Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/148

110 more or less absorbed in the world, traveling, and actively working in the relief organizations. Her religious life had not been exclusively absorbing, for she had been conforming more to the customary ways of the world than for many years. But if she could not take her understanding of God’s laws into every-day life and use it to meet the shock of events, of what use was it to her or to others, how could she really claim to possess an understanding? She began to see that she had not possessed herself of clear and definite understanding, or any sound philosophy; and with the hope that she would yet acquire such an enlightenment from Quimby, she left the home of her husband’s family and went again to Portland. This was in the early part of 1864.

During this sojourn in Portland Mrs. Patterson resided at a boarding-house where were also living two other of Mr. Quimby’s patients, Mrs. Sarah Crosby and Miss Mary Ann Jarvis. They became acquainted and shortly a friendly intimacy was established among them all on the basis of their common interest. Mrs. Crosby had an especially vigorous personality and was later to show herself possessed of considerable business ability. At the time of her meeting Mrs. Patterson she had been broken down in health by the birth of several children and thought her vitality exhausted.

Mrs. Crosby’s experience under Quimby’s treatment was like Mrs. Patterson’s in outward seeming. He sat opposite her and gazed fixedly into her eyes; he laid one hand on her stomach and one on her head to establish an electric current; and finally