Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/255

Rh  of $5,650, deeded to Mary Baker Glover the property of Number 8 Broad street. When Mrs. Glover moved into her new home her means were so limited she was obliged to lease the greater part of the house. She reserved for herself the front parlor on the first floor for a class-room and furnished it plainly with chairs and tables. On the attic floor she also reserved a small bedroom, lighted only by a skylight which was in the sloping roof and could be lifted like a trap for ventilation. In this garret chamber she finished her manuscript of “Science and Health,” practically the work of nine years. Here she read the proofs of the first edition and prepared the revisions for the second and third editions. The room was austerely furnished with a carpet of matting, a bed and dressing bureau, a table and straight-backed chair. Its one article of luxury was an old-fashioned hair-cloth rocker. No one entered this room but Mary Baker until the book was finished. On the wall she had hung the framed inscription, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

The greater part of Mrs. Glover’s new home was given over to tenants. Necessity compelled her to depend on such sources for an income. She was sometimes fortunate in her tenants, but occasionally otherwise. Her own simple and well-regulated life, entirely devoted to religion, was never the cause of comment, except as criticism always attaches to a new religious movement. The history of Methodism, of Quakerism, of Unitarianism abundantly shows this. The daily attendance of her students, their