Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/82

48 Mary did not give up until the very last hour. She knelt by his bed all night before they took her child and prayed for a vision of relief, for a way to be shown that she might not have to yield to the demand to let him go. But in the end she helped to dress him and pack his little things, weeping over each garment she folded away. She took his arms from around her neck and smiled through her tears when she gave him into the arms of Mahala Sanborn.

Four bereavements within a few short years separated Mary Baker from brother, mother, husband, and son. What wonder that at this period she sunk into invalidism and that in later years when reverting to this time she wrote:

It is well to know that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams. … The heavenly intent of earth’s shadows is to chasten the affections, to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly from a material, false sense of life and happiness, to spiritual joy and true estimate of Being.