Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/184

146 that they loved their guest, they would have been guilty of an occasional smile of incredulity.

Incredulity there must have been among them. A daughter of the house was afterward a Christian Scientist. She was not a believer in these ideas for many years — not indeed until after Mrs. Eddy had long passed out of her life with the death of her parents. She has related to the author her father’s impressions of the future founder of Christian Science. In rebuking their unbelief he voiced a prophecy by saying: “Mary is a wonderful woman, Susie. You will find it out some day. I may not live to see it, but you will.”

This daughter Susan married George Oliver, and in her own home often entertained Mrs. Patterson. Her husband was a business man with a growing shoe trade which actively engaged his mind. He would, however, neglect to return to his business for hours if Mary Baker happened to be at his home for luncheon.

“I cannot understand it,” he would say to his wife of their guest’s conversation, “but I would rather hear Mrs. Patterson talk than make a big deal in business. After listening to her arguments I feel some way as though I would be the better able ‘to cast my net on the right side.

It was on Susan Oliver’s brother Dorr, then a schoolboy, that Mrs. Eddy made her first demonstration of Mind-science. The lad had a bone felon which kept him awake at night and out of school during the day. Mrs. Patterson had not been to the Phillips house for several days, and