Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/123

Rh event, that I discovered the Science of Divine Metaphysical Healing, which I afterwards named Christian Science." This idea she has elaborated many times. In Miscellaneous Writings she tells the story of her visit to Quimby in these words:

About the year 1862, while the author of this work was at Dr. Vail's Hydropathic Institute in New Hampshire, this occurred: A patient considered incurable left that institution, and in a few weeks returned apparently well, having been healed, as he informed the patients, by one Mr. P. P. Quimby, of Portland, Maine.

After much consultation among ourselves, and a struggle with pride, the author, in company with several other patients, left the Water Cure, en route for the aforesaid doctor in Portland. He proved to be a magnetic practitioner. His treatment seemed at first to relieve her but signally failed in healing her case.

Having practised Homeopathy, it never occurred to the author to learn his practice, but she did ask him how manipulation could benefit the sick. He answered kindly and squarely, in substance, "Because it conveys electricity to them." That was the sum of what he taught her of his medical profession.

In the Christian Science Journal for June, 1887, Mrs. Eddy repeats the same idea:

I never heard him intimate that he healed disease mentally; and many others will testify that, up to his last sickness, he treated us magnetically, manipulating our heads, and making passes in the air while he stood in front of us. During his treatments I felt like one having hold of an electric battery and standing on an insulated stool. His healing was never considered or called anything but Mesmerism.

In numerous other articles, Mrs. Eddy has declared that Quimby healed by animal magnetism; that he never said he healed mentally, never recognised the superiority of mind to matter, or any divine principle in his work. These statements, however, hardly agree with that made in the letter to W. W. Wright, written in 1871 and quoted in this chapter, in which