Chapter XIII: Training the Vine--A Study in Mrs. Eddy's Prerogatives and Powers

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land
_Motto upon the cover of the "Christian Science Sentinel"_

At the June communion of the Mother Church, 1895, a telegram from Mrs. Eddy was read aloud to the congregation, in which she invited all members who desired to do so to call upon her at Pleasant View on the following day.[1] Accordingly, one hundred and eighty Christian Scientists boarded the train at Boston and went up to Concord. Mrs. Eddy threw her house open to them, received them in person, shook hands with each delegate, and conversed with many. This was the beginning of the Concord "pilgrimages" which later became so conspicuous.

After the communion in 1897, twenty-five hundred enthusiastic pilgrims crowded into the little New Hampshire capital. Although the Scientists hired every available conveyance in Concord, there were not nearly enough carriages to accommodate their numbers, so hundreds of the pilgrims made their joyful progress on foot out Pleasant Street to Mrs. Eddy's home.

Mrs. Eddy again received her votaries, greeted them cordially, and made a rather lengthy address. The _Journal_ says that her manner upon this occasion was peculiar for its "utter freedom from sensationalism or the Mesmeric effect that so many speakers seem to exert," and adds that she was "calm and unimpassioned, but strong and convincing." The _Journal_ also states that upon this occasion Mrs. Eddy wore "a royal purple silk dress covered with black lace" and a "dainty bonnet." She wore her diamond cross and the badge of the Daughters of the Revolution in diamonds and rubies.

In 1901[2] three thousand of the June communicants went from Boston to Concord on three special trains. They were not admitted to the house, but Mrs. Eddy appeared upon her balcony for a moment and spoke to them, saying that they had already heard from her in her message to the Mother Church, and that she would pause but a moment to look into their dear faces and then return to her "studio." The _Journal_ comments upon her "erect form and sprightly step," and says that she wore "what might have been silk or satin, figured, and cut _en traine_. Upon her white hair rested a bonnet with fluttering blue and old gold trimmings."

The last of these pilgrimages occurred in 1904, when Mrs. Eddy did not invite the pilgrims to come to Pleasant View but asked them to assemble at the new Christian Science church in Concord. Fifteen hundred of them gathered in front of the church and stood in reverent silence as Mrs. Eddy's carriage approached. The horses were stopped in front of the assemblage, and Mrs. Eddy signaled the President of the Mother Church to approach her carriage. To him, as representing the church body, she spoke her greeting.

The yearning which these people felt toward Mrs. Eddy, and their rapture at beholding her, can only be described by one of the pilgrims. In the _Journal_, June, 1899, Miss Martha Sutton Thompson writes to describe a visit which she made in January of that year to the meeting of the Christian Science Board of Education in Boston. She says:

"When I decided to attend I also hoped to see our Mother....
I saw that if I allowed the thought that I must see her
personally to transcend the desire to obey and grow into the
likeness of her teachings, this mistake would obscure my
understanding of both the Revelator and the Revelation.
After the members of the Board had retired they reappeared
upon the rostrum and my heart beat quickly with the thought
'Perhaps _she_ has come.' But no, it was to read her
message.... She said God was with us and to give her love to
all the class. It was so precious to get it directly from
her.

"The following day five of us made the journey to Concord,
drove out to Pleasant View, and met her face to face on her
daily drive. She seemed watching to greet us, for when she
caught sight of our faces she instantly half rose with
expectant face, bowing, smiling, and waving her hand to each
of us. Then as she went out of our sight, kissed her hand to
all.

"I will not attempt to describe the Leader, nor can I say
what this brief glimpse was and is to me. I can only say I
wept and the tears start every time I think of it. Why do I
weep? I think it is because I want to be like her and they
are tears of repentance. I realize better now what it was
that made Mary Magdalen weep when she came into the presence
of the Nazarene."

_Mrs. Eddy's Last Class_

After the pilgrimages were discouraged, there was no possible way in which these devoted disciples could ever see Mrs. Eddy. They used, indeed, like Miss Thompson, to go to Concord and linger about the highways to catch a glimpse of her as she drove by, until she rebuked them in a new by-law in the Church Manual: "_Thou Shalt not Steal_. Sect. 15. Neither a Christian Scientist, his student or his patient, nor a member of the Mother Church shall daily and continuously haunt Mrs. Eddy's drive by meeting her once or more every day when she goes out--on penalty of being disciplined and dealt with justly by her church," etc.

Mrs. Eddy did her last public teaching in the Christian Science Hall in Concord, November 21 and 22, 1898. There were sixty-one persons in this class,--several from Canada, one from England, and one from Scotland,--and Mrs. Eddy refused to accept any remuneration for her instruction. The first lesson lasted about two hours, the second nearly four. "Only two lessons," says the _Journal_, "but such lessons! Only those who have sat under this wondrous teaching can form a conjecture of what these classes were." "We mention," the _Journal_ continues, "a sweet incident and one which deeply touched the Mother's heart. Upon her return from class she found beside her plate at dinner table a lovely white rose with the card of a young lady student accompanying on which she chastely referred to the last couplet of the fourth stanza of that sweet poem from the Mother's pen, 'Love.'

"Thou to whose power our hope we give
Free us from human strife.
Fed by Thy love divine we live
For Love alone is Life," etc.

_Mrs. Eddy and the Press_

Mrs. Eddy now achieved publicity in a good many ways, and to such publications as afforded her space and appreciation she was able to grant reciprocal favors. The _Granite Monthly_, a little magazine published at Concord, New Hampshire, printed Mrs. Eddy's poem "Easter Morn" and a highly laudatory article upon her. Mrs. Eddy then came out in the _Christian Science Journal_ with a request that all Christian Scientists subscribe to the _Granite Monthly_, which they promptly did. Colonel Oliver C. Sabin, an astute politician in Washington, D.C., was editor of a purely political publication, the Washington _News Letter_. A Congressman one day attacked Christian Science in a speech. Colonel Sabin, whose paper was just then making things unpleasant for that particular Congressman, wrote an editorial in defense of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy inserted a card in the _Journal_ requesting all Christian Scientists to subscribe to the _News Letter_. This brought Colonel Sabin such a revenue that he dropped politics altogether and his political sheet became a religious periodical. Mr. James T. White, publisher of the _National Encyclopaedia of American Biography_, gave Mrs. Eddy a generous place in his encyclopedia and wrote a poem to her. Mrs. Eddy requested, through the _Journal_, that all Christian Scientists buy Mr. White's volume of verse for Christmas presents, and the Christian Science Publication Society marketed Mr. White's verses. Mrs. Eddy made a point of being on good terms with the Concord papers; she furnished them with many columns of copy, and the editors realized that her presence in Concord brought a great deal of money into the town. From 1898 to 1901 the files of the _Journal_ echo increasing material prosperity, and show that both Mrs. Eddy and her church were much more taken account of than formerly. Articles by Mrs. Eddy are quoted from various newspapers whose editors had requested her to express her views upon the war with Spain, the Puritan Thanksgiving, etc.

In the autumn of 1901 Mrs. Eddy wrote an article on the death of President McKinley. Commenting upon this article, _Harper's Weekly_ said: "Among others who have spoken [on President McKinley's death] was Mrs. Eddy, the Mother of Christian Science. She issued two utterances which were read in her churches.... Both of these discourses are seemly and kind, but they are materially different from the writings of any one else. Reciting the praises of the dead President, Mrs. Eddy says: 'May his history waken a tone of truth that shall reverberate, renew euphony, emphasize human power and bear its banner into the vast forever.' No one else said anything like that. Mother Eddy's style is a personal asset. Her sentences usually have the considerable literary merit of being unexpected."

Of this editorial the Journal says, with a candor almost incredible: "We take pleasure in republishing from that old-established and valuable publication _Harper's Weekly_, the following merited tribute to Mrs. Eddy's utterances," etc. Then follows the editorial quoted above.

MRS. EDDY ON THE BALCONY OF HER CONCORD HOME ADDRESSING THE PILGRIMS IN 1903. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH MADE AT THE TIME BY R. W. SEARS]

In the winter of 1898 Christian Science was given great publicity through the death, under Christian Science treatment, of the American journalist and novelist, Harold Frederic, in England. Mr. Frederic's readers were not, as a rule, people who knew much about Christian Science, and his taking off brought the new cult to the attention of thousands of people for the first time.

Mrs. Eddy and the Peerage

In December, 1898, the Earl of Dunmore, a peer of the Scottish Realm, and his Countess, came to Boston to study Christian Science. They were received by Mrs. Eddy at Pleasant View, and Lady Dunmore was present at the June communion, 1899. According to the _Journal_, Lady Dunmore's son, Lord Fincastle, left his regiment in India and came to Boston to join his mother in this service, and then returned immediately to his military duties. Lady Mildred Murray, daughter of the Countess, also came to America to attend the annual communion. A pew was reserved upon the first floor of the church for this titled family, although the _Journal_ explains that "the reservation of a pew for the Countess of Dunmore and her family was wholly a matter of international courtesy, and not in any sense a tribute to their rank."

Lord Dunmore, at one of the Wednesday evening meetings, discussed the possibilities of a "Christianly-Scientific Alliance of the two Anglo-Saxon peoples." Even after his departure to England, Lord Dunmore continued to contribute very characteristic Christian Science poetry to the _Journal_. He paid a visit to Mrs. Eddy only a few months before his death in the summer of 1907.

In 1904 the Earl was present at the convention of the Christian Science Teachers' Association in London, and sent Mrs. Eddy the following cablegram:

"London, Nov. 28, 1904.

"REV. MARY BAKER EDDY,
"Pleasant View, Concord, N. H.

"Members of Teachers' Association, London, send much love,
and are striving, by doing better, to help you.

"DUNMORE."

To this Mrs. Eddy gallantly replied:

"Concord, N. H., November 29, 1904.

"EARL OF DUNMORE, AND TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, London, G. B.

"Increasing gratitude and love for your lordly help and that
of your Association.

"MARY BAKER EDDY."

In these prosperous years the Reverend Irving C. Tomlinson, in commenting in the _Journal_ upon Brander Matthews' statement that English seemed destined to become the world-language, says: "It may be that Prof. Matthews has written better than he knew. Science and Health is fast reaching all parts of the world; and as our text book may never be translated into a foreign tongue, may it not be expected to fulfill the prophet's hope, 'Then will I turn to the people a pure language,'" etc.

In January, 1901, Mrs. Eddy called her directors together in solemn conclave, and charged them to send expressions of sympathy to the British government and to King Edward upon the death of the Queen.

Truly the days of the Lynn shoemakers and the little Broad Street tenement were far gone by, and it must have seemed to Mrs. Eddy that she was living in one of those _New York Ledger_ romances which had so delighted her in those humbler times. Even a less spirited woman than she would have expanded under all this notoriety, and Mrs. Eddy, as always, caught the spirit of the play. A letter written to her son, George Glover, April 27, 1898, conveys some idea of how Mrs. Eddy appeared to herself at this time:

Pleasant View,
Concord, N. H., April 27, 1898.

DEAR SON: Yours of latest date came duly. That which you
cannot write I understand, and will say, I am reported as
dying, wholly decriped and useless, etc. Now one of these
reports is just as true as the others are. My life is as
pure as that of the angels. God has lifted me up to my work,
and if it was not pure it would not bring forth good fruits.
The Bible says the tree is known by its fruit.

But I need not say this to a Christian Scientist, who knows
it. I thank you for any interest you may feel in your
mother. I am alone in the world, more lone than a solitary
star. Although it is duly estimated by business characters
and learned scholars that I lead and am obeyed by 300,000
people at this date. The most distinguished newspapers ask
me to write on the most important subjects. Lords and
ladies, earles, princes and marquises and marchionesses from
abroad write to me in the most complimentary manner. Hoke
Smith declares I am the most illustrious woman on the
continent--those are his exact words. Our senators and
members of Congress call on me for counsel. But what of all
this? I am not made the least proud by it or a particle
happier for it. I am working for a higher purpose.

Now what of my circumstances? I name first my home, which of
all places on earth is the one in which to find peace and
enjoyment. But my home is simply a house and a beautiful
landscape. There is not one in it that I love only as I love
everybody. I have no congeniality with my help inside of my
house; they are no companions and scarcely fit to be my
help.

I adopted a son hoping he would take Mr. Frye's place as my
book-keeper and man of all work that belongs to man. But my
trial of him has proved another disappointment. His books
could not be audited they were so incorrect, etc., etc. Mr.
Frye is the most disagreeable man that can be found, but
this he is, namely, (if there is one on earth) an honest
man, as all will tell you who deal with him. At first
mesmerism swayed him, but he learned through my forbearance
to govern himself. He is a man that would not steal, commit
adultery, or fornication, or break one of the Ten
Commandments. I have now done, but I could write a volume on
what I have touched upon.

One thing is the severest wound of all, namely, the want of
education among those nearest to me in kin. I would gladly
give every dollar I possess to have one or two and three
that are nearest to me on earth possess a thorough
education. If you had been educated as I intend to have you,
today you could, would, be made President of the United
States. Mary's letters to me are so misspelled that I blush
to read them.

You pronounce your words so wrongly and then she spells them
accordingly. I am even yet too proud to have you come among
my society and alas! mispronounce your words as you do; but
for this thing I should be honored by your good manners and
I love you. With love to all

MARY BAKER EDDY.

P.S.--My letter is so short I add a postscript. I have tried
about one dozen bookkeepers and had to give them all up,
either for dishonesty or incapacity. I have not had my books
audited for five years, and Mr. Ladd, who is famous for
this, audited them last week, and gives me his certificate
that they are all right except in some places not quite
plain, and he showed Frye how to correct that. Then he, Frye
gave me a check for that amount before I knew about it.

The slight mistake occurred four years ago and he could not
remember about the things. But Mr. Ladd told me that he knew
it was only not set down in a coherent way for in other
parts of the book he could trace where it was put down in
all probability, but not orderly. When I can get a
Christian, as I know he is, and a woman that can fill his
place I shall do it. But I have no time to receive company,
to call on others, or to go out of my house only to drive.
Am always driven with work for others, but nobody to help me
even to get help such as I would choose.

Again, MOTHER.

MRS. EDDY'S ONLY SON]

While Mrs. Eddy was working out her larger policy she never forgot the little things. The manufacture of Christian Science jewelry was at one time a thriving business, conducted by the J. C. Derby Company, of Concord. Christian Science emblems and Mrs. Eddy's "favorite flower" were made up into cuff-buttons, rings, brooches, watches, and pendants, varying in price from $325 to $2.50. The sale of the Christian Science teaspoons was especially profitable. The "Mother spoon," an ordinary silver spoon, sold for $5.00. Mrs. Eddy's portrait was embossed upon it, a picture of Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy's signature, and the motto, "Not Matter but Mind Satisfieth." Mrs. Eddy stimulated the sale of this spoon by inserting the following request in the _Journal_:[3]

"On each of these most beautiful spoons is a motto in bas
relief that every person on earth needs to hold in thought.
Mother requests that Christian Scientists shall not ask to
be informed what this motto is, but each Scientist shall
purchase at least one spoon, and those who can afford it,
one dozen spoons, that their families may read this motto at
every meal, and their guests be made partakers of its simple
truth."

"MARY BAKER G. EDDY.

"The above-named spoons are sold by the Christian Science
Souvenir Company, Concord, N. H., and will soon be on sale
at the Christian Science reading rooms throughout the
country."

Mrs. Eddy's picture was another fruitful source of revenue. The copyright for this is still owned by the Derby Company. This portrait is known as the "authorized" photograph of Mrs. Eddy. It was sold for years as a genuine photograph of Mrs. Eddy, but it is admitted now at Christian Science sales-rooms that this picture is a "composite." The cheapest sells for one dollar. When they were ready for sale, in May, 1899, Mrs. Eddy, in the _Journal_ of that date, announced:

"It is with pleasure I certify that after months of
incessant toil and at great expense Mr. Henry P. Moore, and
Mr. J. C. Derby of Concord, N. H., have brought out a
likeness of me far superior to the one they offered for sale
last November. The portrait they have now perfected I
cordially endorse. Also I declare their sole right to the
making and exclusive sale of the duplicates of said
portrait.

"I simply ask that those who love me purchase this portrait.

"MARY BAKER EDDY."

The material prosperity of the Mother Church continued and the congregation soon outgrew the original building. At the June communion in 1902 ten thousand Christian Scientists were present. In the business meeting which followed they pledged themselves, "with startling grace," as Mrs. Eddy put it, to raise two million dollars, or any part of that sum which should be needed, to build an annex.

In the late spring of 1906 the enormous addition to the Mother Church--the "excelsior extension," as Mrs. Eddy calls it--was completed, and it was dedicated at the annual communion, June 10, of that year. The original building was in the form of a cross, so Mrs. Eddy had the new addition built with a dome to represent a crown--a combination which is happier in its symbolism than in its architectural results. The auditorium is capable of holding five thousand people; the walls are decorated with texts signed "Jesus, the Christ" and "Mary Baker G. Eddy"--these names standing side by side.

According to the belief of Mrs. Eddy's followers, every signal victory of Christian Science is apt to beget "chemicalization"; that is, it stirs up "error" and "mortal mind"--which terms include everything that is hostile to Christian Science--and makes them ugly and revengeful. The forces of evil--that curious, non-existent evil which, in spite of its nihility, makes Mrs. Eddy so much trouble--were naturally aroused by the dedication of the great church building in 1906, and within a year Mrs. Eddy's son brought a suit in equity which caused her annoyance and anxiety.

_Suit Brought by Mrs. Eddy's Son_

Among the mistakes of Mrs. Eddy's early life must certainly be accounted her indifference to her only child, George Washington Glover. Mrs. Eddy's first husband died six months after their marriage, and the son was not born until three months after his father's death--a circumstance which, it would seem, might have peculiarly endeared him to his mother. When he was a baby, living with Mrs. Glover in his aunt's house, his mother's indifference to him was such as to cause comment in her family and indignation on the part of her father, Mark Baker. The symptoms of serious nervous disorder so conspicuous in Mrs. Eddy's young womanhood--the exaggerated hysteria, the anaesthesia, the mania for being rocked and swung--are sometimes accompanied by a lack of maternal feeling, and the absence of it in Mrs. Eddy must be considered, like her lack of the sense of smell, a defect of constitution rather than a vice of character.

Mrs. Eddy has stated that she sent her child away because her second husband, Dr. Patterson, would not permit her to keep George with her. But although Mrs. Eddy was not married to Dr. Patterson until 1853, in 1851 she sent the child to live with Mrs. Russell Cheney, a woman who had attended Mrs. Eddy at the boy's birth. George lived with the Cheneys at North Groton, New Hampshire, from the time he was seven years old until he was thirteen. During the greater part of this time his mother, then Mrs. Patterson, was living in the same town. When George was thirteen the Cheneys moved to Enterprise, Minnesota, and took him with them. Mrs. Eddy did not see her son again for twenty-three years. She wrote some verses about him, but certainly made no effort to go to him, or to have him come to her. On the whole, her separation from him seems to have caused her no real distress. The boy received absolutely no education, and he was kept hard at work in the fields until he ran away and joined the army, in which he served with an excellent record.

After he went West with the Cheneys in 1857, George Glover did not see his mother again until 1879. He was then living in Minnesota, a man of thirty-five, when he received a telegram from Mrs. Eddy, dated from Lynn, and asking him to meet her immediately in Cincinnati. This was the time when Mrs. Eddy believed that mesmerism was overwhelming her in Lynn; that every stranger she met in the streets, and even inanimate objects, were hostile to her, and that she must "flee" from the hypnotists (Kennedy and Spofford) to save her cause and her life. Unable to find any trace of his mother in Cincinnati, George Glover telegraphed to the Chief of Police in Lynn. Some days later he received another telegram from his mother, directing him to meet her in Boston. He went to Boston, and found that Mrs. Eddy and her husband, Asa G. Eddy, had left Lynn for a time and were staying in Boston at the house of Mrs. Clara Choate. Glover remained in Boston for some time and then returned to his home in the West.

THE ORIGINAL BUILDING, AT THE RIGHT, IS IN THE FORM OF A CROSS, AND THE IMMENSE "ANNEX," WITH ITS DOME, IS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT A CROWN, THE TWO BUILDINGS THUS FORMING THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SEAL--THE CROSS AND CROWN]

George Glover's longest stay in Boston was in 1888, when he brought his family and spent the winter in Chelsea. His relations with his mother were then of a friendly but very formal nature. In the autumn, when he first proposed going to Boston, his plan was to spend a few months with his mother. Mrs. Eddy, however, wrote him that she had no room for him in her house and positively forbade him to come. Mrs. Eddy's letter reads as follows:

Massachusetts Metaphysical College.
Rev. Mary B. G. Eddy, President.
No. 571 Columbus ave.
Boston, Oct. 31, 1887

DEAR GEORGE: Yours received. I am surprised that you think
of coming to visit me when I live in a schoolhouse and have
no room that I can let even a boarder into.

I use the whole of my rooms and am at work in them more or
less all the time.

Besides this I have all I can meet without receiving
company. I must have quiet in my house, and it will not be
pleasant for you in Boston the Choates are doing all they
can by falsehood, and public shames, such as advertising a
college of her own within a few doors of mine when she is a
disgraceful woman and known to be. I am going to give up my
lease when this class is over, and cannot pay your board nor
give you a single dollar now. I am alone, and you never
would come to me when I called for you, and now I cannot
have you come.

I want quiet and Christian life alone with God, when I can
find intervals for a little rest. You are not what I had
hoped to find you, and I am changed. The world, the flesh
and evil I am at war with, and if any one comes to me it
must be to help me and not to hinder me in this warfare. If
you will stay away from me until I get through with my
public labor then I will send for you and hope to then have
a home to take you to.

As it now is, I have none, and you will injure me by coming
to Boston at this time more than I have room to state in a
letter. I asked you to come to me when my husband died and I
so much needed some one to help me. You refused to come then
in my great need, and I then gave up ever thinking of you in
that line. Now I have a clerk[4] who is a pure-minded
Christian, and two girls to assist me in the college. These
are all that I can have under this roof.

If you come after getting this letter I shall feel you have
no regard for my interest or feelings, which I hope not to
be obliged to feel.

Boston is the last place in the world for you or your
family. When I retire from business and into private life,
then I can receive you if you are reformed, but not
otherwise. I say this to you, not to any one else. I would
not injure you any more than myself. As ever sincerely,