Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/247

Rh Scriptures. She had encouraged her students to write their own conceptions of certain portions of the Scriptures, to stimulate them to deeper research. This practise she discontinued. She saw that they were not fitted to do such work any more than Kennedy was fitted to make his own deductions. Upon her it rested to do the work, and to guard her doctrine with the utmost zeal from contamination and adulteration.

When Mary Baker began to rid herself completely of the relics of the influence which Quimby had exerted over her mind, she ordered all her students to desist from stroking the head while treating patients mentally. She herself had never laid hands on a patient to heal him, but she had permitted her students to practise by this method. Seeing that the method was not in accordance with the principle of Divine Science, she wished all her students to discontinue its practise. Now it was that Richard Kennedy absolutely rebelled and left her; now it was that Miss Bagley of Amesbury refused to be guided by her. Wallace W. Wright had already come to grief by the use of the method. Mary Baker denounced it once and forever. From the spring of 1872 manipulation, or physical contact of any sort, had no part in Christian Science. And so at that early date she substantiated the Science of Man and Divine healing.