Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/405

Rh upon the table at which she had been writing when they entered. Upon such evidences of natural emotion they based a story of absolute decrepitude and they did not spare her silvered head from indignity. The lurid story these writers gave to the world was that Mrs. Eddy could not possibly drive abroad in her carriage and therefore must be impersonated by some other gray-haired woman many years her junior. They declared that she did not manage her business, and was controlled mentally and physically by a designing clique who lived in her house and humbugged her church.

The vilification of a blameless life smote the public consciousness of the entire country. Far from feeling that the New York paper had performed a clever journalistic feat, the press of the country repudiated it with loathing and scorn. But with characteristic American enterprise, it sent representatives to Concord, New Hampshire, on the very day of the publication of the story, Sunday, October 28, 1906. The Associated Press, the Publishers Press, all the large newspapers of Boston and New York had representatives at Mrs. Eddy’s home within twenty-four hours. In this emergency Mrs. Eddy summoned Mr. Alfred Farlow, head of the Christian Science Publication Committee. To meet the gathering newspaper men he sent to Concord an able representative, Mr. H. Cornell Wilson, of New York. Mr. Wilson conferred with Mr. Frye and his assistant, Mr. Lewis C. Strang, a former dramatic critic of Boston. From men of affairs in Concord who were not Christian Scientists Mr. Strang and Mr.