Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/262



HE house at Broad street was purchased by Mrs. Glover that it might become a refuge from the distraction of fleeting worldly interests encountered in boarding-houses; that it might be a haven of security insuring her against moving from place to place and the intrusion of elements of thought likely to create discord in her little flock of students; in fact it was bought for a home and designed for a center of peace. How shortly it became a storm center, a theater of intense mental disturbance, must be shown; for it was while living in this house that Mary Baker had enough of agitation, through the discord of her early students, the dereliction and menace of those she had cherished as friends and intimate aids, the failure of the second edition of her book, the harassment of a series of petty lawsuits, and ultimately, the revelation of a dastardly plot as ingenious as it was diabolical, to make her wish to leave not only the house but Lynn, and to seek a new base of activity.

A great work of promulgation lay before the founder of Christian Science. The twilight of dawn was revealing its elements in her mind, but they did not yet stand forth distinctly. The signs of the times were as yet but vague. Looking backward,