Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/59

Rh love. He held to a hard and bitter doctrine of predestination and believed that a horrible decree of endless punishment awaited sinners on a final judgment day.

Whether it was logic and moral science taught her by her brother, or the trusting love instilled by her mother who had guided her to yield herself to the voice of God within her, Mary resisted her father on the matter of “unconditional election.” Beautiful in her serenity and immovable in her faith, the daughter sat before the stern father of the iron will. His sires had signed a covenant in blood and would he not wrestle with this child who dared the wrath of God?

And well he did wrestle and the home was filled with his torrents of emotion. But though Mary might have quoted to him her own baby speech, she was too respectful and his “vociferations” went unrebuked. It is a remarkable thing to note, the conscience of a child in defense of its faith. Can any one suppose it an easy thing to resist a father so convicted with belief in dogma, a father, too, whom all their world honored and heeded? We may be sure it was not easy; that, indeed, to do so tortured this little child’s heart. But Mark Baker was acting according to his conscience, and the child knew it and respected him. She did not view this struggle of consciences as a quarrel, and repudiated all her life the idea that she ever quarreled with her father.

The notion went abroad, however, that Mark Baker and his daughter Mary were at variance over