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524 Popular Bibles while was dangerously near to winning, without reason, repute of a cure-all. In his pale and hazy manner, Alcott went about New England lecturing in "orphic sayings" on things which neither he nor anyone else understood. Once in his last years he spoke in Lynn, it is reported, before one of Mrs. Eddy's classes formed not earlier than 1870, when she was beginning definitely to hammer out on the stout anvil of an unyielding will her vision never afterwards to fade that "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is ihe real and eternal ; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual." {Science and Health, p. 468.) How far Mrs. Eddy was influenced specifically by Alcott, at a time when transcendentalism was the very breath of life to many in and near Boston, there is no way to determine in the light of the careful study made of her, when suddenly, some fifteen years ago, Christian Science became the cynosure of all eyes, friendly and unfriendly, and secured more space on the printed page each day than any other religious interest. One fact, however, is indisputable. The greatest influence in the formative period of Mrs. Eddy's life came, when after various unfortunate experiences, ever on the verge of that in- validism to which personalities have frequently been subject when possessed by dominating and original ideas from Socrates, Mahomet, and Tasso to Schopenhauer and Beethoven, Mrs. Eddy sought the then famous P. P. Quimby, who, having begun his career as a mesmerist, was ending it at Portland, Maine, as a successful mental healer with a system supplemented by Berkeley and the Bible, and explained before his death in several hundred written pages. ' ' The only reason why the writer felt he should accept the invitation of editors and publishers to furnish this chapter is that he had the almost unique experience fifteen years ago of seeing the Quimby Manuscripts through the courtesy of his son, Georgre A. Quimby, whom the writer visited in Belfast, Maine. Before pub- lishing the first edition of his book on Christian Science, in 1907, he submitted his entire discussion of the Quimby Manuscript to the son, and received from him on October 18, 1907, the letter published on page 230 of his book, in which Quimby says the quotations are "absolutely correct" and most of them were written by him (P. P. Quimby), prior to his acquaintance with Mrs. Eddy. The writer saw