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Mary Baker Eddy
 

 

  

A Brief Account of Spiritual Healing by Mrs. Eddy
MARY BAKER EDDY'S HEALING WORK

 

"...Let her own works praise her in the gates." Proverbs
The following are some of the reports of Mrs. Eddy's healing work compiled by Arthur F. Fosbery, an early Christian Scientist.


I called in Boston on Miss C--, and her mother who had formerly lived in North Windham, Maine, for fifty-two years. They told me that Miss C. when about fifteen years old had a growth in her neck for four years standing, which was so large that she could not turn her head without turning her whole body. The mother had permitted a doctor to lance the lump at one time, but refused to allow any other treatment. One day she received a letter from a friend in Portland, Maine, telling her that Mrs. Eddy had come there to start a church, and asking if she would permit our Leader to treat her daughter. The mother consented, and the growth had disappeared entirely in about three weeks' time, leaving no trace, except the scar which the daughter showed me, where the doctor had lanced it. Mrs. Eddy treated the case absently, and, so far as I could gather from what the mother and daughter told me, gave only one treatment, though they were not clear on this point.

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Nov. 6, 1923. Called with Eugenia M. Fosbery on Miss Bartlett at 24 Idlewild Ave., a bright, active woman, who went through class with Mrs. Eddy about 1880 and began teaching herself about 1884. She talked to us for an hour and a half about Mrs. Eddy and the early days in Christian Science. She said Mrs. Eddy told her of a case of healing a baby which had passed on. The mother brought it to her and was holding it in her arms and Mrs. Eddy restored it to life.

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Mr. Tomlinson, on being shown the above wrote to me that it called his mind a story of a healing told him directly by Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Eddy was living on Columbus Avenue. She enjoyed seeing a little babe who lived on the street opposite. She missed the smiles of this little one and wondered what had happened. One morning she noticed the doctor’s carriage leaving the home of the child. Mrs. Eddy went over to the house, spoke with the mother and asked to see the child. The mother said the child had passed on - the doctor had so decreed. Mrs. Eddy went and sat beside the child, realizing the truth of Being as no one else has since the time of Jesus, and the child was healed. Instead of gratitude being expressed by the mother, she took the child and expressed ugliness towards our beloved Leader. The child remained healed.

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Another time Mrs. Eddy was called to heal a little boy of four years who was dying. “They seldom asked for Christian Science in those days till all other hope was exhausted.” Mrs. Eddy stood at the foot of the bed and did her work. The boy sat up and said: “I is sick.” Mrs. Eddy talked to him and then took him out of bed and stood him on his feet on the floor, but he was still so rebellious that he foamed at the mouth. Our Leader went on with her work and continued talking to him. Presently he hung his head and leaned against Mrs. Eddy’s knee; then she took him on her lap and he was healed.

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Mrs. Eddy’s eldest sister, Abigail Tilton, was very much opposed to Christian Science, but when her little daughter lay dying, she called Mrs. Eddy, or in some way conveyed to her what the situation was, and permitted her to see the child. Mrs. Eddy asked her sister to leave the room, and in a short time healed her niece, got her out of bed and dressed and then had a romp round the room with the child, - “to get her thought normal,” as the student who told me the story expressed it. Then the mother came in and saw them playing and said: “It is the work of the devil.”

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These three cases above were told Miss Bartlett by Mrs. Eddy. Miss Bartlett also saw a cripple on two crutches helped into Hawthorne Hall by two women and walk out of the hall healed with his crutches on his shoulder after the service. This was when Mrs. Eddy was preaching in Hawthorne Hall.

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Miss Bartlett also told of the time of hearing a very clear soprano voice ring out when the hymns were being sung in Hawthorne Hall and of a mother and daughter going up to Mrs. Eddy after the service and the mother telling her how her daughter, who could hardly speak above a whisper, had been healed at the service and was able to sing clearly and freely. (This is no doubt the case spoken about by Sybil Wilbur in her [book: The Life of Mary Baker Eddy.] A.F.F.).

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When Mrs. Eddy went to Pleasant View, she told them (the people who were with her there) that she was receiving revelations every day which she could not tell them because they could not bear it yet. They were not ready to take them in.

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Miss Bartlett and Dr. Eddy went through Mrs. Eddy's first class at 569 Columbus Avenue (afterwards Mrs. Eddy moved to 571 and Miss Bartlett went to stay with her there). This was before the charter for the College was obtained. There were several others in the class but Miss Bartlett and Dr. Eddy were the only two who had had previous class instruction from Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Eddy told them she had to answer their questions first before she came to others. They had not asked any questions but Mrs. Eddy felt their thought. In this class or another Miss Bartlett had some phase of Science which she was studying in her mind. Mrs. Eddy started in asking questions of each member of the class in turn, - different questions. When she came to Miss Bartlett, she asked her a question on the subject she had been studying over. Miss Bartlett then saw that she had been sounding each one separately on the query in his own mind as she went through the class with her questions. ...

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During his last illness in 1882 our Leader raised her husband, Dr. Asa G. Eddy from the dead two or three times. After our talk with Miss Bartlett, she wrote me as follows, "The day Dr. Eddy seemingly left us, he seemed so much better that I went out with him on a little car ride which he enjoyed. Mrs. Eddy had her work for the Cause to attend to, and as both she and I had been up with him so much nights, two students insisted on our getting some rest, and came to take care of Dr. Eddy for that night. Thereupon we retired, as he was so comfortable. He sat in his chair, because more restful to him than the bed; and seemed very peaceful and comfortable, until finally he had been quiet so long they went up to him to see if he was asleep - and found he was gone, but they did not know when it happened, as there was no sign of anything unusual, and they supposed him sleeping."

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I was standing at the foot of the second flight of stairs in 385 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, Mrs. Eddy's old home, when Mrs. --said to me: "It was at the foot of this staircase that Mrs. Eddy raised Calvin Frye from the dead. She had called him to come down stairs and he fell near the bottom and broke his neck, and was lying so that his head was twisted under his body. Mrs. Eddy said to him: Calvin get up, Calvin get up.” And the second or third time she said it, Mr. Frye came to life, and got up on his feet."

This I believe was the first time Mrs. Eddy raised Calvin Frye from the dead, of the three cases I have heard of. I told a student who had been with Mrs. Eddy in the early days that I knew Mrs. Eddy had raised Calvin Frye from the dead on two occasions. She said, "Oh, more than that;" and then told me that one time she and Mrs. Eddy were together on the verandah and Mrs. Eddy sent her with a message to Mr. Frye. When she reached his room she called to him but got no answer. Then she went in and found him on the floor. He must have been there some time. She lifted his arm and it fell limp. She felt his hand it was cold. Then she called Mrs. Eddy, who came very quickly, and came there and saw his condition and great need. Through Christian Science treatment she helped him and he returned to consciousness. Then speaking the truth to him constantly after about an hour he moved his head. Then Mrs. Eddy, standing beside him, told him to rise with her help, which he did, and then she left him. She then called him to her from time to time and spoke the truth to him very earnestly until she found he was quite well.

A third instance was related to us a few years ago by Mr. Kinter of Chicago, formerly Mrs. Eddy's secretary, and was also told by Mrs. Laura E. Sargent to the students of the College class of 1913.

Mr. Kinter said that Mrs. Eddy had a different bell for each one of her helpers. When he went to our Leader's home, she asked him if he had a warm dressing gown, and told him that he was likely to be called at any hour of the day or night to take dictation. One night she rang for Mr. Frye and got no answer. She rang a second time, and then called some one else and sent a message that she wanted Mr. Frye to come to her. The messenger found that Calvin Frye was dead. The household was aroused, but no one had the courage to tell Mrs. Eddy what was the matter. Our Leader knew, however, that something serious was wrong, and insisted on being told what it was. When they informed her that Calvin Frye had passed on, she said, "Bring him in here." Then she said: "No, I'll go to him."

She went to Calvin Frye's room, where several members of the household were assembled. Mr. Kinter wrapped a comforter around her over her dressing-gown and she stood leaning on her arm for an hour, giving Mr. Frye an audible treatment; vigorously calling on him to awaken, while the household stood round and looked on. One of the things she said to him was: "Calvin, disappoint your enemies!" At the end of the hour Calvin Frye had revived, and was healed. They asked Mrs. Eddy if someone should sit up with him all night, and she said: "No, I have protected my treatment."

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One of Boston’s early practitioners told me that a number of years ago he went to Lynn with several people who had come on to the Annual Meeting. He was pointing out to one Westerner a very old house, when an elderly gentleman passing offered to show them a much older house. This man, a Mr. Green, in the course of the conversation asked if they had come on to the Annual Meeting, and being answered in the affirmative, told them the following story:

Years before in Lynn Mrs. Eddy called at his house looking for a room. His wife said they could not let her have a room because they had a sick daughter in the house who was dying of consumption. Mrs. Eddy went upstairs to the daughter, and he and his wife could remember nothing that happened after that till they saw Mrs. Eddy and their daughter walk in the front door. He and his wife were in a kind of daze and had not seen them go out. It was a cold raw day, but the daughter was completely healed when she returned from the walk.

They rented a room to Mrs. Eddy, but a neighbor woman told his wife some tales against our Leader and said she was a dangerous woman, so Mrs. Green would not let Mrs. Eddy come. Mrs. Eddy left him Science and Health, which he put in his book case. Some time after this Mr. Green was suffering from nervous prostration, and it occurred to him to read the book our Leader had left. He read, and woke up well the next morning. Later he had a running sore on his arm which had to be dressed daily. One day he decided to try and heal it by reading the book. He read and was healed. His wife got an attack of asthma which went on for some time, to the disturbance of the whole household. He decided he would read her well without saying anything to her about it. He read the book again and she was completely healed. But his wife and one of his daughters, not the one who was healed, remained opposed to Christian Science.

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Another case: Mrs. Eddy was called to treat a girl in Lynn, who, the doctors said, had only a little piece of one lung left, and was dying. There were Spiritualists around and Mrs. Eddy could not reach her thought at first, so she said to her: “Get up out of that bed,” and pulled the pillow from under the girl’s head. Then she called to those in the other room to bring her clothes. The girl got up and was well; she never even coughed again. But the mother was offended at Mrs. Eddy and would not speak to her afterwards because she said Mrs. Eddy had spoken disrespectfully to her dying daughter.

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Another time Mrs. Eddy went into a house and saw a woman weeping in the hallway. The woman said: “My daughter is dying of consumption. The doctor has just left and he told me he could do nothing for her.” Mrs. Eddy asked if she might go up and heal the daughter. The mother consented, so Mrs. Eddy went upstairs into the bedroom. The father, who knew who Mrs. Eddy was, and was very antagonistic to her, was standing beside the bed, but Mrs. Eddy felt that, having the permission of the mother to heal the girl, it was right for her to go ahead, so she said to the sick girl: “Get up and come for a walk.” The girl got up and Mrs. Eddy helped her dress and they went for a walk together. The father followed them, secretly as he thought, dodging behind trees and watching round corners, expecting every moment to see his daughter drop dead. Mrs. Eddy knew he was following, but that did not interfere with her demonstration, for when they returned from the walk the daughter was entirely healed.

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In one of Mrs. Eddy's classes there was a woman who had a strong sense of resentment and condemnation towards her husband, who was very immoral. Mrs. Eddy said to her that Jesus healed the Magdalen by condemning the sin, not the woman. The lady answered: "Yes, but I have not the consciousness that Jesus had." Our Leader instantly rebuked this by saying that she should claim the Christ-consciousness, for otherwise she could not heal a single case of sin or sickness. The student’s consciousness was so illumined and uplifted by what Mrs. Eddy said that her state of mind changed towards her husband, and when she returned she found him healed.

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One day when Mrs. R-- was driving with Mrs. Eddy, Princess, one of the horses, became frightened. Mrs. R. made the declaration: "Princess, there is nothing to fear." Mrs. Eddy said: "When I am driving, I will treat Princess." Then she said: "You are not afraid, Princess," and the horse quieted down.

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In Concord there was a woman who had [a mentally handicapped] boy. Mrs. Eddy's carriage passed her house every day, and when she saw it coming she would send her boy to the corner of the fence where Mrs. Eddy could see him. The boy was healed. Mrs. Eddy told this to Laura Sargent, and added that later on she saw this boy walking to church, wearing gloves.

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There was also, in an asylum that Mrs. Eddy used to drive past, a mentally deranged man who had a sore on his leg. Every day when he saw Mrs. Eddy's carriage coming, he would run to the gate and pull down his sock so that our Leader would see the sore. This man was evidently saner on one point than the average individual. Mrs. S. told us that one day when she was at Pleasant View, she heard Mrs. Eddy tell her sister that this man had been healed of his sore and of his insanity.

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On March 4, 1927, Mr. Irving C. Tomlinson wrote me: "You may be interested in this healing which I can testify is absolutely correct. There was a woman in Concord, N.H. who had an appointment for treatment with me in Christian Science Hall, Concord, where I was then living. Her claim was such that it was very difficult for her to walk up the four or five steps leading to Christian Science Hall. News had come that Mrs. Eddy was passing the hall that afternoon so that patient was told that our Leader would pass by the hall at a certain time and it was the patient's privilege to see Mrs. Eddy as she rode by. She arrived just in time to see Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Eddy smiled at her and greeted her. The woman entered the hall afterwards having no difficulty walking up the steps and saying, 'I do not need treatment, I am well.' The practitioner smilingly said, 'This is the way I lose my patients.'"

Miss Elizabeth Earl Jones was present at Christian Science Hall when this healing took place, and gave me an account of it a few years ago (A.F.F.).

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Mrs. S. told of a child that was dead being placed in Mrs. Eddy's arms. Mrs. Eddy took it to her room and in about ten minutes stood it on the floor and opened the door for it to go to its mother. The child walked through the door, and the mother seeing it alive and walking for the first time (for the child had never walked before), screamed, and the child sat down. Mrs. Eddy, in telling the story, said: "I saw I had another patient on my hands."

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Another of Mrs. Eddy's students told me that one time a mother brought her dead baby to Mrs. Eddy and placed it in her lap. Our Leader asked her to come back in an hour, and began to treat the child. She realized that Life was Love, and that Love was right there, and Love was Life, and kept realizing this more clearly; after a while she felt something moving on her lap, (she had forgotten the baby). She looked down, and saw the child smiling at her, and kicking its feet.

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At the time the Church in Concord, N.H. was being erected, Mrs. Sweet went into the building and slipped on a board or something, and hurt herself. Some of the workers at Pleasant View tried to help her, but without much success. Mrs. Eddy asked them what was the matter with Mrs. Sweet. They answered that she was all right. Our Leader said: "But she is not all right." She then asked Mrs. Sweet what the trouble was, and the latter replied that it was all right, it was being met. Mrs. Eddy said: "It is not being met." Then our Leader asked her how she was working and Mrs. Sweet answered that she was knowing there there were no accidents in Mind. Mrs. Eddy replied: "That would not heal you. You were brought here to help me; you are one of my best workers," and pointed out to her that the trouble was only an argument to interfere with her usefulness to Mrs. Eddy. By the time our Leader finished talking to her, Mrs. Sweet was healed.

It was in this conversation that Mrs. Eddy said to Mrs. Sweet: "I will say for your comfort that if you were brought here with every bone in your body broken, you would respond to my treatment."

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Mr. G-- of Boston told me that his wife's eldest brother had a rupture which he had seen, and which was so bad that a man could not stand on his feet with it, and that he always had to wear a truss for support, This man went to the original Mother Church to one of the meetings at which Mrs. Eddy spoke, and was healed during the service.

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Mrs. Laura E. Sargent told the following story to the class she taught in the Metaphysical College: Mrs. Eddy, in one of her homes had two canaries, named Benny and May. One day someone moved a chair against one of the birds, May, which was on the floor and broke its leg, so that it was held together just by a piece of skin. The bird was in its cage, and shortly afterwards a visitor came in. The other bird, Benny, kept flying between the cage and the visitor, and chattering to attract her attention, and when she asked our Leader what was the matter with the bird, Mrs. Eddy told her to look into the cage. She did so and exclaimed: "Why this bird's leg is broken." Our Leader asked her to come back in three days, and when the lady returned three days later she found the bird's leg was perfectly healed, and little May was hopping about on her perch.

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Another of Mrs. Eddy's students told me that one time she had a physical trouble, which did not show. She went to call on our Leader, but did not mention the trouble. Mrs. Eddy however at once detected the error in her thought, spoke about it, and denied it, and the student was practically healed right there.

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One of the students ... told us that Mrs. Eddy asked each member of the class in turn this question: "How will you heal most quickly?" They gave wonderful answers and told of splendid demonstrations of instantaneous healing, and the student did not see how anything more could be said on the subject of quick healing. When they had all replied to the question, Mrs. Eddy thanked them and said their answers were good, but that not one had given the correct answer to her question. Then she said: "It is, when you know and feel that God is Love."

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The next case came to me through a student of Mrs. Eddy's who heard it from a milliner in Concord, N.H. The milliner said that she had been confined to her room with consumption, and was sitting all wrapped up at the window one day when Mrs. Eddy's carriage passed. Our Leader looked up at her, and the milliner thought to herself, What is it that woman has which I have not? She arose from her chair, hunted up her clothes, dressed herself, and went to the Reading Room and asked them questions about Christian Science. She then went home and prepared her husband's dinner. When he came in, he thought his wife was out of her mind, and it took her a few days to convince him that she was all right. This woman was thoroughly healed, and never coughed again after Mrs. Eddy looked at her that day.

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Three students to whom Mrs. Eddy told the following story recounted it to me. One time Mrs. Eddy was called to see a sick child. A girl of about fifteen opened the door for her and she had to pass through a room in which the father was in bed with consumption, to get to the room where the child and its mother were. The child was so thin that its bones were sticking out. The mother went out of the room, and Mrs. Eddy healed the baby in about fifteen minutes, "so that its cheeks stuck out like rosy apples." (to quote our Leader's own words). When the mother came to the door, the child called lustily: "Mamma! Mamma!" The woman exclaimed: "Have I gone mad!" Then Mrs. Eddy went into the other room with her and saw the father sitting on the side of his bed, healed of his consumption; and learned that the girl of fifteen who opened the door for her, had been healed of deafness. These three healings were all made in the space of about fifteen minutes. Later, I was told that Mrs. Eddy turned away from the sick child and looking out of the window said: "This is not right; it is not Love, and God is Love," and that when she looked around at the child it was healed.

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One of Mrs. Eddy's students told me that Mrs. W. was in the same class which she attended, and one day asked permission to tell the story of a healing of our Leader's which she witnessed. Our Leader gave her permission, and the following is the account: Mrs. W. went with Mrs. Eddy to a furniture shop to help her select some chairs. The clerk who waited on them was wearing a bandage over one eye. Mrs. Eddy seemed absorbed in thought while they were being shown the chairs, and paid very little attention to them, and when pressed as to which she like best, said, "Any that we can sit on." Mrs. W. was annoyed at Mrs. Eddy's seeming indifference, and told the clerk that they would come back the next day and give their decision about the chairs. They were in an upstairs room of the shop, with two doors opening out, one onto the stairway and the other onto a chute for sliding boxes down to the sidewalk. Mrs. Eddy opened one door and went down stairs. Mrs. W. in her perturbation opened the other door, stepped onto the box chute, and slid down to the sidewalk, where Mrs. Eddy arrived in time to see her picking herself up. Mrs. W. reproached our Leader with her lack of attention to the business in hand, and Mrs. Eddy replied: "Could I think of chairs when the man was suffering?" When Mrs. W. went the next day to see about the chairs, the clerk said: "Who was that lady with you yesterday? I had an abscess on my eye, and when she went out, I took the bandage off, and there was not a sign of it left."

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The next case of healing is very brief, but very beautiful. Mrs. Eddy drove down a street and passed a crippled newsboy, who was on the sidewalk. The boy crawled into an alleyway, or doorway, and slept, and when he woke, he was completely healed of his deformity. He explained his healing by saying: "The lady smiled at me." Mr. McLeod told me that the same or similar case was told in the St. Louis Globe Democrat some twenty-five or more years ago.

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The following two accounts are found in an article by Judge Hanna in the New Hampshire Granite Monthly of October 1896:

"About the year 1870, before Mr. Charles Slade's door in Chelsea, Mass., there stopped an emaciated, pale-faced cripple, strapped to crutches. His elbows were stiff, and lower limbs so contracted his feet touched not the ground. Mrs. Eddy was there, and gave him some scrip.

"A few weeks thereafter, sitting in her carriage, Mrs. Slade noticed a smart-looking man, having that same face, vending some wares on the grounds where General Butler held parade. She drove to where he stood. Their gaze met, and simultaneously they exclaimed: 'Are you that man?' and 'Where is that woman?' Then followed the explanation, he narrating that after leaving her house he hobbled to the next door, and was given permission to enter and lie down. In about an hour he revived and found his arms and limbs loosed, - he could stand erect and walk naturally. All pain, stiffness, and contraction were gone, and he added, 'I am now a well man, and I am that man.'

"Mrs. Slade then answered his question as to 'that' woman, and afterwards narrated to Mrs. Eddy the circumstances connected with his recovery, but not until she had inquired of her, If she thought that terrible-looking cripple, whom they both saw, was healed? To which Mrs. Eddy quickly answered, 'I do believe that he was restored to health.' Later on being asked by her students as to how she healed him, Mrs. Eddy simply said, - 'When I looked on that man, my heart gushed with unspeakable pity and prayer. After that, he passed out of my thought until being informed by Mrs. Slade of his sudden restoration.'

"About the year 1867, as Mrs. Eddy sat alone in her quiet occupation in an outside room opening on a garden and porch, the door was suddenly burst open, and an escaped maniac dashed into the room. Her quiet, truthful gaze momentarily met his wild glare; then he fiercely seized a chair to hurl at her head. She spoke to him; he dropped the chair, approached her and pointing upward, exclaimed: 'Are you from there?' The next moment he was kneeling before her with his head pressed hard into his hands. She uttered not a word; but those of our readers who are Christian Scientists can apprehend a little of her inspiration at that moment. Soon the poor maniac gave a deep groan, then he looked up into her face with a new wildness -the astonishment of sanity - and breathed out, 'that terrible weight has gone off the top of my head.'

"Yes, she answered figuratively,' I have anointed you with the oil of gladness.' He left the house clothed in his right mind. Several years afterwards this man returned to thank Mrs. Eddy for his healing."

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In the early days it was hard for Mrs. Eddy to find patients to treat; and one day she went out on the street to see if she could find some one to heal. She saw the doctor's gig tied in front of a house, and when he had come out and driven away, Mrs. Eddy crossed the street and rang the doorbell of the house out of which the doctor had come. A tear-stained woman opened the door, and Mrs. Eddy asked if anyone was sick in this house. The lady said that her daughter had just died. Mrs. Eddy asked if she could go in and see the daughter. The woman at first demurred, but finally let her go in where the body lay. In a little while the mother heard voices and looking into the room she saw her daughter sitting up in bed, and talking with Mrs. Eddy.

Mrs. Eddy said that "a wordless flood of life filled her consciousness," and the girl was raised from the dead. Mrs. Eddy asked the mother to bring the daughter's clothes, and the amazed mother asked why. Our Leader answered that she wanted to take the girl out for a walk. The mother said: "You don't know what you are asking. My daughter has been ill with consumption for months, and she could not go out." Mrs. Eddy reassured the mother and told her that no harm could come to her daughter through anything Mrs. Eddy should do, and finally the mother brought the girl's clothes. Mrs. Eddy then took the girl out and walked her up and down for about half an hour, the mother and father following behind to see what was being done. The girl's color came back and she was not only alive, but healed of the disease! When they got back to the house, the mother took off her diamond ring and gave it to Mrs. Eddy, and this ring our Leader always wore.

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The two following paragraphs are from The Christian Science Monitor of May 11, 1914:

"There are authentic witnesses, however, of the healing work of Mrs. Eddy in those days. One of them was a Mrs. Mosher, a lifelong friend of one of the Christian Scientists now at work in Lynn. When the latter was healed in Christian Science, Mrs. Mosher, returning from the West, sought out her friend expressly to tell her this story, and said she could make an affidavit that this is what she saw. She had not told it to her friend sooner because she was ashamed of having tried the new kind of healing.

"Several years before this she went to the office where Mrs. Eddy and a student were at work, and was treated by the student. She saw there a girl afflicted with dumbness whom the student had not been able to heal. At last he asked Mrs. Eddy to help. Mrs. Mosher was present when Mrs. Eddy walked up to the dumb girl and said: 'God did not send this upon you. You can speak. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, I command you to speak!' The girl shrank back and cried out, 'I can't, and I won't!' and fled out of the room. But she was able to speak ever after. The Scientist who tells this had already heard a different version of the case from others, who said that Mrs. Eddy threatened the girl in some way. Possibly such was the impression made upon the girl, under stress of the mighty, redeeming word of spiritual authority. Mrs. Mosher, not knowing that her friend had heard the story, volunteered this account of the occurrence. She herself had received little benefit from treatment by the student, and never accepted Christian Science. This student was one of those who afterwards withdrew from the work. He persisted in using methods which Mrs. Eddy did not approve, and could not perceive either her power of spiritual understanding nor her right to correct their mistaken notions. The world was slow to accept her restatement of the radical position of Jesus, and the purely spiritual means of healing, looking to God for help, not to matter nor to human intelligence, when he said, 'These signs shall follow them that believe.'"

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In front of Mrs. Eddy's home a good many years ago, out on the highway, a man was one day run over by a very heavily laden wagon from which he had fallen, the wheels passing across his body. The teamster was thought dead, and the body was brought into her home and laid on the floor. Mrs. Eddy was upstairs at the time and they besought her to come down. My remembrance is that she hesitated at first but finally came down, and looking away from the body, began to declare the truth, and had such a wonderful sense of mental uplift that she became entirely oblivious of her surroundings. After spending some moments in this spiritual contemplation of Truth, she suddenly came to herself and found that the man had arisen, and passing his hand over his eyes in a somewhat dazed way, said: "Why I thought I was hurt, but I am all right."

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In Pulpit and Press we are told how Mrs. Eddy pointed to some large elm trees on her grounds in Concord, and said: "My faith has the strength to nourish trees as well as souls." "Look at those big elms! I had them brought here in warm weather, almost as big as they are now, and not one died."

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Mrs. Eddy met casually a woman who had a son afflicted with epileptic fits. The son was not present when Mrs. Eddy met the mother, and Mr. Hulin thought Mrs. Eddy did not know of the case at all. But Mrs. Eddy turned to the mother and said: "You never had a tyrannical father whom you were afraid of" - and the son was instantaneously healed of the epilepsy when Mrs. Eddy uncovered and destroyed the latent fear in the mother's thought of her father, which had made her a nervous girl; and her child was very nervous when it was born, developing into epilepsy.

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Mrs. Eddy was called to treat a child; and when she arrived and saw the child and its mother, she paid no attention to the disease or manifestation of discord which the child was showing, but turned to the mother and said: "You fell before this child was born." The mother answered: "No, Mrs. Eddy, I never fell when I was carrying this child." But Mrs. Eddy declared: "There is no effect from prenatal shock or fear," and the child immediately was healed of a condition very remote seemingly from an effect of a fall. Then the mother said: "Yes, I do remember now that a few days before this child was born, I fell down two steps, but I had forgotten it."

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When Mrs. Eddy was a young woman, she started a primary school, and among her pupils was a very bad boy who had caused his parents and his playmates continual trouble and apprehension. Mrs. Eddy dealt patiently with him, but seemingly to no avail at first. Finally, one day she required him to remain after school until the other children had gone home; then she began to talk with this boy, not upbraiding him, but telling him about the love of God for him, and also praying for him. When the boy reached home that night, his whole nature had undergone an utter transformation through this transmitting touch of divine Love, as expressed to him through his teacher. His parents were astonished and spoke to her later about it, saying that the hateful disposition which he had formerly shown had been entirely dispelled, and he was now gentle and loving and obedient. The boy had also manifested a great interest in the Bible, and seemed to love to read it, while his reverence and affection for his teacher were unbounded.

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In one of Mrs. Eddy's classes an elderly clergyman had a partial belief of blindness, and asked our Leader if it could be cured. She answered: "Yes, if you only touch the hem of His garment," and the man was later healed during class.

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It was reported to Mrs. Eddy one day that her milkman had said that he had no water for his cattle. The church building needed dry weather and there had been no rain in Boston for several weeks. When Mrs. Eddy heard this report of the shortage of water she prayed in effect, that the urgency of the occasion might not tempt her to sin. Next day the man reported that he had water in his well and asked if they were prophets or witches in that house.

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Mrs. Eddy's maid was working in the room where Mrs. Eddy was and all of a sudden it got very dark and it surprised her so much that she looked out of the window back of Mrs. Eddy and saw a most terrible storm. There were black clouds shaped like funnels rolling around and coming straight towards Mrs. Eddy's home. She had never seen anything like it. Then she went out of the room about her work and when she came back in a short time afterwards, Mrs. Eddy said to her: "Have you looked out of the window?" No, she had not; but she did and there was all sunshine and clear sky. The storm had disappeared.

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A well-known actor was healed physically in Science and his testimony appeared in the Journal. Afterwards, one day he was walking along a street in Concord with a big cigar in his mouth. Mrs. Eddy passed in her carriage and looked at him. He took the cigar out of his mouth and threw it away, and was healed of the desire to smoke right there.

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One day one of the workers in our Leader's home found the cook unfit for duty, so [she] cooked the meal herself. The range was large and very hot to work over. After she had finished cooking the meal the worker went upstairs, opened a window and stood in the breeze to cool off. Mrs. Eddy, who was sitting in another room, called her in and pointing a chair in the middle of the room, said; "Sit down on that chair and make your demonstration." She sat down and worked and felt that our Leader's thought helped her. The claim of being overheated was soon met and had never returned. That is, the worker says she has never been troubled by heat since.

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One of our Leader's students who had been with her in early days, wrote: "Often there were healings of people who came to Pleasant View, whom we met while driving when they were watching for her in the street."

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One day as Mrs. Eddy was going out for her afternoon drive, a tall gaunt man, who appeared far gone in consumption, came up to her gate, held out his hand to her and shouted: "Help me." Mrs. Eddy said a few words to him out of the carriage window, talked to him for about two minutes and then drove out of the gate. On her return she remarked: "What a need that man had." Next day they received a letter from the man telling Mrs. Eddy that he was conscious that he had been healed as soon as the carriage drove on.

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One day a gentleman came to Pleasant View to see Mrs. Eddy. Our Leader was very busy and he was told he could not see her but that it might be arranged later. He was very despondent and looked as if there might not be any "later."

Mrs. Eddy drove into town and stopped at the C.S. Hall and Mr. Calvin Frye went in with a letter leaving the carriage door open. A gentleman was standing in front of the Hall, the same man who earlier in the day had wanted to see our Leader. This man stepped into the carriage, took off his hat and said: "Mrs. Eddy." Our Leader answered: "Yes." "May I ask you a question?" he said, and she answered: "Certainly." Then he said: "Can you tell me about God, who He is, what He is, where is He?" Mrs. Eddy told him God was his Mind, his Life, and continued talking to him and teaching him what God was until Mr. Frye came back. They had been talking just three minutes. Then the man looked at the clock which they both could see, and said: "I have learned more in these three minutes about God than in all the rest of my life." He raised his hat and said good-bye as the carriage drove off. Mrs. Eddy afterwards told her student that she saw he was suffering from jaundice and that as she talked to him she saw the unhealthy dark yellow color fade from his face like the shadow of a cloud vanishing away and his face became perfectly normal. She added: "He was healed but he did not recognize it while we were talking." Next day the man wrote that he was completely healed and had taken a train home that night.

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There was a friend staying with friends at Concord, N.H. and one day Mrs. Eddy called to see these friends who told her that a lady was ill in their house with diphtheria. When Mrs. Eddy heard it she said: "Tell her to have no fear whatever as God is taking care of her and Mother was praying for her." After she left the house the message was given to her immediately and in a few minutes all the bad conditions were removed and the student could breathe freely, and next morning rose in perfect health, with heartfelt gratitude to God and to the dear Leader whose demonstration it was.

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One time there was a state fair held at the back of Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy's home, and there was a man who dived from a high place into some water. Mrs. Eddy with Judge and Mrs. Ewing in the carriage drove down to see him dive, and he came up afterwards to speak to her and she took him into the drawing-room and began to talk to him about her hearing voices when a child, and Miss S. wondered why she did this. Then Mrs. Eddy went on to speak about fear, and said. "You are able to dive because you have overcome fear." He said, Yes, he had no fear whatever, he had practised for a long time taking a higher and higher dive till he could do it without fear. Then Mrs. Eddy said: "Use that overcoming of fear on your eyes." The man had dark glasses on and said: "Well, I damaged one eye so that the eyeball had to be taken out, and that is why I wear glasses, because the eye is unpleasant to look at." The cabman who took this man to the station told afterwards that when the man got to the station he took off his glasses, and his eye was completely restored, so that both eyes were the same. (I heard from another source that Mrs. Eddy once told her class that she had healed a man of blindness whose eyeballs were gone and had restored his sight at the same time. Someone in the class asked why, if sight was mental she needed to restore his eyeballs, and she pointed out that if he had gone around telling people he could see things when he did not have any eyes to see with, they would have thought he was crazy, and would have shut him up).

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One day Mrs. Eddy passed a hunchback who was all bent over. He was selling matches. She leaned over and said to him: "God made you upright," and walked round the corner. He looked after her and found himself up straight; then he ran up the steps of a house near and said: "An angel told me God made me upright. I am the man who sells matches across the street." The woman told him that the only person she knew of who could have healed in that way was Mrs. Glover [Mrs. Eddy].

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Mrs. Lathrop was healed of many things but not of heart disease which she had not mentioned to her practitioner. She went to New York and some one from there told Mrs. Eddy that Mrs. Lathrop was having great trouble from heart disease. Our Leader invited Mrs. Lathrop to visit her for a week. After dinner the first night Mrs. Eddy ran upstairs very lightly and Mrs. Lathrop followed her running faster than she had done for a long time. Just as she got to the top she collapsed with a very bad attack of heart trouble. Mrs. Eddy turned round and rebuked the error. She seemed to Mrs. Lathrop to grow very tall, as if her head touched the ceiling, and to express the embodiment of power as she did so, ...and Mrs. Lathrop was healed.

[For more information on this healing, see the Christian Science Sentinel, Dec. 24, 1904, p.259]

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"It was the year 1897, on the 4th of July, that Mrs. Eddy invited her church to her home in Concord, New Hampshire. She sent a telegram to a student here, telling him to come and bring his friends, and I was invited to go. I went with my sister and my two children.

"When we were getting ready to start, we discovered that my little daughter, seven years old, had a boil on the crown of her head. Her hair was heavy and curly, and the boil was very much inflamed.

“After we got on the train, she would not allow me to comb her hair. The confusion, the heat and the crowded car made it difficult to work mentally, and her hair really went uncombed until we got to Concord. I did not try to comb it that night, because she cried so bitterly, but sister and I put her to bed and we sat down to do our mental work on the matter. The next morning we were to go out to Mrs. Eddy's home. The boil by this time looked like a small end of an egg. It stood up pointedly from her head and was more inflamed than before.

"We took the scissors and cut the hair from around the boil. Then I washed her hair and combed it, my sister working for her mentally all the while, and I holding to the truth as best I could while I worked. The whole thing was a most trying ordeal, and It was only through showers of tears that we finally got her ready to go. She had a little light straw hat with a wreath of daisies on it. She did not want to put it on, because she said it hurt her head.

"Mrs. Eddy and a number of others spoke to us. When the speaking was over, Mrs. Eddy sat upon the porch as the people passed through the carriage-way, greeting her as they passed. When my two children, a boy [nine years old] and this little girl [seven years old], got in front of her, they stopped the whole procession, and stood looking up into her face with a most joyous smile. She looked at them and then looked at me, then she looked back again and threw a kiss to each of them, and somebody told them to pass along. I followed them.

"I wish I could make the world know what I saw when she looked at those children. It was a revelation to me. I saw, for the first time, the real mother, Love, and I knew that I did not have it. I had a strange, agonized sense of being absolutely cut off from my children. It is impossible to put into words what the uncovering of my own lack of mother-love meant to me.

"As I turned in the procession and walked toward the line of trees in the front yard, there was a bird sitting on the limb of a tree, and I saw the same Love, poured out on that bird, that I had seen flow from Mrs. Eddy to my children. I looked down at the grass and the flowers and there was the same Love resting on them. It is difficult for me to put into words what I saw. This Love was everywhere, like the light, but it was divine, not mere human affection.

"I looked at the people milling around on the lawn and I saw it poured out on them. I thought of the various discords in this field, and I saw, for the first time, the absolute unreality of everything but this infinite Love. It was not only everywhere present, like the light, but it was an intelligent presence that spoke to me and I found myself weeping as I walked back and forth under the trees, and saying out loud 'Why did I never know you before, Why have I not known you always?'

“I don't know how long it was until my boy came to me and said: 'Come, mother, they are going home.' I got into the carriage and drove back to the hotel, but that same conscious intelligence and Love was everywhere. It rested upon everything my thought rested on.

"When we got to the hotel, there was no boil on my child's head. It was just as flat as the back of her hand. Afterwards the hair, for about two inches around where the boil had been, came out. She was totally bald on the crown of her head, but the hair grew back as naturally as if it had never been out.

"I know that this revelation of divine Love came to me by reflection from Mrs. Eddy, and for weeks it had a strange effect on me. I could not bear to hear anyone speak in a cross ill-tempered tone, or do anything that would cause pain. We had two little pet dogs that belonged to the children. They would sometimes get on the beds, and I kept a little riding whip on the mantel in the upper hall which was used to punish them if they were on the beds. This I could no longer bear. I wondered how I ever could have been so cruel.

"Each time I saw Mrs. Eddy, I had a wonderful revelation of God. I know she was no ordinary woman. God had anointed her with the oil of gladness above her fellows, for she loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Heb. 1: 9."

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The healing of the hunchback was after this fashion: It was when Mrs. Eddy was living in Lynn and one rainy day someone was sent to her from a distance in the city and asked her to come to visit a lady who was dying with consumption, and she said she would.

She took a cab at the doorway and went to this person, and on the way when near her destination, saw a hunchback in the street and the carriage passed very close to him; and as it passed him, one wheel went down into a rut and splashed him all over with water. He Immediately became angry, but she leaned out of the carriage and said to him, 'Little man, God loves you,' and went on her way a few hundred feet. The young fellow watched her.

She went into the house, stayed about half an hour, healed her patient, and as she came out, there was a tall young man standing at the curbstone, and he went to her and said, "'Are you the lady that told me God loved me?" She looked at him closely, and he said, "Look at me, how I have straightened up," and expressed gratitude.

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"Dear Leader: - I had an uncle by marriage who was a helpless cripple and who was deformed. All his limbs were withered, and on very pleasant mornings a special policeman would wheel him out on Boston Common in his wheelchair. One morning a number of years ago, he sat there in his wheelchair as you were passing through the Common, and you stopped and spoke to him, telling him that man is God's perfect child, and a few other words. Later, after you had left him, he declared you had helped him. The next morning he looked and looked for you in the same place, and morning after morning continued to do so, until one day you came. Again you repeated to him what you had said before, and this time he was healed and made perfect - every whit whole; and after that he was able to go into business for himself and provide his own living. No doubt you will remember the whole circumstance. His bones had hardened so that when sitting or lying down his knees were drawn up and rigid, his brother having to carry him up and down stairs, and feed him and care for him all the time; but after he was healed through your spoken word, he was able to be active as other men and earned his own living; and whereas before he could not even brush a fly from his face, he regained the use of his hands, and became more than an ordinary penman.

"It was you, dear Leader, who spoke to him of the healing Christ and set him free, when you met him so long ago on Boston Common, and many times I have desired to tell you about it, and to express to you my gratitude for the many benefits I have also received from Christian Science. Words can never express it."

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A case of healing given by Mrs. C.C. Allen of Los Angeles, which appeared over the signature of Irving C. Tomlinson in the 23rd volume of the Journal, page 572:

"Two years ago I had a man come to my house to repair some window-shades in my parlor. When he had finished his work I asked him to come to my study. I left him in my room for a time, and when I returned he said: 'I see that you are a Christian Scientist,' because he saw my literature in the room. Then he said, 'I was healed by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy.' I said, 'I want you to tell me all about it.' Then he gave me these facts: 'About eighteen years ago, while living in Boston, I fell from the third story of a building on which I was working, to the pavement. My leg was broken in three places. I was taken to a hospital, where they tried to help me. They said that the leg was so bad that it would have to be amputated. I said, 'No, I would rather die.' They permitted it to heal as best it might, and as a result I had to wear an iron shoe eight or nine inches high. I was called to Mrs. Eddy's home on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, to do some light work. Mrs. Eddy came into the room where I was busy, and observing my condition, kindly remarked, 'I suppose you expect to get out of this some time.' I answered 'No, all that can be done for me has been done, and I can now manage to get around with a cane.' Mrs. Eddy said, 'Sit down and I will treat you.' When she finished the treatment she said, 'You go home and take off that iron shoe, and give your leg a chance to straighten out.' I went home and did as I was told, and now I am so well that, so far as I know, one leg is as good as the other."



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