Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/256

214 devotion to their teacher, and zeal for their faith created astonishment in Lynn and so caused some gossip. The purple-and-gold sign, “Christian Science Home,” which arched the door was the cause of much speculation. It became a common thing for cripples and invalids to go to the house for treatment, and many remarkable cures which Mrs. Eddy performed instantaneously are recorded.

During the summer the little place grew most attractive. The affectionate zeal of her students, many of whom she had healed from serious complaints or diseases and some of whom she had reclaimed from intemperate lives, made her gardens bloom, kept her grass-plot like velvet, and relieved the austerity of her parlor with decoration. Mrs. Glover’s balconies were filled with calla lilies of which she was particularly fond, and when she stood among them tending and caring for them with the sunlight sifting through the leaves of the elm, making splashes of green and gold upon her cool white gown, she made a picture of composure and purity.

Early in the summer Mrs. Glover gave the manuscript of her book into the hands of a printer. A fund was subscribed to by some of the students to insure its publication, and was repaid to them under circumstances to be related. There was some halt in its publication, even now that everything had apparently been done for its forthcoming. Mrs. Eddy has stated in her autobiography the peculiar circumstances of this delay. She had hesitated to include in the book a chapter on animal magnetism, and she believed it was the Divine purpose that this