Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/278

236 cannot pass over. … I will let you hear from me as soon as I can return to prosecute my work on the Book. … I am going far away and shall remain until you will do your part and give me some better prospect.”

And again she wrote him: “If you conclude not to carry the work forward on the terms named, it will have to go out of edition as I can do no more for it, and I believe this hour is to try my students who think they have the cause at heart and see if it be so. … The conditions I have named to you I think are just. … Now, dear student, you can work as your teacher has done before you, unselfishly, as you wish to, and gain the reward of such labor. Meantime, you can be fitting yourself for a higher plane of action and its reward.”

Mr. Spofford's reply to this earnest solicitation that he should apply himself to pushing the book came in July of that year. He closed out the stock of “Science and Health” which he had received from George Barry and Elizabeth Newhall, and paid over the money from the sale of these books, something over $600, to these two students. They had supplied the capital for the first edition in consideration of gratitude to their teacher. They now received all the profits that had accrued, as Mrs. Eddy had no agreement with them for a royalty. There was a loss all around by this premature act. Mr. Spofford claimed $500 against the edition for personal expenses, which he could not by such hasty