Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/302

258 This indictment was thence continued to the present January term, and now the District Attorney, Oliver Stevens, Esquire, says he will prosecute this indictment no further, on payment of costs, which are thereupon paid. And the said Arens and Eddy are thereupon discharged. January 31, 1879.

There is no memorandum filed with the papers in the case to show the reason for the ''nol. pros., and a letter of inquiry sent July, 1905, to the late Oliver Stevens, the District Attorney, elicited the reply that he had kept no data concerning the case, and the circumstances which caused him to enter a nol. pros.'' had gone from his mind.

On October 9th, six days before Mr. Spofford fled to Cambridgeport, he received a letter from Mrs. Eddy, dated from Number 8 Broad Street, Lynn. It read as follows:

,

Won't you make up your mind before it is forever too late to stop sinning with your eyes wide open? I pray for you that God will influence your thoughts to better issues and make you a good and great man, and spare you the penalty that must come if you do not forsake sin.

I am ready at any time to welcome you back, and kill for you the fatted calf, that is, destroy in my own breast the great material error of rendering evil for evil or resenting the wrongs done us. I do not cherish this purpose toward any one. I am too selfish to do myself this great injury. I want you to be good and happy in being good for you never can be happy without it. I rebuke error only to destroy it not to harm you, but to do you good. Whenever a straying student returns to duty, stops his evil practice or sin against the Holy Ghost, I am ready to say, "neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." I write you at this time only from a sense of the high and holy privilege of charity, the greatest of all graces. Do not mistake my motive, I am not worldly selfish in doing this, but am only desirous to do you good. Your silent arguments to do me harm have done me the greatest possible good; the wrath of man has praised Thee. In order to meet the emergency, Truth has lifted me above my former self, enabled me to know who is using this argument and when and what is being spoken, and knowing this, what is said in secret is proclaimed on the house top and affects me no more than for you to say it to me audibly, and tell me I have so and so; and to hate