Mrs. Eddy As I Knew Her

Being Some Contemporary Portraits of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science

by Arthur Brisbane, Allan McLane Hamilton, M.D., William E. Curtis, Edwin J. Park, Senator George H. Moses, Etc., Etc.

Edited and Reviewed by Hugh A. Studdert Kennedy




Table of Contents




Preface

Twenty-five years ago there was no more discussed woman in the United States and far beyond its borders than Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

At that time she was well along toward ninety years of age. She was the leader not only in theory, but quite obviously in practice, of a world-wide movement, and r those days she was a wealthy woman. She lived in retirement, on a small estate on the outskirts of Concord, New Hampshire, whither all the world, of her own special world, went on occasion to see her. From the great world outside, however, she had withdrawn, and, in some curious way not readily understood, the great world outside resented it.

If it had been a real retirement, in which the aged reformer, sinking all the time under the burden of years, slowly relinquished her responsibility and commands until nothing was le but a querulous voice trailing o into silence-the world would have accepted it all without comment. But during the last ten years of Mrs. Eddy's life, every now and again would come a voice out of Concord or Brookline so rm and accustomed, so ll of old power unimpaired, so unquestionably authen-tic, that again and again interest was roused through the Press, and rearoused.

Rumor, in the true Virgilian sense, “stalked through the land,” and Rumor, as is its way, soon became “authentic information,” and authentic information became, as always with a certain section of the Press, the natural matrix of “the inside story.”

These inside stories regarding Mrs. Eddy and her life at Pleasant View were many and various. Under the leadership of Joseph Pulitzer, the New York World entered into the matter with vigor, sent special represen-tatives to Concord, who, in due time, through the columns of their paper, made some amazing “revelations.” So amazing indeed were they that many prominent journalists and others were constrained to go to Concord, and see for themselves. Arthur Brisbane led the way in the June of 1907. Others followed, and they have all left records of what they found.

Within the last few years the charges made by the World, a quarter of a century ago, have been revived and added to. The question is, will the answers of twenty-five years ago meet these charges today? It is a question which the reader, of course, must decide for himself. The reader, however, cannot decide “without a preacher”; in other words, without the material for a decision before him; hence this book.

Hugh A. Studdert Kennedy.

San Francisco, California,




BIOGRAPHY IN THE NEW STYLE

One of the most remarkable of recent developments in the world of book reading is the steadily growing demand for biography, and one of the most remarkable developments in the world of book writing is the way in which this demand is being met. Any analysis of the situation plunges one in doubt. One hundred years ago, y years ago, a biography was a biography. The great eort of the biographer was to present his subject and all about him in such a way that the reader came to know him as he would come to know him in life, and so, as in life, rm his own judgment. And some would love him and some would not love him; and some would despise and others exalt him, and they would take no man's say-so in regard to it. The Boswell who wrote the mous "Life" is the Boswell of Johnson's experience, always standing aside to let the much-enduring man speak r himself So it is, too, with Lockhart's "Scott," with Mrs. Gaskell's "Charlotte Bronte," and perhaps with a sc of others.

ore Today this kind of biography seems largely a thing of the past, and one has a most uncomfortable feeling that the biography that has taken its place is of doubtful lineage. The more we study it the more convinced we become that it does not derive at all om the heritage of Boswell or Lockhart, but om a more ancient source.

In the days of old time, when "source material" was difficult to reach, when possible critics were few and ill-inrmed, the biographer had a comparatively easy time. His grand objective was to produce a good story. If details to this end were lacking, he supplied them. He wrote biography as he wrote history, and he made them both delightful. Moreover, r hundreds of years he deceived the very elect, and he is still deceiving them. Most of us inwardly resent any suggestion that we should give him up. King Aled and the burning cakes and just what the cottager said to him; King Canute on the seashore forbidding the tide to advance, and J.USt what he said to his courtiers, are part of our backward view of life, and there they remain. In those days, and r hundreds of years thereafter, there was no such thing as biography as Boswell knew it, or history as Gibbon wrote it. In a way, James Boswell set an entirely new stand d, and it held undisputed sway as the standard up to within ten or een years ago. Morley's "Life of Gladstone," Moneypenny's "Life of Disraeli," are in the direct line of descent.

With the advent of Boswell, however, the old-time biographer did not cease om plying his trade. After a decade of hesitation, he resumed operations at the old stand. But now he was quite brazen about it; he wrote "biography" without claiming to be a biographer, and "history" without claiming to be an historian, and he und at once a tremendous public that "ate him up" with tears of gratitude. This public is still eating him up. The sale of Dumas' books and of many others like him is probably greater today than at any time since their first publication.

And no one can justly cry out against it. True, to many of us Mar erudite de Valois, Cardinal Richelieu, Cardinal Mazarin, Buckingham, Felton, and a host of others are the res of Dumas' making, but in our more chastened moments we are always ee to admit that they may not be true pictures at all, almost certainly are not true pictures; that the wonderful, fascinating conversations which our "historian" relates in such enthusiastic detail could never have been recorded, and that the inward emotions of his subjects, so vividly portrayed, could only have been unlded to him through the joyous freedom of his own imagination.

However, it is all open and aboveboard, and no one is really deceived by it unless he wants to be. No one ever consed Dumas with a Lockhart or a Gaskell, and Dumas would not have thanked you to be so consed.

So th^things went on until about thirty years or so ago. And thrrty years ago a Viennese doctor by the name of Sigismund Freud started something. Ten years later, that something, under the name of Psychoanalysis, had developed into a ll-edged system of philosopho-medical practice, and ten years later still was being hailed by an^body and everybody, generally by anybody, as the philosopher's stone-as a sure interpretation and guide to character and action, past, present, and ture. From psychoanalyzing the living, the students of this system went on with confidence to psychoanalyze the character and life of those who were no longer living. And so, by a perfectly orderly process of unldment, the seed thus sown broadcast fell, in the illness of time, into the good soil of the "biographer."

Immediately, almost without anyone's being aware of 1.t, he was transformed in his own estimate and later in ^e estimate of a large public om a "biographer" into a biographer. Armed with psychoanalysis, he was no longer dependent on cts. If cts did not abree with his interpretation, so much the worse r cts. The cts ere wrong, that was all there was to it. His interpreta-tion based on psychoanalysis could not be wrong.

Fortunately or unrtunately-just as one cares to view it-this new development was rmly established at the outset, by reason of the ct that its first trium-phant exponent in the eld of biography was one who already held an honored place in the world of letters. His genius was the kind of stu the true biographer is made o and so, at first, he passed muster without question. When Lytton Strachey published his "Queen Victoria," few recognized the ct, since so apparent, that while the voice might be the voice of Morley or Moneypenny, the hands were the hands of Dumas. The world welcomed the newness of it all. It did not stop to examine th^ me^hod very c^carefully. Moreover, Strachey had a way with him. He did not scare his readers with psycho-analysis; he just psychoanalyzed and le it at that, and so he "got away with it." Not until the advent of his "El^elizabeth and Essex," several years later, did anyone begm to be at all uncomfortable about him.

Meanwhile, like the good Doctor in Vienna, he had started something. Other writers, much lower down in the scale of ability, began to cast expectant eyes along the path that Strachey was so successfully and protably pursuing, and determined to llow in his steps. After that, it was like the breaking of a dam; the waters of "biography" owed rth in a veritable deluge. On all hands, Dumas was out-Dumased, and hardly a month pa^sed by without some well-known historical:figures bemg torn om their niche and thrown to the lions.

Washington, Lincoln, Gladstone, Florence Nightingale -to mention only a few taken at random-have all been "shown up" by the expert psycho analyzer.

And so it was inevitable that, sooner or later, that strangely fascinating character, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, should be requisitioned r "portraiture" in the new style. No fewer than three writers, widely separated by space and ability, seem to have been inspired with the same idea about the same time. Like the original three musketeers, they started out unknown to each other, all armed cap-a-e with the cuirass of Freud, the gauntlets of Adler, and the lance of Jung, and they all met at the same place and took service under the same ensign. Later on, as was proper, they were joined by a fourth. The first to intro-duce himself was Port hos. True to rm, he simply burst in upon his public in the late summer of 1929 with his "Mrs. Eddy, the Biography of a Virginal Mind." He was followed quickly by the soldier student, Aramis, in the person of the Right Honorable H. A. L. Fisher, with his "Our New Religion." After him came Athos, otherwise Fleta Springer, with her "According to the Flesh, a Biography of Mary Baker Eddy." And nally D'Artag-nan Sutherland Bates, oering with becoming modesty his "Mrs. Eddy's Right-Hand Man."

Now, it is no part of my purpose, even in brie to attempt a consideration of these books. My aim is simply to show-and I think it can be done without difculty-that whatever else they are-and they make most enter-taining reading, all of them-they are not biography.

Port hos' work is typical. Indeed, he seems to have set the pace and standard r all the others. Let us take him seriously r a moment. Is Mr. Dakin's book, "Mrs. Eddy, the Biography of a Virginal Mind," good history, or is it rather bad historical ction?




EDWIN FRANDEN DAKIN’S “MRS. EDDY, THE BIOGRAPHY OF A VIRGINAL MIND”

Is Mr. Dakin’s book good history, or is it rather bad historical ction?

Well, I venture to think that any real student of history will not get beyond the first pages before, like Hezekiah, he will nd himself"going softly"; r Mr. Dakin makes it perfectly clear om the start, in spite of his disclaimers in the prece, that he is ankly antagonistic to his subject and determined to do everything he can to make good his antagonism.

He reveals this, of course, in the usual way by the use of question-begging words and phrases. Mrs. Eddy, even in her youth, never writes, according to Mr. Dakin, a letter; she writes an"exclusion." She never investigates anything; she "dabbles" in it. If she seeks to enter into the amusements of her companions, it is because she nds the opportunity"too tempting" r the"lover of an audience to miss." If she happens to use words rather beyond her years in her letters, it is with the intention of being "impressively sweeping."

Then again, in spite of the ct that Mr. Dakin is writing about things which happened, in many cases, the better part of a century ago, he has no more doubt as to the feelings and emotions, desires and purposes, of the actors in his story than if he had been on the spot and had made inquiries. He is just as sure as to how Mark Baker, Mrs. Eddy's ther, felt over a certain incident or situation in the r83o's as he is that Mrs. Eddy, in the r9's, when she remarked to a much-loved student that she lked "so healthy Qnd well" did so "enviously."

Perhaps the best way to show clearly Mr. Dakin's method is to take one specific instance and analyze it carefully. For this purpose the historic episode in 19 when the court at Concord in the course of the notorious "next friends" suit adjourned to Mrs. Eddy's home to see for itself whether or not Mrs. Eddy, then eighty-six years of age, was incapable of managing her own affairs, as was claimed by her opponents, may be cited. On pages 441-442 of his book, Mr. Dakin thus vividly describes the scene: "Mrs. Eddy had been prepared to receive them in the library, where the heavy curtains were half-drawn so that the room was almost in twilight. Even in the shadows, however, her ce was emaciated, her eyes hollow, her hands thin and heavily veined. Feeble, but nerved r the ordeal with every muscle in her body tense, she stood to receive her visitors, then lowered herself haltingly into her armchair. She seemed almost to be acting a well-learned part-a voice high-pitched and unmod-ulated,her answers given r long minutes without a lter, only the nervous flutter of her eyes and ngers occasionally betraying her anxiety. Her gaze roved questioningly over the grave ces that confronted her. Her eyes lost their cus. She moistened her lips...

"A voice broke in upon her consciousness.

"'Well,s' aid Judge Aldrich pleasantly,'the gentlemen present want to ask you some questions.'

· "Mrs. Eddy craned forward slightly,clutching her lace shawl with palsied hands.'And I beg your pardon? My only difficulty is a slight deafness. I can see to read common pica,but I can't hear distinctly without some difficulty.'

"'If you feel fatigued, s' aid the judge, raising his kind, low-pitched voice,' we want to have you speak of it and let us know.'

" Thank you,'replied Mrs. Eddy eagerly,in her singsong soprano -her voice had lost the sonority of its earlier years.'I can work hours at my work,day and night,without fatigue,when it is in this line of thought; but when I go to worldliness I am sometimes ti ed by it-and yet these things are indispensable and I regard them as sacred."'

Now,the day on which the court adjourned to Pleas-ant View was the fourteenth of Au st, I<. In the same year,about two months previously,namely,on June 8,Mrs. Eddy had been interviewed by Arthur Brisbane r the Cosmopolitan. Arthur Brisbane spent several hours at Pleasant View and saw and spoke with Mrs. Eddy on three separate occasions. The interview lies before me as I write.Mr. Brisbane says: "Mrs. Eddy is eighty-six years old. Her thick hair, snow white,curls about her rehead and temples.She is of medium height and very slender.She probably weighs less than one hundred pounds.But her figure is straight as she rises and walks forward. The grasp of her thin hand is rm; the hand does not tremble...

"Mrs. Eddy's ce is almost entirely ee om wrinkles; the skin is very clear; many a young woman would be proud to have it.The rehead is high and ll, and the whole expression of the ce combines benevolence with great strength of will.Mrs. Eddy has accumulated power in this world.She possesses it,she exercises it,and she knows it. But it is gentle power,and it is possessed by a gentle, dif dent,and modest woman."

Going on to speak of Mrs. Eddy's voice,Arthur Brisbane records how he asked Mrs. Eddy to read a passage of his own selection om the current issue of the Christian Science Journal, which was evidently at hand. He tells how Mrs. Eddy took up the Journ and read the passage indicated without the aid of glasses, and continues: "If any Christian Scientists have worried about Mrs. Eddy's health and strength, that reading would have ended the worry, could they have heard it. Among young public speakers there are few wi^ voice^ stronger, deeper than the voice of Mrs. Ed^y at eighty-six years of age. She read the ordinary magazme type without glasses as readily as any woman of twenty-ve could do: and with great power of expressi_on and understanding_ng., Thus, side by side with Mr. Dakin's pictur^ of a?al-sied old woman relatively surveying her audience m a condition bordering on horror, we have this erect, composed little lady, with a hand that does not tremble and a voice of depth and beauty which might well have be^n the envy of a woman in her twenties. Othe^ contrasts ^ the picture the reader can examine r himself at his leisure.

It needs, moreover, to be remembered that Mr. Dakin here in his book is writing of events which happened twenty-ve years ago. He had access to the simple court record, but r the details of his scene-the darkened room, the staccato voice, the palsied hand, the l k of horror, and so on and online wonders if he had any other authority but that which he t^xes so heavily throughout his whole b k, namely, his own imagination.

Neither can Mr. Dakin plead ignorance of cts. He knew of Arthur Brisbane's interview and had access to it. He quotes a line or two om it, but seeks to belittle its value by the rather ingenuous remark that it was written by "young Brisbane," then at the "beginning" of his me as a newspaper man. As a matter of historic ct, at the time he interviewed Mrs. Eddy, Arthur Brisbane was rty-three years of age, had been in journal-ism r twenty-one years, and was editor-in-chief of the New York Evening Journ.

It is interesting to note in passing that Mr. Brisbane quite recently in his editorial "Today"-to be exact, it was on August 23, 1929referred to this interview with Mrs. Eddy and reaffirmed his more important statements.

But enough has, I think, been said to show the nature of Mr. Dakin's work. To put the matter briefly, and in a measure regretlly, the book is not worth reading, and no serious student of history would read beyond the first few pages unless he had, as I had, some definite purpose in doing so. Mr. Dakin's "Mrs. Eddy, the Biography of a Virginal Mind," must stand in relation to history in much the same way as the apocryphal New Testament to the recognized canon.

I cannot, however, feel content to leave the matter at that. Indeed, I feel, in a way, that what I have written above is in the nature of a digression om our main thesis, which was to show, if possible, that these new biographical writers are not of the house of Boswell or Lockhart, but of authentic Dumas descent.

Two books lie here on my desk-the one is "Mrs. Eddy, the Biography of a Virginal Mind," by Edwin Franden Dakin. The other is "Taking e Bastile, or Six Years Later," by Alexdre Dumas. I he just opened the two books almost at random and come across two passages which I want to put side by side. There are hundreds of other such correlative passages, but one will suffice. Dumas is describing in his gorgeous style the inter-view at Versailles between Marie Antoinette and M. de Lamb esq, who has just ridden in om Paris wi the latest word of the growing ferment. All day his arrival has been impatiently awaited by the queen and her court, and now, at last, he is here. But let Dumas speak r himself: "The queen was seated at a table. It was no longer the gentle and lovely bride, the guardian angel ofPrance, whom we saw appear at the oping of this story, cross-ing the northern ontier, an olive branch in her hand. It was no longer even that gracious and beautiful princess whom we saw one evening entering with the Princess de Lamb alle into the mysterious dwelling ofMesmer.

.•. No! It was the haughty and resolute queen, with owning brow and scornl lip; it was a wan whose heart had allowed a portion of its love to escape om it, to harbor, instead of that sweet and viviing element, the first drops of gall, which by constantly ltering into it was nally to reach her blo.

"Perceiving M. de Lamb esq, the queen made one of those gestures indicative of unbounded joy, which means: 'At last, we shall know all.'

"M. de Lamb esq bowed, with a sign that asked pardon at the same time r his soiled boots, his dusty coat, and his sword, which, having been bent in his ll, could not be rced into its scabbard.

" 'Well, Monsieur de Lamb esq,' said the queen, 'have you just arrived om Paris?' "

I am reluctant to break o here-it is all so interesting -but we have enough r our purpose. And now r the passage om Mr. Dakin. The scene is the episode described above when the court adjourned to Pleasant View to interview Mrs. Eddy r itself Mrs. Eddy, eighty-six years of age, is seated at her desk and is being questioned by Judge Aldrich and by Mr. Parker. Here is Mr. Dakin's presentation: " 'Did you come directly om Boston here?' contin-ued Mr. Parker.

"'I did'-briefly.

"'To this very place here?'

"'Yes, sir. They laughed at me r taking this place, and I said, "You will see it pretty, pretty soon." ' The old lady chuckled slightly over her recollection.

"'Some one was telling me,' said Judge Aldrich, 'that you had given to the public streets-the improvements of streets in Concord. Is that so?'

"'Ihave'-proudiy-'$10,000 at one time.' " 'Where was that expended?'

" 'It has been expended on this street and other streets,' she repeated with slight uncertainty.

" 'Was that done at the suggestion of anyone, or was 1.t your own idea?'

"She ruminated, her veined hands quivering in her lap. 'I can't decide strictly where it was expended,' she said looking up. 'I know it was on the streets.'

" 'The original idea, the idea of giving money to Concord r the streets, was it your idea or suggested by some one?'

" 'It was mine. They consulted me with regard to it. My students contributed towards it also and le the decision to me.' There was a self-satised note in Mrs. Eddy's voice.

" 'Now about your investments,' said the judge with gentle deliberation. 'We will touch on these just a little today. Not much. About your investments-you have some m_ come I suppose now?'

"The old lady smiled archly. When she spoke there was a hint of caution in her voice..."

Well! Like Dumas, it is delightful reading, but is it b1.0graphy? Has Mr. Dakin even as much authority r his "hint of caution,'' his "arch smile,'' his "self-satised note,'' his "veined hands quivering in her lap," his "slight uncertainty,'' and all the rest of it as had Dumas r the queen's gesture indicating "unbounded joy" and "At last e shall know all," or r Lambesq's amazingly expres-s1^e bow which apologized r soiled boots and a dusty smart and a damaged sword all in one movement? We support it cheerfully in Dumas because it is ankly c:ion, b^t it is difc^lt to ^support it with equal equanimity m Dakm because 1t claims to be biography. Really and truly, is it not just ction also? But enough ofthe "Virginal Mind." Let us go on to Mrs. Springer and her "According to the Flesh."

Mrs. Springer, in her "According to the Flesh, a Biography of Mary Baker Eddy," is in places even more vivid than Mr. Dakin. "Nothing is hid om the sound thereof" Mrs. Eddy's mind is an open book. There is little to be gained by laboring the point. Mrs. Springer's book reveals on almost every page the same qualities as does Mr. Dakin's; the only difference is that Mrs. Springer, being preeminently a story writer, is inclined to give pure imagination a freer rein. Thus, to take only one sofa hundred instances, the picture she draws of Mrs. Eddy stand-ing at the window of her tower room at Pleasant View looking out wistlly om her window, "across the gardens blooming along the winding drives," and wishing "George had been different."

But let me quote exactly: 'If only George had been different Yet she had really enioyed him that afternoon when he had brought only the baby, little George, the year she came to Pleasant View................. If only George had been different. Yet it was nice to hear om him, even if it was sometimes a lit-e difficult to make him understand..."

And so on and on throughgh pages of"ruminations," in the course of which the visions of Mrs. Springer are in-geniously, if somewhat ingenuously, made to appear as the workin of Mrs. Eddy's innermost thoughts.

"Shakespeare wrote many usel things"-Mrs. Eddy is once again thinking aloud and Mrs. Springer is over-hearing her-"Shakespeare wrote many usel things.

He would have made a wonderful Christian Scientist. Comparisons, what was it he had said about compari-sons? It would go very well r the heading of that article she had written yesterday •.. Oh, yes, she had it now.. • she wrote it down, 'Comparisons are odorous.'

-Shakespeare." 1 Obviously such "stu" is pure ction, and the book is littled with it. The general verdict on the "Springer book" must be the same as on the "Dakin book." No serious student of history would read beyond the rst w pages.




“OUR NEW RELIGION”

THE RIGHT HONORABLE H. A. L. FIS HER’S book, “Our New Religon,” is “a horse of another color.” Mr. Fisher is a scholar, Warden of New College, Oxford, and exhales the very aroma of scholarship. All his years Mr. Fisher’s vocation and avocation have been education. He is a careful writer, but, as an educationist, he has kept abreast of the times; and is not psychoanalysis in the van of education? And so, mildly, academically, very discerningly—for so he would have it he, too, psycho-analyzes. He does not, as does the cruder hand of a Dakin or a Springer, seek to interpret with the aid of incident and episode. He seeks rather by the judicious use of adjective to reveal the desired “sublimation. Mrs. Eddy is a "Highpriestess of Christian Science”; she is “The Reverend Mother,” the “Holy Mother,” “The Bos1 In regard to this quotion om Shakespeare, M . Fla Springer haston Prophetess”; her work is spoken of as her "apostolic this otnote, "It stands today, p. 267, Miscellaneous Wrings." e late”; her husband, Asa Eddy, as her “indulgent coninrence is, of course, that Mrs. Eddy has quod incorrectly and that swohrat,t” her “virtuous consort.” Indeed, the whole book she ought to have said was, "Comparisons are ious." As a matter off ict, Mrs. Eddy is qquot ing correctctly, as Mrs. Springer would at once have dis^ covered if she had verified her references, "Much Ado Aboutut Nothing"

Act I, Scene 5._ for its wealth of synonym is strangely reminiscent of the efforts of Quiller Couch’s schoolboy, who, in an essay on Byron, had "a blushing sense that to call Byron 'Byron' twice on one page was indelicate." Mr. Fisher is even more conservative.

However, one quickly discovers that Mr. Fisher's arraignment of Mrs. Eddy is not to be on any ofthe usual counts. It is not so much a misinterpretation of li to which he objects, as a misuse of language. Mrs. Eddy does not at all measure up to what Mr. Fisher regards as the requisite standards.

"Even by the standards of her own country, so... indulgent to relax writing," Mr. Fisher writes, "Mrs. Eddy is generally adjudged to have had a very imperfect command of the English language. She has an unfortunate taste both in the selection and distribution of words. Through defects of education, she is ignorant of the meaning of many of the more ambitious terms which it is her little vanity to employ. Her grammar is oen seriously at ult. In the grace, the charm, the scholarly precision, which commend a writer to a wide circle of readers, she is completely deficient.•.. So little tact has she the management ofthe English language that she is capable of writing 'He catacombs of gushing theories,' and again, 'Permit me to say that your editorial in the Aust number is par excellence. It is a digest ofgd manners, morals, methods, means. It points to the scientific, spiritual molecule, pearl and pinnacle, that everybody needs.'"

Well, to take the first things first, Mrs. Eddy did not, of course, write "He catacombs"-there is no such word-but "Hecatombs," and the word hecatomb comes om two Greek words meaning ultimately "a great slaughter," and consequently a reckless action of any kind. The word, then, surely conveys, in a very striking rm, the very meaning Mrs. Eddy wanted to convey.'

As to the second passage, I can only say that r the last thirty years and more my ear has "tried words"-as Job has it-"as the mouth tastes his meat," and I can nd no ult in it. True, it is utterly original; true, you have to get down to the fundamental meaning of the word used to reach its essential relevance, but tried by the standard of all language-the conveyance of the richest meaning in the west possible words-it is essentially writing par excellence.

But when all is said and done, what does this argument amount to? Mr. Fisher well remembers that when he and I went to school and were passing through our first mightily wrestlings in the study of Greek, we were ^ we would open their is on doors r the sick, we must first lea to bind up t bmken•hearted. If we would heal by the Spirit, we must not hide the talent of spiritual healing under the napkin of its rm, nor bury the morale of Christian Science in the grave.clothes of its letter., e tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience th his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereoty d borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Sence, aAame th divine Love."-"Science and Health," pages 366^7.

never alled to read the New Testament in e origi-nal. Especially was St. John's gospel singled out r criti-cism. It was bad Greek, very bad indeed, so unscholarly as to be almost a patois, and we had much better not read it until we were r enough advanced to recognize its ults. True, in later years, scholars have come to recog-nize what ey might perhaps have recognized before, that St. John's Greek is not "bad Greek,'' but the Greek language used by a great spiritual genius in any way he could nd that would convey his meaning. But when Mr. Fisher and I went to school it was "bad Greek." This knowledge, however, did not prevent Mr. Fisher any more than it did me from humbly sitting at the et of John and learning of him, IfMr. Fisher had lived in the First Century, anywhere between the Pillars of Her culture. and the Land beyond Jordan, he could not have done otherwise-ifhe had run true to rm-than reject St. John because of his Greek.

But all such stu is surely beside the point. What concerns us, what concerns all the world, in so far as the world is concerned at all, is what Mrs. Eddy had to say, not at all how she said it.

And so we come naturally and inevitably to the fourth musketeer, Mr. Eest Sutherland Bates, and his "Mrs. Eddy's Right-Hand M."




“MRS. EDDY’S RIGHT-HAND MAN”

Mr. Bates' conibion is not a book, but just a magazine article,' and it would not be important enough to nd mention here if it were not r the ct that r fertility in imagination and exemplary confidence in the new method of writing biography it comes very near to representing the ultimate attainment. The reader-or shall we say the common citizen-is just le in dismay as our D'Artagnan rushes past him with "an insolent wave ofthe hand" to join his three comrades waiting r him at the Sign of the Complex in the Place du Freud.

He out-Herods them all. His grand objective is, of course, the same as theirs: the "exposure" of Mrs. Eddy, but his method of approach is somewhat different. He seeks to scourge Mrs. Eddy over the shoulder of the very ithl, very devoted ven Mr. Bates admits he was these-member of her household, one Calvin Frye.

Calvin Frye, it seems, during the many years he was with Mrs. Eddy, kept a diary, just the daily jottings on a 1 "Mrs. Eddy's R1ght-Hand Man," by Eest Sutherland Bates, Har pes Magazine, February, 1931.

desk calendar, conveying always just the impressions of the moment, whether of events or instructions. He quite clearly never made any attempt to revise his notes. If he got a wrong impression, shown to be wrong by subse-quent entries, he never went back even by way ofrefer-ence to amend the original entry. Any study of the diary shows it to be the most utterly intimate document, and as such it has all the ults of its virtues. We all pass through periods when we feel like going out into the garden to eat worms. Few of us record our impressions of those moments. Calvin Frye always did. We, all, are little-minded, at times, inconceivably little-minded, even the most modern biographer among us, but we do not record our little-minded thoughts. Calvin Frye oen did. He never counted ten before he wrote. He always wrote first and counted afterwards.

To the real student ofli, such "revelations" oflittle-ness as Calvin Ftye presents only enhance the essential greatness and dignity of that bi ess which represents the real man, the real man of"Calvin F e" as of all of us, struggling and striving in the face of terrible odds toward expression and uition. As Paul, who knew all about it, so cogently puts it, "r we also who have the first uits of the Spirit do groan within ourselves waiting r the adoption to with the redemption of our bodies." And so when e dia shows us Calvin Frye smarting der some real or fancied rebuke, a human mood which clearly passed with the passing ofthe hours, the genuine student in search of the truth reads them in the. light of those other passages which reveal in their simple dignity, not the ephemeral mood ofthe moment, but the abiding condition of the years.A quotation om Mr. Bates himself well illustrates this point: "Once she (Mrs. Eddy) said to him that no one had been so kind to her r so many years (nearly twenty years) as Calvin. Another time she told him that he was placed in the ont rank of Christian Scientists. He replied that, although he knew that this was so, he could not understand the reason r it. She explained that it was because of his ithlness. So, on another occasion, she told him, probably without the slightest exaggeration, that during the previous twenty years he had done more good than anyone else on earth except herself"

And yet all this means just nothing to Mr. Bates. He is determined to have his own Calvin, and consequently his own Mrs. Eddy, just as are all his comrades in arms. To the ordinary simple-minded man in the street, it would surely seem to emerge perfectly clearly why Calvin Frye held such an honored place in Mrs. Eddy's household. He had been und ithl. Mr. Bates, however, will have none of it. "Had he been a mode psychoanalyst," he writes, "he would have had in his hands the material r a marvelous 'case history.'" Calvin Frye was obviously not properly equipped; that was all there was to it. Mr. Bates suers om no such handicap. When Calvin Frye comes up r judgment, it is clear to Mr. Bates, if to no one else, that he did not owe his unique position in Mrs. Eddy's household to his unique fidelity but to something quite different: "it w to his talents as an antimesmeri."

This statement does not come to the reader with such a shock as it might have done, if it were not r the ct that Mr. Bates has already analyzed Mr. Frye into so many different characters that one more or less can make no difference. Now he is a man "without ideas," and anon a man of "Machiavellian subtlety"; now a semi-illiterate to whom "spelling and punctuation always remained a difficulty," and now a private secretary who relieved his employer of"an enormous amount ofcor-respondence"; now a coldblooded sphinx, and anon a crybaby "bewailing his shortcomings." Poor Calvin Frye certainly gets it going and coming. But he is only the whipping boy. The grand objective is Mrs. Eddy. It was her "subtlety" that made Frye a Machiavelli. It was her "innate ignorance" that kept him an illiterate. It was her "cruelty" that made him bewail his sins. It was her ar and superstition and terror and so on to no apparent limit that made him an antimesmerist. "Into the maelstrom of Mrs. Eddy's fears, the uesisting Frye was hurled."

And so Mr. Bates joins the others.

From Calvin Frye he passes to other members of Mrs. Eddy's household. He goes om strength to strength. Where Dakin chastises with whips, he chastises with scorpions. His little nger is thicker than Mr. Fisher's thigh, and he nally pours it all out in this terse, ifsome-what vivid, summing up: "The murky atmosphere of terror in which they moved was much more that of a madhouse than of a children's playground."

But enough! As the cuain is rung down, and we make our way out ofthe theater, the mentary illusion des away and we realize that after all it is only "play acting."

And so is it all, all play acting. Upon this point e reader will, I think, by this time, be glad to agree with me, and to pass on with me to the consideration of something which abides more in the realm of ct.




THE WORLD AND MRS. EDDY IN HER CLOSING YEARS

It is not easy for us to realize at this date-aer the lapse of nearly a quarter sofa century-the tremendous interest which the world took in Mrs. Eddy in the closing years of her li. In every newspaper office in the United States, and far beyond its borders, Mrs. Eddy and her household at Pleasant View, and the whole Christian Science movement, as it revolved around its leader, were registered as first-class copy. Neither was this interest wholly, or even largely, a destructive interest. It is probably true that, if it had not been r the overreaching eorts of such newspapers as the New York world to discredit Mrs. Eddy and all her works, the tremendous rallying to her dense, which such attacks aroused, might never have been brought about. Once made, however, the interest continued, and om all over the country prominent journalists sought interviews with her, and with one accord, without one single exception, as far as I have been able to discover, came out of Concord with nothing but good report.

The situation as it obtained can be summarized in a very few words. The Christian Science movement, just prior to 16, when the nal series of attacks on Mrs. Eddy were launched, had been growing literally by leaps and bounds. Mark Twain, in his characteristic attacks on Mrs. Eddy in his articles on Christian Science in the Cose mopolitan, later published in book rm under the title "Christian Science," confesses himself utterly amazed at the growth and spread of the whole business. He can make neither head nor tail of it, yet sets it down as his sober conclusion that Christian Science "will conquer halfofChristendom in a hundred years."'

Mark Twain's main purpose in his book was to show that Mrs. Eddy did not write "Science and Health"; at she was a scheming, designing woman, astute enough to see the possibilities ofanother's inspiration, if properly 1 It is only proper to record the ct that Mark Tin in later life ve much regretted this attack on Chrisan Science. His biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, records how one day in conversation with Mark Twain he referred to the matter and elicited a very unexpected comment. "I was at this period," Paine writes, "interested a od deal in mental healing, and d been trted for neurasthenia th gratifying results. Like most of the world, I had assumed om his published articles that he condemned Chris-tian Science and its related practices out of hand. When I confsed rather reluctantly on·e day e benet I had received, he surprised e by answering: "'Of course you have been benefited. Christian Science is humanity's boon. Mother Eddy deserv a place in the Trinity as much as any member of it. She has organized and made available a healing principle that r two thousand years has never been employed, except as the merest guesswork. She is the benector of the ag.' "-"Mark Twain, A Biographyi" by Albert Bigelow Paine, Vol. III, page 1271, ^worked, recklessly determined to raise herself to a posi-t10n of supremacy, and, once in that position, to tolerate noth g om her followers but the most blind and abject obedience. It makes amazing reading at this date, some twenty-ve years after publication.

Whatever was the value of such a statement, coming om such a source, it had the eect of cusing attention on Mrs. Eddy as nothing else could have done.

This interest was tremendously heightened by the ct that Mrs. Eddy, r several years previously, had been steadily withdrawing om the world. As far as the great world without was concerned, she was in retirement. She accepted no engagements to appear in public, and steadily resisted the importunities of all manner ofpeo-ple r an opportunity to interview her r publication.

Mrs. Eddy, however, was rapidly becoming, r those days, a wealthy woman. Her books were selling by the 9 tens of thousands annually, and although it is a matter of simple record that she gave away to charity and other good causes very large sums every year, yet every year must have seen large additions to her private fortune.

This ct, tother with the growing enmity against her $ in ctain quarters outside the Christian Science movement, ultimate!y led to the notorious lawsuit, the so-called "Petition of 'Next Friends,' " in which an eort was made to have Mrs. Eddy declared incapable of managing her own affairs.

The way of it was, bdey, as llows: In September, 1906, a representative of a New York newspaper arrived in Concord, New Hampshire, evidently commissioned by his editor to "get a story" out ofthe situation at Pleas-ant View. Now, to have.described the situation as it actually existed, and was subsequently proved in court to obtain, would not have been a "story" within the meaning ofthe newspaper's intent; but the story that the representative did ultimately get out was a "story" in every sense ofthe word. On Sunday, October 28, 1906, came the first blast-an amazing "ature" article, surely worthy of Poe's best eorts. It told that Mrs. Eddy was mentally and physically incapacitated; that r months she had not le her room; that she was impersonated in her alleged daily drives by another woman; she was dying of cancer; had been visited by cancer specialists, and was provided with "old school surgeons and physicians and the entire range of pharmacopia." In ct, what this newspaper "revealed" was an amazing and heartless conspiracy on the part of Mrs. Eddy's immediate household, led by her secretary, Calvin A. Frye, to retain control of Mrs. Eddy's "vast fortune" by holding in durance vile a ail, mentally incapacitated old woman, and bamboo-zling with ke messages, not to say ke appearance, not only the whole Christian Science movement, consisting of hundreds of thousands of eaest men and women, but the world at large.

I think it is a just interpretation of events to say that, even before a word had been said in rebuttal of these charges, it was realized throughout the country that the newspaper in question had overreached itself Within less than forty-eight hours, the great news agencies were telegraphing swo statements om all manner of well^known people, ^headed by the Mayor of Concord, deny-mg the charges m toto. It became evident that some one had badly blundered.

:he Mayor of Concord wasted no time. In company with General Frank S. Streeter, a prominent citizen of Concord, he drove out that Sunday afternoon to Pleasant View to see Mrs. Eddy r himself That evening his statement went out everywhere over the wires.

After relating how he had seen Mrs. Eddy oftentimes in her carriage in recent weeks, that she passed "up Pleas-ant and down Green streets daily," and that he knew that the sole occupant of e carriage was Mrs. Eddy, the Mayor continues: "As I had heard so much concerning the precarious condition of her health, I ared there might be some f^foundation r such reports, but the ct was entirely different. I spoke to Mrs. Eddy, and I listened r nearly half an hour to her conversation. She is keen ofintel-lect and strong of memory. She is a surprising illustra-tion of longevity, with bright eyes, emphatic expression, d alertness rarely seen in a person so venerable."

Many other similar afdavits llowed st, one upon another, and it must have looked as if that would be the end of the matter, and it would be quickly forgotten. This, however, was very r om being the case.

Within a very short time, a news item appeared in the Press to the eect that the "next friends" of Mary Baker Eddy, in the person of her son, George W. Glover; his daughter, Mary Baker Glover; and her cousin, George W. Baker, had made a petition in court against Calvin A. Frye, Mrs. Eddy's secretary, and other prominent Chris-tian Scientists, alleging that Mrs. Eddy was virtually held prisoner at Pleasant View; that she was untted to trans-act business; and that her "vast fortune" was being seriously mismanaged if not dissipated, and praying the court to appoint a receiver or receivers. It is now gener-ally admitted that the whole movement was instigated by a well-known New York newspaper.

This announcement appeared in the Press early in 19, but it was not until the August of that year that the "next friends" suit-meanwhile, become internationally mous-nally reached the court. During the months that intervened, anything relating to Mrs. Eddy was a ont-page story, and some of the most distinguished journalists of the day interested themselves vigorously in the matter. Among these, Arthur Brisbane, already possessing a national reputation r his able editing of the New York Evening Journal, was perhaps remost.




MRS. EDDY ACCORDING TO ARTHUR BRISBANE

It was not that Arthur Brisbane was in any way personally interested in Christian Science. On several occasions, at the time of his interview with Mrs. Eddy, he took opportunity to emphasize the ct that he was not. But he was then, as he is still, quick to discern the real significance of many developments which his contempo-raries are inclined to ignore or underemphasize. Arthur Brisbane placed the controversy over Mrs. Eddy exactly where it belonged. With true journalistic instinct, he more than suspected that e stories coming out of Concord were largely ction, and he came to the very reason-able conclusion that, if this ction made a good story, the truth would probably make a better one. And so, having asked r and been accorded an interview, he journeyed to Pleasant View to see r himself The reader is already familiar with portions of this interview, as several passages om it, he will remember, were quoted in the consideration of Mr. Dakin's book, "Mrs. Eddy, the Biography of a Virginal Mind." Mr. Brisbane, however, did his work thoroughly. He wanted to know. He was evidently familiar with every report, with every "exclusive story" that had come out of Con• cord during the previous six months, and was deter-mined to cover e whole ground. Report had said that Mrs. Eddy was almost totally blind. As we have seen, he put her to the test, and und that she could read ordinary magazine type without glasses. Report had said that she was stricken with palsy; he und that her hand "did not tremble." Report had said that her beautiful voice was gone; he und that it was more beautiful than ever. Report had said that she was overwhelmed with every inrmity of old age. Arthur Brisbane und, instead of this depressing picture, a cheerful, composed little lady, with a happy, humorous turn to her talk, a ce of singular beauty, carriage erect, and grasp firm. Report had said that her house was a veritable House of Usher r gloom and malignity; Arur Brisbane und conditions just the reverse. But let him speak r himself: "The home of the Christian Science leader," he says, "has been called by writers of strong imagination 'A House of Mystery.'

"As a matter of fact, the house is about as mysterious as the average little New England home. It could be reproduced, immature and all, r a good deal less than ten ousand dollars. All the doors, downstairs and upstairs, are en. It is the very peaceful, quiet abode of a woman tenderly cared r by devoted persons, eaest followers of Mrs. Eddy's teachings. These Christian Science ladies, who greeted the writer at the top of a narrow ight of stairs, were not in any way different om ordinary women, except that all three had very peaceful, h py expressions. Among three ordinary women, you usually nd one or two whose expressions make you el sorry for them.

"These devoted friends of Mrs. Eddy were dressed very plainly, in light cotton wns. And they seemed as deeply interested and excited about a visitor om the outside world as though they had been three schoolgirls watching e arrival of some other girl's brother.

"One of them came forward to say: 'Mrs. Eddy is very ad that you have come, and will see you. Please come into her sitting-room.'

"She led the way into a coer room at the rear of e house, with wide windows overlooking the valley and the distant hills.

"Beside a writing desk, in an armcha, sat a white-haired woman, who rose and walked forward, extend-ing her hand in friendly greeting to a stranger. That was Mrs. Eddy, r whom many human beings in this world feel deepest reverence and affection, and concern-ing whom others have thought it necessary or excusable to write and to say unkind and untruthl things.

"It is quite certain that nobody could see is beauti-l and venerable woman and ever again speak of her except in terms of aectiate reverence and sympathy.

There are hundreds of thousands of Christian Scientists who would make almost any sacrice r the privilege of looking upon Mrs. Eddy's ce. It is impossible now r her to see many, and it is therefore a duty to make at least an attempt to convey an idea of the impression created by her personality."

And then llows the remarkable description of Mrs. Eddy, already quoted in a previous chapter of this book.' According to Mr. Dakin and Mrs. Springer, neither of whom ever saw her, Mrs. Eddy, in those days, was but an empty husk of poor humanity in the last stages of senility; according to Mr. Brisbane, who sat and talked with her through a large part of one summer afternoon, she was a splendid and inspiring example of woman-hood and of youth, in the truest sense of the word, preserved. "Mrs. Eddy's ce is almost entirely ee om wrinkles... The rehead is high and ll... e whole expression of the ce combines benevolence with great strength of will...''

Mr. Brisbane then goes on to describe what she wore. Women, he says, will be eager to know, and he speaks of the simple dress, the white lace collar, and the absence 1 Sec pages I x-u.

of jewelry of any kind, and then, realizing thar this is no description, he consses at he cannot do it. "With some women," he says, "it is the dress; with Mrs. Eddy you see only the ce, the very earnest eyes, and the beautiful, quiet expression that only age and ought can give a human ce."

Mr. Brisbane, however, was there to cover the whole ground. The declaration of her "next friends" was that Mrs. Eddy was mentally incapacitated, that the eld of her interest had narrowed to the pinched connes of senility, and that she could not sustain a conversation without such prompting as amounted to mesmerism. And so Mr. Brisbane covered a wide range of subjects. At every turn his "copy"-! speak as a journalist-reveals the master hand of the effective interviewer he still is.

"Mrs. Eddy talked first," he says, "of her regret that the farmers about her, and so many others all over the country, should be disturbed and injured in their prospects and prosperity by the unseasonable spring weather.

The sun happened to be shining brightly and warmly on the day of the interview. She spoke of this, of the beautiful view om her window, ofthe little boathouse the tiny artificial lake, and other evidences of aectio^ which she owes to her followers.

"She spoke simply of her own li and work and of her absolute happiness in her peaceful surroundings. She smiled pleasantly at the women who share her home."

And so he goes on, coming at last to the question, so much everywhere discussed at the time, the pending lawsuit. To what extent did she grasp its interest and significance. The "next friends" declared she was a mere puppet in the hands of designing members of her household, who were unscrupulously making use of her name and estate. What were the cts?

"When she was asked to discuss the lawsuit affecting her, and other matters now in the public mind," Mr. Brisbane says, "she became very earnest, absolutely concentrated in expression, voice, and choice of words. Her mind on all points brought out was perfectly clear, and her answers were instantaneous. She explained in detail how impossible it was r those about her, even if they wished to, to control her or her fortune, and her state-ments confirmed those which General Streeter had previously made to the writer."

Mr. Brisbane next goes on to present the impressions he gathered as to Mrs. Eddy's attitude toward her own immediate family, notably her son, who had made himself party to the suit against her. The point is an impor-tant one. In the composite picture of Mrs. Eddy which emerges om the works of the ur writers under consideration, nothing is more characteristic than her "alleged lack of human affections," as my journalistic colleagues would be inclined to describe it. It was the same twenty-five years ago, and the answer today is the same as the answer then. e reader, as he studies the contemporary portraits of Mrs. Eddy which llow this one by Arthur Brisbane, cannot, I think, il to be impressed by the mass of evidence to the contrary that is adduced. Here again, in the place of the warped, dehumanized old woman ofMr. Dakin's shioning, appears the real Mrs. Eddy, glad, as she herself once put it, to rejoice with them that rejoice but too apt to weep with those that wept.

"Mrs. Eddy," he says, "started to speak of her son, who is made a ctor in the legal action against her. She told h she had once asked him to live with her, saying: 'I oered him all that I had except one ve thousand-dollar bond which I meant to reserve r myself That was long ago, and he would not come to me then.' She spoke of her son's entering the army, and the eect that the army life had had upon his character-he was only sixteen years old when he enlisted. There was motherly pride of the ordinary, human kind in her reference to the number of bales in which he had been honorably engaged. But she was viously much affected by the ct that he had joined the legal action against her. Her eyes lled with tears, her voice became indistinct, and she could not go on. After a while she turned to General Streeter and said, trying to smile, 'You know what they say, General-"A mother is a mother all her life; a er is a ther till he gets a new wi.'' ' "

Continuing, Mr. Brisbane says: "As she said goodby to the writer, rising om her chair to hold his hand in both of hers,... she presented a very beautiful picture of venerable womanhood. Her ce, so remarkably young, amed in the beautiful snow-white hair and supported by the delicate, ail, yet erect, body, seemed really the personification of that victory of spirit over matter to which her religion aspires.

"Forty years ago, when Mrs,Eddy lived in a garret-like room and told what she believed to be the truth to a world that would not yet listen, stones were thrown through her windows. She spoke of this with sad patience and forgiveness.

"Today, when all the world knows her name, and when many thousands bless that name, Mrs. Eddy nds herself still with enemies eager and energetic against her. They do not throw stones through h windows-at was at the beginning of her teaching. With legal arts and ingenious action they try to control her.

"The lawyers who oppose her will try to show that Mrs. Eddy is not t, mentally or physically, to take ce of herself or of her fortune, which is considerable. They will try to remove her om her present surroundings, and make her physically subject to the will of others appointed to control her. Success in this eort, in the opinion of the writer, would be shamel, a degradation to all womanhood and age.''

I felt very much inclined when I had gone thus r with Mr. Brisbane to leave the matter there. This man, accustomed, through twenty-three years of active journalism, during which time he had risen to the top of his profession, to appraise men and things with remark-able dispassion, has left a record of Mrs. Eddy,as he knew her, such as ought, of itself to be held sufficient to disprove all statements to the contrary made by those writing with obvious prejudice, nearly a quarter of a century after the event. Mr. Brisbane, moreover, is still here to confirm his statements, and he has, as was pointed out in an earlier chapter, confirmed them only quite recently. That ought to be enough. However, in his published interview oftwenty-ur years ago, Mr. Brisbane let him-selfgo in such an altogether delight l and characteristic fashion against the traducers of Mrs. Eddy that it seemed to me the reader would be glad to know how the whole sorry business, repeated in these latter days, appealed to a man like Arthur Brisbane, in intimate touch with the actual events.

"Those who attack Mrs. Eddy legally, and perhaps sincerely," he ites, "propose to show that she is 'the victim of hallucinations.' They will not show this unless American law shall decide that xed religious belief is an hallucination.

"If the law would rese to take away the liberty property of Christian people because they believe that millions of human beings have been damned om all eternity, it is hard to understand why that law should take away the liberty the money of Mrs. Eddy because she chooses to believe that eventually nobody will be damned at all.

"In substance, Mrs. Eddy's doctrines merely take liter-ally this verse om the fourteenth chapter of John: "'Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.'

"It is difficult to see why taking literally a statement which this nation as a whole endorses should be construed into an hallucination."

And then. Brisbane closes with this parting broad-side: "Mrs. Eddy's mind is clear, her health is good r a woman ofeighty-six, her will is strong. She is cared r in her home by women intensely devoted to her, and she is able to manage her affairs as much as she may choose to do. If the law should deprive this venerable lady of her fortune and her liberty, there is no reason why any woman past three score and ten, and having accumulated some money, should not be similarly treated. Very w women of seventy have the business intelligence, power of will, and clearness of thought possessed by Mrs. Eddy at eighty-six."




DOCTOR ALLAN McLANE HAMILTON’S REPORT

Arthur Brisbane’s interview with Mrs. Eddy in the June of the year 1907 I designedly placed first among these contemporary portraits r the reason that it is perhaps the most comprehensive. Mr. Brisbane covers the whole ground. F that very reason, however, he cannot go into detail on all points, although he does on some-his treatment, r instance, ofthe question of Mrs. Eddy's voice. It is clear that he was greatly impressed by its beauty and by e convincing argument its peculiar streng and quality aorded as to Mrs. Eddy's splendid physical condition; and so he elaborates the point, asks Mrs. Eddy to read r him, and, in eect, invites his readers to judge r themselves. For the most part, however, he covers his canvas with a quick, if even, brush, and it is because the testimony of such men as Doctor Allan McLane Hamilton, Edwin J. Park, and so rth, help to ll in e details of his portrait that they have been here included. This is particularly true of Doctor Hamilton's testimony. Where Mr. Brisbane testies as a layman, Doctor Hamilton testies as a specialist. What Mr. Bris-b e catches through the quick, observant eyes of a trained journalist, Doctor Hamilton analyzes under the microscope sofa laboratory student.

Doctor Hamilton was commissioned to inquire into the mental and physical condition of Mrs. Eddy during the "next friends" suit. He was one of the best-known alienists in the country at that te. Those who can think back, easily, twenty-ve years or so, will recall h very much his name was a household word. He had appeared in most of the important cases where mental conditions w e involved in his o state of New York, and had been selected by the United States as one of the special commissioners to det mine the mental condition of H ard J. Schneider, in the mous Schneider case in the District of Columbia. He was one ofthe ur chief experts in the Guiteau case, and was consulted in the case of Czolgolsz, the assassin of President McKinley. A grandson of Alexander Hamilton, he had unded the Psychiatrical Society, and was regarded as an advanced student of mental diseases.

He carried out the task assigned to him in regard to Mrs. Eddy with great thoroughness, spending over a month at Concord, and being aorded every opportun-ity at Pleasant View to see Mrs. Eddy and to examine h correspondence and mode of li. His testimony, th ere, must have a weight all its own, and the reader who still has clearly in thought the picture presented by Mr. Dakin or Mrs. Springer will nd it interesting to lay the two portraits side by side. Doctor Hamilton has le two versions of his record, one which he prepared r the court and the other which he gave in an inter-view with the New York mes on his retu to New York after the withdrawal of the "next friends" suit in Concord. They cover much the same ground, so I am giving the ll text of his interview with the Times, as it is the more comprehensive ofthe two.

The interview om the New York Tim llows: [The New York mes, Aust 24, 1907.] On his retu to New York om Concord, Doctor Hilton was asked by the New York m r a statement of his views on Mrs. Eddy, and in reply gave out the following: "There really is no mystery about Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. Her case is a perfectly simple one, and the sensational stories which have been disseminated about her have no foundation in ct-although they can be very easily aced to a spirit of religious persecution that at last quite overreached itself"

Doctor Allan McLane Hamilton, the expert alienist who has devoted the last m to an exhaustive investigation of the mental condition of the Founder of Chris-tian Science and whose nal testimony, given a few days ago, rms an important ctor in the withdrawal of the [ J suit against Mrs. Eddy, expresses himself as having no sympathy with the religious teachings of the latter, at the same time that he is emphatic his belief as to h sanity. Seen yesterday in his picturesque study, rming a long rambling wing in the charming bungalow which he has built r himself amid the Berkshire Hills, one might, it is true, be tempted to take him r a ller of some of the mystic cults of antiquity whose shadowy influence penetrates various transcendental ds of the day. At the threshold of his home sits a stone idol om India, while in various niches of the room, interspersed th long rows of learned books, are curious relics Eastern temples, culminating in an ancient statue ofthe inscrutable Buddha himself But in spite of these rather suggestive surroundings, mysticism plays no part in the intellectual equipment ofthe medical expert who has red in so many mous cases during the last thirty-ve years.

"I studied Mrs. Eddy without regard to the peculiar religious system with which she is identified," he said in explanation of the work he has just completed in Concord, "and viewing her in this way,simply as a woman,! have come to the conclusion, as stated in my ofcial report the case, at she is absolutely normal and possessed sofa remarkably clear intellect."

Doctor Hamilton was reminded that other investi-gators had reached quite a different conclusion regarding Mrs. Eddy, conspicuous!y the delegation of reporters who interviewed her some months ago in her Concord home and who gathered the impression on that occasion that she was mentally dependent on certain members of her household.

"One journalistic inquisitor," he replied, with a suggestive twinkle of the eye, "is frequently enough to perturb an ordinarily sane person. What can you expect, therefore, when an army of them is suddenly let loose upon you? The placidity of the Buddha yonder might be ruffled by such an invasion-and I am not at all surprised that a lady eighty-six years old was atated, to say the least, by the ordeal l "When I met Mrs. Eddy a w weeks ago I had quite a different experience om that reported by many of her interviewers. Remember, I had the experience of the newspaper reporters in my mind and I was thus naturally on the lookout r any evidence of the mental weakness in her which they claimed to have discovered.

"I und Mrs. Eddy, on the occasion to which I allude, seated in a comfortable armchair in her study, a large back room on the second oor of her house. She was simply attired in a dark dress and light sac que, relieved by a simple ornament, a diamond brooch. Her white hair was worn in the style made familiar by her pictures. Her ce was thin, as was her body. I was immediately impressed with the extraordinary intelligence shown in her eyes. In aged persons the eyes are apt to appear dimmed, contracted, and lacking in expressi. With Mrs. Eddy, however, they are large, dark, and at mes almost luminous in appearance.

"As she talked to me, or answered my questions, e play of expression on her atures evinced unusual intel-ligence, and was in strict keeping with what she said. Her whole bearing was dignified and reserved, in perct accord with what one would expect in a woman of education and renement.

"The day upon which my interview took place was, unhappily r us both, the very hottest of the season. Hence my visit was not prolonged beyond the limit of about half an hour.

"As r our conversation, it covered a wide range of topics. Mrs. Eddy knew, of course, the purpose of my visit, and she very amiably answered all my questions bearing on her mental condition. In her turn she told me about her religious belie, giving me a sort of general summary ofthe Christian Science with. It was a kindly talk throughout, and my venerable hostess manifested no ill feeling against any of the 'next friends' (to whom she jokingly alluded as 'next ers') who were attacking her in the courts, although she did appear to be hurt by the ct that the granddaughter who was associated in the proceedings against her was nevertheless a member of the Christian Science Church.

"For obvious reasons, arising om the nature of the ·.-:, suit that was brought against her, our conversation dealt largely with business matters in which she was person- 3 ally interested. On these subjects she showed great « shrewdness and a knowledge evidently gained from long 9 experience. Thus, she talked readily about various in- 2 vestments she had made, assuring me, among other things, that nowadays she never buys stocks, because she had once lost the sum of ten thousand dollars through a stock transaction into which she entered at the sugges-tion of one of her students. But she has a liking r the purchase of bonds-preferably municipal bonds-and to help her in this direction she said that she was in the habit of consulting a little book of hers which rnished her with statistics as to population, real estate values, and other data om the various cities which oered a eld g r the investment of her capital. As to ture investments, she told me that she expected to leave all such operations in the hands of the trustees whom she had appointed to take this burden om her shoulders.

"I must confess that I approached this conference with 7 Mrs. Eddy in a decidedly prejudiced state of mind. I had read the current abuse of her that e nds in the magazines and newspapers, and om this reading had become imbued with a distinctly adverse feeling toward Chris-tian Science and its chief exponent. But when I saw and talked with the latter, and read and analyzed her correspondence, I experienced a complete revulsion ot feeling, and this to such an extent that I have now become candidly of the opinion that Mrs. Eddy is not only sincere in all she says and does, but I believe, also, that she unselfish!y spends her money r the perpetuation of a church which, in her estimation, is destined to play an important part in the betterment ofhumanity-nor have I und that she is guilty of any extravagant indulgences such as one might look r were her motives less pure.

"In regard to Mrs. Eddy's daily life, the position which she occupies in her own household, there have, ofcourse, been many conflicting rumors, all tending to depreciate her own individuality and variously describing her as a nonentity, a dummy in the hands of others. My investi-gations, extending over a month in Concord, have convinced me that the real truth is quite the reverse of these rumors. As a matter of ct, Mrs. Eddy's personality is an exceedingly strong one, and she has succeeded in impressing it on all around her.

"Mrs. Eddy lives in a simple, unpretentious ame house, in the environs of Concord, on the road to St. Paul's School. The grounds, consisting of eight or ten acres, are situated on the crest of a hill overlooking an exquisite landscape, d have been attractively laid out, under her direction. The interior furnishings ofthe house are costly, but simple and in good taste. The room in which I talked with her was such as one would expect to nd, with its carefully selected books and paintings and prettily arranged flowers, presided over by a woman of her dignity and renement. She herself I discovered, far om being a mere visionary, is an excellent housekeeper, taking the keenest interest in the disposition of all her affairs and belongings. She is accustomed to give minute directions about all the details of her household, She selects the od for her table; she supervises the wk of her retainers. In her study she has a separate set of signals, numbering seven or eight, r each person who lives with her. All of these pele are absolutely devoted to her, and she seems to exert a marked inuence over them. The idea that this strong-minded woman is ever a victim of coercion is manifestly absurd.

"Her own daily life is run on a thorough! y systema-tized set of rules. At six o'clock she is up and attending to her household affairs, after which she dictates to her stenographer or writes with her own hand. Every day she takes a drive in a closed carriage, accompanied by one of her household, who sits on e box with e driver.

"In her ordinary conversation she is witty, a bit sat cal, but with a great deal of gentleness in her demean to those around her. In the town where sle lives she has spent a large amount of money in municipal improve-ments, and r the beautiing of the church whi:h was dedicated a short time ago.

"Mrs. Eddy has led, and still leads, a secluded le; but that is in accordance with the religious belief which she has adopted. For a woman of her age I do not hesitate to say that she is physically and mentally p^^nome^al. In the matter of her longevity, some Chnst1an Scientist.ists have gone so far as to assert that she will never die. She herself however, does not hold to any such ridiculous belie but refers frequently to the life after death as a state of existence to which she is liable. I ncy that the belief among some of her followers involving the indefinite continuance of her earthly life arises purely om the visible evidence of Mrs. Eddy's great vitality and absence of any of the usual tokens of mental breakdown natural to one of her great age.

"There is certain!y no sign as yet of the coming of this breakdown. Nor can Mrs. Eddy's religious teachings, strange and unreasonable though they may be, b^ ^advanced as a pathological evidence of mental deb1hty. After all, her teachings are merely a culmination, a crystallization, of similar systems that have ·been cropping up during the last half century under the leader-ship of such enthusiast is as Noyes, Cullis, Si_mpson, Boardman, and a score of others who, influenced by certain phases of idealistic philosophy, have denied the rea^-city of matter and disease. In this country everyone 1s entitled to hold whatever religious belief he or she may choose; and this being so, there seems to be a manest injustice taxing so excellent and capable a woman as Mrs. Eddy with any rm of insanity."

Thus it would seem clear that Doctor Hamilton was quite convinced. He gave Mrs. Eddy a clean bill of health physically and mentally. He entered upon his task at Concord, as he himself admits, in a spirit of prejudice against Mrs. Eddy and her teaching; he closed it in a spirit of appreciation and not a little reverence. Moreover, to the ir-minded man of his day, he aorded a witness which should have reted and, as we shall see, actually did refute to the satisfaction of the popular mind all those charges against Mrs. Eddy bruited abroad twenty-ve years ago and resurrected with such vigor today. It is the same "story," and the answer to it is the same.




THE “NEXT FRIENDS” SUIT AND THE MASTERS AT PLEASANT VIEW

Nothing, it may be ventured, did more to vindicate Mrs. Eddy in the eyes of the world twenty-five years ago than the result of what was known as the "Next Friends Suit," an action brought ostensibly by her son, George W. Glover, and other relatives to have Mrs. Eddy declared incompetent and her fortune placed in the hands of a receiver. The action attracted world-wide attention at the time and was in many ways a momentous one, not so much on account of what it did or prevented om being done, but because of the tremendous light of public-ity it threw upon the whole matter. It brought all the charges against Mrs. Eddy right out into the open and demanded that they be openly met. It appealed to the sporting instinct of press and public, and when, after a hearing occupying six days, the plaintis petitioned the Court to be allowed to withdraw their plea, the result was hailed everywhere throughout the country and beyond its borders as a complete triumph r the Founder of Christian Science.

A formidable array of counsel appeared on eier side, the case being heard by Judge Aldrich, sitting as Master, with two comasters, Doctor George F. Jelly, an alienist of Boston, and Doctor G. Alden Blu mer of Providence, Rhode Island.

The first day was occupied largely by Senator Chand-ler, senior counsel r the "next friends," in his opening statement, and was chiey remarkable r the decision nally reached by the Masters to adjourn at an early opportunity to Pleasant View, interview Mrs. Eddy themselves, inspect her surroundings, and us gain information r ^their own satisfaction clearly unattainable in any other way.

In deciding to journey to Pleasant View rather than require Mrs. Eddy to come into court, e Masters were careful to point out that such action on their part should not be construed into any doubt as to Mrs. Eddy's ability to come to court. "It is no disrespect," Judge Aldrich declared, "to say of any woman of Mrs. Eddy's years that she is entitled to every court clemency... we think it entirely reasonable, out of deference to her, to go there, if desired."

And so, on the afternoon of August 14, 1907, the Court, accompanied by the leading counsel r both sides, adjourned to Pleasant View.

A ll stenographic report of everything that took place at Pleasant View was made at the time and is still preserved in the court record. At the appointed hour, the court arrived at Pleasant View and e Masters were ushered at once into Mrs. Eddy's private study. The record shs that e visitors were graciously received, and, when all were seated, Judge Aldrich began the inter-view.

"Mrs. Eddy," he said, "e gentlemen here wish to have an interview with you, and we desire to make this call as comfortable as possible r you, and we want you to let us know if we weary you."

Mas. EooY: "I am very glad to see you and I thank you."

Q. "What is your native town?"

A. "Bow, in New Hampshire. My ther's farm lies on the banks ofthe Merrimack. He did much of his haying in Concord, but the house was in Bow."

Q. "How long have you lived in Concord?"

A. "At this time, do you mean? About twenty years; between eighteen and twenty since I came here, after my marriage and residence in Boston."

Q. "Well, the gentlemen present want to ask you some questions, and we all want to make this interview as pleasant r you as possible"

A. "Thank you very much."

Q. "--and to have regard all the time to your comfort and convenience, and if you el at all fatigued, we want to have you say so at any time."

[5«] [57] A. "Thank you. I can work hours at my work, day and night, without the slightest ti e when it is in e line of spiritual labor."

Q. "Did you acquire all this property here at the outset, or did you acquire it gradually?"

A. "I purchased it at the outset and suggested every construction and arrangement of my grounds through-out, and I still attend to it."

Q. "How many acres have you?"

A. "Really, I do not know the number of acres."

Q. "Well, that is something that women do not always carry in their minds."

A. "This little pond (indicating) was made r me bymy friends. It is an artificial pond. I have a little boat down there in the boathouse."

Q. By Doctor Jelly: "All this has been done under your direction, has it? The development of this place has all been under your direction, has it?"

A. · "It has. You can ask my foreman, August Mann. He resides in the cottage."

Q. By Doctor Jelly: “We shall be glad to take your word for it, Mrs. Eddy, and no one else’s.”

Q. By Mr. Parker: “Do you raise fruit here on the place? I see you have fruit trees.”

A. "Yes; sir."

Q. "Oh, you do?"

A. "And ere were no trees except pines when I came here. The rest of e trees I have planted, and when I suggested that a large tree be planted they laughed at me, but I said, 'Try it and see if it will succeed.' Every one of these trees around here (indicating) was planted by myself-that is, not by myself but by my direction."

Q. By Judge Aldrich: "I have heard now and then that you have taken an interest in public affairs round about Concord and other places in New Hampshire. What about that? I have heard occasionally that you have given money to the city of Concord, and perhaps to other parts of the state, for highways and oer institu-tions. What about this?"

A. "I have with great please. When I came here they had no state ir grounds and very little pavement. A one-horse car moved once an hour. There was very little being done in Concord then, compared with what I anticipated when I came. It seemed to be going out, and I admire e apparent vigor and flourishing condi-tion of this dear city now. I had a great desire to build up my native place. Am I talking too much?"

Q. "No, we are all interested.in what you say."

A. "They asked me in Boston to remain. Jordan & Marsh, White, and other rms requested me not to leave the city, and they said to me, 'Have we not helped you to accumulate money since you have been here?' And I replied, 'Have I not helped you?' And they said, 'Yes, you ve, and that is why we wt to he you stay.' Then I said, 'I want to go home and help my native state a little'.''

Q. By Doctor Jelly: "And that was how long ago, Mrs. Eddy?"

A. "Between eighteen d twenty years."

Q. "Did you go directly to this place en-to this spot?"

A. "I did, and there was a hut here, a simple hut. I had it moved o and I made what there is here. The house was not built by myself; it was moved om where my cotta is. I built the cottage and med that house which was then in its place here."

Q. By. Pker: "Did y come direct om Bos-t here?"

A. "I did.''

Q. "To this very place here?"

A. "Yes, sir. They laughed at me r taking this place, and I said, 'You will see, it will be pretty, sn'."

Q. "Did you live on State Seet here this town? Didn't you live on State Street at a time?"

A. "I did not at this time, but I have resided State Street."

Q. "When was that, Mrs. Eddy?"

A. "It was when I-well, I should think it was about seventeen years ago.''

Q. "How long did you live there, Mrs. Eddy, on State Street?"

A. "About two years."

Q. "And om State Street you came here?"

A. "Yes."

Q. "Then, when you came om Boston, you came and resided on State Street first, didn't you?"

A. "I did. I had forgotten that."

Q. "And om State Street you med here?"

A. "Yes, sir."

Q. By Judge Aldrich: "Some one was telling me that you had given to the public streets-the improve-ments of streets in concord is that so?"

A. "I have, $10,000 at one time."

Q. "Where was that expended?"

A. "It has been expended on this street and on other seets, Main Street and State Street."

Q. "Was that done at the suggestion of anybody or was it your own idea?"

A. "It was mine. They consulted me with regard to it. My students contributed toward it also and le the decision to me. When I built this church here, I put into it one-half ofmy property. Mr. Whitcomb, the builder, an honest man, told me it cost er $200,000'

Q. "It is a beautiful structure.''

A. "I think so.''

[] [ 61]. Q. "Now about your investments; we will touch on those just a little today, not much. About your invest-ments. You have some income I suppose now?"

A. "Some income, yes."

Q. "My)ifeinsrance is coming drn; pretty ^o ancf I want to make good se of it. What do you consider good investments?"

A. "Well, I should invest it in the hands, at my age, of trustees that I could vouch r om my own knowl-edge. And why? Because when I found my church was gaining over party thousand members, and the eld demanding me all over the world, I could not carry on the letters, make answers to inquiries that were made of me. Then I said, 'Which shall I doorway on this business that belongs to property, or shall I serve God?' And I said-and it came to me om the Bible-'Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.' Then I chose, and I said, 'So help me God,' and I launched out, and I gave my property-I gave $913,000 to the trusteeship, to others r the benet of my son-no, not r the benet of my s, but-$913,000 into the trusteeship r myself For my son I gave $125,000 into trusteeship r himself and r his family."

Q. By Judge Aldrich: "Where did that idea of putting your property into the hands of ustees originate-with yourself or somebody else?"

The "Next Friends" Suit A. "Utterly with myself1f It came to me in hour in this room, and I think the first one that I named it to was Laura Sargent, and I said to her, 'Do not speak of it, but I feel impressed that it is my duty'."

Q. "When was that?"

A. "That was in February, 1907."

Q. "Last winter you mean?"

A. "I do."

Q, "Now this is all interesting and usel, but still I have not quite made myself understood. For instance, without regard to your trusteeship now, if you had $100,-000 to invest today, and we will lay aside r the purposes of this question the matter of trusteeship, what kind of investments would you consider sound, municipal bonds or government bonds, or bank stock or what?"

A. "I prer government bonds. I have invested largely in gv,_tn.!ent bons and I prefer bonds to stocks. I have not entered into stocks."

Q. "Why?"

A. "Because I did not think it was safe r me. I did not want the trouble of it, that was all. Perhaps I was mistaken, but this is my business sense of it, and the only time I took the advice and went contrary I lost $10,000 by it."

Q. "What was that?"

A. "That was an investment that was made in property in the West, where the land they said was coming up and going to be a great advancement in viuue, d I lost it, and I never got caught again. I always selected my own investments."

Q. "How do you select them now?"

A. ''Now?''

Q. "Yes."

A. "I leave them to my trustees."

Q. "Before that?"

A. "I will tell you. I have books that give definitely the population of the states and their money values, and I consult those, and when I see they are large enough in population and valuation to warrant an investment, I make it."

Q. "Well, now upon what philosophy do you base your calculations upon population? Why do you take population as the standard?"

A. "Because I think thev can sustain their debts d pay them."

Q. "Well, I should think that was pretty sound."

Q. By Doctor Jelly: "Mrs. Eddy, are you willing to tell us something about the development of your special religion? Are you willing to tell us about how the latter came about and how it has existed and developed? It _would be interesting to us to know, if you are willing to tell us, about Christian Science. Tell us something about the develop ment of that; are you willing to do it?"

A. "I would love to do it."

Q. "Tell us as lly as you p1ease. I think we would all like to hear it."

A. "I was an invalid bo in belief I was always having doctors--"

Q. When you say 'bo in belie' I perhaps do not understand what you mean."

A. "I mean born according to human nature, born not of God, but of the esh. That is what I mean. I was an invalid om my birth."

Q. "Can you tell us something about the way in which you were an invalid-ifyou can recollect it?"

A. "No, I cannot recollect it; only I was considered weak and delicate."

Q. "I asked you to tell me something about the development of Christian Science. Will y go on, if y please?"

A. "My ther employed M.D.'s of the highest character, and they were estimable men, and they would say -Doctor Rent on was one, and he said, and the others said: 'Do not doctor yr child, she has too much brains r her body; keep her outdoors, keep her in exercise, and keep her away om school all you can, and do not give her much medicine.' Then it was all allopathy, you know."

Q. "Can you tell us how long ago that was, please-about how long? I don't suppose you can tell exactly, but somewhere near."

A. "No. I should say I was about eighteen years old perhaps, and it came to me through Doctor M rill, h; was a homeopath, and I had never heard of that before• it was a new subject in New Hampshire, and Fathe; said:,I thought he was a ne fellow, but he must have gone mad to have taken up homeopathy.' That was the general idea of things en. When Doctor Morrill came to Concord he healed cases that the other M.D.'s did not, and my ther employed him, and I got well under his tr^at men^. Then you asked me to tell my footsteps? I sa d, will study homeopathy. I did. I was delighted with It. I took a case that a do actress considered hopeless, ^nd I cured the case. It was dropsy; the patient looked like a b^barrel in the bed, and I cured her. I began to thk so ethmg ab?ut what it was that cured her. I began to thmk somethmg about what it was that cured' when the highest attenuation--"

Q. "What did you say about the highest attenuation?"

A. "I began with the highest attenuation in which the drug absolutely disappeared, and I sent that attenua-tion to Doctor Jackson of Boston and asked him if he could discover the origin of that? It was common table salt."

Q. "Was it Doctor Charles T. Jackson, the chemist?"

A: "Yes, sir, and he replied to me, 'I cannot nd a particle of salt in it'."

Q. "I knew him personally."

A. "Did you?"

Q. "Yes."

A. "Then I said: 'I will be safe and see wifi am deceived,' and went to wk on a patient. I gave her a high attenuation of medicine, and she took it and recovered rapidly. Then there were symptoms of relapse and I had been quite interested in homeopathy and thought by giving too much of this diluted attenuated medicine there might be a crisis produced and difficulty, so I took away the medicine and gave her a single pellet unmedi. cated, nothing but the sugar pellet, and she went on and gained just the same. At last I said to her: 'Now you need no more medicine; go without it,' and she said, 'I will.' In three days she came to me and said, 'I feel some of the old symptoms.' I repeated my pellet, not one particle of medicine, and she began to gain again.

"That was my first discovery of the Science of Mind. That was a falling apple to might made plain to me that mind governed the whole question of her recovery. I was always praying to be kept om sin and I waited and prayed to God to direct me. The next that I encountered were spiritualists who were claiming to be mediums. I went into their sean ces to nd what they were doing. Shall I go on with this unnecessary detail?"

(At this point the Board of Masters stepped out of the room and returned in a few minutes.)

DOCTOR JELLY: “I will not trouble you to go into that in any further particulars just now, but Mr. Parker would like to ask you a few questions.”

MRS EEDDY: “Yes. Shall I continue this subject to show how I entered into the understanding of Christian Science?”

DOCTOR JELLY: “I will leave that to Mr. Parker.”

Q. By Mr. Parker: “I want to talk about everyday affairs. May I?”

A. “Yes.” Q.

with you, we will come again.”

A. “Thank you.”

Q. “Mrs. Eddy, you have not traveled much-—you have not gone about the state much, have you?”

A. “No, I have not.”

Q.

A.

Q. "I live in Claremont."

A. "In Claremont?" Q.

is a very beautiful town."

A. "Yes, it is, I am told."

Q. “In your drives, how far do you drive every day?”

A. “I am out anywhere from half an hour to an hour."

Q. “Do you feel refreshed? Why do you go to drive?”

A. "Y, it is a pleasant recreation. It keeps me away om my desk."

Q. "Do you feel reeshed when you come back?"

A. "Yes."

Q. "You don't leave your home here; at least you don't go out of town or out of the city anywhere?"

A. "No."

Q. "Would you have sufficient strength, do you think, to take the train r Boston? Could you do that?"

A. "I could, but I should not wish to undertake it be-cause I have so much resting upon me here to do."

Q. "I see. How many hours in the day do you work in an intellectual way? How many hours in the day do you keep your mind upon your work?"

A. "Well, I rise in the moing early and have w hours during tbe day that I am not at work, and I have the care of the house as much asI ever had it."

Q. "Now, your intellectual work, or your work in coconnection with your subject. Do you write? Are you writing? Do you white letters nowadays?"

A. "I write them or dictate them. Others seldom write letters r me save through dictation; then I look them over and see if they are right."

Q. ·· "You look them over yourself?"

A. "Yes, I qo.'.'

Q. "ii that i^;ariable? Don't you eve. let lette go away om Y?u thout that?"...... ' - - - ■ A. "I do n when they pertain business of my own."

Q. "Is that so with regard to your property affairs, that you look over the letters before they are sent away?"

A. "Yes, unless I know not when they are written."

Q. "My attention is called to your last answer. I asked you if you looked er your letters pertaining to your property matters, and you said you did, unless they wrote letters when you didn't know about them."

A. "I am answering you there about my action before I constituted the trusteeship."

Q. "Yes, but I suppose you have me or less business now, don't you, of a financial character?"

A. "Yes."

Q. "But the large responsibility you put upon your trustees?"

A. "Yes, Mr. Feald here is the superintendent of the Q,f^ o^s^:;. ^he is a good man to te care of me, is he not?''

Q. "Yes, I know him."

A. "And I know Henry M. Baker, my cousin, and I certain!y know chibald McLellan, and a better man we do not need to have. Now, I am thinking why cannot we have this all in love and unity and good will to man?"

Q. "Do you read more less, Mrs. Eddy?"

A. "Indeed I do."

e "Next Friends" Suit Q. "You do?"

"Every chance I get, r a rest."

Q. "Are y nd of music?"

A. "I used to be exceedingly, and I have an aru. c.1al singer in my home. You know what I mean b! ^at.

I will have them show it to you in the vestibule. (R1ngmg bell r attendant, who responds promptly.)

Mrs. Eddy (to the attendant): "Tell Mr. Frye to come to me."

The Aeant: "Yes."

MRS. EEDDY: "It will imitate a voice."

Q. "Were you musical in your younger days?"

A. "Yes. I never was taught, but all the other members of die family were, and yet I would compose music." (Mr. Frye came in at this pnt and was introduced to the Board of Masters.)

MRs. EDDY: "Mr. Frye, I want you to show them my artificial singer."

MR. FFRYE: “Yes. It is a graphophone, gentlemen.”

Q. By Judge Aldrich: “I want to say before going that my mother is still living and she is eighty-seven years of age."

"Give my love to her."

Q. “I will.”

A. "God bless her. She is not a day olckr r her eighty-seven years if she is growing in grace.” t Q. “Well, she feels pretty happy.”

A. I have no doubt she is. I mean mere decaying when I say ‘older.’ She is rising higher. Decay belongs. not to matter, but to mortal mind. We do not lose our faculties through matter so much as through mind, do we? Now, my thought is that if we keep our mind fixed on Truth, God, Life, and Love, He will advance us in our years to a higher understanding. He will change our hope into faith, our faith into spiritual understanding, our words into works, and our ultimate into the fruition of entering into the Kingdom.”

Q.

A. “Pardon my mistakes, if I have made any.” DOCTOR JELLY: “Good afternoon, Mrs. Eddy.”

MRS. EEDDY: “Excuse my sitting; come and see me again.”

DOCTOR JELLY: “We do not want to tire you.” MRS. EEDDY: “Thank you.”

MR. CHANDLER: “Goodby, Mrs. Eddy.”

MR. PARKER: “Good afternoon, Mrs. Eddy. I am very glad to have met you.”

MRS. EEDDY: “Thank you.” (To the stenographer): “We have kept you very busy. Thank you for your services.”

This interview of the Masters with Mrs. Eddy at Pleas-ant View really marked the collapse of the "next friends" case. For, although r ree days thereafter their counsci made a brave show of carrying on, it must have been cle to em that e Masters uld inevitably tpret the evidence and argument e light of what they had seen and heard r themselves. In addition to this, the reports of the various alienists appointed to examine Mrs. Eddy in regard to her physical and mental condi-tion had been duly rendered, and, although not made public until later, were known by the plainti's counsel to be entirely unfavorable to their case. This was pticu-larly ue in regard to the report rendered by Doctor Hamilton, who, as we have seen, declared bluntly that, so r om displaying any sign of mental incapacity, he did not hesitate to say that Mrs. Eddy was both "physi-cally and mentally phenomenal.''

When the court convened on the sixth day of the trial, namely, on August 21, 1907, Senator Chandler, senior counsel r theplaint, arose and announced the withdrawal ofthe suit. Rumors of what was about to happen had been general since early morning, and e little courtroom was crowded.

"May it please the court," Senator Chandler sd, "it will doubtless be a relief to e Masters to be informed that e counsel r the 'next friends' have this day led with the court a motion rthe dismissal of the pending suit, and that they hereby withdraw the appearance before the Masters without asking om them any nd-ing upon e questions submitted."

It was an astute move, r at law it not only saved the "next friends" om riding on to at was inevitable defeat, but it eectually barred Mrs. Eddy's counsel om bringing into court and so making public the great mass of evidence they had accumulated to prove Mrs. Eddy's complete mental and physical competence.

General Streeter, Mrs. Eddy's senior counsel, in a memorable address,' pleaded with the court to rese the motion r dismissal and continue the hearing, but Judge Aldrich led that the Masters had no choice in the matter, and that, in view of the withdrawal of the plaintif, there was "nothing le to be answered by Mrs. Eddy or decided by us." The case, therefore, stood dismissed, without any ruling on the part of the court.

The result was, however, accepted everywhere as a signal triumph r Mrs. Eddy and a complete proof of h capacity. Nowhere, as is shown in the following chapter, was this evidenced me emphatically than in the press; 1In view of the statements frequently met with to the eect that the "next friends" suit was really "compromised," the interested reader will nd Gen• eral Streeter's appeal to the court against dismissal and Judge Aldrich's comment and decision reprinted in ll om e court records in Happen· ixIV.




THE “NEXT FRIENDS” SUIT AND THE PRESS

To a very large extent the "next friends" suit may be said to have marked a definite turning point in the history of Christian Science. The immense amount ofpub-licity aorded the case and the mass of information it brought to light, not only about Mrs. Eddy and the manner of woman she was, but about the Christian Science movement as a whole, finally dissipated r many people the picture created some years previously by Mark Twain.

Pele realized as never before at Christian Science, however much they might dislike it, disagree with it, or disapprove its adherents, was evidently something to be reckoned with; while the eect on the press was to cause a remarkable rally to the defense of the venerable woman in Concord whose chief ult in the eyes of the world seems to have been that she desired, above all things, to retire om it, but to do so in her own way.

Going over those records of twenty years ago, I could not help being impressed by the evident popularity of the decision at Concord, if so it may be called. Even the newspapers most notorious!y opposed to Christian Science "registered" a change in attitude. The Press throughout the country seemed to develop a pride not only in the vigor displayed by this'woman, so long passed the allotted span, but in the work she had de and was doing.

Stories about Mrs. Eddy, about her quiet good humor; her, at times, quite disconcerting with; her freedom om all bitterness; her kindness; her charity; her infectious sense of n; her resal to ask help or cry quarter; all became " od copy" and roused the sporting instinct of Press and people.

"The dismissal of the suit brought by 'next friends' against Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy," declared the New Yo Americ, "will be gratifying to all ir-minded people without regard to religious· belief.•. it is now to be h ed that Mrs. Eddy, like all other persons who are acting within their rights, will be le in peace and security."

The Free Pres Detroit declared that it had been proved to the satisfaction of the readinpublic that the "venerable woman was in ll psessi of her mental culties," and that any reports to the contrary were "destitute of foundation." The Dly Herd of Omaha declared editorially: "The entire proceeding was disgusting. It was redeemed only by the impressive scene that resulted when Mrs. Eddy was 'examined' at her home, wh e her courtesy and uniling good nature, no l s th the clarity of her thought and the rce and vigor of her expressions, put her persecutors to shame. The eect on the enlightened sentiment of the country was such that the dismissal in short order was an inevitable consequence."

No argument "r Mrs. Eddy" is perhaps me convincing th this unequivocal rally of the Press. As one editor, writing in ose days, well put it: "The preserva-tion.of the court record is important and signifies much, but courts are governed by law and precedent and in a way are independent of the people. The utterances of the Press of the country are determined by popular _ - pulse; they stand r ir play between man and man, and r the well-known and long-established rights of men and women, and e in quick and close touch with the people. Courts interpret the law; the Press inter-prets the sentiment of the nation."

It was, indeed, this sense of ir play, where Mrs. Eddy was concerned, coupled with a suddenly aroused sense of shame and indignation, that one who was obviously striving h d to help should have been so perversely attacked, that seems everywhere to have pervaded the thought of the Press. In a wod so ll offers^ ering, he^e was one who had sacrificed everything to bnng some aid -had as a matter of sober ct brought much- d, in retu, she was being accorded in certain quarters nothing but persecution. Her good was bein evil spoken o her eorts mocked, not by those who had something better to oer, but by those who did not li a.nger to help and sought nothing but their own gain.

"If there is one thing," wrote the Dly News of Pasadena editorially, "that above all others is character-istic of Americans who permit themselves to do their own thinking, it is an inherent love of ir play. Here is a woman whose life is being spent in a search r spiritual truth. Leaving out of the question the truth or error of her reasoning and the conclusions drawn om it, its plain object is to relieve human suering. Thousands on thousands of the most intelligent pele of the highest possible character in every civilized land testing to its healing. They are honest in this belie and if they had not been healed they have been deceived into a freedom om disease to which ey gratelly testing."

The conviction that the great American demand r ir play had been utterly outraged is an outstanding point in all the editorials. Says the Dly Times of Glen Falls: "The ir-minded citizen will ask r Mrs. Eddy 'the square deal,' nothing more." Says the Chicago Inter-Ocean: "Many people, regardless of their religious or medical training, will regard this attack on Mrs. Eddy as something contrary to the American idea of ir play.•.

it must be a source of satisfaction to nd that an Ameri-can woman who has so lg passed the scriptural limit proves herself upon examination to be the equal if not the superior to these legal representatives in intellectual capacity and strength."

The New York American is even more emphatic. "Religious tolerance," it declares, "has been practiced in this country om its undation-it has been a principle which has hitherto been held sacred. That the first conspicuous violation of this principle would be an attempt to drive a woman om a position she holds by the cheerful consent of thousands of her followers is not very at-tering to our supposed enlightenment... Mrs. Eddy, at eighty-seven, is considerably more vigorous in mind and body than a.number of United States Senators who are in their seventies."

And so it goes. There can be no doubt of it that the Press of the United States of twenty-five years ago was convinced-convinced that the attacks on Mrs. Eddy were not true, that they constituted an outrage on Ameri-can ideals which could not be tolerated, and that public opinion ought to make and had, as a matter of ct, made an end of it.

The Monitor of Concord summed up the feeling of the country very accurately when it declared editorially: "For more than een years Mrs. Eddy has made her home among us; and she leads a simple and well-ordered life-as bets one who has a daily routine lled with great duties to a great cause. That she llls these duties.to the last degree is evidenced by the grow and advance of the movement which she heads; and that she nds time r other good works-r charity, r helplessness, and r public-spirited cooperation in the affairs ofthe community where her home is xed-thousands of Concord people are ready cheerfully to attest ••• "When anyone tells Concord that Mrs. Eddy is not one of our busiest, most helpl, and most beloved and respected citizens, in ll possession of her illustrious faculties of mind and in bodily strength beyond what her years warrant, Concord has a prompt and impregnable answer."




THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER

The answer oftwenty-five years ago is the answer today. It is, as a matter of ct, the only possible answer. As Lord Morley very justly puts it somewhere, what has been said once in the best possible way can never be said so effectively in any other way. If such a r-fet^hed simile can be forgiven, it is as though at the time of the original attack, enty-ve years ago, a phonographic record had been made of it, and also of the answer that disposed of it. The records were put away and rgoen. Today, twenty-ve years later, come along an enterprising coterie of writers, who, remembering what the world has forgotten, unearth the record ofthe attack and laun it rth as something new.. Tricked out in modern style, captioned with "complexes," subscribed with "inhibi-tions," overlayed with "libidoes," and pervaded by "primordial urges," it passes muster as something new. Not a few, forgetting how effectively it was disposed of when it was originally made, may rush out all good intent to do battle with such weapons as lie to hand. The doughty assailan, in is so doubtl a cause, e pleased. They [Bo] [ 81] had hardly dared to hope that it would be so, but here before their own eyes are they being taken r original literary swordsmen. And so it must inevitably be until some one puts on the record of the old answer.

Twenty-ve ye s ago, Mary Baker Eddy sustained an attack on her li, her with, and her character, such as few men and women are called upon to meet. She met it. It was not only such writers as Georg ine Mil mine, Julius Dresser, Frederick W. Peabody, and oth s who were arrayed against her, but one of the most outstand-ing journalists of the day, Joseph Pulitzer, who requisi-tioned to the uttermost the vast resources of the New York World to "expose" the woman who had committed the unforgivable sin of convicting him before the world of bad journaEstic judgment. There is no ch ge made by. Dakin in his book or by the others in theirs which had not been made even more virulently twenty-ve years before, no "revelation" which had not already been revealed, no slander which had not already been set in motion. A study ofthe vast amount of literature put out twenty-ve years ago r and against Mrs. Eddy reveals a red-hot heat of discussion such as does not obtain t day, a recklessness of assault such as makes Mr. Dakin's most daring enterprises seem but the essays of a tenderot.

Mrs. Eddy met them all. And in the doing of it she had, at first, practically no friends. The statement of Doctor Hamilton to the New York Times is typical: "I must confess that I approached this conference with Mrs. Eddy in a decidedly prejudiced state of mind. I had read the current abuse of her that one nds in the magazines and newspapers, and om this reading had become imbued with a distinctly adverse feeling toward Chris-tian Science and its chief exponent."

But Mrs. Eddy triumphed over it all. She won the magazines and newspapers over to her side. She convinced Doctor Hamilton and men like him. She appeared before the Masters of the court of her native state, submitted calmly and patiently to all manner of question-ing, and so clearly convinced the court oftl1e rightness of herself and the righteousness of her cause that she obliged her opponents to withdraw. She won on all counts, and she won in a way that commanded then, and must command now, the special respect of the American people.

She won, not on!y by standing herself but by winning others to stand r her. As the story of her life at Concord was unlded to the world, everywhere men and women experienced a strange revulsion of feeling, and first in twos and threes, and, later, in hundreds and thousands, rallied to her support, not on a wave of sentiment but as the result of simple, solid conviction that the report that had been made to them was not true, that this woman had done nothing "deserving of bonds," but that only good might be recorded of her.

As it was then, so it is today.

This is not a defense of Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Eddy needs none. She herself made what defense was necessary twenty-ve years ago. It stands today as it stood then. No attack can ever touch a really great re in history, and Mrs. Eddy is such a re. In a sure way and through divers means over which men and women, in their day, have no control, such res as Mary Baker Eddy mount up and take their places.

And there they remain.

Little men, years afterwards maybe, diving into musty records, giving ready ear to the thus and so of idle gossip, may rush t, all excitement, into the open with some "new discovery." The crowd, r a few brief moments, throngs to hear them. Heads wag, a knowing glance or two is exchanged; some w, maybe, discuss it afterwards over a glass of mental ale. But in a very briefspan it is all forgotten. The wind has come and passed over it, and the place thereof knows it no more.

It is hard to imagine anything more utterly symbolic of failure than an attack on real greatness as we nd it in some bin in a secondhand bookstore a w years after it was written. The world paused r a moment to listen, as it does to the mountebank by the roadside, and then passed on; and the mountebank with his three thimbles and his one pea and his wonderful ow of talk is r tten.

And the great figure? The great re is just where it was before, and men still take o their hats as they pass by. In Persia they have a saying, "The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on."



APPENDICES


EDWIN J. PARK’S INTERVIEW WITH MRS. EDDY, JUNE 15, 1907

Edwin J. Park, at the time of his interview with Mrs. Eddy, was one of the best-known journalists in the eastern United States. Born at Elmira, New York, he had served successively on e stas of the New York Sun and the New York World, and during the last thirteen years of his li was connected with the Bos ton Globe as news editor and special reporter. He died in 1912, and in an obituary notice which appeared in the Globe on July 19th of that year reference· is made to his interview with Mrs. Eddy ve years before as one of his most remarkable achieve-mnts.

"One of the most remarkable achievements of his career," this notice declares, "was his interview which he secured r the Globe with Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy at her Pleasant View home in Concord, New Hampshire, ve years ago. Mr. Park's fairness as a writer having been widely recognized, he encountered little difficulty in obtaining an interview with the under of the Chris-tian Science Church. It was, of course, understood that Mr. Park was to write his impressions of this remarkable woman just as ey came to him."

[From e Boston obe, June 16, 1907.] At her beautiful home, Pleasant View, this afternoon, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, Discover d Founder of the Christian Science belie r the first time in six years gave a real newspar interview, and r y minutes talked not only entertainingly, but with animation and keen intelligence on a number of subjects in which she is concerned.

When I make the statement that this was the first real inter-view Mrs. Eddy has given to a newspaper man in six years, I use the word "real" because I have in mind the 55-second meeting which about a dozenleven I think e actual number-news. paper writers had with Mrs. Eddy at her home on the 30th of last October.

At that time Mrs. Eddy was in the presence of the reporters for less than a full minute, and only a few questions, ree or ur, as I now recall it, were asked of her. The questions on that occasion were asked by a young woman who had been selected to per^ form that duty, and while Mrs. Eddy answered them readily, no opportunity was given any of the other writers present to propound any queries of their own or hear her participate in a sustained conversation.

This afternoon I met Mrs. Eddy under r different and more satisfactory conditions. I was admitted to her study, and, sitting in ont of and close to her, I had for party minutes an opportunity r uninterrupted conversation with the mous woman and r observation of her.

In the interests of strict accuracy I desire to state at this point that most ofthe talking was done by Mrs. Eddy, and that my r6le principally was that sofa most interested and earnest listener. The principal part I took in the conversation was occasionally to propound a question. Mrs. Eddy talked uently and incisively. At no time was she at a loss r a word or an idea in conveying her meaning to me.

Considering her age-she will be eighty-six years old the sixteenth day of July-Mrs. Eddy's memory r dates, names, and circumstances seemed to me to be marvelous. In ct, her memory in that regard is r superior to mine, as I took occasion to tell her, and I am a great way from being eighty^six years of age.

It is not my purpose to write a brief for Mrs. Eddy nor in her behal but to relate with entire truthlness and as mch accuracy as possible what occurred between us at Pleasant View this after^ noon. I am not an alienist, and my experience with women eighty^ six years· of age has been nil, but I do desire to say here that if the mental competency of Mrs. Eddy had not been called in question by the "next friends," and ifl had met h and talked with her as I did this aero on, the thought at she was not lly competent mentally would have been the last one to occur to me.

Her brain is keen and active, and there never is a moment of hesitation in replying to a question ·nor delay in aming the phraseology in which she answers. The trend of her thoughts remains unbroken, and her alert mind turns instantly om one line of suggested thought to another one put forward to take its place.

This afternoon I purposely diverted her mind om one line of thought concerning a question I had asked her in regard to her son, George W. Glover, by suddeuly inquiring of her if she personally keeps an oversight of her household and its affairs, and she took up the new idea suggested to her and proceeded to talk upon it with not a moment's delay, her mind grasping the new subject, as dissimilar om te former one as I could think o almost before I had the question formulated.

When I entered her study she was reading with the naked eyc a typewritten letter om J. R. Moseley of Macon, Georgia. It con• tained a message of sympathy and good cheer, and Mrs. Eddy was. much pleased by it. She read the letter to me, and later she read to me a selection om her book, "Science and Health," printed in small type, as an answer to a question I had propounded to her. Still later, infamy presence, she took a copy of "Science and Health," which she presented me, and wrote in it my name and "Compli• ments of the author, Mary Baker G. Eddy," reading my card which I handed her without glasses, as she had the typewritten letter and the extract om the printed book.

I was received at Pleasant View about 1:57 o'clock by Mrs. Laura Sargent, Mts. Eddy's companion. Mrs. Sargent showed me into the reception room at the easterly side of the hall, the room in which I had seen Mrs. Eddy last October, and in that room I met Archibald McLellan of Boston, one ofthe three trustees of Mrs. Eddy's estate. I chatted with Mr. McLellan about two minutes and then Mrs. Sargent came to the door and said Mrs. Eddy was ready to receive me. Mrs. Sargent showed me to Mrs. Eddy's study at the head of the stairs on e second oor, and I was introduced to Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Sargent retired.

Mrs. Eddy was sitting in a large easy-chair, in the southeasterly corner ofthe large room, a writing desk at either side of her and a magnificent view of the Merrimack Valley stretching away to the eastward. When I was presented, Mrs. Eddy arose and stepped forward about ree or ur feet to meet me, with her right hand outstretched in greeting.

Mrs. Eddy grasped my hand rmly and said: "Mr. Park, I am very glad to see you. I am glad to welcome you here, r I am aware ofthe irness with which you and the Boston Globe have treated me."

Mrs. Eddy th. stepped back to her own chair and, motion-ing me to anher easy-chair directly in ont of her, asked me to be seated. In the brief time the introduction and reception occupied I noticed that Mrs. Eddy, who had only just returned om her daily drive down to the city, was dressed in a black silk dress, with white lace about her throat and wrists, that her lace collar was caught at the throat with a diamond sunburst of great beauty and. undoubted value, and that her poise was that sofa distinctly self-contained and reliant woman.

When she had made me welcome and had resumed her chair, she said: "I was just reading a most cheering and comforting letter om Mr. Moseley. I will read it to you." Saying which she read me the letter rapidly and clearly. When she had laid the letter aside I remarked that I never had had the pleasure of meeting her personally before, and I said "You do not appear in public much of late years, Mrs. Eddy. I am sure many people would be ad to see more of you."

"It is quite impossible to do so," she replied. "Many have wondered that you do not,'' I ventured.

"The best reason why I do not appear more in public " r responded Mrs. Eddy, as she reached out her left hand and took om the desk a well-worn copy of "Science and Health," "appears in this book. I will read it to you.''

Then, without the aid of glasses and unhesitatingly, she read the following om "Science and Health," which I und later, in the copy she gave me, to be printed on page 464: "It has been said to the author, 'The world is beneted by you, but it feels your inuence without seeing you. Why do you not make yourself more widely known?' Could her friends know how little time e author has had in which to make herself outwardly known except through her laborious publications,-and how muCh time and toil are still required to establish the stately operations of Christian Science,-they would understand why she is so secluded. Others could not take her place, even if willing so to do. She therefore remains unseen at her post, seeking no selaggrandizement but praying, tching, and working r the redemption of mankind."

When she had concluded reading this excerp Mrs. Eddy laid the copy of her book carefully back on the desk and said: "I shl be glad to present you with a copy of my book. Would you like it?"

I replied that I would, and Mrs. Eddy reached for a push button which hung conveniently at her right hand, and there was an answering ring, three times repeated in another part of the house. Almost immediately Mrs. Sargent appeared in the doorway and said, "Yes, Mrs. Eddy."

"Please get a copy of 'Science and Health,' dear, f Mr. Park," said Mrs. Eddy, and Mrs. Sargent bowed and disappeared. She returned quickly with the copy of the book and Mrs. Eddy said, "Thank you, dear." Mrs. Sargent asked if there was anything else Mrs. Eddy wanted, and she replied, "No, dear," and then Mrs. Sargent retired.

Before I le her this afternoon Mrs. Eddy wrote my name and "Compliments of the author, Mary Baker G. Eddy," on the y-leaf of the book she gave me. By or on behalf of the "next friends" the authority of Mrs. Eddy's signature to several letters or other documents has been questioned. There can be no ques• tion as to her signature in my book. I saw her write it.

Mrs. Sargent having brought the copy of "Science and Heal" which I was given, and having retired, I said to Mrs. Eddy: 11You know, of course, of e great interest which has en aroused by the 'next friends' litigation. Won't you tell me something about it? And also something about your son, George W. Glover?"

"You mean the 'next friends' alias 'next enemies,' do you not?" she replied, without a moment's hesitation and with a ace of a smile. Then she continued: "I was unfortunately situated about the time of the birth of my son. My husband, Major George W. Glover, was in business at Charleston, South Carolina, where we had gone to live after our marriage. We had not been married quite a year when he went to Wilmington, North Carolina, on a business trip, and I went with him. At Wilmington he was attacked by yellow ver, and he died there after nine days.

"I was in a most distressing predicament, as I was le alone r om my friends. The people there told me that it wod be months, perhaps years, before I could get all his affairs settled, and I desired ·to return to the home of my father at Sanbornton Bridge, in this state.

"My husband had been a Mason, and the dear Masons of Wilmington were very kind to me. One of them was chosen to accompany me to my ther's house, and he never le me until he had seen me safely inside the door. My son was born at my ther's· house, but my ther married again, and it was not pleasant r me there. You know that old coupiet, 'A mother's a mother all the days of her le, but a er's a father until he takes another wi.'

"When my son was eight years old I determined to leave my ther's house to pursue my literary work, and I selected as the woman best calculated to care for the child the •wife of Simeon Cheney, who was formerly Mahala Sanborn, who had been our nurse and whom I knew would take good care ofmy boy.

[} [93] "I was then able to earn $50 a week by my writings, and I had been oered $3000 a year to write r e Odd Fellows' Covenant, as it waS alled in those days, published by the United States Lodge of the Odd Fellows. Later the name was changed to The Odd Fellows' Magazine,"

Mrs. Eddy mentioned the names of the different men who were editors of the magazine, and at a point where she paused briefly I remarked:."Your memory r names and dates is much better than mine.,, Mrs. Eddy leaned forward and said earnestly: "You could do it if you tried. It is all a question of the triumph of mind over matter. You could do it if you ttied. I should love to have you f a student."

Continuing, Mrs. Eddy said: "I was very busily engaged in my writings, but I never forgot my boy. He was a very smart boy, and the Cheneys grew very nd of him, and they wanted to keep him r their own. I sent them money r his education and suppo, and I wrote to him many times, but they kept my letters om him, and they told him his mother was dead.

"The result was that nally, believing me dead and not liking the · way in which he was treated at the Cheneys, George ran away. I searched and searched for him, but never could nd him, and r a long time ·1 could get no trace of his whereabouts.

Finally I heard through a letter om my relative, Mrs. Alexander Tilton, of Sanbornton Bridge, that my boy had enlisted in the army and had gone to the ont. It was then too late to do anything.

"George went into the army when he was sixteen and served ur years, coming out when he was twenty, and then he went back to the West. I got in communication with him then, and wanted him to come to me, but he preferred the Black Hills. In 1899 I built and rnished him a house at Lead City, South Dakota, and it is a better house than the one I live in, and I have rnished Pim money from te to time."

At a pause in Mrs. Eddy's story concerning her son, I suddenly switched the conversation by" saying: "You have a very beautiful place here, Mrs. Eddy. Do you look after it and personally control your household?"

"No living person," she replied at once, with marked anima^ tion, "abridges my rights in this house or governs my actions."

Then I made another abrupt change in the line of thought by saying, "Mrs. Eddy, would you mind telling me what impled you to place all your pro petty in the hands of your three trustees at the time you did (March 6)? "

"Certainly not," she said, without the slightest hesitation.

"I had come· to a place where I could· not carry on my work of Christian Science and attend to my business affairs. Some nights I had lain awake considering my Christian Science work, and then the next day I would be occupied all day with my business affairs, and there had been long growing in my mind the under^ standing that I must give up one or the other. My mind was too much diverted by business cares to give the thought to Christian Science which that demanded, and nally, a week Or.a fortnight before I created the trust, I called Laura Sargent into my room and I said, 'Laura, I am going to put my business out of my mind. I cannot go on being pulled one way and the other by ma^ material and spiritual matters.' I said: 'I am going with God.'

"No one but Laura Sargent knew of my decision until I sent r General Streeter and told him what I wanted done.

"I will tell you why I selected each ofthe trustees. I selected H. M. Baker because I knew he was a Baker and was honest.

I knew him thoroughly, and knew that he was capable of man• aging my business.

"I took Archibald Mellan, the editor of my paps, r the next one, because I knew him and I could trust him.

"I took Josiah E. Fernald of Concord, who is president of a national bank and who is treasurer of the Old Ladies' Home, and is a man I knew personally, r the third one, and I do not believe I could have done better in making my sections. I picked them all out myself and r the reasons I have given you.

"By appointing them trustees of my estate, I was made safe in my property and was relieved of the burden of caring r my material interests.

"I was not only relieved of the burden of caring r my business, but I was so relieved of what I call the inconsistency of bearing the burden, r one cannot serve two masters, and I chose the spiritual. I went with God. I have shut out society; I have dismissed material affairs om my mind wholly and am giving myself altogether to my work."

At is point, although having somewhat abruptly changed the subject of conversation in the same way once or twice before, I said to Mrs. Eddy: "Mrs. Eddy, adverting again to the subject of your household, do you wish me to understand that you personally oversee the arrangements and oration of the establishment?"

She leaned forward in her chair and reached r the push button, which was neat her right hand. I heard the bell ring.

"I will answer you in a w moments," she said, smiling.

Pending a response to the bell-and the response was not long in coming-Mrs. Eddy remarked, referring^ to the allegations of the "next friends" that she is not mentally competent, "I think I ^m compos mentis, but I may he mistaken." She smiled when she said this.

en she said: 111 look after the house in a general way, and I look after the whole place, too. Why, when they repaired the tain out there (pointing to the lawn), a short time ago, the men watched my window about all the time to see if I wa look^ ing at them, and they und I was. They were ve grateful to me r words of praise I gave them."

Wh Mrs. Eddy had proceeded thus r there came a response to the call she had sent on the bell, and the response was Mrs. Eddy's housekeeper, a young woman who had been recom-mended to Mrs. Eddy by a Western Christian Scientist and who is greatly appreciated by Mrs. Eddy.

The housekeeper was plainly us entered at her unexpected summons before the head of the house, and so started in to apologize r her appearance, although there was nothing about it that required an apology. She was a neat, wholesome-looking young woman, in the attire which she had worn at her duties about the house.

"Never mind, dear, you are all right," said Mrs. Eddy, and that quieted the housekeeper somewhat.

Then, as an answer to my question as to whether she really concerned herself personally, in the matter of looking after the household and the estate at Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy held is colloquy with the housekeeper.

"Yes, ma'am," affirmed the pleased and radiant iirl, bowing and smiling.

"Do I go downstairs and look around every day and see that everything is running smoothly?" asked Mrs. Eddy.

"Yes, ma'am, you sury do," answered the housekeeper. "Am I careful and jobservant?" said Mrs. Eddy.

"You surely are, ma'am."

"Have I arranged the furniture and shown just how I wanted it?" pursued-Mrs. Eddy.

"Yes, ma'am, you told me just how everything is to be." "at will be all, dear," concluded Mrs. Eddy, and the housekeeper bowed herself out.

"My- household is very harmonious and very devoted to my interests," continued Mrs. Eddy after the housekeeper had gone. "Mr. F e has been with me for twenty^ve years, Mrs. Sargent r eighteen, and my cook for een, and they are all most ithful."

As her last act in concluding the interview, Mrs. Eddy wrote the inscription in the copy of ''Science and Health" which she presented to me, and as I was leaving her study Mrs. Eddy, show. ing no signs of ti e om the interview, which had lasted party minutes, said: "I am very glad to have seen you, Mr. Park."




WILLIAM E. CURTIS’ TESTIMONY

BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF AN INTERVIEW HAD BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS WITH MRS. EDDY, JULY 17, 1907

Because of his international reputation as a journalist, William E. Curtis' interview with Mrs. Eddy in 1907 as set for in the Chicago Record-Herald attracted much attention at the time1 It was alluded to equeny in subsefrequent discussion as one of the winning points in the popular dense of Mrs. Eddy• William E. C this· enjoyed in man:y respects a unique reputa-tion' both as a i'ournaHst and a diplomatist. He was United States special cOmmissioner to the Central and South Amer.ican Republics in 188!90 and special envoy to the Queen Regent of Spain and Pope Leo XIII in 1892. In the d of journalism he won r himself a distinguished place in many capacitieses, nota• bly as Washington correspondent of the Chicago Record-Herald.

His interview wi Mrs. Eddy covers much ground, and some of the points dealt with are· no longer of special interest. The essential passages are, however, reproduced.

[From e ago cord-Hd, July 19, 1907,] CONCORD, N. H., July 17, 1907.

THERE WAS NO DIFFICULTY in securing an· interview with Mrs. Eddy. As soon as Mr. Meehan, editor of the Concord Patriot, who used to edit a paper at Joplin, Missouri, notied her house• hold, I.received an invitation to call at "Pleasant View" at twO o'clock, and he went with me. ere are no mysteries, restric-tions, conditions, or agreements whatever, except that the lady who showed me to Mrs. Eddy's study begged me not to stay too long, because a woman of her great age was very easily tired.

As we entered her study Mrs. Eddy arose om an easy chair in which she had been sitting beside a desk covered with corre-sndence and books and gave me a hearty greeting. She was dressed simply in a white shirt waist, trimmed wi a good deal of lace, and a black skirt. A gauze scarf was thrown over her shoulders and a brooch of diamonds with delicate settings in the shape of a coronet was stened at her neck. Her hair is abundant and perfectly white and is dressed low on her rehead with graceful waves. Her ce is pale-but her eyes arc fl, clear, and bright. Her grasp is quite strong and indicates considerable physical vitality. Indeed, I have never seen a woman eighty-six years of age with greater physical or mental vi r.

She indicated a chair beside her table r me and another f my friend, and resumed her seat in a large easy hair upholstered in red velvet, which she had been occupying before we came into the room. I watched her very close!yvery motion that she made-because her physical and mental condition is now thC subject of litigation; but during the interview, which lasted about twenty minutes, I did not see the slightest sign of the "senile debility" which has been alleged as the basis of a suit to deprive her of the care of her propey.

Her md is perfectly clear, her aptite is normal, she sleeps seven or eight hours in the night, and takes a nap in the middle of the day. During the remainder of the time she attends to her ofci duties as the head of the Christian Science organization, reading and dictating answers to the hundreds of letters that come to her om all over the world, receiving reports om her disciples and suggesting plans for the extension of the with. She has no social life. She receives no visitors except upon' business, d th are as few as possible.

She rides out every day, rain or shine, winter and summer, f about an hour, in a coupC-rockaway with wide windows, so that she can see her friends in the street, and everybody who knows her bows respectfully as she passes through e principal streets of the city. Her drive is so regular that strangers who wish to see her are advised to take their places upon certain corners at a certain hour, because she seldom varies more than three or ur minutes in her appearance ere. August Mann, her coachman, drives a pair of sturdy brown coach horses and the much-discussed Calvin A. F e, her secretary-butlerashier-valet, always sits beside him upon the box. Mrs. Eddy bows to people she recognizes and always returns the salutes of strangers while she is driving. This is the only exercise she takes. A well-known physician tells me that she is in perfect health; that she has not been ill r party years, and that she has not tasted a stimulant since she was sty^ seven years old. is physician is not a believer in Christian Science.

Mrs. Eddy frequently writes letters with her own hand, and her penmanship is large, bold, and very rm for a woman of her age.

Her home, which she calls Pleasant View, is a e villa of two and a half stories, painted a greenish white, and is surrounded by an iron fence. The grounds are entered through a stone archway with the name, "Eddy, Pleasant View," carved on either side. There is a gd macadamized roadway leading om the city, about a mile om the statehouse to her gate, which was paved two or three years ago at her own expense, and cost about $5000. The house lies in the center of a beautiful shaded lawn and has a rm of about one hundred acres behind it. A lit, tle more than ve acres are cultivated and given up to vegetables and flowers; the rest is in meadow and pasture, and it is all care^ lly kt. Mann, the coachman, has charge of the rm and the garden and looks after everything outside of the house. He min gles cly with the neighbors and always refers to Mrs. Eddy with the greatest reverence. He has been with her nearly twenty years.

From her study window, where she spends all of her waking hours and where she receives visitors, Mrs. Eddy can look across the beautiful Merrimack Valley and see on the other side the rm in the village of Bow where she was born, and her attendants tell me that she spends much time contemplating the glorious pros^ pect and frequently relates incidents of her childhood that are suggested by the scene.

Calvin F e, who is alleged to be her evil genius, has been with Mrs. Eddy twenty-ur years. She first employed him at Lynn when she lived there, and he has given his li to her service ever since, in various capacities. He is her butler and has charge of the household affairs, doing the marketing and buying all the supplies; he is also her private secretary and amanuensis, but of late does not do so much clerical work as formerly; he is her cashier and has had charge of her nances. Mrs. Eddy always signs her own checks, but Frye keeps her accounts, akes her deposits, and attends to her banking business.




SENATOR GEORGE H. MOSES AND MRS. EDDY

Senator Moses, twenty-ve years ago, held, as he does today, a distinguished place in public afield. At the time of the "next friends" suit he was president of the concord Monitor and States• man Company in Concord, New Hampshire, and knew Mrs. Eddy intimately. At the time of the original attack on Mrs. Eddy by the New York World, in'the autumn of 1906, he was one of the first to bear testimony in rebuttal. Twenty•three years later, namely, in July, 1929, in a special interview with the press, he confirmed all his statements and added to his recollections of Mrs. Eddy and her life at Pleasant View.

Both the original letter and the subsequent interview are re• produced.

SENATOR MOSES' TESTIMONY-OCTOBER, 1906 CoNcORD, NEw HAMPSHIRE, October 28, 1906.

I have had the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Eddy r more than ten years, and I have had equent occasion to correspond with her and to meet her with reference to matters of public impor• tance in this community. ese relations with her still continue, and within a very short time I have received om her long letters written om beginning to end in her own handwriting, which, om long acquaintance, is perfectly familiar to me, and that she is indubitably alive, both physically and mentally, is wl attested by these communications.

Moreover, I see Mrs. Eddy driving in her carriage rough o streets almost every day, and I have^ within a very few days, met her carriage and spoken to her as she drove past. That the occupant of the carriage was Mrs. Eddy in prop ria persona is accurate testimony which I am very glad to give, and had any of the newspaper representatives to whom you allude taken trouble to call upon me during their stay in Concord, I would have freely told them as I now write you.

Whe it wod be tile to assert that Mrs. Eddy is olly without critics or opponents in Concord; it is entirely within the bounds of accuracy to say that by the vast majority of all our people, and most emphatically by those who by their position in the community are most entiretled to represent that intangible spirit which we call public opinion, she is regarded as our remost citizen.

Her numerous good works, her constant and consistent charities here, her keen interest in all that makes r the betterment of the community, and her blameless, laborious, and useful li among us, all contribute to make her beloved and respected by the people of Concord, and we all hope that she may live long in her present full possession of physical, mental, and spiritual power to continue her good work among us.

[Signed] GEORGE H. s, it or Evening Monor.

TWENTY-TREE YEARS LATER- JUNE, 1929 WAsWASHINGTON,-Ssenator George H. Moses of New Hampshire, in a recent interview during the heated rm relief session· of CongreSs, with the distinguished journalist, Willis G. Abbot, re-lled his friendship with Mary Baker Eddy that he has cherished for many years.

[ ro4 J Was Mrs. Eddy's Friend "Of course I knew Mrs. Eddy well," he said, "and esteemed her highly. Perhaps an expression I have frequently used in ref ence to her expresses my views now in retrospection as it did when she was still active. I used to say that she was exactly the sort of woman I should have liked my grandmother to have been.

"She was earnest, sincere, cultivated. I don't mean she had that basic culture that is gained from a college course. In her days there were w, if any, colleges r women. But she had native ability, supplemented by a good common school training, anq the educational guidance of New England clergymen, prominent educators, and a brother ^ho, entering public li via the law office of Franklin Pierce, might have gone r but for his untimely passing.

"Moreover, she was naturally of an intellectual type, and during• ing the days when I knew her was constantly extending her mental horizons by reading and study. I sat through one of her classes once at her invitation, and while I am not, and never was, a Christian Scientist, I was impressed. by her grasp of metaphysical problems and the clarity with which she expressed her convictions.

Member of Notable Cls "It has always been a reason for profound gratitude my pa that I was a member of that class. It was the last one ever taught, held in 1898, and r many reasons was esteemed by her as peculiarly notable. It had enrolled in it students from Canada, England, and Scotland, and as it numbered exactly seventy, she liked to draw the parallel between it and the seventy disciples whom the Master sent out to preach and to heal throughout the land of Paleste.

"In addition to my observations of her as the teacher of this class, I had been able to be of service when there appeared to be danger that the development of the state ir grounds near her house at Pleasant View might aect the latter unvorably. In her endeavors to adjust the matter, I was impressed by her reason-ableness, restraint, and sefenity.

"Indeed, she was always the most reasonable of women-that and an invariable serenity were her chief characteristics.

"Her family was of good old New England stock-the sort that does not lend itself to pretense or hypocrisy. She may have been misken in some of her convictionsr right r all I can say-but one thing is sure, and that •is that her convictions were her own, not borrowed, but worked out arduously by her own mental eorts.

Proved Her Competency "I had long known her before e eo was made to prove her mentally incompetent-unable to handle her own affairs.

You doubtless. recall the case. There was evidence and legal argument a•plenty, but what really settled the case was her own testimony before the three maste to whom the case was re• rred.

"Edgar A. Aldrich, a district judge, had appointed two associates to conduct the inquiry with him. She appeared and S• tained a most searching inquisition, at her own home. It was an ordeal before which any woman might have shrunk-certainly one which none but those equipped with a keen intlect and ready with could have undergone with success. But her responses to the inquiries put to her, her composed attitude, her clear com• prehension of the position in which she was placed, and the quiet and convincing way in which she defended herself made an • indelible impression on those coldly legal minds.

"After that episode nobody around Concord ever ventured to question Mrs. Eddy's comete sani, nor the entire sincerity of her convictions.

"I hear that some of those who have attacked the Christian Science organization have turned their guns on Mrs. Eddy. I can only say that if they had lived in Concord when she did, and had known her as I knew her, they Would not question her sincerity of conviction, her honesty, or her ability to express her views in clear, straightforward English of her own.

"At one time I used to aid her in preparing matter r publica• tion, and my knowledge of her power of selfxpression and the wide range of her reading and information is, therefe, at first hand and exact.

Punilious in Use of rds "She was punctilious in her choice of language. I remember once sending back a paper she had written with some suggestions as to a change of adjectives. Whe it returned to· me r the printer it bore evidence that she had tried each of my sues• tions and rejected them all in favor of another adjective which was clearly just the right word. It is impossible r one who worked with her as I did to credit any charges of slovenly work or borrowed thoughts.

"You won't expect me to accept her theories, but you can quote me as saying that I believe them to have been her own, alike in substance and expression."




GENERAL FRANK SHERWIN STREETER’S PLEA TO THE COURT AGAINST THE DISMISSAL OF THE “NEXT FRIENDS” SUIT

AUGUST 21, 1907

“If your Honors please, in behalf of Mrs. Eddy, my associates, the Attorneyeneral, Mr. Eastman, and Allen Hollis, join me in presenting the following motion: That the Masters proceed with the hearing to determine the question submitted, namely, Mrs. Eddy's competency to manage her business affairs March I, r907, "Upon is motion I desire to speak briefly, and perhaps more temrately than the circumstances would justify me in speaking.

"If we are allowed to proceed we should show you that on February I Mrs. Eddy began to arrange r the entire management 3 of her property during her life, and to make liberal provision for her kindred during that time. I will not go into the details of these matters excepting to say to you that if your Honors are not already satisfied we should be able to satis you beyond question not only of Mrs. Eddy's absolute competency to deal with her a 1 irs, but that during the last two weeks of February, the last two weeks before this suit was brought, she was dealing with those questions with sagacity so r as her business matters were concerned, and as a noble Christian woman so far as her next of kin were concerned.

"Now, yoµr Honors, neither Mrs. Eddy nor her counsel have the power to prevent her so-called 'next friends' om trying to persuade Judge Chamberlin to let em dismiss the bill and get out of court. Neither have we the power to prevent their uncon• ditional surrender in the middle of this hearing before the Masters.

"They volunteered to begin this wretched assault un the per· son, property, and religious with of an aged citizen of New Hampshire, and now, six months later, when their charges have utterly collapsed, they run to cover. This is their legal right, but I speak of the legal rights of Mrs. Eddy.

ut me temperately review the situation. She is an honored citizen of this state, entitled to the protection of its courts. She is the under and head of a great religious organization, with many hundred thousand devoted followers. On March r last, she was living peacefully in her own home, surrounded by ithful friends of her own choice. She was possessed of a large property, acquired almost solely om the sale of her religious writings. It will some^ time appear that, after providing liberally r her own kin, she has devoted much of her estate to the promotion of the religious views taught by her. She was a good citizen. She was, and is, entitled to the protection of the law.

''On that day, March I last, this suit was instituted by a great newspaper which had hired and paid eminent counsel to bring it. It was primarily an attack upon the religious teachings of a great religious leader. A son and an adopted son inconsiderately loaned the use of their names as 'next friends,' and the agent of this newspaper who visited the son at Lead City, Dakota, November 29, and the adopted son at Waterbury, Vermont, March 6, and persuaded them to co0perate, is now writing in the presence of your Honors at the reporters' table.

"This suit was brought in her name against ten honest men, alleging, first, that she was incompetent to protect her pror, and, sond, that these ten defendants have wrongfully misappro-priated her nds. Not one of these defendants had ever taken a dollar of her money. They have answered under oath. The truth of their answers is admitted. The suit was based on lse pretences. The situation was unique in legal history. Mrs. Eddy, in the eye ofthe law, was not a defendant, although the proceedings were, in ct, being directed solely against her. She was not a plainti; the suit was brought against her will. Her Trustees, who held and were managing her entire estate under a vid deed, prayed r leave to intervene. Their petition was denied. She personally appealed to the court r protection. She urged that the maintenance of these proceedings by these alleged 1next friends' was an abuse ofthe processes of the court and an unwarranted interference with her constitutional and legal rights, and that she was entitled to speedy relief "She represented that under the constitution and laws she was outright entitled to a determination ofthe questions, first, whether her property interests have been and are now fully protected, and whether there is any lawl or just occasion r the maintenance of these proceedings by said 'next friends'; and, second, whether the Trust Deed and the appointment of Trustees and attorneys by her was thereby her ee and intelligent act and carried out her own wishes; and, third, whether the proceedings were brought in good with r her personal benefit, and as a citizen she prayed r a speedy determination of these questionsll without avail. "These so^called 'next friends,' her assailants, bitterly opposed her petitions and they were denied. ey insisted that her competency should. be determined by the court, and their requests were granted against her protests.

"You were appointed Masters to pass on the questions submitted in your commission.

uKnowing that upon the evidence there could be but one outcome of this hearing, she did not hesitate to submit to your decision. She has coOperated with you to obtain a ll investigation. She has assented to every suggestion made by the Masters to enable them to arrive at a just decision. She has submitted herself to your personal examination in the presence of counsel r the alleged 'next friends,' and the stenographic report thereof has been given to the world. She has been asked to submit herself to the examination of hostile alienists, and, r the purpose of enabling you to reach a just conclusion in your o way, she has assented to that. Nothing that your Honors thought would aid in the ascertainment ofthe truth has been objected to by her.

"This trial has been proceeding ve days, and, with the exce tion of her own examination before you, the oy evidence submitted is a few letters selected out of thousands written by her and a w agments of her other writings. Upon the charge that her money has been misappropriated, that her property was not saguarded, not one word of testimony has been introduced. The charge that she is incompetent has utterly collapsed, and now these altruists who pretended and represented to the court that they brought this suit as her friends, r her protection and in her interes^, have made their public conssion to the world.

"Under these circumstances, we submit that Mrs. Eddy has a legal right to a nding of her competency-to such a nding on the case as it now stands. If you think otherwise, then to a nding upon such further evidence as she may produce.

"Any other result will bring reproach, in the eyes of the world, upon the administration of justice here.

"I speak, your Honors, not only for Mrs. Eddy, but for every other citizen of this state whose person, property, and religious convictions are now endangered.

[no] [III] "In their name, and in the name of this honorable and honored woman, we respectfully demand that a nding of competency be made by your Honors upon this issue, thrust upon her and such mitted to your decision by the court."

JuDGE Aldrich: "We have only this observation to make with reference to the present aspect of this case. We have acted om the beginning upon the idea that the issue submitted to us was purely a property issue. We have endeavored to hold the lines of the t^ial with that view of the controversy, excluding.so r as possible all considerations in respect to religious doctrines or religious with. Ofcourse, in order to have an issue, there must be a suit, a proceeding, either at equity or at law. There was such a situation in respect to the parties in this case, and out of that suit Judge Chamberlin amed an issue which he submitted to the Masters here and in which he in detail provided what appearances should be made, what parties should appear here, and evidently contem-plated that the 'next friends' were to go forward and maintain their claim with respect to the issue presented. They having withdrawn om this hearing, and with notice that they intend to exercise the right to dismiss the bill in the Superior Court, we think there is nothing left to be answered by Mrs. Eddy or decided by us. Therefore we should not feel warranted in going forward ex pae with the view to establishing the mental status of Mrs. Eddy on the first of March. We think we should repo to the court what has been done, that is, report the evidence under the commission. The commission, I think, requires that we shod report the evidence.

"We may be wrong in our disposition of your motion, Mr. Streeter, but although this is a friendly suit, as we have said, it in a sense of course involves the interests of different parties, and when the party who asserts a lack of mental capacity with_hdraws there is really no controversy le; Mrs. Eddy stands wi nothing to answer, as we view it. If take the course which I have just suggested, report all the evidence up to the present time, and then report what action has been taken by the 'next friends' on your motion^ then, in case we are in error about the eect of this withdrawal, Judge Chamberlin will only have to direct that the trial proceed, and if we e right he will only have to accept the situation as one in which the plaintis have the right to dismiss the bill and end the controversy.

"Ifw e should forward, we might do something unwarrant-able, and according to our view we shod if we undertook to decide this issue, to go forward in the absence of 'next friends' and decide un the question of Mrs. Eddy's capacity. If we.

should stop and report what has been done to Judge Chamberlin, there could be no harm done, except such as results om delay••..

"Do you except to is, Mr. Streeter? Do you except to the resal to proceed?"

Mr. Streeter: "I do except, yes, sir."




GENERAL INDEX

Aldrich, JuoGE, Master in "next friends" suit; interviews Mrs. Eddy at Pleasant View, 10, 15, 56-72, 106; reply to General Streeter's plea for dismissal of suit, Appendix IV, u2, u3.

BATES, ERNEST SUTHERLAND, author of article, "Mrs. Eddy's Right-Hand Man"; his method of biography compared with Dumas', 6, 23-26; Chapter IV, title, "Mrs. Eddy's Right-Hand Man," 23-27.

BoswELL, JAMES, method of biography, 1, 2, 3.

Brisbane, Arthur, interview with Mrs. Eddy, Preface, vi, n, 12, 13, 33; "Mrs. Eddy According to Arthur Brisbane," title Chapter VI, 34-43.

CoNcoRD, New Hampshire, Mayor o defends Mrs. Eddy, 32.

CuRTis, WILLIAM E., Testimony, "Being the Substance of an Interview Had by William E. Curtis With Mrs. Eddy, July 17, 1907," title Appendix II, 99-102.

Din, EnwIN Franden, author of"Mrs. Eddy, the Biography of a Virginal Mind"; method of biography, 6, 7, Chapter II, 8-18; comparison of his method with Dumas', 6, 7, 14, 15, 16, 17; concerning Mrs. Eddy's appearance, 3.

DuMAS, Alexandre, method of biography, 3, 5, 6, 7, 13; compari^ son of his method with Dakin's, 6, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17; com^ paron with Fleta Springer's, 6, 17, 18; comparison with Right Honorable H. A. L. Fisher's, 6, 19; comparison with Eest Sutherland Bates', 2, 23.

EEDDY, MY BAK, psychoanalytical " portraiture" o 6, 7; Dakin's biography o 6, 7; title, Chapter II, "Edwin Franden Dakin's 'Mrs. Eddy, the Biography of a Virginal Mind,"'

18; Arthur Brisbane's interview with, n, r2, 13; Fleta Springer's "According to the Flesh, a Biography of Mary Baker Eddy," 6, 17, 18; "Our New Religion," li of Mrs. Eddy by the Right Honorable H. A. L. Fisher, 6, Chapter III, 19-22; article by Ernest Sutherland Bates, "Mrs. Eddy's Right-Hand Man," 6; Chapter IV, 23-27; "The World and Mrs, Eddy in Her Closing Years," title, Chapter V, 28-33; New York Wotld's attack on, 28; Mark Twain's attack on, 29; newspaper "feature" artie on, 31; "Mrs. Eddy Accord-ing to Arthur Brisbane," tie, Chapter VI, 34-43; "Doctor Allan McLane Hamilton's Report," tie, Chapter VII, 44-54; testimony in "next friends" suit, 55-72; dismissal of suit against, 73, 74; General Streeter's plea against dismissal of "next friends" suit, Appendix IV, 109-113; favorable attitude of Press toward Mrs. Eddy in "next fends" suit, 75-9; charges met and answered by Mrs. Eddy twenty-ve years ago, 82-83; "Edwin J. Park's Interview With Mrs. Eddy, June 15, 1907," title, Appendix I, 87-8; "William E. Curtis' Testimony, Being the Substance of an Interview Had by William E. Curtis With Mrs. Eddy, July 17, 1907," title, A ndix II, 99-102; "Senator George H. Moses and Mrs. Eddy," title, Appendix Ill, 103-107.

FIS HER, RIGHT HoNoRABLE H. A. L., author of "Our New Religion," 6; method of biography compared to Dumas', 6; tie, Chapter III, "Our New Religion," 1g-22.

FRE, SIGISMUND, beginning of psychoanalysis, 4, 5, 6, FE, CALVIN A., as described by Ernest Sutherland Bates in "Mrs. Eddy's Right-Hand Man," Chapter IV, 23-27; accusations against by newspaper, 31; in "next friends" suit, 33, 71; in William E. Curtis' testimony, Appendix II, 101, 102.

GtoV, GEORGE W., son of Mrs. Eddy, references to in Fleta Springer's bk, 17, 18; in "next friends" suit, 33, 55; Mrs. Eddy's discussion of in Arthur Brisbane's interview, 40; in Edwin J. Park's interview, Appendix I, 93, 94, 95; in General Strecter's plea, Appendix IV^ 109.

HILTON, DocTOR AALLAN McLANE, ienist in "next friends" suit, report of concerning Mrs. Eddy, Chapter VII, 44-54; statement o 83.

MosEs, SSENATOR GJORGE H., "Senator George H. Moses d Mrs. Eddy," title, Appendix III, 103-107.

"NEXT FRIENDS" SUIT, 30, 33; "The 'Next Friends' Suit d the Masters at Pleasant View," title, Chapter VIII, 5574; testing money of Mrs. Eddy in, 55-72; dismissal o 73-74; General Streeter's plea against dismissal, Appendix IV, 1og-u3; "The 1Next Friends' Suit and the Press," title, Chapter IX, PK, EDWIN J., interview with Mrs. Eddy, June 15, 1907, A pendix I, 878.

PsYCHOANYSts, beginning o 4; use of in biography, 4-, 23-27; old attacks on Mrs. Eddy with modern psychoanalytical labds, 81-85.

PULITZER, JosH, charges against Mrs. Eddy in New York Wor under leadership o Prece,, 82.

[n6] [ n7] Springer, Fleta, author of"According to the Flesh, a Biography of Mary Baker Eddy"; method of biography compared to Dumas', 6, 17, 18.

SAcHY, LYTTON, psychoanalytical method of biography, 5.

SEETER, GENERAL FRANK SHERWIN, senior counsel r Mrs, Eddy io "next friends" suit, 74; in regard to Mrs. Eddy's appointing trustees, Appendix I, 95; his plea to cou against dismissal of"next friends" suit, Appendix IV., 108-n3.

TwAIN, MK, attacks on Mrs. Eddy, 29; his subsequent eulogy of her teaching, 29 (note).

"WoRLD," Nnw YoRK, attacks on Mrs. Eddy, Prece, v1, 28, 82, 103.



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