Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/203

Rh wonder and delight to both teacher and student, and also at times to the faithful Martha of their household. But doubting relatives filled Mrs. Crafts with dissatisfaction and suspicion. To make shoes was a tangible, legitimate method of earning a living. To practise religious healing was, in their estimation, a pious fraud.

Conversations of this nature with her relatives had its effect in due time. It brought about strained relations in the household and made a new adjustment of conditions necessary. But fortunately before this took place a certain work had been accomplished which could not be undone. Mary Baker saw that not only could she herself heal, but she could impart the understanding of the modus operandi to another. In this respect her work already differed from Phineas Quimby’s; she could detach it from herself, separate it from her personality. What remained was to give the philosophy its scientific statement.