Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/308

264 at Mr. Buswell's office and lay before him the material and spiritual advantages of a course with Mrs. Eddy, telling him that it was impossible to realise the wonder of Mrs. Eddy's teaching from her public lectures. He always entered the office quietly, glancing back over his shoulder to see whether he were being followed, and spoke in a very low tone, looking nervously about him as he talked. He explained that the mesmerists were constantly on his trail, and that to avoid them extreme caution was necessary on his part. If he walked with Mr. Buswell on the street, he slipped along as if trying to avoid observation, and would sometimes suddenly catch Buswell's sleeve and pull him into a doorway, as if he felt mesmerism in the air, telling him it was very important that they should not be seen together, as the mesmerists were always shadowing him, ready to set to work upon the minds of prospective students and prejudice them against Mrs. Eddy.

Mr. Buswell and his friend Ackland, the phrenologist, were finally persuaded to go to Lynn and study under Mrs. Eddy. They both roomed in Mrs. Eddy's house, and Mr. Buswell's experience there was a pleasant one. Mrs. Eddy's fortunes were then at a low ebb. There was now a good deal of feeling against her in the town, and her frequent differences with her followers and the scandal caused by the witchcraft and conspiracy cases had reduced the number of her students. There were but three in Mr. Buswell's class, and one of these dropped out, leaving only Mr. Ackland and himself to complete the course. Other students who came under Mrs. Eddy's instruction at about this time were: Hanover P. Smith, a young man who worked in his aunt's boarding-house in Boston and who