● ● ● to you as it would to others.”44 In another letter she told Miss Bagley of a widow who had recently studied with her and was doing wonderful cures, who accepted her instructions and carried out her directions, but who did not constantly consult her. Pointedly she related this student’s success to the fact that “she loves me and leans on me in all confidence that I am right.”45 The future leader of a world movement is already perceptible in such remarks.
Commenting on her manuscripts as “pretty strong meat for babes in science,” Bancroft wrote, “It is no wonder some of us failed to digest this food.” Occasionally, he added, a student would try to stagger her with a difficult question: “These questions were received with kindness and answered with wisdom.”46 But they were also answered with authority. Then she would reach out to them as she did to Bancroft when she wrote him: “Come, dear Putney, and tell me if you have aught against me. I have thought from what you once said that you regarded me as an adopted sort of a mother.”47
If she made strong demands on her followers, she made even stronger ones on herself. Miss Magoun’s future sister-in-law, who lived on the third floor of the same house and who liked Mrs. Glover as much as Miss Magoun disliked her, tells of Mrs. Glover’s falling downstairs one morning and of Kennedy’s carrying her upstairs, unconscious and bleeding.48 The young girl was sent to get Bancroft, who came ● ● ●
44 Mary Baker Glover to Sarah O. Bagley, March 1871, L08311, MBEL.
45 Mary Baker Glover to Sarah O. Bagley, 10 June 1871, L03922, MBEL. She may have referred to Mrs. Helen M. Blood, who studied with her in April 1871.
46 [Samuel Putnam Bancroft to Mary Beecher Longyear, 22 August 1920 (archivist estimate), 1920.027.0001, LMC.]
47 Bancroft, Mrs. Eddy as I Knew Her, p. 9.
48 “Statement of Mrs. Carrie G. Colby,” 8 January 1907, recorded in Alfred Farlow, “Facts and Incidents Relating to Mrs. Eddy,” c. 1909, Subject File, Alfred Farlow - Manuscript - Facts and Incidents Relating to Mrs. Eddy (2 of 2), pp. 128–129, MBEL. Mrs. Colby’s dates (recalled many years later) are obviously awry, but her personal comments are interesting:
Saw Mrs. Eddy every day; sat at the same table with her. She was very pleasant. I saw nothing about her that was wrong; you can hear all sorts of stories. . . .
McClure’s claim their history is unbiased. It is not an unbiased history because they gathered their information from prejudiced people. They have been to Dr. Kennedy. They have been to Mrs. Dame [the former Susie Magoun]. Mrs. Dame has nothing special against Mrs. Eddy. Simply was not favorable; thinks it is bad, and does not want any of her family to believe in it. When we were looking at Mrs. Eddy’s picture, to me the picture looked pleasant and sweet, but to Mrs. Dame it look different. (p. 129 [bracketed text Peel’s])