Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/220

178 and sold for $2.50 at first, but later, when the sales fell off, it went willingly for $1.

Mrs. Glover called her book Science and Health, an adaptation of Quimby's name for his healing system, "The Science of Health." It contained eight chapters entitled in their order: "Natural Science," "Imposition and Demonstration," "Spirit and Matter," "Creation," "Prayer and Atonement," "Marriage," "Physiology," and "Healing the Sick." In these chapters Mrs. Glover attempted to set forth the theory of her "Science" of healing and the theological and metaphysical systems upon which it was based. It was a serious undertaking, but Mrs. Glover, with no preparation but her study of the Quimby manuscripts, and no resources but an illimitable confidence in the success of her undertaking, felt equal to the task; and judged by Mrs. Glover's standard, her venture was a success.

Even after her eight years struggle with her copy, the book, as printed in 1875, is hardly more than a tangle of words and theories, faulty in grammar and construction, and singularly vague and contradictory in its statements. Although the book is divided into chapters, each having a title of its own, there is no corresponding classification of the subject, and it is only by piecing together the declarations found in the various chapters that one may make out something of the theories which Mrs. Glover had been trying for so long to express.

The basic ideas of the book and much of the terminology were, of course, borrowed from the Quimby papers which Mrs. Glover had carried reverently about with her since 1864, and