CHAPTER IX
MRS. GLOVER GOES INTO PARTNERSHIP WITH RICHARD KENNEDY—THEIR ESTABLISHMENT IN LYNN—MRS. GLOVER'S FIRST DISCIPLES—DISAGREEMENTS AND LAWSUITS
When Mrs. Glover left Stoughton early in the year 1870, she went directly to the home of her friend, Miss Sarah Bagley, in Amesbury, Mass.
During her former stay in Amesbury, more than two years before, she had undertaken the instruction of a boy in whom she saw exceptional possibilities. When she first met Richard Kennedy, he was a boy of eighteen, ruddy, sandy-haired, with an unfailing flow of good spirits and a lively wit which did not belie his Irish ancestry. From his childhood he had made his own way, and he was then living at Captain Webster's and working in a box factory. Mrs. Glover recognised in him, as she did in every one she met, excellent capital for a future practitioner. He studied zealously with her while she remained at the Websters', and when she was compelled to leave the house, Kennedy, with Quixotic loyalty becoming his years, left with her. After she went to Stoughton, Mrs. Glover wrote to him often, and whenever he could spare the time, he went over from Amesbury to take a lesson. After her break with the Wentworths, Mrs. Glover at once sought him out. He was then her most promising pupil, and her only hope of getting the Quimby science upon any practical basis. Her experiment with Hiram Crafts had failed and she had not succeeded in her efforts to induce Mrs. Crosby in Albion, or Mrs. Wentworth in Stoughton, to give up their homes and go into the business of teaching and practising the Quimby system with her. What Mrs. Glover most wanted was a partner, and she now saw one in Richard Kennedy. He was nearly twenty-one and sufficiently well-grounded in the principles of mind-cure to begin practising. Mrs. Glover had not, up to this time, achieved any success as a healer herself, and she had come to see that her power lay almost exclusively in teaching the theory. Without a practical demonstration of its benefits, however, the theory of her Science excited little interest, and it was in conjunction with a practising student that she could teach most effectively. She entered into an agreement with young Kennedy to the effect that they were to open an office in Lynn, Mass., and were to remain together three years.
In June, 1870, Mrs. Glover and Richard Kennedy went to Lynn. They stayed temporarily at the home of Mrs. Clarkson Oliver, whom Kennedy had known in Amesbury, while he looked about for suitable offices. He heard that Miss Susie Magoun, who conducted a private school for young children, had just leased a building on the corner of Shepard and South Common Streets and was desirous of subletting the second floor. Miss Magoun, now Mrs. John M. Dame of Lynn, remembers how one June evening, when she was looking over the building to decide upon the arrangement of her schoolrooms, a very boyish-looking young man appeared and nervously asked whether she intended to let a part of the house. He said he was looking for offices for a physician. Miss Magoun, misled by his youthful appearance, at once supposed that he wanted the rooms for his father, which caused the boy some embarrassment. He told her that the five rooms upstairs would not be too many for him, as he should bring with him "an elderly woman who was writing a book," and they would each need offices and sleeping-rooms. Miss Magoun liked the boy's candour and told him he might move in. He drew a sigh of relief, telling her that so many people had refused him that he had almost lost heart. Even when Miss Magoun's friends prophesied that she would lose her rent, she did not repent of her bargain; and she never afterward had occasion to do so. Miss Magoun's first meeting with Mrs. Glover occurred some days later, when her new tenants came to take possession of their rooms. As she was hurrying through the hall to her classroom, young Kennedy stopped her and introduced his partner. Mrs. Glover bowed and at once began to explain to her astonished landlady the Quimby theory of the universe and the non-existence of matter.
Kennedy's sign, which was put on a tree in the yard, read simply: "Dr. Kennedy." The rooms upstairs were very plainly furnished, for Mrs. Glover had no money and her student very little. They bought only such articles of furniture as were absolutely necessary, covered the floor with paper oil-cloth, and put up cheap shades at the windows. Much to Miss Magoun's surprise, patients began to come in before the first week was over, and at the end of the month Kennedy was able to pay his rent promptly. By the first of September the young man's practice was flourishing. Miss Magoun's school was in excellent standing, and the fact that his office was in the same building recommended the young practitioner, while she herself was glad to say a good word for him whenever she could. It became a common thing for the friends of discouraged invalids to say: "Go to Dr. Kennedy. He can't hurt you, even if he doesn't help you." His offices were sometimes so crowded that he would have to ask his patients to await their turn below in Miss Magoun's parlour. The children in the school were fond of him, and he often found time to run downstairs about dismissal hour and help Miss Magoun and her assistant get the younger pupils into their wraps and overshoes. He knew them all by name, and sometimes joined in their games.
Mrs. Glover herself, during these first months, remained much in the background, a solitary and somewhat sombre figure, applying herself to her work with ever-increasing seriousness. For the first time she was free from pecuniary embarrassments, and she concentrated her energies upon her teaching, and writing with a determination which she had never before shown. She seldom went out of the house, was usually silent at Miss Magoun's dinner-table, and the school children, when they met her in the hall, hurried curiously past the grave, abstracted woman, who never spoke to them or noticed them. Far from relaxing in an atmosphere of comparative prosperity, she was impatient of the easy-going friendliness of the people about her. She was contemptuous of the active part which Kennedy took in the social life around him, and resented his having much to do with Miss Magoun's young friends. She continually urged him to put aside every other interest and concentrate himself wholly upon Science. She was annoyed at the women patients who came often for treatment, and when she saw them sitting in the front office awaiting their turn, she sometimes referred to them as "the stool-pigeons." She began in these days to sense the possibilities of the principle she taught, and to see further than a step ahead. She often told Kennedy that she would one day establish a great religion which would reverence her as its founder and source. "Richard," she would declare, looking at him intently, "you will live to hear the church-bells ring out my birthday." And on July 16, 1904, they did—her own bells, in her own church at Concord.
The feeling of at last having her foot in the stirrup seemed to crystallise and direct Mrs. Glover's ambition as adversity had never done. She had something the world had waited for, she told Kennedy, and she meant to make the world pay for it. She often declared that she had been born an unwelcome child, and that from the first every man's hand had been against her. Although she was in her fiftieth year, Mrs. Glover had not reached the maturity of her powers. During these early years in Lynn she becomes in every way a more commanding and formidable person. Since she no longer had to live by her wits, certain affectations and ingratiating mannerisms became less pronounced. The little distinction for which she had fought so tenaciously, and which she had been put at such shifts to maintain, was now respectfully admitted by all her students—and by some even reverently. She began to dress better. Her thin face filled out, her figure lost its gauntness and took on an added dignity. People who were afraid of her complained that her "hawk-eye" looked clear through them, and persons who admired her compared her eye to an eagle's. Once relieved of the necessity of compelling attention from hither and yon, she conserved her powers and exerted herself only when she could hope for a commensurate result. In following her through the six years prior to 1870, one is struck with her seeming helplessness against herself and against circumstances, and with the preponderant element of blind chance in her life. Before she had been in Lynn a year, she had come to work with some sort of plan, and her life was more orderly and effective than it had ever been before. Her power was one of personality, and people were her material;—her church, which so persistently denies personality, is built upon it. Her abilities were administrative rather than executive, and without a cabinet she exemplified the old fable of the impotence of the head without the body.
Mrs. Glover at first called the thing she taught merely "science," but when she had her professional cards printed they read:
|
MRS. MARY M. GLOVER, TEACHER OF Moral Science. |
Her first students in Lynn were persons whom Richard Kennedy had cured or friends of his patients. The case of two young men in her first class will serve to illustrate. Mrs. Charles S. Stanley, who was suffering from tuberculosis in an advanced stage, was greatly benefited by Kennedy. She entreated her husband and her half-brother to take instruction under Mrs. Glover, and they did so. Her husband at first felt that he had an aptitude for the subject and eventually became a practising student. As to the half-brother, George Tuttle, Mrs. Glover felt that there she had cast her seed upon stony ground; and certainly he must have been an incongruous figure in the little circle which met in her rooms to "unlearn matter." A stalwart, strapping lad, he had just returned from a cruise to Calcutta on the sailing vessel John Clark, which carried ice from Boston Harbour to the Indies. The young seaman, when asked what he thought he would get out of Mrs. Glover's class, replied that he didn't think about it at all, he joined because his sister asked him to. He even tried, in a bashful way, to practise a little, but he says that when he actually cured a girl of dropsy, he was so surprised and frightened that he washed his hands of Moral Science.
Mrs. Glover's course consisted of twelve lectures and extended over a period of three weeks. Her students were required to make a copy of the Quimby manuscript which Mrs. Glover called "The Science of Man," and although each was allowed to keep his copy, he was usually put under a formal three-thousand-dollar bond not to show it. As soon as the student had taken the final lesson, Mrs. Glover addressed him or her as "Doctor," and considered that a degree had been conferred. Often she wrote her students a congratulatory letter upon their graduation, addressing them by their newly acquired titles.
The members of her first class in Lynn each paid one hundred dollars for the lessons. Each also agreed to give Mrs. Glover a percentage on the income from his practice. Tuttle and Stanley executed an agreement with her which was substantially in the following words:
"Lynn, Aug. 15, 1870. We, the undersigned, do hereby agree in consideration of instruction and manuscripts received from Mrs. Mary Baker Glover, to pay one hundred dollars in advance and ten per cent. annually on the income that we receive from practising or teaching the science. We also agree to pay her one thousand dollars in case we do not practise or teach the above-mentioned science that she has taught us. (Signed) G. H. Tuttle, Charles S. Stanley."
Trouble arose between George Tuttle and Charles Stanley and their teacher, and Mrs. Glover dismissed Stanley from the class. Although he afterward practised mental healing with some success, it was not with Mrs. Glover's sanction, and he finally became a homœopathic physician. In 1879 Mrs. Glover brought a suit in equity in the Essex County Court against Tuttle and Stanley for unpaid tuition. Judge George F. Choate,[1] the referee in the case, at his death left among his papers his book of minutes on this case of "Mary B. Eddy vs. G. H. Tuttle et al."—written out in long hand, which throws light on Mrs. Glover's methods of teaching and on her relation to her pupils. Judge Choate's notes on Stanley's testimony are in part as follows:
I went to Mrs. Eddy for the purpose of taking lessons—She pretended to teach me—She never taught me anything—I never told anybody I practised her method.
I was acquainted with Dr. Kennedy in Lynn. He practised physical manipulation. He first led me to commence practice, etc.—My wife was doctored by Dr. Kennedy My wife told me Mrs. Eddy wanted to see me. I went, and Mrs. Eddy said she was about starting a class for others like me—She said she had manuscripts, not books, etc. She said she taught setting bones and obstetrics—she said she could teach me in six weeks to be as good a physician as any in the city. She wanted $100. I said I was too poor and could not pay—I left. My wife and I went again in the evening, and she urged me—finally I paid her $25 advance. Then I saw Tuttle with a manuscript. He said to get one to copy. I got paper. I asked her to postpone my lessons till, etc.—She said you don't require to eat in order to live. I said yes. She said she had got so far that she could live without eating. She called me and Tuttle to a room, showed me a paper. When she asked us to sign, I objected—She said when we had learned this and the other one (manuscript) which she would have for us, she would go with us and find a place, etc., and on these conditions, i. e., that she would teach us obstetrics, setting bones, and would go with us and find place, etc., I signed the agreement.[2]
She said she always went with students to see them well located, that she required this agreement—that she furnished other manuscripts, that this one was only a commencement.
She turned me out of the class at the end of three weeks. She told me I couldn't practise her method anyway because I was a Baptist—We were to have a six weeks' course, and it was at end of two weeks she told me to leave.
Finding that I could have a good effect upon my wife when she was sick and would have severe coughing spells, I thought likely I could have a good effect upon others. I saw what was in those manuscripts and asked her when the others she spoke of were coming. I asked her what to do if called to a person with a broken limb—She said if so, tell them there isn't any broken limb, that it is all belief, etc.
The testimony of George H. Tuttle, in the same suit, is recorded in Judge Choate's minutes as follows:
In 1870 I knew Mrs. Eddy—was a student of hers. My sister was being attended by Dr. Kennedy, and through my sister I was induced to go up to Mrs. Eddy's with Dr. Stanley and my sister. We signed an agreement—This is the agreement—She showed us how all diseases could be cured and that there was no sort of disease that she could not cure—Said that she would make us more successful than any physician.
The instructions were simply that we were to understand the teachings of the manuscript and that fully understanding it we should be able to heal all disease—We took lessons for a week and a half to two weeks, in the evenings only,—but every day, I think—There used to be an abundance of talk between her and Stanley—Considerable misunderstanding—about payments—and about his religion. She said that he couldn't be a success in this line so long as he adhered to the Baptist faith.
She said she could walk on the water—Could live without eating—He disputed with her—Offered to stand it without eating as long as she, and she backed down—She was to enable us to heal all diseases—bone-setting—obstetrics—and to treat everything successfully, and she was to go with us and see that we had success.
She used to hold up consumption and tell us that there was no such thing as lungs—no liver—and they were all imagination—She became dissatisfied sometimes with him (Stanley) and sometimes with me—Finally she recalled the manuscripts, claiming that she wanted to make some alterations. I haven't got mine back, but she gave me another one finally. This is the one. Our instructions ceased—She had taken our manuscripts, and we were literally turned out—I learned from Stanley that he had been dismissed.
We went to see her and demanded our manuscripts—Did not get them—She complained of him, said she was dissatisfied—that he had fallen from grace and was going back on it—was attracted to the Baptist belief, etc., and he could not go on—Dr. Stanley and I went up together for the manuscripts. I don't remember the talk, but there were faultfindings.
She was dissatisfied with him—because he didn't pay—and with his dulness and inability to comprehend it (her Science)—In the first place she had held out to us that the knowledge of her principle and the possession of this power would surely attract patients to us, so that we couldn't fail to get patients—She said she had seen the dead raised—I didn't know if dead could be raised—I in part believed that those apparently dead had been raised.
I got treatment by Dr. Kennedy—In as much as she sent us out to Dr. Kennedy for a (practical) example, I suppose,—She taught rubbing, putting hand in water and upon the stomach, etc.
She claimed that Stanley must surrender everything, surrender the Baptist as every other creed—At the time we went for our manuscripts we were both turned out—Stanley gave her a piece of his mind—told her she was a fraud, etc.
I never regularly practised, because I never understood it.
Stanley said to her she was a fraud in getting the manuscripts back and generally—He was very mistrustful throughout. I don't think he had studied even the three weeks out.
She said she would give us other manuscripts in reference to bone setting—I don't remember what she said about obstetrics; she said generally that he would have only to walk into the room and be filled with the understanding, and all pain would disappear—I don't know but that something further was to be done in cases of bone setting.
When Mrs. Eddy took the stand, she said:
I told the defendant it was a very good method and better than I had found before of healing sick. I taught him the method. I told him it was through the action of mind upon the body—Don't recollect that I said it would cure all diseases. I didn't limit or unlimit it. I don't know that I meant for him to understand that it will heal everything—I presume I intended him to understand that it was a better method than any other. I don't think I ever told any student that it would heal every disease. I cannot give you an explanation—you have not studied it. The principle is mind operating on the body.
The mind is cause of disease—Through mind scarlet fever and diphtheria are cured—I have found that through the action of mind I could cure, as I have done, apoplexy, paralysis, etc.,—Heart disease, enlargement of heart, consumption are cured by mind I have cured cases of consumption found hopeless by action of mind, blindness, deafness, etc.
The Prisoner of Chillon found that gray hairs are produced through the mind—I haven't tried my system on old age yet.
I didn't promise to teach him bone setting or obstetrics. Nor that I would furnish other manuscripts, nor that I would go with him to find his place, etc. Might have said I would make him a good physician—I taught him the application of hands and water—He told me he hadn't the means to pay me and that if I would take him by installments, he would study—I didn't dismiss him, but he said "I understand enough now to do more than any of your students," that he knew enough now to go right into practice.
I never taught mesmerism. I did teach the laying on of hands—not with power—I did teach manipulation in 'sixty-seven, 'sixty-eight and 'sixty-nine and in 'seventy—I ceased—I can't tell the date—Can't tell if 'seventy, 'seventy-one.
I did teach Mr. Stanley manipulation—that was not my principle, it was my method—My method was metaphysical—I taught it—I don't know for what—it was because I saw a hand helped me—I thought it was a good method—I can't say whether it is a science, I can't say whether a part or the whole of it is a science—if it is practised right it is a science—that part which is effective and heals the sick is a science—I don't know as I can explain it. I do not claim it as a discovery (manipulation), I had known of it always. Can't tell if I knew of this will power before I knew Dr. Quimby—It is not always necessary to know what is the belief.
I should generally require them (my students) to keep the ten commandments—Should require them to be moral.
I can argue to myself that striking my hand upon the table will not produce pain—I don't think I could produce the effect that this knife would not produce a wound, but that I could argue myself out of the pain. I have not claimed to have gone as far as that. I have said that belongs to future time. I can alleviate—I cannot prevent a broken bone. I would send for a surgeon and set the bone—and after that I would alleviate the pain and inflammation. Can't do more in my present development—I have seen the dead in understanding raised[3]—The infant is the son of the parent and the parents' mind governs its mind—Through the parents' mind I cure the infant.
Before 1872 I taught manipulation and the use of water.
That was not all I taught—I never said that was the science, but I said it was a method, and until I saw a student doing great evil, etc.[4]
Richard Kennedy in his testimony said:
I went to Lynn to practise with Mrs. Eddy. Our partnership was only in the practice, not in her teaching.
I practised healing the sick by physical manipulation—The mode was operating upon the head giving vigorous rubbing—This was a part of her system that I had learned—The special thing she was to teach me was the science of healing by soul power—I have never been able to come to knowledge of that principle—She gave me a great deal of instruction of the so-called principle, but I have not been able to understand it—She claimed that it would cure advanced stages of consumption and the worse cases of violent disease, that these were but trifles under her Science.
I was there at the time Stanley was there—I made the greatest effort to practise upon her principle, and I have never had any proof that I had attained to it or had any success from it.
I had nothing to do with the instructions—She told me that she had expelled Mr. Stanley from the class—of his incompetency to understand her science—that it was impossible to convince him of the folly of his times—that his faith in a personal God and prayer was such that she could not overcome it—She used the word Baptist in connection with him because he was a Baptist—but it was the same with all other creeds.
So long as they believed in a personal God and the response to prayer, they could not progress in the scientific religion—I performed the manipulation of Mr. Stanley as follows:
Mrs. Eddy requested me to rub Mr. Stanley's head and to lay special stress upon the idea that there was no personal God, while I was rubbing him.
I never entirely gave up my belief in a personal God, though my belief was pretty well shaken up.
In rendering a decision in favour of Tuttle and Stanley, Judge Choate said:
Upon a careful examination I do not find any instructions given by her nor any explanations of her "science" or "method of healing" which appear intelligible to ordinary comprehension, or which could in any way be of value in fitting the Defendant as a competent and successful practitioner of any intelligible art or method of healing the sick, and I am of opinion that the consideration for the agreement has wholly failed, and I so find.
Within a few weeks after her first class was organised, Mrs. Glover raised her tuition fee to three hundred dollars, which price was never afterward changed. Concerning her reasons for fixing upon this sum, Mrs. Eddy says:
When God impelled me to set a price on my instruction in Christian Science Mind-healing, I could think of no financial equivalent for an impartation of a knowledge of that divine power which heals; but I was led to name three hundred dollars as the price for each pupil in one course of lessons at my college, a startling sum for tuition lasting barely three weeks. This amount greatly troubled me. I shrank from asking it, but was finally led, by a strange providence, to accept this fee. God has since shown me, in multitudinous ways, the wisdom of this decision; and I beg disinterested people to ask my loyal students if they consider three hundred dollars any real equivalent for my instruction during twelve half-days, or even in half as many lessons.[5]
In 1888 Mrs. Eddy reduced the course of twelve lessons to seven, but the tuition fee still remained three hundred dollars. In the Christian Science Journal for December, 1888, she published the following notice:
Having reached a place in teaching where my students in Christian Science are taught more during seven lessons in the primary class than they were formerly in twelve, and taught all that is profitable at one time, hereafter the primary class will include seven lessons only. As this number of lessons is of more value than twice this number in times past, no change is made in the price of tuition, three hundred dollars. Mary Baker G. Eddy.
Most of Mrs. Glover's early students were artisans; many of them shoe-workers. Lynn was then a city of about thirty thousand inhabitants, and shoemaking was, as it now is, the large and characteristic industry. Many of the farmers about the country had little shoeshops in their backyards, and during the winter season took out piecework from the factories. The majority of the village and country boys had had something to do with shoemaking before they went into business or chose a profession, and when Whittier went from the farm to attend the academy at Haverhill, he was able to pay his way by making slippers. Among Mrs. Glover's first students were S. P. Bancroft, a shoe-worker; George W. Barry, foreman in a shoeshop; Dorcas Rawson, a shoe-worker, and her sister Mrs. Miranda R. Rice; Charles S. Stanley, a shoe-worker; Miss Frances Spinney, who had a shop in which she employed a score of girls to sew on women's shoes; Mrs. Otis Vickary; George H. Allen, who was employed in his father's box factory, and Wallace W. Wright, then accountant in a bank.
Liberal religious ideas flourished in New England thirty-five years ago, and although one woman left the class because "Mrs. Glover was taking Christ away from her," most of the students were ready to accept the idea of an impersonal God and to deny the existence of matter. Even Dorcas Rawson, who was an ardent Methodist and had "professed holiness," unhesitatingly accepted the statement that God was Principle.
From the very beginning of her teaching Mrs. Glover had with her students those differences which later made her career so stormy. After the defection of Stanley and Tuttle, Mrs. Vickary, dissatisfied with her instruction, sued for and recovered the one hundred and fifty dollars which she had paid in advance for tuition.[6] Wallace Wright, one of the most intelligent of her early students, publicly attacked in the Lynn press the "Moral Science," as it was then called, which he had studied under Mrs. Glover.
Wallace W. Wright was the son of a Universalist clergyman of Lynn, and a brother of Carroll D. Wright, who afterward became United States Commissioner of Labour. He was regarded as one of the most promising young business men in Lynn, when he was drowned in the wreck of the City of Columbus, off Gayhead Light, January 18, 1884. When he first studied under Mrs. Glover, he was very enthusiastic over her Science and, much to his own surprise, made several successful demonstrations.
Before he entered her class, he had made careful inquiries about the nature of what she taught. Both he and his father were interested in her claims and wished to pin Mrs. Glover down to exact statements concerning her Science. He wrote her a letter, asking her nine questions, and requesting an answer to each in writing. (Here follow the most significant of Mr. Wright's questions, together with Mrs. Glover's answers):[7]
Question 1—Upon what principle is your science founded?
Answer 1—On God, the principle of man.
Question 2—Is a knowledge of anatomy necessary to the success of the student or practitioner?
Answer 2—It is a hindrance instead of help, anatomy belongs to knowledge, the Science I teach, to God, one is the tree whereof wisdom forbade man to partake, the other is the "tree of life."
Question 3—Will it meet the demands of extreme, acute cases?
Answer 3—Yes, beyond all other known methods of healing; it is in acute and extreme cases that this science is seen most clearly in its demonstrations over matter.
Question 4—Is a knowledge of disease necessary to effect cures?
Answer 4—This "knowledge" is what science comes to destroy.
••••••••
Question 7—Does it admit of universal application?
Answer 7—Yes, even to raising or restoring those called dead. I have witnessed this myself, therefore I testify of what I have seen.[8]
In June, 1871, Mr. Wright went to Knoxville, Tenn., and there entered into practice. Of this experience he afterward wrote:
The 9th of last June found me in Knoxville, Tennessee, as assistant to a former student. We met with good success in a majority of our cases, but some of them utterly refused to yield to the treatment. Soon after settling in Knoxville I began to question the propriety of calling this treatment "Moral Science" instead of mesmerism. Away from the influence of argument which the teacher of this so-called science knows how to bring to bear upon students with such force as to outweigh any attempts they may make at the time to oppose it, I commenced to think more independently, and to argue with myself as to the truth of the positions we were called upon to take. The result of this course was to convince me that I had studied the science of mesmerism.[9]
Wright accordingly wrote to Mrs. Glover from Knoxville, asking her to refund the three hundred dollars which he had paid for his tuition and also to compensate him for the two hundred dollars which his venture had cost him. On his return to Lynn he called upon Mrs. Glover and repeated this request. On January 13, 1872, Mr. Wright published a signed letter in the Lynn Transcript, stating that he believed Moral Science and Mesmerism to be one and the same thing, and warning other students against being misled. Mrs. Glover replied to this letter in the same paper, January 20th, stating that Mr. Wright had made an unreasonable demand to which she had refused to accede, and that he was now attacking her Science from motives of revenge:
'Tis but a few weeks since he called on me and threatened that if I did not refund his tuition fee and pay him $200 extra he would prevent my ever having another class in this city. Said he, "my simple purpose now is revenge, and I will have it"—and this, too, immediately after saying to individuals in this city that the last lesson the class received of which he was a member, was alone worth all he had paid for tuition. . . . Very soon after this, however, I received a letter from him requesting me to pay him over and above all I had received from him, or in case I should not, he would ruin the Science. I smiled at the threat and told a lady at my side, "If you see him, tell him first to take a bucket and dip the Atlantic dry, and then try his powers on this next scheme." . . .
My few remaining years will be devoted to the cause I have espoused, viz:—to teach and to demonstrate the Moral and Physical Science that can heal the sick. Well knowing as I do that God hath bidden me, I shall steadfastly adhere to my purpose to benefit my suffering fellow-beings, even though it be amid the most malignant misrepresentation and persecution.
This controversy continued several weeks, occupying columns of the Transcript, and on February 10th, Mr. Wright issued the following challenge:
And now in conclusion I publicly challenge Mrs. Mary Baker Glover to demonstrate her science by any of the following methods, promising, if she is successful, to retract all I have said, and humble myself by asking forgiveness publicly for the course I have taken. Her refusal to do this, by silence or otherwise, shall be considered a failure of her cause:
1st: To restore the dead to life again as she claims she can.
2nd: To walk upon the water without the aid of artificial means as she claims she can.
3rd: To live 24 hours without air, or 24 days without nourishment of any kind without its having any effect upon her.
4th: To restore sight when the optic nerve has been destroyed.
5th: To set and heal a broken bone without the aid of artificial means.
At this point Mrs. Glover retired from the controversy, but five of her students, George W. Barry, Amos Ingalls, George H. Allen, Dorcas Rawson, and Miranda Rice wrote a protest to the Lynn Transcript, February 17th, ignoring Mr. Wright's challenge, but defending their teacher and her Science, and declaring that his charges against both were untrue. Mr. Wright had the last word and ended the controversy, February 24th, by exultantly declaring that Mrs. Glover and her Science were practically dead and buried; which certainly suggests that the gift of prophecy was denied him.
Mrs. Glover's pen at this period was not employed exclusively in controversy. In the Lynn Transcript, November 4, 1871, appear the following verses:
| LINES ON RECEIVING SOME GRAPES |
| By Mary Baker Glover |
| Beautiful grapes would I were thee, |
| Clustering round a parent stem, |
| The blessing of my God to be, |
| In woodland, bower or glen; |
| Where friend or foe had never sought |
| The angels "born of apes," |
| And breathed the disappointed thought, |
| Behold! They're sour grapes. |
| And such, methinks, e'en Nature shows |
| The fate of Beauty's power— |
| Admired in parlour, grotto, groves, |
| But faded, O how sour! |
| Worth,—unlike beauty—fadeless, pure, |
| A blessing and most blest, |
| Beyond the shadows will endure, |
| And give the lone heart rest. |
For the Transcript.
Though Mrs. Glover's classes grew larger, and Richard Kennedy's practice steadily increased, frequent disagreements occurred between him and his teacher. He found that the Quimby method was, like every other method of treating disease, limited in its scope, and urged Mrs. Glover to modify her sweeping statements concerning its possibilities—which greatly angered her. His common-sense rebelled when Mrs. Glover told her students that she could hold her finger in the flame of a candle without feeling pain, and her grim ambition rather repelled him. Although he was almost filial in his dutifulness, her tyranny in trivial matters tried even his genial temper. About a year after they opened their office, Miss Magoun married John M. Dame of Lynn, and gave up her school, leaving the Moral Scientists to sublet from another tenant.
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| Photograph by Bowers |
RICHARD KENNEDY
From a photograph taken in Lynn, Mass., in 1871
On Thanksgiving night of that year (1871) Mrs. Glover and Kennedy went to Mrs. Dame's new home to play cards. At the card-table Kennedy and Mrs. Glover played against each other, Kennedy and his partner playing, apparently, the better game. Mrs. Glover, who could not endure to be beaten in anything, lost her temper and declared that Richard had cheated. The young man was chagrined at being thus taken to task before his friends. The frequent scenes caused by Mrs. Glover's jealous and exacting disposition had worn out his patience. When he and Mrs. Glover reached home that night, he tore his contract with her in two and threw it into the fire, telling her that he would no longer consider himself bound by it. Mrs. Glover threatened and entreated, but to no purpose, and even when she fell to the floor in a swoon Kennedy was not to be moved.
From that night Kennedy prepared to leave Mrs. Glover. Their separation took place in the spring of 1872. When they settled their accounts, Mrs. Glover was left with about six thousand dollars in money. While they remained together, Kennedy had paid their living expenses and had given Mrs. Glover half of whatever money was left from his practice, while Mrs. Glover's income from teaching was entirely her own.
After this separation Kennedy took another office in Lynn, and Mrs. Glover remained for some months in their old rooms. She afterward boarded with the Chadwells on Shepard Street, later stayed at the home of Dorcas Rawson, and still later lived for some time in a boarding-house at Number 9 Broad Street, opposite the house which she eventually purchased.
The Essex County registry of deeds shows that on March 31, 1875, Francis E. Besse, in consideration of $5,650, deeded to "Mary M. B. Glover, a widow woman of Lynn," the property at Number 8 Broad Street, which became the first official headquarters of Christian Science.[10] This house, a small two-and-a-half story building, is still standing. When Mrs. Glover moved in, shortly after her purchase, she occupied only the second floor, renting the first floor of the house to a succession of tenants. She used as her study a little low-ceiled room on the third floor, lighted by one window and a skylight. Here she completed the manuscript of Science and Health, read the proofs of the first edition, and prepared the second and third editions. The Christian Science reading-room of Lynn is now in this building. At the time of the June communions[11] at the Mother Church in Boston, thousands of people go out to visit the little skylight room which they regard as the cradle of their faith. The room has, of course, been changed since Mrs. Eddy worked there. The woodwork has been painted white, and the walls and ceiling are now pale blue and cream colour, dotted with gold stars. None of the original furniture remains; but the chair and table are said to be very like those which Mrs. Eddy used, and on the shelf is a clock like that which used to count the hours while Mrs. Eddy measured time out of existence. On the low wall there hangs—not without a stirring effect of contrast—a very light and airy water-colour of the gray tower of the original Mother Church in Boston. Over the door is frescoed the First Commandment:
"Thou shalt have no other Gods before me."
- ↑ George F. Choate of Salem was for many years probate judge in Essex County, Mass.
- ↑ The text of this agreement is given above.
- ↑ See letter to W. W. Wright on page 149.
- ↑ Reference to Richard Kennedy.
- ↑ Retrospection and Introspection, p. 71.
- ↑ The suit, Mrs. Otis Vickary versus Mary M. B. Patterson, was entered in the Lynn Police Court on August 3, 1872. (Mrs. Clover had not yet obtained legal right to use her former name.) The Lynn Five Cent Savings-Bank was summoned as Trustee. Both the Savings-Rank and the Defendant were defaulted, apparently for failure to appear and answer, and judgment was rendered for the Plaintiff, and execution issued for the amount of $150 and $5.73 for costs, on August 9th.
- ↑ Mr. Wright's sixth question and Mrs. Glover's answer, in which she admits that Dr. Quimby practised her Science and had made it a subject of research for twenty-five years, was quoted on page 101.
- ↑ In Mrs. Eddy's testimony in her suit against Stanley and Tuttle, printed in this article, she states that she has seen the dead in understanding awaken through her Science.—See page 145.
- ↑ Lynn Transcript, January 13, 1872.
- ↑ When Mrs. Glover bought this property, she assumed the mortgage on it of 2,800.
- ↑ These yearly communions at the Mother Church in Boston have this year (1908) been discontinued by order of Mrs. Eddy.