The old entreaty: “Art Thou He,
Or look we for the Christ to be?”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
“Where, in my name, meet two or three,”
Our Lord hath said, “I there will be!”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
But here, amidst the poor and blind,
The bound and suffering of our kind,
In works we do, in prayers we pray,
Life of our life, He lives to-day.109
When Science and Health was published seven years later, Sarah Bagley took Whittier a copy of it. He examined it, turning over the leaves slowly, then said, “Well you will never be able to understand 1/10 part of it during your lifetime”—certainly an accurate commentary on both the book and Miss Bagley.110
During the summer Mrs. Glover made several trips to Manchester to visit her former patient, Mrs. Gale, whom she was now attempting to instruct. On one of these occasions she wrote back to her Amesbury hostess:
. . . of all rides I ever experienced was the one from Lawrence to Manchester. The cars were literally packed with passengers, much like a slave-ship, and amid sweat and groans we bore the passage—the latter were accompanied with sharp cries from the babies. Your Topsy could have behaved better.
Mrs. Gale was apparently delighted to see me, gave me a highland welcome, and her parlor chamber to sleep in. At tea we had strawberries and the richest cream I have seen since “old days.”111
109 [“The Meeting,” in The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, ed. Horace E. Scudder (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1894), pp. 446–447.]
110 Mary Baker Eddy, manuscript, n.d., A11063, MBEL. In telling this story Mrs. Eddy referred to Sarah Bagley as Whittier’s cousin. Actually Miss Bagley’s sister was married to a Whittier cousin.
111 Mary Baker Glover to Sarah O. Bagley, 5 July 1868, L03916, MBEL.