Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/404

356 lives. It was a triumphant assertion of the health and power of spiritual living.

Who now would lay finger upon the character of the founder of such a living faith? Who now would say that she had not taught a creed by which men can live and ennoble their lives? Who would begrudge her her hard-won right to retirement, peace, and serenity? It would be difficult to believe, did not all the world know, that in October of this same year two representatives of a New York newspaper did present themselves at Pleasant View and demand an audience with the venerable founder then in her eighty-fifth year. So churlish and so threatening was their demand, so steeped were they in a strange suspicion, that the faithful protectors of Mrs. Eddy’s home life knew not what to say. The preposterous assertions that Mrs. Eddy was no longer living seemed to require the reproof of her presence, and yet to introduce such violent accusers to the saintly Leader seemed out of the question. Mrs. Eddy herself solved the difficulty, when the matter was laid before her, by saying that she would see not only them, but with them her neighbor across the way, that by his testimony the unbelieving reporters might be convinced that they were talking with the veritable Mary Baker Eddy.

The interview was brief, but the reporters were given ample time to ask the questions they desired. The turbulence of their quest, the malignity of their purpose, caused the venerable woman a slight tremulousness as she arose to greet them; a flush mounted her cheeks and she leaned momentarily