● ● ● it. The next day she was dressed, and went down to the table; and the fourth day went a journey of about a hundred miles in the cars.78
Describing the healing to a friend years later, [Martha Rand] Baker added: “Such a change came over the household. We all felt . . . ‘the angel of the Lord appeared and glory shone around.’”79 However, Abigail Tilton, who was away at the time, did not share in the rejoicing. In a letter to Martha Pilsbury a few days later she wrote in regard to the sister she had once loved so dearly:
I am weary with her unjust distracted conduct, and wish she would let me and mine rest from her interruptions. . . . I have my private opinion that in the end no real good will result from all the stir she has made about Ellen, but hope I am mistaken and great benefit will result from her efforts yet.80
From this time on, her bitterness was to increase to the point of total estrangement. It is true that Mrs. Patterson had cost her a good deal of worry and trouble over the years, but what seemed to outrage her was the emerging spiritual authority of the youngest sister. That anyone who had needed her help so often should dare to speak like an oracle of God must have seemed a threat to the very foundation of her own carefully built security and pride of position.
Another cause of sadness to Mrs. Patterson on this trip was that her brother George Sullivan Baker, now blind and ill, evidently refused her ministrations, despite the healing of Ellen. He was a disappointed man, his marriage with Martha Rand had not been a happy one, and three months later he would be dead. He may have preferred it that way.
A few days after Ellen’s healing Mrs. Patterson returned to Taunton. Although she would revisit Tilton several times in the future, this was effectively her farewell to her family. Their slightly uncomfortable ● ● ●
78 Elizabeth P. Baker, quoted in Mary B. Glover Eddy, Science and Health, 3rd ed. (Lynn, MA: Asa G. Eddy, 1881), vol. 2, pp. 152–153 [bracketed text Peel’s]. [Publisher’s note: The first edition states that Martha Rand Baker is the author of the Pilsbury account; subsequent research shows the author to be Elizabeth P. Baker.]
79 Addie Towns Arnold, “The Healing of Ellen Pillsbury,” p. 2, MBEL.
80 Abigail Baker Tilton to Martha Baker Pilsbury, 4 August 1867, 1920.015.0010, LMC.