Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/131

Rh In a revised edition of Julius A. Dresser's pamphlet, The True History of Mental Science, Mr. Dresser's son, Horatio W. Dresser, says:

It has frequently been claimed that Mrs. Eddy was Quimby's secretary, and that she helped him to formulate his ideas. It has also been stated that these manuscripts were Mrs. Eddy's writings, left by her in Portland; that the articles printed in this pamphlet were Mrs. Eddy's words, as nearly as she can recollect them (Christian Science Sentinel, February 16, 1899). There is absolutely no truth in any of these statements or suppositions. Mrs. Eddy never saw a page of the original manuscripts; and Volume I, loaned her by my father in 1862, was his copy from a copy. Mrs. Eddy may have made a copy of this volume for her own use, but the majority even of the copied articles Mrs. Eddy never saw. I have read and copied all of these articles, and can certify that they contain a very original and complete statement of the data and theory of mental healing. There are over eight hundred closely written pages, covering one hundred and twenty subjects, written previous to March, 1862, more than six months before Mrs. Eddy went to Dr. Quimby.

In the 1884 edition of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy, writing of Quimby, says:

The old gentleman to whom we have referred had some very advanced views on healing, but he was not avowedly religious neither scholarly. We interchanged thoughts on the subject of healing the sick. I restored some patients of his that he failed to heal, and left in his possession some manuscripts of mine containing corrections of his desultory pennings which I am informed, at his decease, passed into the hands of a patient of his, now residing in Scotland. He died in 1865 and left no published works. The only manuscript that we ever held of his, longer than to correct it, was one of perhaps a dozen pages, most of which we had composed.

This manuscript of "perhaps a dozen pages," is clearly the one called by Quimby, Questions and Answers. The original copy, now in the possession of the writer, in the handwriting of Quimby's wife, is dated February, 1862, eight months before