Mrs. Eddy’s retirement did, as she had anticipated, give her more time for literary pursuits. She was still busily writing and rewriting Science and Health, as she had been doing for twenty years. New editions of the book came out in 1891, 1894, and 1896. Loyal Scientists were then, as now, expected to purchase each new edition (at $3.18 a volume), although Mrs. Eddy refused to buy back their old editions at any price. Since her followers lived by one book, it behooved them to have the best edition of it, and Mrs. Eddy always pronounced the new one the best. Often a new edition contained important changes (such as permission to use morphia in cases of violent pain), and after the 1891 edition was out, a Christian Scientist who still regulated his life by the 1886 edition was living, spiritually, in the Dark Ages. As Foster Eddy wrote concerning the 1891 edition:

  Mother has never had time, until the last two years, to take the numerous gems she has found in the deep mines of truth and polish them on Heaven’s emery wheel, arrange them in order, and give them a setting so that all could behold and see their perfect purity. Now here they all are in this new revised “Science and Health.”

  By the time the 1891 edition was exhausted, about one hundred and fifty thousand copies of Science and Health had been sold since the book was first published in 1875. This did not mean that one hundred and fifty thousand persons owned copies of the book, — there are not half that many Christian Scientists in the world to-day, — but that every Christian Scientist owned several copies. The Journal told them that they could not own too many.

  Mrs. Eddy always displayed great ingenuity in stimulating the demand for her books. In 1897, when she first published her book Miscellaneous Writings, — a volume of her collected editorials from the Journal, — she issued the following pronunciamento:

  Christian Scientists in the United States and Canada are hereby enjoined not to teach a student of Christian Science for one year, commencing March 14, 1897. “Miscellaneous Writings” is calculated to prepare the minds of all true thinkers to understand the Christian Science text book more correctly than a student can. The Bible, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and my other published works are the only proper instructors for this hour. It shall be the duty of all Christian Scientists to circulate and to sell as many of these books as they can.

  If a member of the First Church of Christ Scientist shall fail to obey this injunction it shall render him liable to lose his membership in this church.

  Mary Baker Eddy.

  There were at this time about fifty Christian Science academies in operation, and hundreds of Mrs. Eddy’s followers made their living by teaching Christian Science. They were, without warning, directed to give up their means of support for one year in order to increase the sale of Mrs. Eddy’s new book, and to sell the book, without commission, under penalty of expulsion from the church. It is scarcely necessary to say that they obeyed without a murmur.

  Loyal Christian Scientists made an endeavour to buy not only a copy of every new edition of Science and Health, but of every book that Mrs. Eddy wrote. Mrs. Eddy discourages general reading, and particularly the perusal of fiction. She has no tolerance for low-priced books. They “lower the intellectual standard to accommodate the purse” and “meet a frivolous demand for amusement instead of instruction.” For her own books Mrs. Eddy has always demanded very high prices. With her own audience she was, of course, without a rival. Many of her followers read no books at all but hers.

  In 1893 Mrs. Eddy published Christ and Christmas, an illustrated poem which she afterward temporarily suppressed because the pictures were displeasing to many people. One picture represents Jesus Christ standing beside a big, black, upholstered coffin, raising to life an emaciated woman. An other represents a woman, strangely like Mrs. Eddy’s authorised photographs in appearance, standing at a bedside and raising a prostrate form, while a great star burns above her head. In another, Christ is represented as hand in hand with a woman who bears a tablet inscribed “Christian Science.” Mrs. Eddy wrote the text of this grim gift-book, and a fly-leaf accredits the pictures to “Mary Baker G. Eddy and James F. Gilman, artists.”

  In 1891 Mrs. Eddy published Retrospection and Introspection, a volume of autobiographical sketches in which many of the events of the author’s life are highly idealised.

  At Pleasant View the members of Mrs. Eddy’s household led a life vastly more peaceful than ever they had known in Columbus or Commonwealth Avenues. But discipline was by no means relaxed. Mr. Frye still had his bad quarter of an hour when it was good for him. Mrs. Eddy “turned against” the faithful Martha Morgan and packed her back to Maine. She tired of Mrs. Anne M. Otis, whom she had called to build up a Christian Science church in Concord, and sent her back to the West. Eventually even her adopted son went the way of all her favourites. There is no doubt that Mrs. Eddy was fond of Foster, and that his personality was extremely agreeable to her. She may even have dropped a tear upon his death-warrant, but she signed it none the less. The story of Foster’s rise and decline is as follows:

  At the close of 1892 Mr. William G. Nixon resigned his post as Mrs. Eddy’s publisher, and was succeeded by E. J. Foster Eddy. Dr. Foster had had no experience whatever in publishing, but the position was a lucrative one and Mrs. Eddy desired her son to have it. She saw, too, a way to increase her own profits. Science and Health sold for $3.18 a copy. The manufacture of each book cost just forty-seven and a half cents. Mrs. Eddy had been getting one dollar royalty upon every copy sold and the publisher got the rest. When her adopted son began to publish Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy worked her royalty up to a dollar and a half a copy, since Dr. Foster was readily persuaded that it was all in the family.

  The sale of Mrs. Eddy’s works was exceedingly profitable to her and even more profitable to her publisher, since the market for them was ready-made and there was never a dollar spent in general advertising. Dr. Foster’s accounts show that in the year 1893 he paid Mrs. Eddy $11,692.79 in royalties; in 1894 her royalties amounted to $14,834.12; and in 1895 she received from Dr. Foster $18,481.97, making a total profit of $45,008.88 for the three years. Needless to say, her annual royalties have greatly increased since 1895, and have now reached a figure which puts all other American authors to financial shame.

  But from the day that Mrs. Eddy installed Dr. Foster as her publisher, his years were numbered. The position was the most remunerative she had to offer, and this new and substantial mark of her favour only increased the existing prejudice against her son. Ever since Foster’s adoption, jealousy had rankled in the household. Mr. Frye had always watched him with a stony and distrustful eye. Each had accused the other of “mesmerising” Mrs. Eddy against him, and of using her affection for his own advantage.

  There was jealousy in Boston, as well as at Pleasant View. Some of the workers there complained that Dr. Foster had been made too prominent, and that he had more personal influence than any one except Mrs. Eddy herself should have; others asserted that he over-represented and misrepresented Mrs. Eddy.

  After he became his mother’s publisher, Dr. Foster had to be in Boston much of the time, and stayed, when he was there, at the Commonwealth Avenue house. In his absence from Concord, one charge after another was made against him to Mrs. Eddy. Pressure was brought to bear upon her from this quarter and from that, and she seems to have realised that her favourite was marked for sacrifice. Dr. Foster relates that, upon one occasion when they were alone together, his mother drew him to the sofa and took his hand, saying despairingly, “Bennie, if I ever ask you to go away from me, do not leave me.” She told him that she wanted him always near her, but that “mesmerism” had come between them. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Eddy herself had become somewhat alarmed when she realised what authority she had placed in Dr. Foster’s hands; it was quite possible for her to trust him and to doubt him, to want him and to plan his downfall at the same time. The letters which she wrote him after she sent him away have not a candid tone.

  Stories kept coming to Mrs. Eddy to the effect that Dr. Foster was short in his accounts, that he had conducted himself improperly with a married woman who had done some work in the publication-office, etc., etc. Finally, in the spring of 1896, Mrs. Eddy took the publishing business away from her son and transferred it to Joseph Armstrong, a Christian Scientist who had formerly been a banker in Kansas. Foster Eddy was now instructed to go to Philadelphia and build up a church. There was already a Christian Science church in Philadelphia, and when Dr. Foster arrived there he found that he had been discredited with the Philadelphia following by letters from Boston. It was his mother’s way not to tell him frankly that she was through with him, though, after he reached his destination, she dropped the old endearing appellations, and no longer signed herself “Mother,” but wrote to him in the following tone:

  Dear Doctor, I have silenced every word of the slander started in Boston about that woman by saying that I had not the, least idea of any wrong conduct between you and her, for I know you are chaste. . . . This silly stuff is dead. Always kindly yours.

  Mary Baker Eddy.

  Dr. Foster left Boston by water, and on the day he sailed away Mrs. Eddy sent flowers to the boat, and a crowd of Christian Scientists were at the wharf to see him off. But as the adopted son stood by the deck-rail with his bouquet in his hands, and watched the water widen between him and Boston, he realised the import of this cordiality, and knew that, through the crowd on the shore, his mother had waved him a blithe and long adieu.

  After Dr. Foster reached Philadelphia and found that Christian Scientists there had been warned to have nothing to do with him, he went back to Concord to lay his wrongs before Mrs. Eddy. She granted him an audience in the house in which, a few months before, he had been master, but cut short the interview and went upstairs while he was speaking. Dr. Foster knew his mother well enough to realise that she was through with him. He made no attempt to push his case or further to practise Christian Science. He received no opportunity to refute the charges made against him.

  As Mrs. Eddy’s son and personal representative, Dr. Foster had been regarded as a sort of crown prince by Christian Scientists. He had been the first president of the Mother Church, had held Mrs. Eddy’s highest offices, and had been listened to as her mouthpiece. Ever since she had become in accessible at Pleasant View, Dr. Foster had been the natural recipient of the adulation that had formerly been hers. His arrival at a Christian Science convention caused almost as much excitement as if Mrs. Eddy herself had come. Wherever the Doctor went in Boston, he was pretty sure to meet people who greeted him with the greatest deference and an eager, anxious smile. Even those who did not like him tried to please him, because they believed that he could influence Mrs. Eddy for or against any one.

  Mrs. Eddy’s word had made Foster, and her word unmade him. From the moment the Christian Scientists understood that he was no longer in favour with his mother, Dr. Foster was ostracised. The people who had once crowded about him whenever he appeared in public no longer recognised him when they passed him in the street. When he approached a group of Christian Scientists, they melted away. Legally, of course, he was still Mrs. Eddy’s adopted son, but she did not trouble herself about that, apparently. She made no charge against him, demanded no explanation, but erased him from her consciousness as if he were a coachman whom she had hired and discharged. Dr. Foster travelled in the West and in Alaska for a time, and then settled down at his old home at Waterbury Center, Vt., where he now lives. Like the rest of Mrs. Eddy’s outworn favourites, he has been content to live very quietly since his fall, and he has not even resumed the practice of medicine, for fear of further angering his adopted mother.

  Mrs. Eddy’s retirement in Concord meant no relaxation of her vigilance over her church. Scarcely a day passed that one of her executives did not board the train at Boston, take the two hours’ ride up the Merrimac, and present himself at Pleasant View. The affairs of the Mother Church ran much more smoothly with Mrs. Eddy out of the city. The hundred little annoyances which had so often led her into indiscretions were now kept from her. She planted and pulled up, built and tore down, — or, as she says, armed with pen and pruning-hook, she commanded and countermanded, — as tirelessly as ever; but now that she worked through other people, her plans were not executed so rapidly, and she had time to change her mind before her first decision was made public. It was now possible for her executives to present questions to her with some care. They kept Mrs. Eddy informed upon the affairs of the Boston church and upon what went on in the field, but petty annoyances they kept from her. Her inability to interfere hourly gave her assistants an opportunity to execute her wishes temperately and successfully. Mrs. Eddy, the “Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science,” was still in the field, through her executives, as active and powerful as ever; while Mrs. Eddy, the woman, with her disturbing personal idiosyncrasies, was safely housed at Pleasant View, surrounded by devoted and sympathetic persons whose constant care it was to calm and soothe her.

  After she first took up her residence at Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy visited Boston four times, and on each occasion remained in the city only a few hours. In her retirement she has not been cut off from such of her followers as she has wished to see. By a by-law of the church, Mrs. Eddy is empowered to send for any Christian Scientist, wherever he may be, and to bring him to Pleasant View, to serve her for as long as twelve months, if need be, in whatever capacity she may designate; his recompense being twelve hundred dollars a year and his expenses. Under this rule, a bank president whose time is worth $50,000 a year might be summoned to Pleasant View to serve for a hundred dollars a month. But Mrs. Eddy is the last woman in the world to make unreasonable demands of her influential followers, and no greater honour can befall a Christian Scientist than to be thus summoned by his Leader. Such a call is looked upon as a recognition of the recipient’s progress in “Science,” and as a rare opportunity for spiritual growth. Concerning this service at Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy wrote in the Christian Science Sentinel of April 25, 1903.

  SIGNIFICANT QUESTIONS

  MARY BAKER G. EDDY

  Who shall be greatest?

  The great Master said: “He that is least in the kingdom of heaven” — that is, he who hath in his heart in the least the kingdom of heaven, the reign of holiness, shall be greatest.

  Who shall inherit the earth?

  The meek who sit at the feet of Truth, bathing the human understanding with tears of repentance, and washing it clean from the taints of self-righteousness, hypocrisy, envy — shall inherit the earth — for wisdom is justified of her children.

  Who shall dwell in Thy Holy Hill?

  He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.

  Who shall be called to Pleasant View?

  He who strives and attains who has the divine presumption to say: “For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (St. Paul). It goes without saying that such a one was never called to Pleasant View for penance or reformation; and I call none others, unless I mistake their calling. No mesmerist, nor disloyal Christian Scientist is fit to come hither, I have no use for such, and there cannot be found at Pleasant View one of this sort. “For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.” (Deuteronomy, 18.)

  It is true that loyal Christian Scientists called to the home of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, can acquire in one year the Science that otherwise might cost them a half century. But this should not be the incentive for going thither. Better far that Christian Scientists go to help their helper, and thus lose all selfishness as she has lost it, and thereby help themselves and the whole world, as she has done according to this saying of Christ Jesus: “And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  JOSEPHINE CURTIS WOODBURY AND THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL — BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE — MRS. EDDY WITHDRAWS HER SUPPORT— “WAR IN HEAVEN”

  MRS. EDDY’S ABSENCE from Boston made it possible for some of her ambitious leaders there to exercise a stronger personal influence than they could ever have done had she been at her old headquarters in Commonwealth Avenue. This opportunity was seized, and abused, so Mrs. Eddy thought, by one of her most prominent aids, Josephine Curtis Woodbury.

  Mrs. Woodbury had been associated with Mrs. Eddy since 1879, and had been one of her foremost healers and teachers. She had written a great deal for the Journal, had preached and lectured as far west as Denver, had organised classes and church societies, and had conducted a Christian Science “academy” at the Hotel Berkshire, in Boston.

  Mrs. Woodbury was clever, self-confident, given to theatrical display, ready with her tongue and pen, and she possessed an amazing personal influence over her adherents. In short, she was the only Christian Scientist in Boston who ever bade fair to rival Mrs. Eddy in personal prominence. Like Mrs. Eddy, she was ambitious, and delighted in leadership. She, too, could send her students hither and yon, and keep them dancing attendance upon her telegrams. Some of them lived in her house and went to Maine with her in the summer; they sat spellbound at her lectures, and put their time and goods at her disposal.

  Mrs. Woodbury’s group of students and followers were, on the whole, very different from the simple, rule-abiding Christian Scientists who had been taught directly under Mrs. Eddy’s personal supervision. Mrs. Eddy’s own people never got very far away from her hard-and-fast business principles, while Mrs. Woodbury’s students were distinctly fanciful and sentimental, and strove to add all manner of ornamentation to Mrs. Eddy’s stout homespun. There were two or three musicians among them, and a young illustrator and his handsome wife, and most of them wrote verses. Some of Mrs. Woodbury’s students went abroad with her, and acquired the habit of interlarding the regular Christian Science phraseology with a little French. Mrs. Woodbury and her students lived in a kind of miracle-play of their own; had inspirations and revelations and premonitions; kept mental trysts; saw portents and mystic meanings in everything; and spoke of God as coming and going, agreeing and disagreeing with them. Some of them affected cell-like sleeping-chambers, with white walls, bare except for a picture of Christ. They longed for martyrdom, and made adventures out of the most commonplace occurrences. Mrs. Woodbury herself had this marvel-loving temperament. Her room was lined with pictures of the Madonna. When she went to Denver to lecture on Christian Science in 1887, her train was caught in a blizzard; in relating this experience, she describes herself as “face to face with death.” Her two children fell into the water on the Nantasket coast; Mrs. Woodbury “treated” them, and they recovered. She writes upon this incident a dramatic article entitled “Drowning Overcome.”