Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/280

238 these disagreements she always came back, telling her friends that she could not endure to be separated from Mrs. Eddy in spirit, and that, when she was, she felt her health failing and discouragement threatening to overwhelm her.

When, under her treatment, Miss Brown suffered a relapse, Miss Rawson, in her perplexity, went to Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Eddy had the solution at her tongue's end. Daniel Spofford, in his general opposition to truth, was exercising upon Miss Brown his mesmeric arts. Miss Rawson was at first loath to believe this. Mr. Spofford was an old and trusted friend; even had he been subsidised by Richard Kennedy, why should Mortal Mind, as exercised by Mr. Spofford, prevail over Divine Mind as employed by Miss Rawson? But Mrs. Eddy convinced her, with her will or against it, and also convinced poor Miss Brown.

Mr. Spofford's acquaintance with Miss Brown had been slight. When she was studying with Mrs. Eddy, she, with other students, had entered his class in the Interpretation of the Scriptures. When Miss Brown's health began to fail, he had not seen her for some months and was ignorant alike of her illness and the supposed cause of it. After Miss Lucretia had begun to regard him as the author of her ills, Mr. Spofford was in Ipswich one day and bethought him of calling upon his old student. Accordingly he went down to the Green and knocked at her cottage. Miss Brown herself came to the door and immediately fell into great agitation. Ordinarily a pale woman, her cheeks and forehead flushed so hotly that Mr. Spofford innocently thought that she must be making preserves and had just come from the stove. She stood for a moment, very ill