Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/313

Rh but beginning to realize that they were incapable of the work to which she urged them, she made a masterly decision. She took from them the right to resign by expelling them from the ranks of her church, thereby preserving the church's charter. She took one week for this sweeping move, having warned them directly after the reading of the paper that they were liable to expulsion. They failed to comprehend her meaning. She was, however, about to assert that power and strength which has been hers in all subsequent emergencies in her church, the force and foresight which has caused the world to acknowledge her a leader preeminent in efficiency and masterly direction. She was determined to preserve her church against such internecine strife by asserting its substantial integrity and its power to rid itself of rebels.

Her act had a most salutary effect on the loyal students. Dismay had at first threatened them. They now rallied around her and in a few weeks published in the Lynn papers a reply to the seceders in the form of resolutions. In these they expressed their heartfelt love and gratitude for their teacher and acknowledged her as their leader in Christian Science, saying that she alone was able to protect the work she had founded; they denounced the charges brought against her as utterly false and deplored the wickedness of those who could abuse one who had befriended them in their need and rebuked them with honesty. They expressed their admiration and reverence for her Christlike example of meekness and charity, and declared that in future