● ● ● immediately and treated his teacher. In a few hours she was up and dressed, came down to supper as usual, and went on with her work without any fuss or complaint. Bancroft, referring to the entire twelve years during which he knew her, wrote, “I never saw her shed a tear when suffering almost mortal anguish.”49
At that time she was still influenced by the old Quimby belief in taking on the sufferings of those who clung to her, especially of her students’ patients. Shortly after beginning her labors in Lynn she wrote her old friend Mrs. Mary Ellis of Swampscott:
Never did the life that seems appear so small to me as this year, and never the life that is so vast, so glorious. . . .
. . . My own health is greatly affected by the many sick ones that surround me but if I can aid them out of the dark places my feet have trod I am happier even though I suffer physically.50
On such occasions she would sometimes ask help from her students. Four years later Bancroft, temporarily living in Cambridge, wrote in his diary:
I received a letter today from George B[arry], giving me an account of a strange experience which my teacher passed through on Friday last, and which he was present to witness. It seems he called upon her with Mr. H[itchings], and, on rapping, heard a voice, hardly above a whisper, say “Come in.” On entering, she arose to meet them, but fell back, lost consciousness, and, to their belief, was gathering herself on the other side. George went after Mrs. R[ice], who came, and immediately a change took place. George had called on her mentally to come back, but Mrs. R—— called loudly, as for someone afar off, and the answer came, faintly at first, but stronger and stronger, till she was able to sit up and have the Bible and manuscripts read to her, and, finally, recovered.51
49 [Samuel Putnam Bancroft to Mary Beecher Longyear, 22 August 1920 (archivist estimate), 1920.027.0001, LMC.]
50 Mary Baker Glover to Mary Ellis, 23 July 1870, L05665, MBEL.
51 Bancroft, Mrs. Eddy as I Knew Her, p. 10 [bracketed text Peel’s]. This entry would seem to point to the fact that such an attack was a great rarity rather than the frequent occurrence which some biographers have assumed it to be. Bancroft writes as though this was the first time in his four years’ close association with Mrs. Glover that such a “strange experience” had occurred.