sarte disciple; her face, framed in dark hair and lighted by luminous blue eyes, had the transparency and rose-flush of tint so often seen in New England, and she was magnetic, earnest, impassioned. No photographs can do the least justice to Mrs. Eddy, as her beautiful complexion and changeful expression cannot thus be reproduced. At once one would perceive that she had the temperament to dominate, to lead, to control, not by any crude self-assertion, but a spiritual animus. Of course such a personality, with the wonderful tumult in the air that her large and enthusiastic following excited, fascinated the imagination. What had she originated? I mentally questioned this modern St. Catherine, who was dominating her followers like any abbess of old. She told me the story of her life, so far as outward events may translate those inner experiences which alone are significant.
Mary Baker was the daughter of Mark and Abigail (Ambrose) Baker, and was born in Concord, N. H., somewhere in the early decade of 1820-'30. At the time I met her she must have been some sixty years of age, yet she had the coloring and the elastic bearing of a woman of thirty, and this, she told me, was due to the principles of Christian Science. On her father's side Mrs. Eddy came from Scotch and English ancestry, and Hannah More was a relative of her grandmother. Deacon Ambrose, her maternal grandfather, was known as a “godly man,” and her mother was a religious enthusiast, a saintly and consecrated character. One of her brothers, Albert Baker, graduated at Dartmouth and achieved eminence as a lawyer.
