Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/363

Rh dress which followed her voice filled that immense auditorium so that those most remote from her could hear distinctly.

The address thus delivered without preparation, outline, or text has been pronounced by many of her students to be one of the greatest statements of Christian Science ever made from a rostrum. Like Lincoln’s great unreported speech, delivered in Bloomington, it came upon the delegates as a surprise, and so spellbound were the hearers that the very reporters forgot to take notes. It was inadequately reported, and though the substance of it was sent out to the papers, and was printed in the Journal, and the report was subsequently reprinted in “Miscellaneous Writings” under the subject, Science and the Senses, it is certain that something of the spirit of her utterances was lost in the transcription, for the amazing effect of her address cannot entirely be understood from reading it to-day.

When she ceased speaking, the scenes which immediately followed were intensely dramatic, extraordinary, unprecedented. In the audience were many who had been healed from grievous illnesses by reading her book, and scarcely any of her hearers but had known of marvelous cures; hence the audience was anticipating a miraculous wave of health and it received it at flood tide. Whatever had been on the program was forgotten for the time, swept aside by an impetuous forward rush of that audience to the platform, indifferent to the chairman’s attempts to get a hearing.

It was well Mrs. Eddy was elevated above the