Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/337

Rh Christian Science was then so young that all sorts of extravagant hopes were cherished among its enthusiasts. More than one dreamer fervently believed that the grave was at last to be cheated of its victory. In any case, Mr. Eddy's death was regarded as a blow to the movement, but, since they believed that the bodily organs were impotent to contribute to either health or disease except as they were influenced by the belief of the patient, it was much less discouraging to feel that Mr. Eddy had died from the shafts of the enemy than from a simple defect of the heart-valves. In the one case, his death was a stimulus, a call to action; in the other, it was an impeachment of Mr. Eddy's growth in Science, an indication that he had not entirely got beyond the belief in the efficacy of the organs of the body. Explained as the work of animal magnetism, Mr. Eddy's death, which might otherwise have been a blow to his wife professionally, was made to confirm one of her favourite doctrines. It was upon the subject of malicious mesmerism that many of her students had differed from her and fallen away, and even the loyal found it the most difficult of her doctrines to accept. Here, in Mr. Eddy's death, was absolute evidence of what mesmerism might accomplish.

The hour had come when Mrs. Eddy needed all her friends about her. Arthur T. Buswell was still in Cincinnati, where he had been sent as a path-finder two years before. After Mrs. Eddy's tart reply when he wrote to her asking financial aid, their correspondence practically ceased until Mr. Eddy's illness, when she sent him a request to give her husband absent treatments. One day he received a telegram which said merely: "Come to 569 Columbus Avenue immediately." He accordingly