● ● ● want science and I have it for all. Do not believe this nor disbelieve it, ‘come and see.’ ”130 Nothing could keep her down for long.
Yet she was a lonely woman, as Lucy Wentworth said, with the inevitable loneliness of someone exploring new spiritual territory. In June she wrote an old friend in Rumney:
I have not heard from you and the rest of the dear ones around you for a long time but even this silence and absence cannot blot out the memory of your family from my lonely heart. . . . Please write me all about yourselves and others that may be near you. Is Dr. Patterson in your vicinity now and how does he support himself? has he much business there? Does he ever call on you, and who does he board with?
My eyes can almost look on you and the beautiful trees and streams and mountains that environ you. Is Ella a sweet little body at home yet, or is she married to—to—Oh! yes, I remember! Mr. Glove maker—what’s the name? French, I believe. And your little boy is a young man now. Oh! what changes.
I have just sent a work to the press for publication entitled—Science of Soul—I mean you shall read it sometime. I have written this and notes on the entire book of Genesis within the last year and this, besides laboring for clothes and other expenses with teaching I am worn almost out, have lost my love of life completely and want to go where the weary have a rest and the heavy laden lay down their burdens.131
The great news here was the completion of her manuscript. Three days later she wrote Sarah Bagley:
My volume is finished, Sarah, and ready for the press & the out cry that will follow it; first the ridicule, then the argument, and lastly the adoption by the public[,] but it may be long ere the public get it. . . .
130 Transcript of letter from Mary Baker Glover to Dr. Johnson dated 17 January [Peel’s estimate: 1869?], LSC0004, MBEL. [Publisher’s note: The authenticity of this document is uncertain; the original letter has not been found.]
131 Mary Baker Patterson to Charlotte Penniman Mulliken, 7 June 1869, L08866, MBEL.