Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/155

Rh afternoon when Mrs. Glover attended some merrymaking on the river bank, they went down and lingered on the bridge, hoping that she might be tempted to try her powers on that festal occasion.

To-day the Christian Scientists of Lynn draw a pathetic picture of the persecuted woman, driven from door to door, carrying her great truth in her bosom, and finding no man ready to receive it. And it is not to be wondered at that those who regard Mrs. Eddy as the recipient of God's most complete revelation, find here material for legend, and liken her wanderings to those of the persecuted apostles.

There is no indication that these harsh experiences ever, in the least, subdued Mrs. Glover's proud spirit. Wherever she went, she took her place as the guest of honour, and she consistently assumed that she conferred favour by accepting hospitality. She did not hesitate to chide and reprimand members of the families she visited, to criticise and interfere with the administration of household affairs. She seems never to have known discouragement or to have felt apprehension for the future, but was content with dominating the house in which she happened to be and with striving to win a following among the friends of the family. While she certainly cherished a vague, half-formulated plan to go out into the world some day and teach the Quimby doctrine, her imperative need was to control the immediate situation; to be the commanding figure in the lodge, the sewing-circle, the family gathering. The one thing she could not endure was to be thought like other people. She must be something besides plain Mrs. Glover,—invalid, poetess, healer, propagandist, guest; she must be exceptional