Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/102

64 called in her friends to read his letter, and wept over it and kissed its pages. But her son passed again into obscurity, bent on the pursuit of a freedom which he first learned to love at the Sanborn smithy, and which life in the wild West of those days seemed to foster as second-nature. Thus he grew up beyond the sphere of his mother’s influence and his life became fixed in a path diverse to hers. Destiny inscrutable seemed fixed in its decree that she should live childless and alone.

When they took her boy from her arms the second time, Mrs. Patterson seemed about to sink into utter despair. A very old man, of more than ninety years, devout and saint-like, used to visit her. He came nearly every day to read the Bible and pray. One day when old Father Merrill came to her home, he saw Mrs. Patterson dressed and walking to meet him with a smile and outstretched hands of welcome. He leaped with delight, clapping his hands and crying out, “Praise God, he’s answered our prayer.” Earnestly they discussed it together. Was her improved condition an answer to prayer? Mrs. Patterson believed that a blameless life should be healthy, but the old man thought God sometimes sent sickness for spiritual good. She did not cross this old man with argument, but she had begun to work on the idea that would haunt her for years until perfected, the nature of Divine healing.

Their neighbors, the Kidders, were also friendly visitors. Mrs. Kidder was a Spiritualist and spent hours urging its claims on Mrs. Patterson. A child born to the Kidders at this time Mrs. Patterson