The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur)/Chapter 21

by Sibyl Wilbur

CHAPTER XXI

THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT

ALTHOUGH Mrs. Eddy had withdrawn from active participation in the work of her church, her withdrawal was in the nature of retirement and not seclusion. She did not go into a selfish privacy at Pleasant View, but remained actively engaged in many duties which her position required of her. She no longer edited the Journal, preached from a pulpit, or taught regular classes, but she continued to contribute articles to the Journal, to send annual messages to her church, and to receive those who had the right to her counsel. She made several visits to Boston in the interest of the Mother Church and received annually for several years large numbers of communicants from many parts of the country. She prepared articles for the press on request, and, besides revising her book “Science and Health” from year to year, gathered together and edited some of her scattered articles which she published under the title “Miscellaneous Writings.”

Life at Pleasant View fell into that regularity which facilitates the highest order of usefulness. Mrs. Eddy had living with her a quite numerous household. Mrs. Laura Sargent, her companion, took active charge of the household régime, and her sweet-tempered direction of the servants, her ceaseless inspection of the domestic machinery, made affairs move with pleasant exactness. Miss Clara Shannon of Montreal was another inmate of the household who devoted special attention to Mrs. Eddy’s personal wants. Mrs. Pamelia J. Leonard, of Brooklyn, spent many months of several years at Pleasant View assisting in the work of church advancement, work which Mrs. Eddy never neglected. Mr. Frye continued in his faithful service of steward and secretary combined, and his duties were of the most diverse nature, varying from ordering supplies, keeping accounts, and transmitting Mrs. Eddy’s directions to her gardeners and coachman, to assisting in handling her heavy mail.

If Mr. Frye and Mrs. Sargent were the most constant of Mrs. Eddy’s attendants in her retirement, there were many other students called upon to serve their Leader, and such service was always regarded in the nature of an honor. There were many assistant secretaries and many assistant companions, but as to the personnel of that roll of honor it is not necessary to make any further statement than the plain and straightforward one once made by Mrs. Eddy, that no one was ever called to Pleasant View for discipline. They were called there because they had shown by their work elsewhere a high order of usefulness.

Mrs. Eddy maintained her habit of rising early through all the years of retirement. She rose about six o’clock in summer and before seven o’clock in winter. She had an hour for prayerful meditation three times daily, morning, noon, and night. In the morning it was her custom to walk through the various rooms of her house on a tour of friendly inspection, whereon she not infrequently directed some change in the adjustment of furnishings and draperies; but mainly the tour was one of cheerful sociability when she talked with every member of her household, the laundress and the gardener’s assistant not being neglected in words of commendation and sallies of wit or spiritual admonition. The love and reverence in which all held her made her coming an anticipation of each day.

After her regular morning exercise (which at Pleasant View was in fine weather frequently a walk about the artificial pond which some of her students had caused to be built in the lower garden, and on less agreeable days an hour’s pacing of the covered veranda) Mrs. Eddy returned to her study where her secretary brought her letters. After dinner, which it was her custom to take in the middle of the day, she usually went for a drive. As the daily drive was the only occasion on which she was seen in public for many years, it became a matter of public interest and her Concord neighbors took pleasure in meeting her brougham, drawn by a sober pair of black horses. They would bow their friendly salutations or occasionally, when she ordered her coachman to stop and summoned them with a kindly and courteous gesture, would approach her carriage and shake hands with the venerable religionist.

During the nineties Mrs. Eddy made several visits to Boston. After the completion of the original Mother Church she made a journey especially to inspect it, her heart yearning over this gift which she had so generously shared with her students in presenting to the organization. On April 1, 1895, she went to Boston unannounced, with her companion and her secretary, and spent that night in the rooms designed for her especial use in the church building. These rooms are in the tower of the church and consist of a study, a bedroom, and a dressing-room. They are exquisitely fitted with every necessary appointment, the furnishing being a gift of the children of the church.

On May 26 of the same year she again visited The Mother Church and preached from its pulpit, and in February, 1896, she also preached in The Mother Church, returning the same afternoon to Concord. On Monday, June 5, 1899, Mrs. Eddy came to Boston from Concord and spent the night at her Commonwealth avenue house, then occupied by Septimus J. Hanna, who was the first reader in The Mother Church at that time. The church held its annual meeting in Tremont Temple the following day and in the afternoon she appeared on the platform and addressed the meeting. Judge Hanna escorted Mrs. Eddy to the platform and introduced her, the students arising and quietly saluting her with waving handkerchiefs. She spoke briefly on the text from Malachi, “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven.”

Mrs. Eddy avoided a public reception by withdrawing from the platform before the meeting adjourned and returning the same afternoon to Concord. This does not mean that she was unwilling to receive her students when she could fittingly arrange to do so. At the June communion service in 1895 a telegram from her was read to the congregation in which she invited all members who desired to call upon her to go to Pleasant View on the following day. About two hundred responded to this invitation, and Mrs. Eddy threw her house open, receiving them with great kindness, shaking hands with all, and conversing with many at length. This general reception was repeated in 1897, when she was obliged to receive nearly three thousand guests. She could not personally greet such a large company, so she received them en masse, making a lengthy address and having refreshments served upon her lawn.

Mrs. Eddy sent no message of invitation in 1898, but a great many students made the pilgrimage to Concord nevertheless, and were obliged to content themselves with seeing her start on her drive. It became generally known to her church that their Leader was not pleased to have these annual visits take the appearance to the world of a pilgrimage of adoration, for it had begun to be spoken of as though she had withdrawn from daily intercourse with them only to secure a personal adulation greater than that accorded to any living woman. This of all things Mrs. Eddy desired to avoid, for the charge of apotheosis lurked behind any demonstration of her students’ affection. So for several years such visits were discouraged.

But in 1901, the year in which Mrs. Eddy was eighty years of age, she again permitted the students to gather at Pleasant View after the June communion. On this occasion three special trains, leaving Boston for Concord, carried her guests. In June, 1903, several special trains carried about 10,000 Christian Scientists to Concord. As the great multitude approached Pleasant View members of her household went to the gates and requested the students to enter the grounds and Mrs. Eddy sent word that she would address them from the balcony outside her study. When she entered the balcony she stood looking down on the great throng of people for a moment in silence, then stretched out her hands to them in a gesture characteristic of her great heart’s love, seeming to say in that mute appeal, “All that I have I give unto you.” She spoke briefly, addressing them as though they were indeed the lambs of the Lord whom she would feed with heavenly manna. Here and there a student wept; all hung upon her words and her voice carried to the remotest listener. As she stepped back into her room, many began to write down the words they remembered, and as they compared their notes, each one seemed to have caught a special and personal message. This was the last time Mrs. Eddy received her students en masse at Pleasant View.

There was, however, in 1904 a large concourse of students in Concord to celebrate the dedication of the Concord church, a structure of virgin granite near the central square of the capitol. This church edifice was the gift of Mrs. Eddy to her students in that city, and is one of the most beautiful of the many beautiful Christian Science churches in America. About two thousand students gathered for this occasion, but they respected Mrs. Eddy’s wish not to haunt her drive or to visit Pleasant View. They assembled in front of the church and awaited her visit to them. From her carriage she made an address which the perfect silence of the assemblage made clearly audible. She directly addressed herself to the president of the church as representing the church body, but her remarks were in the nature of a general greeting.

When Mrs. Eddy published “Miscellaneous Writings” in 1897, she requested in the March Journal that her students cease teaching Christian Science for one year. She had labored assiduously on this new publication, gathering her scattered writings out of the Journal and from many messages and class lessons, also from some letters on special subjects; and she believed the book would better prepare the minds of persons coming into the faith to understand the Christian Science text-book than the efforts of students. The book met with great success, for it was like a personal meeting with the Leader, full of the animated flashes of her wit and the quiet touches of her sympathetic understanding.

Although this work was sent out as a sort of primary class-book, it was eagerly read by the students who had gone through many classes with her as teacher, and soon became the most cherished of her writings after “Science and Health.” Its appearance gave rise to a demand for just one more class, and Mrs. Eddy consented to receive as students a number of the petitioners in November, 1898. A class of sixty-one members was organized in Concord. Among those who joined were members from England, Scotland, and Canada. Mrs. Eddy refused remuneration for her instruction, which she gave in the Concord Christian Science hall, and she taught but two sessions. The lessons occurred on November 21 and 22, the first lasting for two hours, the second for four. The students were abundantly satisfied with what was pronounced her “wondrous teaching.”

Among the members of this last class was the editor of a newspaper in Concord who by becoming her student became her personal friend. Another editor became her student by reading her text-book, and they were ever after during her residence there welcome guests at her house. This close relationship with the two most prominent intelligencers of the city made Concord feel that the whole city was on terms of intimacy with the venerable Leader of the Christian Science Church. Her views on many public questions were obtained by them and printed in their papers and, whereas she had been too modest to acclaim her benevolences, they were not slow to do so, and Concord became aware that Mrs. Eddy was supplying a sum to the state fair association for the relief of the poor, and frequently made donations for hospitals and religious associations outside her church, that she had given the city a well-paved boulevard and contributed large sums for projects of the state of New Hampshire. She was no longer a private personage, but one of the capitol’s best known and most public-spirited citizens.

The world which had been so long in recognizing her seemed at last ready to acknowledge her work as an important factor in the progress of latter-day civilization. It was women who conferred the first general honor upon her, an honor quite apart from that accruing to her by reason of her religious leadership. The Daughters of the American Revolution made her a member of their body in February, 1893, when the wife of the president of the United States, Mrs. Harrison, was chief officer of the organization. And it was at Mrs. Harrison’s request that the honor was bestowed.

Newspapers and magazines now frequently besought her for interviews and communications on important matters. She occasionally acceded to the latter requests, giving her views on the War with Spain, and, after the death of President McKinley, paying her tribute to his noble life. On the occasions of public festivals and celebrations she also gave on request her views as to the meaning of the Puritan Thanksgiving Day and its significance to this generation and the true meaning and best celebration of the spirit of Christmas. On such questions of public morals as marriage and divorce she responded to requests for her opinions.

But to the interviewer in person, Mrs. Eddy was not accessible. Her reasons for refusing to receive press correspondents in general were not based on selfishness or indifference to public interest, but rather that she might not be represented as self-seeking. She had established a publication committee while still active in the church work, and this committee had extended its offices to every important city in America, and of late years to foreign cities. It was not Mrs. Eddy’s wish to perform an act of supererogation in giving out news of the church. Concerning her own life, she did not think it necessary to admit the world too intimately into her personal affairs, for to admit the world would be to make a parade of the simplest private virtues and devotions. Acting as she believed with the highest propriety, she consistently refused an audience to the special correspondent.

Because of this insistent privacy at Pleasant View a rumor grew up in the newspaper offices that the founder of the new religious faith; which was established on the tenet that God is able to heal all our infirmities, was herself a victim of infirmity. What that infirmity might be could only be surmised and speculated upon by the fertile brains of ingenious reporters. In May of 1905 Mrs. Eddy broke her long-continued rule and granted an interview to a representative of the Boston Herald. On that occasion she said: “All that I ask of the world is time, time to assimilate myself to God. I would take all the world to my heart if that were possible; but I can only ask my friends to look away from my personality and fix their eyes on Truth.” So gracious, so gentle, so detached, so luminous was her personality, that the interviewer could not press upon her the many questions framed for the occasion, but submitted them to Mrs. Eddy’s secretaries for her to take up in a more leisurely way with them, when she could dictate her replies. So humbly cognizant of this yielding on the part of the reporter was Mrs. Eddy, that she sent to the Boston Herald a kind tribute of appreciation.

But this interview did not satisfy a certain element of the press of America. The picture of a saintly character, living a contemplative and spiritual life of retirement did not accord with its preconceived notion, false as its own mental vision was. It yearned to press home upon the minds of the world its own image in a dramatic, first-page “story,” and for that end a newspaper of New York decided to make such a powerful demand for an audience that it should not be gainsaid. The occasion for making this demand seemed to the newspaper mind to arise at the dedication of the new Mother Church in Boston.

THE MOTHER CHURCH IN BOSTON.

With the Temple Extension

In 1902 Mrs. Eddy had suggested in her message to the church the need for a larger church edifice in Boston, and at the annual meeting the church voted to raise any part of $2,000,000 required for the erection of such an edifice. The work of clearing land adjacent to the original Mother Church began in October, 1903. The corner-stone of the new church building was laid in 1904, and like a miracle the great structure of white granite and Bedford stone began to arise from the heart of the city. In 1906 it lifted its white dome, a serene symbol of faith, above all the surrounding buildings, visible from far and near, a crown of peace. This church was dedicated in June, 1906, when about thirty thousand Christian Scientists filled the city of Boston and took part in the six successive services of communion.

The Christian Scientists who had come to Boston to see the Mother Church dedicated remained to attend the Wednesday evening meeting at which testimonies of Christian Science healing were given. The great temple was crowded from floor to dome and overflow meetings were held in the original Mother Church and in four public halls. Many who were not Christian Scientists were amazed listeners to the outpouring of testimonies from every part of the great auditorium. Men and women arose in their places on the floor of the church and in the first and second balconies. As each arose he called the name of his city and waited his turn to tell of the miracle of health and virtue wrought in his life as a result of the study of Christian Science. The names of the cities called up the near and the far of the civilized world — Liverpool, Galveston, St. Petersburg, San Francisco, Paris, New York, Atlanta, and Portland. There were negroes as well as white men in that audience; there were French, German, and Scandinavian; there were army officers from Great Britain, and members of the British nobility, Americans of great wealth, jurists, former doctors and clergymen, teachers, clerks, day laborers. It was like a verberation of an army with banners. And not only of the vanquishment of cancers, consumption, broken limbs, malignant diseases, and paralysis did these votaries of Christian Science testify, but of poverty overcome, victory gained over drunkenness, morphine, and immoral lives. It was a triumphant assertion of the health and power of spiritual living.

Who now would lay finger upon the character of the founder of such a living faith? Who now would say that she had not taught a creed by which men can live and ennoble their lives? Who would begrudge her her hard-won right to retirement, peace, and serenity? It would be difficult to believe, did not all the world know, that in October of this same year two representatives of a New York newspaper did present themselves at Pleasant View and demand an audience with the venerable founder then in her eighty-fifth year. So churlish and so threatening was their demand, so steeped were they in a strange suspicion, that the faithful protectors of Mrs. Eddy’s home life knew not what to say. The preposterous assertions that Mrs. Eddy was no longer living seemed to require the reproof of her presence, and yet to introduce such violent accusers to the saintly Leader seemed out of the question. Mrs. Eddy herself solved the difficulty, when the matter was laid before her, by saying that she would see not only them, but with them her neighbor across the way, that by his testimony the unbelieving reporters might be convinced that they were talking with the veritable Mary Baker Eddy.

The interview was brief, but the reporters were given ample time to ask the questions they desired. The turbulence of their quest, the malignity of their purpose, caused the venerable woman a slight tremulousness as she arose to greet them; a flush mounted her cheeks and she leaned momentarily upon the table at which she had been writing when they entered. Upon such evidences of natural emotion they based a story of absolute decrepitude and they did not spare her silvered head from indignity. The lurid story these writers gave to the world was that Mrs. Eddy could not possibly drive abroad in her carriage and therefore must be impersonated by some other gray-haired woman many years her junior. They declared that she did not manage her business, and was controlled mentally and physically by a designing clique who lived in her house and humbugged her church.

The vilification of a blameless life smote the public consciousness of the entire country. Far from feeling that the New York paper had performed a clever journalistic feat, the press of the country repudiated it with loathing and scorn. But with characteristic American enterprise, it sent representatives to Concord, New Hampshire, on the very day of the publication of the story, Sunday, October 28, 1906. The Associated Press, the Publishers Press, all the large newspapers of Boston and New York had representatives at Mrs. Eddy’s home within twenty-four hours. In this emergency Mrs. Eddy summoned Mr. Alfred Farlow, head of the Christian Science Publication Committee. To meet the gathering newspaper men he sent to Concord an able representative, Mr. H. Cornell Wilson, of New York. Mr. Wilson conferred with Mr. Frye and his assistant, Mr. Lewis C. Strang, a former dramatic critic of Boston. From men of affairs in Concord who were not Christian Scientists Mr. Strang and Mr. Wilson secured affidavits as to Mrs. Eddy’s social and business character. The affidavits were from the treasurer of the Loan and Trust Savings Bank of Concord, Fred N. Ladd; the president of the National State Capital Bank, J. E. Fernald; a lawyer who stands at the head of the New Hampshire bar, General Frank S. Streeter; the mayor of Concord, Charles R. Corning; and the editors of the two most prominent New Hampshire papers, M. Meehan of the Concord Patriot and George H. Moses of the Monitor and Statesman.

The affidavits covered the points that Mrs. Eddy had personal and business relations with her bankers, that she was the person who rode out in her carriage daily, and that she was not an invalid, or in any way mentally impaired, as she had received within the week for a call of a half-hour’s duration Mayor Corning and General Streeter. Mr. Moses declared that he possessed in Mrs. Eddy’s handwriting a budget of more than a hundred letters written to him during the past few years (the last one bearing a recent date), letters concerning printing which he had done for her. Affidavits were also furnished from members of the Pleasant View household; the two secretaries, Calvin A. Frye and Lewis C. Strang; the two companions, Mrs. Laura Sargent and Mrs. Pamelia Leonard, refuting the charge that Mrs. Eddy had any organic disease.

The assembled press representatives accepted with thanks the data supplied them, but united in the request for a personal interview with Mrs. Eddy. Their request was not only united but individual, and the most persistent of the reporters besieged the front door of Pleasant View, while photographers and artists stood at the gateway and haunted the driveway. Recognizing the situation as imperative, Mrs. Eddy decided to receive them all on Tuesday, October 30. They were bidden to come at one o’clock, when she would give them an audience just before taking her drive.

Accordingly, about fifteen newspaper men and women drove to Pleasant View and assembled in her drawing-room. There were also present her banker, her lawyer, the mayor, and a few men prominent in the Mother Church. The dainty rose drawing-room was quite filled with an official-looking assemblage, and many of the faces were intense with expectation of what they were about to behold. When Mrs. Eddy came down her own stairway and stood for a moment in the entrance, confronting the cynical and skeptical world, a world which refused to believe in disinterested virtue, she caught for a moment at the portière and an expression of pained comprehension slowly swept her face, a crimson stain burned her cheeks, and her eyes flashed a look of reproach over the assemblage.

Professor H. S. Hering, first reader of the Concord church, courteously and briefly stated the purpose of the gathering. Mrs. Eddy bowed. To the first question, “Are you in perfect bodily health?” she replied clearly and firmly, “I am.” When the second question was put, “Have you any physician beside God?” Mrs. Eddy loosed her grasp upon the portière, took a step forward, and stretching out both hands in a sweeping, open gesture, declared solemnly and with magnificent energy, her voice thrilling all who heard her, “Indeed, I have not! His everlasting arms are around me and support me, and that is enough.”

Here Mrs. Eddy terminated the interview with another bow to the assemblage and a hand lifted against further questioning. She withdrew and Mr. Frye and Mrs. Sargent escorted her to her carriage which was waiting under the porte-cochere. As she left the house the newspaper men crowded the windows to watch her drive away. When her carriage disappeared, they asked to be shown the house, and were escorted over it. They entered the quiet study on the second floor, looked at the pictures on the walls, the books in the cases, stood where she so often did to survey the broad valley. They went through the simple little bedroom adjoining and surveyed the plain austerity of its furnishing with frank curiosity. The women reporters asked to see her wardrobe, and were shown the orderly clothes-room where her garments hung. In the dining-room they saw where she sat at table, the chocolate service she used, and inquired who sat on her right and left. They saw the library, her special chair, the table where books of reference were consulted. They examined the rugs and hangings of the drawing-room, the souvenirs, certificates of honor, the paintings. They did not ask to see her account books, or the exact spot in which she knelt at prayer.

On the whole the investigation of the private life and character of the venerable Leader was satisfactory to the newspapers. The journal which had printed the disagreeable article was discredited. It had failed to substantiate the story that Mrs. Eddy was in feeble health, and could produce no one to bear it out in the statement that she was mentally incapable. Her home life was shown to be simple and her relations with the citizens of Concord open and honorable.

But one important circumstance of Mrs. Eddy’s life remained uncanvassed, her relation with her son, George W. Glover. Herein the New York newspaper which had aroused the recent inquiry thought it saw an opportunity to again challenge public attention and prove that the life upon which public scrutiny had been bent was not blameless. On Thanksgiving Day of 1906 a representative of the paper called on Mr. Glover in his home in Lead City, South Dakota, carrying a letter from Senator William E. Chandler of New Hampshire which stated that he had consented to act as legal counsel concerning certain questions which had arisen in connection with Mrs. Eddy’s life. In its subsequent story of the interview with George Glover, the newspaper stated frankly that it found the son a loyal champion of his mother, and that it was necessary to impress upon him his legal opportunity and to make him believe that his aid was necessary to extricate his mother from being “detained in the custody of strangers against her will.”

The clever New York newspaper man sat down in George Glover’s home, a home with which Mrs. Eddy had presented her son, and drew from the guileless Westerner the story of his life and his relations with his mother. It was a story which must have surprised the reporter, for in spite of skilful manipulation of the facts, the truth was made apparent and stood forth in unblemished purity a witness to the mother’s faithful consideration for her only child. He related the circumstances of his several visits to his mother while she was living at Pleasant View, how his mother had given him $5,000 at one time to further his mining interests, how she had built for him the finest house in Lead City at an expense of $20,000 and had sent him $1,100 additional to make alterations which he desired after occupying it, how she had interested herself in the education of his children and had sent money to him for that purpose.

To be sure, George Glover’s story was filled with personal grievances. He did not like it that he could not always have direct access to his mother when visiting her at Pleasant View. He would have liked to realize for days the pleasure he experienced for a few hours in seeing her embrace and caress his children and make merry with the youngest in a relaxed mood. He recounted how she had once permitted him in a sportive spirit to ring her electric bells and summon her secretary. It was the presence of a secretary which seemed particularly to have aggrieved the son. A secretary was to him an unnecessary personage, a man of affairs who scanned his demands upon his mother’s love with an unemotional business eye and offered advice where Glover thought he would have benefited had advice not been given. As a matter of fact Calvin Frye never acted as adviser but as executor of Mrs. Eddy’s wishes.

Playing upon this prejudice toward the secretary, the newspaper representative appears to have found it easy to induce Glover to exaggerate in his own mind the sense of his grievances and to catch the fear that he would eventually be wrongfully deprived of his inheritance by those men of affairs with whom his mother had so long associated. Glover was induced to believe that he was in a pitiable condition of neglect and that powerful friends had been raised up by the newspaper to aid him. Thus he beheld his “legal opportunity” to interfere in the management of his mother’s affairs.

As soon as George Glover consented to act in a suit at law nominally for his mother’s interests, but in reality against her every wish and purpose, her only other heirs were sought out by this same agency and persuaded to join the issue. These heirs were her adopted son, Ebenezer Foster-Eddy, and George W. Baker, her nephew. The suit was brought by the sons and nephew, together with Glover’s oldest child, Mary Baker Glover. It was called the petition of next friends, or exactly, “The petition of Mary Baker Glover Eddy who sues by her next friends George W. Glover, Mary Baker Glover, and George W. Baker against Calvin A. Frye, Alfred Farlow, Irving C. Tomlinson, Ira O. Knapp, William B. Johnson, Stephen A. Chase, Joseph Armstrong, Edward A. Kimball, Hermann S. Hering, and Lewis C. Strang.”

The particulars of the complaint are too largely a matter of legal technics to be recounted save in summary. It is sufficient to say that it was set forth in the bill that Mrs. Eddy was forcibly detained and constrained to do the will of strangers, that her large estate was manipulated improperly by her secretaries, and that she was in a feeble mental state which prevented her comprehending what disposition was being made of her affairs. The plaintiffs prayed that the defendants be required to give account of all their business transactions, and if they had wrongfully disposed of any property that they be made to restore it; that they be restrained from any further business dealings in Mrs. Eddy’s name, pending the suit, and that a receiver be appointed to take possession of all Mrs. Eddy’s property.

So this son, who was alienated from his mother in childhood because his rugged health and boisterous spirits were declared by relatives to be unendurable in a home where she was an invalid, was now in her advanced years stirred up against her by what motive it is difficult indeed to determine, but by the method of arousing a false fear for her welfare through his unfamiliarity with the enormous social interests involved. But Mrs. Eddy was not supine under the peculiar and extraordinary attack. She came forward to meet the issue with the deliberation of a superbly clarified intellect and her procedure was so wise in every detail as to win the applause of the most judicial as well as the most worldly of her critics.

Her first act was to employ an expert accountant to go over her books and ascertain if any charge of mismanagement or malfeasance could be brought against her trusted secretary, Calvin A. Frye. When her books which had been audited yearly were found to be substantially correct, save for a slight error in bookkeeping which defrauded not her, but the secretary himself, she created a trusteeship, transferring all her property to three men for their management and disposition, subject to clearly defined conditions. These three men were her cousin, the Honorable Henry M. Baker, her banker, Josiah E. Fernald, and the editor of the Christian Science Journal and Sentinel (also member of the board of directors of the Mother Church), Archibald McLellan. But one of these men was a Christian Scientist; the others were prominent business men of Concord, her cousin having represented his district in Congress.

With a view to taking this step she had caused to be created a trust deed for the benefit of her son, George W. Glover, and his family, by which she conveyed securities valued at $125,000 to the guardianship of her lawyer, General Frank S. Streeter, Archibald McLellan, and Irving C. Tomlinson. The provisos of the trust guaranteed a liberal annual income to her son during his lifetime and to his wife during hers, a smaller annual income to each of her grandchildren, and the expenditure of money for the education of those who had not completed their schooling, and its maintenance in force until her youngest grandchild should reach his majority. On the death of her son and his wife, and the arrival of the grandchildren at years of majority, the trust was to be paid over in equal shares to her grandchildren. This trust bore the proviso, however, that the beneficiaries should not directly or indirectly contest her last will or other disposition of property.

This arrangement did not satisfy George Glover, whose suspicion was now thoroughly aroused by misrepresentations of his mother’s property. He was led to believe that her fortune was enormous and that he was faring but ill in its benefits. The petition was filed March 1, 1907, and on April 2 the trustees of Mrs. Eddy’s property begged leave to intervene and be made substitutes in place of the “next friends.” Thereupon the complainants amended their petition and considerable legal delay ensued. On June 5, Judge Robert N. Chamberlin of New Hampshire denied the motion of the trustees to intervene, but on June 27 he constituted the Honorable Edgar Aldrich a master of the court to hear all pertinent and competent evidence and determine whether Mary Baker G. Eddy on the first day of March, 1907, was capable of intelligently managing, controlling, and conducting her financial affairs. Co-masters were subsequently appointed, these being Dr. George F. Jelly of Boston, an alienist, and the Honorable Hosea W. Parker of Claremont, New Hampshire, an eminent lawyer.

Accordingly, when all the details of qualifying for masters were completed, Judge Aldrich began the hearing in Concord. The hearing opened on Monday, August 13, 1907. It was continued for six days, with a recess for Saturday and Sunday, and on the sixth day the complainants withdrew their suit by motion of their counsel, without asking from the masters any finding upon the questions submitted to them by Judge Chamberlin. The withdrawal of the suit came suddenly and was in the nature of a collapse. It followed shortly upon the heels of a visit paid to Mrs. Eddy at Pleasant View by the masters’ court and counsel for both defendants and plaintiffs which was a courtesy extended to her, because of her years, by Judge Aldrich. Senator Chandler, the lawyer for George W. Glover, had endeavored to have the court command Mrs. Eddy’s presence in the court room, but Judge Aldrich decided that the court could convene as well in the library of Pleasant View to protect Mrs. Eddy from the unnecessary strain of appearing in a court room among the throngs of the curious and at such a season as mid-August. During the visit to her home she exhibited such mental alertness and ability in discussing financial, civic, and social topics, that it was a foregone conclusion that the masters’ findings would adjudge her eminently capable of administering her own affairs. Apprehending this clearly from long legal experience, the astute lawyer for the complainants decided upon withdrawal.

Therefore, after almost a year of unjust prosecution, Mrs. Eddy was permitted to regain the privacy which she desired and the conduct of matters relative to the welfare of the church in which her lifework had centered. Her first public utterance came through her trustees when she made public her intention of creating a fund for the education of indigent students along lines of Christian Science inquiry. The details of her project had not been worked out, but the public was satisfied that the fortune derived from the sale of her various books was designed for the betterment of humanity.

On Sunday, January 26, 1908, Mrs. Eddy changed her residence from Pleasant View, Concord, to Chestnut Hill, in the suburbs of Boston. Her new home was established in a cheerful gray stone mansion, situated in twelve acres of well-wooded ground, commanding a view of the Blue Hills. The commodious house, containing twenty-five rooms was adapted for the use of a larger household than was Pleasant View. Mrs. Eddy’s new educational projects required the additional attention of extra clerks and secretaries, and she also desired to be in closer touch with the headquarters of the church in furthering her philanthropic purposes.

MRS. EDDY'S HOME AT CHESTNUT HILL, BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS

Her removal from Concord was made by special train and she was accompanied by a small party of Christian Scientists. Her drive to the station from Pleasant View was somewhat of a farewell to her birthplace and was on the whole a rather sad one; but the journey aroused her spirits to the work before her, and she entered her new home blithely and cheerfully. Her energy was unusual and within a few hours she had established the routine of her life in her new home. The arrangement of its rooms is not unlike that of Pleasant View, except for a greater spaciousness and more agreeable accommodations for her assistants and visiting friends.

When it became known in Concord that Mrs. Eddy had decided to make her home in Massachusetts, the city council met and passed resolutions of regret at her departure and of appreciation for the kindly relations that had existed for nineteen years between her and Concord people and also of her beneficence to the city of Concord. The mayor and the clerk were authorized to attest the testimonial of esteem in behalf of the city. This was done and the resolutions forwarded to Mrs. Eddy. She replied to their cordial recognition in the following words:

To the Honorable Mayor and City Council, Concord, N. H.

Gentlemen, — I have not only the pleasure but the honor of replying to the City Council of Concord, in joint convention assembled, and to Alderman Cressy, for the kindly resolutions passed by your honorable body, and for which I thank you deeply. Lest I should acknowledge more than I deserve of praise, I leave their courteous opinions to their good judgment.

My early days hold rich recollections of associations with your churches and institutions, and memory has a distinct model in granite of the good folk in Concord, which like the granite of their State, steadfast and enduring, has hinted this quality to other states and nations all over the world.

My home influence, early education and church experience, have unquestionably ripened into the fruits of my present religious experience, and for this I prize them. May I honor this origin and deserve the continued friendship and esteem of the people in my native State.

Sincerely yours,

Mary Baker G. Eddy. 

By this letter she affirmed her continued interest in all who had been associated with her in early life and throughout her later years of usefulness and noble living; and by the projects to which she now gave her attention, declared her purpose of rising above the criticism of an unjust world into the pure atmosphere of brotherly love, fulfilling the commandments of her only acknowledged Master, to love God with all her heart and her neighbor as herself.