritual idea from which there is no separation; and in this way I love to think of her and continue to strive to follow her teachings until the end of error and I shall be with her in Spirit.

Memorandum of an Interview with Miss Julia S. Bartlett, Jan. 6, 1918

The occasion for this visit with Miss Bartlett was that on December 31st she was knocked down and run over by an automobile on Commonwealth Avenue, a short distance from her home, and was carried home unconscious. She asked for me to call upon her and I had been going to see her each day since her request that I come.

Today the conditions were so nearly normal and the healing so nearly complete that our conversation soon dropped into the subject of her personal relations with Mrs. Eddy and especially in regard to the things that Mrs. Eddy told her of her family and her childhood experiences. None of Mrs. Eddy’s students have been closer to Mrs. Eddy than Miss Bartlett, whose loyalty has never been questioned during a period of almost thirty-eight years of continuous active service as a Christian Scientist.

Miss Bartlett’s name probably recalled to Mrs. Eddy her early experiences and her deep friendship for John H. Bartlett of Hill, New Hampshire.

Miss Bartlett said that Mrs. Eddy never tied of telling of her mother and of her childhood experiences during the first fourteen years of her life, when she lived at the old homestead in Bow. Mrs. Eddy often spoke of her mother as the most spiritual of women, that her mother’s concept of God and religion seemed to have been in many ways as scientific as the concept afterwards revealed to Mrs. Eddy, and that the mother devoted herself continuously to talking over religious matters with her daughter, Mary. Her mother’s thought seemed to vibrate between her inspired religious views and self-condemnation for her apparent unorthodoxy.

Mark Baker was much concerned over his wife’s non-conformity to some of the doctrines of the church and he was very vigorous in his condemnation of some of his wife’s views which differed from his own relentless theology.

Mrs. Eddy told Miss Bartlett that her mother prayed constantly from the time of her conception to the time of Mrs. Eddy’s birth and that her thought was constantly uplifted during this period; that the apparent different point of view the mother had in regard to this child from her others, was incomprehensible to the father and at that time and afterwards he frequently mentioned it. (It was at this period that the mother had her talks with her close friend and neighbor, Mrs. Sarah Gault, in which she condemned herself for her thoughts, as related by Mrs. Eddy to Mrs. Sargent and others).

From the time Mrs. Eddy was a small child she always wanted to go and visit children – any of her little friends who were ill or had had accidents. She said they always seemed to forget their pain and to get well when she could be with them. The same thing occurred when any of them were hurt at play; she was always able to help them. Her mother noticed this tendency and pondered these things deeply.

Her father thought that her health was impaired from too much reading and studying, and he would hide her books, but she was always able to find them. This ability which she has said was with her from her earliest years, was considered by her father to be a manifestation of the devil; he considered it uncanny.

At play Mrs. Eddy was always able to find the things which the children would hide. Some of the children did not like her because she was always able to win in the games in which things were hidden. In that day a very popular game was “Hide the Thimble,” and one time the children gave her what they considered to be a great test by hiding the thimble in the ashes of the kitchen stove. To their great astonishment Mrs. Eddy went directly to it and found it among the ashes.

At the age of seven Mrs. Eddy adopted the plan to pray seven times each day. It was during this seventh year that she heard the voices mentioned by her in Retrospection and Introspection. She was eight years old when she answered the voices in the words of Samuel, as described by her. When she answered she seemed to be lifted up from her bed, suspended in mid-air, and gently laid back. This she felt was the visible manifestation of her annunciation for her mission.

Her father never understood her, but the mother did understand and was her comfort.

At the marriage of Samuel D. Baker to Major Glover’s sister, the Major took Mary upon his knee and said to her that she was the wife he wanted and that he would wait for her. She was at that time a small child. She often spoke of her great love for him. She carried his watch from the day he passed away in Wilmington until her students gave her a watch after she had come to Boston to establish Christian Science. She then sent Major Glover’s watch as a present to her son, George W. Glover. She often spoke of the great kindness and consideration shown her by the citizens of Charleston and Wilmington, and loved to recall incidents connected with her stay in the South.

Mrs. Fanny McNeil Potter said to Miss Bartlett: “I have known this precious one since childhood and she has always been the most spirituallyminded person I have ever come in contact with.”





Christian Science Notes by Caroline D. Noyes

Attention called 1882 by a case healed. Got the book Science and Health. Called on Mr. Frye and Mrs. Eddy. Saw Mrs. Eddy.

Was well impressed. Attended a lecture in a large upper room of her house, Columbus Avenue, in the autumn of 1882. Read Science and Health in connection with the Bible. Saw the unmistakable connection between that and the Bible. Read and studied the two books closely through the winter. Applied the understanding gained to several cases with excellent success. Became very enthusiastic over it. The same year went to Gardiner, Maine, and healed several cases. The following year, April, 1883, attended another lecture at Mrs. Eddy’s home. Her subject at that time was, “Belief, Faith, and Understanding.” I was wonderfully well impressed with her. She was unusually beautiful in face and figure. Her grace, dignity, and freedom of expression were very remarkable. Her perfect ease and choice of language very striking. Her exquisite taste in dress and her immaculate neatness in appearance were also noticeable. Never a stray of the beautiful curly hair was to be seen. The fine expressive dark eyes, violet I should call them, beamed with kindness and intelligence. Altogether her personality was most attractive and engaging. For so fine and ladylike appearing an individual, one would hardly be looking for the strong and forceful way she displayed at times, both in her lessons and conversation. She had an affectionate and endearing manner. The thought would come, “She is the strongest personality I ever came in contact with.” Her strong ways also created a great trust and unfailing confidence in her ability which could not seemingly be excelled. She seemed certainly to be the right one to establish the great work she did in her discovery and founding of Christian Science. Both her manner and appearance left nothing to be desired and could not possibly invite any adverse criticism. When I first knew her she was not sixty years of age, but appeared and looked not over thirty-five – forty at the most.

Upon the occasion of one of my calls upon her a short time after, a member of her household came in and spoke of an unkind and harsh criticism of Christian Science. She then displayed the force of her character rising and repeating, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” That was only one of many persecutions and unfavorable criticisms she had constantly to endure. She never seemed to tire or become weary in well-doing and her presence was always inspiring and strengthening to anyone in her company.

I saw much of her personally, having attended three courses of instruction with her: Primary, Normal, Obstetrical; and visited her many times at her home. Saw much of her and never did or could have anything but the greatest respect and admiration for her pure and high minded character as expressed in her manner, talk, and demeanor in every way. I have never met a more refined and ladylike woman, more beautiful in every way.

As a teacher she was tactful, convincing and forceful. One noticeable and important feature I have omitted and that – her intellectual alertness – always being instantly ready to answer the most obtuse questions simply and make them plain to the dullest questioner.

After a short season of successful work in Gardiner, continued the work in Charlestown or East Somerville, where I then resided. The success then inspired me to drop all my other cares and devote my whole attention to the healing work. Hearing from my friends in Chicago, the Shermans, who were practising there, that their work had attracted a wide interest, I was impressed with the desire to enlarge my field of action by going out there. Accordingly July of 1883 found me there. After visiting a brother in Wisconsin, I returned to Chicago and decided to settle there, sent for Miss Ellen Brown (a student of Mrs. Eddy) and a good earnest worker. She came and we obtained an office together. With close and hard mental application to the Truth as given us in Science and Health success after many hard struggles and trying experiences was attained. Many whom we became acquainted with in those early days remained faithful to Christian Science, afterward going to Mrs. Eddy for instruction, notably Mrs. M. W. Adams and Mrs. J.

H. Bell. Our Leader said to me once, “I want to thank you for sending two such women to me as Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Bell.” We sent all the patients that we could to Boston for instruction and all of them were so well pleased with the privilege of attending her classes there was a keen disappointment expressed by a good many when she stopped teaching. They could hardly think it possible that they were thus shut off from her personal instruction.

Later she taught one class in Concord. She came to Chicago and taught a class and delivered a lecture at Hershey Hall, which was well attended. (Her visit to Chicago). After teaching this class, she advised the students forming an association, which was done. It was enjoyable and helpful. Then several of the older students were given a Normal course at the College in Boston and began teaching. She then recommended each to discontinue the general association and each one form one of their own class students. At this time also she strongly recommended that regular institutes for teaching be established. In pursuance of this counsel I secured a charter regularly signed by the State Secretary. In order to obtain this a regular process was followed out. The number of names I think was seven. A lawyer did this work, as being the first one procured in Illinois, it seemed to be necessary in order that it should be correctly done. Several others were afterward procured. The teachers then formed associations of their students and have continued them until the present time. They have proven useful, affording a proof of our Leader’s wisdom along these lines for they have given the teachers a greater sense of responsibility in the care of their students and interest, as it were, in their progress.

During all this time our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, had talked of and advised the formation of a church organization and the thought was slowly being prepared for it. It came with quite a shock to those who were to start it and assume the responsibility for it. We felt so entirely unaccustomed to this sort of work that opened up before us. I for one felt a great sense of unworthiness to take so important a step and yet as I so greatly dreaded it, it seemed to devolve upon me to take the first step. Mrs. George B. Day who had formerly been my student, but who with her husband had just passed through class with Mrs. Eddy, came to see me about starting the church; telling me that Mr. Day was a good preacher in the old way. As Mrs. Eddy was, and had been, advising us to establish a church it seemed a good time while we had a good man like Mr. Day (at that time a loyal Christian Scientist, an experienced church man and a good speaker), to avail ourselves of her advice and take steps to start the first Christian Science Church in Chicago. I saw him. He was willing and glad to. I then went to see Miss Ellen Brown, afterward Mrs. Linscott, to secure her co-operation. She engaged to enter into it and work for it and did as long as she remained in Chicago, although very reluctantly, feeling it a responsible step to take. I then saw the gentleman who had worked with us from the first, Roger Sherman, who also said that he would help and did so very substantially, but who did not become a member. We knew that others of Mrs. Eddy’s students and ours would work for the church, although some of the best ones were so slow and some of them on account of other members of the family could not see their way clear to attend services in the morning, which made it necessary for a while to hold them in the afternoon. Mrs. Eddy had found it necessary to hold the now Wednesday evening meeting on Friday night because of the reluctance of the old church members to leave their own mid-weekly meetings. Met first at The Sherman Hotel parlor, twenty-six being present. The pastor took for his text, “They were first called Christians at Antioch.” This was the first sermon ever preached at a branch Christian Science church and was in July, 1886. We next met at Weber Hall where we signed the church membership book. (See elsewhere where our next services were held). Good interest was manifested. We met at Gideon Palmer Noyes’ office, La Salle Street, organized and elected officers, engaged Mr. Day as pastor and voted him a salary of ten dollars per Sunday. With the hall rent, music and other expenses it seemed the best we could do. He was satisfied as he always had time for patients. He did beautifully for a year or so and became very popular but, the popularity becoming strong, like many other of Mrs. Eddy’s early students, it seemed the rock upon which he weakened. His sermons began to lose their true Christian Science tone. Many, especially the older Scientists became dissatisfied.

At that time he published about once in two weeks a pamphlet of his sermons, called The Platform. He had many subscribers for it at fifty cents per year. He had his office with Gideon Palmer Noyes, my husband. At that time we kept all the then Christian Science books on sale. It was the headquarters of the dispensary (mostly free) started by the church. Sale of the books: Christian Science Journal, etc., was very successful, but the dispensary was not a success. It was learned from experience that free work announced as such did not work well. Members of our dispensary took certain hours in poor districts of the city where it was very unpleasant to go about and it was considered at that time to take Christian Science to the poor without money also taking them literature, clothes, and money to pay their fares to the dispensary rooms when they were able to come for treatment. It meant toil and self-sacrifice on the part of the different members who officiated but all were willing to do their best. Notwithstanding it was made as easy as it could possibly be for patients it was a flat failure. Free treatments at the dispensary rooms were continued for two or three years, but the house to house visits were discontinued after a few months trial. I was always president of this organization.

To return to the church work, dissatisfaction was being manifested with the pastor. Mrs. Gestefeld, who as a member had written a book entitled A Key to Science and Health. Mrs. Eddy saw the book and said it opened the door to theosophy and locked it to Christian Science and asked us officers to discipline her; in other words, to expel her from church membership. Our pastor, Mr. Day, strenuously objected to doing so, thereby causing very strained relations between him and the church officers. Mrs. Eddy brought strong pressure to bear regarding the matter. He finally consented to drop her name from the church book. Having her personal interests at heart and knowing her to be a very bright woman, she could be a help to the Cause, I went to see her and placed the question before her as strongly as I could advising her to hold obediently to our Leader and teacher, she being a student of Mrs. Eddy. It did no good, except that I felt better satisfied for having made the effort.

The church question growing worse, and Mr. Noyes having offices with the pastor had the opportunity to note the strong position he had taken against his teacher, and Mrs. Eddy herself knowing he was not standing as he should; I knew the time had arrived for action of some kind. Mrs. Linscott (formerly Miss Ellen Brown) having married and left the city at about the time the discord started in our church from the disloyalty of our pastor leaving me alone of the original pioneers a member of the church so it seemingly devolved upon me to take a stand for Christian Science and our Leader. Having arrived at such conclusion the first favorable opportunity was seized, which was the occasion of the taking in of new members. At that time the applicants’ names were called. Their teachers arose vouching for their suitability. Quite a number of names were called before the name of Miss Marion Smith, our organist and my student, was called. Realizing the time had come for action I arose and stated that as things were then being conducted in that church grossly contrary to Mrs. Eddy’s teaching, the sermons and so forth, I could not endorse anyone for membership. It created a shock and brought things to a standstill. The services very soon closed for the day, but a meeting of the members was called to be held in the dispensary rooms. Mrs. Fanny Pierce presided. A discussion was carried on – it was to disorganize at the recommendation of the pastor. The contingent standing for the pastor carried the vote to disorganize the church against the officers of the church, including myself. I know it has been considered that we who had strenuously opposed to disorganizing were the ones who disorganized it when it was the opposite way. We knew that disorganizing meant throwing full power into the hands of a disloyal pastor for at the same meeting he was elected to continue as pastor. It certainly looked like a victory for error. Quite the contrary, for by the act of disorganizing, we who were against the act were liberated from all duties of membership. The Day contingent voted to continue the meetings at the same place, at that time the Methodist church rooms, in the afternoons. During the following week, I taking the matter into consideration, the thought came, you are not now members of anything. The church is disorganized. Go on now and organize and start over again. I immediately called on Mrs. Adams and Elizabeth Webster, two of our strong and useful members, and placed it before them and we concluded that as there was no church organization we were not holden to support or sustain meetings where there was no organization, no chance for law or order, so at my suggestion, the other ladies agreeing gladly to join, it was agreed to call a meeting of their and my students and the members who we knew were in sympathy with us not having liked what had been voiced from our pulpit. We sent out notices to all such and about sixty gathered at my office (at the time of the church trouble the pastor discontinued to occupy rooms with us); we adopted the same by-laws that we had in the original organization, had the books and charter in our possession. Mrs. Eddy after that in an interview with me told me not to let them out of our possession so no other church could adopt the name of Christ Scientist nor First Church of Christ, Scientist, which at her recommendation we called our church at that time. Mrs. Eddy who knew how we were placed (the pastor having rid us of a troublesome contingent, left us without a pastor) recommended us to call Mr. Joseph Adams a student of hers and an ex-minister, none of us wanting him, yet we were willing to give him a chance. Later said we need not call him. In the meantime, being without a pastor, it was recommended that we prepare papers from Mrs. Eddy’s writings in connection with the Bible, something as it is done now; only they were to be written out and read by the different members as the Board of Directors should appoint from time to time. This kind of service brought harmony, giving the author’s name each time, and was a distinct success. From the first we prospered. I never had any fear that we should not for I knew we were rid of a terrible thorn in the flesh. This was not the end of all trouble for several other organizations were started calculated to weaken and draw from the First, but there was no success for any other organization. The First went on with great and continued prosperity. After a while of going on with Mrs. Eddy’s writings and selections from the Scriptures with good success. I always felt convinced had Mrs. Ruth B. Ewing been in Chicago at the time of our trouble, we should have had her co-operation, but as she was away through our troublesome time when she returned she cast in her lot with the others, or in other words, remained with them for we having organized another church, it certainly had the appearance that we who went out disorganized the original one for the sake of starting another, which was not so. We fought against its disorganization. She only remained with them a short time – she was a strong one for them for she was loyal to our Leader – and our Sabbath School prospering greatly from the first, Mrs. Eddy considered it was not the thing to be copying her writings, someone having written to her that the author’s name was not announced, which was not so, it being our rule and custom to announce the author’s name just as it is done now. She thought it best for a change to be made for where there were so many writing out papers, it might be that Science and Health was being handled too carelessly. She recommended a reduction of the number of readers, first saying four and before this was put in practice she changed it to two readers. Mrs. Adams recommended Mrs. Bogue as one of them and as we knew that Mrs. Ewing would be acceptable to our Leader, our choice was for Mrs. R. B. Ewing and Mrs. Martha Bogue. This arrangement seemed satisfactory all around. They continued reading Science and Health and the Bible a year or so, when Mrs. Eddy advised us to reduce the number to one and for that one to give original sermons without writing them if possible. We were satisfied to do so, and called a special meeting to act upon it, after first having consulted Mr. Edward Kimball to see if he would take it. Mrs. Adams and I both agreed that he was the one if he would accept it. Each of us had a larger following and could have had it but we talked it over and concluded under the circumstances that it would be better for neither of us to accept it and we decided that Mrs. Ewing should be the one as he would not consider it. I told her that at my association meeting which came a short time before, I would instruct my students that Mrs. Ewing was my choice and that they would please me in voting for her. At the church meeting I received all the votes except the members of my association who faithful to my instructions did not cast their votes for me, but for Mrs. Ewing. A two-thirds vote being necessary, another ballot was taken; it remained about the same. I then arose and asked them not to vote for me again so the next ballot elected Mrs. Ewing. We were all pleased with her election. Shortly after Mrs. Eddy asked that she be ordained. Mr. Norcross came from Denver and ordained her. Having outgrown Kimball Hall, we were holding our meetings in the Auditorium, the largest audience room in the city. It was well filled.

In the meantime the World’s Fair had come and I being President of the Central Dispensary, and Board of Directors of the Church, it devolved upon me to appoint a committee to attend to the Christian Science affairs in connection with it. Accordingly, I appointed Mr. Kimball and Mrs. Ewing as a committee. He looked faithfully after it giving a great deal of time to it. Progress seemed slow and I asked him how he was getting along, “Do you need any help?” He replying “Yes.” I said, “I will get it for you.” William Penn Nixon, Editor-in-Chief of The Inter-Ocean, one of the largest dailies being Mr. Noyes’ patient, I went immediately to his office and stated what I wanted and asked his assistance. “I will write you a letter to those in charge.” He did so demanding a place and consideration for Christian Science. Every consideration was shown us when it was found that the head of one of the most influential newspapers in Chicago was such a strong friend of Christian Science. As far as our Cause was concerned, this was a great success.

Through Mr. Noyes’ influence with Mr. Ferdinand Peck, who was his patient, we were able to secure the Auditorium at reduced rates for our church services. The Auditorium at that time was the most magnificent hall in the West. Mr. Kimball remarked, “We will rattle around like a handful of peanuts in that big place.” “Oh no,” I said, “we will fill it” and we did, the lower part of it from the first. After holding our services there for a couple of years or so Mrs. Eddy then told the field that the time was ripe to build their own edifices strongly encouraging the Chicago church to do so, which they did, the result is very well known, it being very successful – First Church of Chicago.

I could and did work very successfully against enemies, but when enemies began using friends as channels to work through under the guise of friendship, my worst difficulties appeared for it was hard to tell which way to turn for a friend. I was a member of the Board of Directors of First Church for seventeen years, most of the time chairman, the few years I was off from it was on the advice of my old friends, advising me to resign, saying they were all going to do so. Acting on their advice, and blinded by personal affection, although receiving every vote at our meeting, I arose and asked to be excused from serving. We learned by hard experience that error having learned it could no longer reach us in an open way, it began its work under cover of friends constituting what is called mental malpractice. Some of the other members retained their office on the board. This was before Mrs. Eddy had spoken of serving three years and at that time experience seemed necessary in the officers. Mortal mind in all its phases seemed necessary to be uncovered and this one of its very worst forms. After detecting it in its new phase, I returned to my work on the Board after the lapse of two or three years, where I continued as long as I remained in Chicago.

Mr. Noyes also engaged in practicing having gone to Mrs. Eddy for instruction in the course of a couple of years after he came to Chicago. She told him the first time she saw him that he had better enter her class with me as she felt that he would make a good healer, which he did. He did not, however, enter the same class. Having engaged in business he felt he could not give it up suddenly. He saw his way clear, however, in a couple of years and so became an early and useful worker in Chicago. Was one of the Trustees in the Church when first formed where he continued until the trick of error previously spoken of. He was very modest in his demeanor and would never accept anything of a public character, preferring the healing work, which he dearly loved, having had some of the most distinguished men in Chicago as patients; William Penn Nixon, J. Russell Jones, Ferdinand Peck, A. C. Bartlett, and others as patients. He passed on in 1912, firm in his faith in the Truth. He was always a faithful and devoted follower of his Teacher, Mrs. Eddy.

One distinguishing feature in Mrs. Eddy’s students and loyal followers or of her faithful Normal teachers, they always recognized and have always done so, the fact that Mrs. Eddy was the woman St. John prophesies of in Revelation XII and the little book spoken of in a previous chapter is Science and Health, for he declares that as a result of the teaching “Time shall be no more” and no other ever written makes such a statement. Where she says that mortal mind is unreal, all that goes with it is unreal and as time pertains to the mortal mind it is saying there is no more time further as Truth, Christ must come by the woman. They know that no mortal man could have been instrumental in the coming of Christian Science, whereas the little book must be in accordance with the prophecy, the seed of the woman. The male and female of God’s man must appear to free man, which Christian Science is doing by elevating woman to her rightful place as equal of the male, thus completing or bringing out the whole man. In so believing, they recognize the only true Leader in Mrs. Eddy, the Revelator, the Discoverer and Founder of the Christ, Truth, and Science as containing the whole undivided Truth that is saving the world. They consider it an altogether sacred book as prophesied by St. John and feel confident by the results of their work in casting out error and healing it is the word of God and will save all who trust to it, and see in it a continuation and confirmation of Jesus’ teaching.

The great red dragon alluded to in the twelfth chapter typifies the mental malpractice or malicious animal magnetism directed against Mrs. Eddy’s works and students and herself and explains something of the difficulties which she and they had to overcome. It has always been the greatest enemy of Christian Science and still is and we can say it is the only enemy of Christian Science. We, her loyal students, thoroughly endorse her teachings on that subject and could have made no headway or success had we not done so.

In Cleveland, 1889, the Christian Science Journal was given to the National Association by Mrs. Eddy. At that time, Mr. Edward Bates of Syracuse, Mr. Joseph Armstrong, Mr. Nixon of Boston, its editor at that time, Mrs. Stetson of New York City, and myself were the executive committee of the Association. In consequence of this action on her part, the executive committee took charge of the Journal until in Chicago in the summer of 1893, the occasion being the Christian Congress in connection with the World’s Fair, the Journal was delivered back by the students. The executive committee ceased to look after its interests. Mr. Nixon had previously ended his connection with it and Mr. Joshua Bailey had become its editor, the National Association having been disorganized in New York City at its last regular meeting the previous year.

The Mother Church having taken on its present form with its branches as is now constituted, said organization took control of all Christian Science work publications, etc., under the guidance of Mrs. Eddy. All know the great prosperity and rapid growth of Christian Science work, and as a result of the divinely appointed Leader’s devotion to the Truth, and her supreme spirit of self-sacrifice, which without doubt established this work upon the rock – Christ.

Regarding my own name, I knew that a married woman was supposed to use her own name in any business she was engaged which I did at first, having gone to Chicago about six months in advance of my husband and engaged in Christian Science work. We being temporarily separated as it were, the remark was made to me, “You do not go by your husband’s name any more, I notice.” I then resolved that as it was noticed and Christian Scientists were closely watched for any occasion, even the slightest for criticism, that I would use his name for the purpose of preventing talk that we were separated. This I regretted as it necessitated a change back again, which was made in due season.

The last talk I heard Mrs. Eddy make, speaking of mental malpractice, she said, “You have something of a warning, but I have none. They rush right in, I have no warning.” Her instructions were the same, to be on our guard always that we were not caught napping.

Mrs. Eddy said to me, “Hold the original charter so that no other church could claim to the first but must come in as they are numbered, second, third, etc.”

Miss Brown and I started our office work on Michigan Avenue, from there to Washington Boulevard. We remained together for six months when Mr. Noyes, coming on from Boston, to remain, Miss Brown and I separated. We had great difficulty in securing what we required for rooms for practice, the people fearing that it might be spiritualism or allied to it and to secure rooms with respectable families was difficult and when it was that our bills were always promptly met, we soon established a reputation for respectability and square dealing and the time came shortly that we were sought and welcomed as tenants.

To return to the church question: Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Webster stood loyally by me in our trouble, proving themselves good workers and soldiers. None of the Shermans were with us in the Church membership, although doing good work as practitioners and faithful followers of Mrs. Eddy.

At one time, hearing that we were astray from her teachings in our church work, Mrs. Eddy sent post haste for me to come to Boston. Being specially busy, having cases it seemed hard to leave, I wrote and inquired if a little later would not do, stating the situation and received a reply in which she stated that she saw from my letter that I was all right, adding, “I thought they would find it difficult to get away with the Old Guard in Chicago,” meaning the few pioneers who had stood through so much.

Mrs. Eddy asked me at one time to procure subscribers for the Journal. I succeeded in getting several. We also sold a great many copies of Science and Health before it was regularly placed on sale at the reading room. It was really wonderful, the growth in interest in the Science. Very hard and close mental work was necessary meeting the highest claim of error, the sum total, our Leader had called it malicious animal magnetism. Had not this been done, I am convinced that no headway would have been made, and as time passes and my experience increases, I see the great necessity of following her instructions closely in regard to that question, and it is the distinguishing mark between the genuine Christian Science and the so-called mind-cure. It is the effectual handling of sin and if we do not handle it, it will handle us. How very hard our teacher labored to enable us to see this. Her whole heart was in her work. It thoroughly absorbed her. This same spirit was in a degree reflected to her students. Her earnestness was infectious and illuminating.

She said in her Normal lessons that everyone always had an unswerving monitor that when heeded never failed to lead aright and that was conscience; but many times it was not heeded, smothered as it was and the natural consequences followed, sin and its penalty. Just one of her lessons if printed, would be priceless to the world, although we have Science and Health in which is stated the whole of Christian Science, to be studied and in connection with the practice of it never leaves us where it finds us.

Not much need be said regarding her teaching; the results speak for it.

The spiritual has conquered. The Truth is resurrected and has ascended.

Mr. Gideon Palmer was born in Gardiner, May 2, 1846.

For further facts regarding Gideon Palmer Noyes see Memorials of Maine, published by the American Historical Society of New York, under the supervision of Augustus Freedom Moulton, A.M., and the genealogy of the Noyes family by Colonel Henry Noyes and Miss Hariet Noyes. Mrs. Noyes’ genealogy can be found in the genealogy of the Lunt family by Thomas S. Lunt, of Newburyport, New Hampshire, published by Salem Press Co., Salem, Massachusetts.

She went to Gardiner to practice in 1882, to Chicago in 1883. Practiced very successfully at first from the study of Science and Health, for a year or two.

Quotations from Mrs. Eddy

I never despair of the honest heart for I know they will always overcome evil.

Speaking of the Day trouble, I was inclined to express it as an awful hard experience. She waved it away with her hands.

The students do not realize their power, she said.

At the time of the trouble with Mrs. Woodbury she recommended that different ones be notified of their liability to be called as expert witnesses on teaching Christian Science, I being one of the number. It did not come to that for she demonstrated over it so we were not called upon. She tried to be prepared for everything. She endured everything it seemed, faithful to the Truth, the Principle. She said that we would all have to drink of the cup but she drank it to the dregs.

She spoke to me about the Science and Health reading in the pulpit, afraid it would not be given credit – it always was.