Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/357

Rh rangement of the chapters has been changed. One new chapter has been added, on the Apocalypse, giving an exposition of the bearings on Christian Science of the twelfth chapter of Revelation, to which it is believed by Mrs. Eddy to particularly relate. A special feature is a full index, prepared especially for this edition by a competent gentleman. In these days no important book has a right to come before the public without a proper index.”

For about five years Mr. Wiggin gave Mrs. Eddy the benefit of his literary training in reading the proofs of her successive editions and also the proofs of the Journal. She paid him fittingly for his work and cherished a kindly regard for him. It is regrettable that a revelation of his personal vanity as shown in private correspondence should have been given to the world in recent pamphlets — since vanity and egotism are common weaknesses shared in some degree by all mankind. In a playful protest against his learned profundities exhibited on one occasion in a philosophic review printed in the Journal, Mrs. Eddy wrote: “‘Now Phare Pleigh evidently means more than ‘hands off.’ A live lexicographer of the Anglo-Saxon tongue might add to the definition the ‘laying on of hands’ as well. Whatever his nom de plume means, an acquaintance with the author justifies one in the conclusion that he is a power in criticism, a big protest against injustice, — but the best may be mistaken.”