Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/289

Rh discover the amount of their practice and to recover a royalty thereon, which was decided in favour of the defendants.

In April, 1878, Mrs. Eddy brought her action against Daniel Spofford to discover the amount of his practice and to recover royalty thereon. Her original idea was to collect a royalty from all her practising students, which arrangement, could she have held them to it, would, in time, have been very remunerative. This case was dismissed for insufficient service.

In May of the same year came the witchcraft case, Brown vs. Spofford, of which Mrs. Eddy was the instigator, and in which she represented the plaintiff in court.

These lawsuits reached a sensational climax when, in October, 1878, Asa Gilbert Eddy and Edward J. Arens were arrested on the charge of conspiracy to murder Daniel H. Spofford.

It will be remembered that Mr. Spofford had been one of the most earnest and trusted of Mrs. Eddy's students. She had permitted him to assist in her teaching, had given him the pen with which Science and Health was written, and had intrusted to him the sale of her book. She seems at one time even to have considered the possibility of his being her successor.

In a letter dated October 1, 1876, she writes:

My joy at having one living student after these dozen years of struggle, toil and defeat, you at present cannot understand, but will know at a future time when the whole labour is left with you. . . . The students make all their mistakes leaning on me, or working against me. You are not going to do either, and certainly the result will follow that you will be faithful over a few things and be made ruler over many.