Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/307

Rh possessed on the platform that power of moving people to a state of emotional exaltation which had already proved so effective in her classroom.

After the lecture Mrs. Eddy always came down from the platform and shook hands cordially with her audience. The company usually separated into two groups, one surrounding Mr. Eddy and the other gathering about his wife. Mr. Eddy, in a low voice, would recommend the interested inquirer to join one of Mrs. Eddy's classes and thus come into a fuller understanding of the subject. Occasionally a visitor would ask Mrs. Eddy why she used glasses instead of overcoming the defect in her eyesight by mind. This question usually annoyed her, and on one occasion she replied sharply that she "wore glasses because of the sins of the world," probably meaning that the belief in failing eyesight had become so firmly established throughout the ages that she could not at once overcome it.

Mrs. Eddy's audiences were largely made up of people who were interested in some radical theory of theology or medicine. Mr. Arthur T. Buswell, for instance, who afterward became prominent in the Christian Science movement, had been employed in the New England Hygiene Home, a water-cure sanatorium at West Concord, Vt., and had come to Boston to practise hydropathy. His friend, James Ackland, who attended the lectures with him, was a professor of phrenology.

When Mrs. Eddy felt that one of the Sunday afternoon visitors had become interested in her lectures, Mr. Eddy mildly but persistently followed him up. He used often to drop in