Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/235

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MESMERISM DETHRONED
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Science exacts, and the world offers many alluring temptations. You know but little of them as yet. If you follow me you must cross swords with the world. Are you spiritually-minded enough to take up my work and stand by it?”

Richard Kennedy thought he was. His eagerness and enthusiasm carried the day. Accordingly he accompanied Mrs. Glover to Lynn and they stopped at the home of Mrs. Oliver until they could make arrangements for offices and living rooms. Mr. Kennedy soon found a desirable apartment in a three-story building at the corner of South Common and Shepard streets, a little out of the business district and yet within easy walking distance of the main thoroughfares. This building remained for many years the humble witness of the earliest struggles toward a metaphysical college, the place where the rudiments of Mind-Science were first imparted in class.

The house was then a gable-roofed frame structure, surrounded by lawns and shade trees. The open space across the way was a large park, Lynn Common, lined with stately trees. The open view, good air, and commodious interior of the house made it an attractive place. Miss Susie Magoun had but recently leased the place for a private school for young girls, and she used the first floor for this purpose and the third floor for her own sleeping apartments. She was a good business woman, but quite young and somewhat nervous about her extensive financial obligations. When young Kennedy called on her one evening early in June, she was looking over the building and beginning