Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/347

Rh his fixed office hours, so that the one room met the needs of several practitioners. These practitioners, in one way and another, helped to arouse an interest in Christian Science, and Mrs. Eddy's classes began to grow larger. Her teaching was not so much of a tax upon her strength as might be imagined, for the twelve lectures were, by this time, an old story to her and the same lecture was always given in practically the same language. The lectures dealt with but one idea, and progressed rather by figurative illustrations and repetitions than by the development of a line of reasoning. But her duties by no means ended with her lectures. She kept a sharp eye on the finances of the college and the household expenditures, more than once taking Mr. Frye to task for his mistakes in bookkeeping. Mrs. Eddy's correspondence was now very large, and she usually attended to it herself. She frequently occupied the pulpit at Hawthorne Hall on Sunday, and was constantly writing replies to attacks upon her church and college, besides press notices, which Mr. Buswell took about to the editors of the Boston papers in the hope of further advertising Mrs. Eddy and her work. What with preaching, teaching, writing, and editing, Mrs. Eddy had very little time for friendly personal intercourse. She was, as her students used proudly to declare, in the saddle day and night. She went out of the house but seldom; though she liked to take a daily drive when she had time for it. With her friends and resident students she never talked of anything but Christian Science and the business problems which confronted her. When other subjects were introduced, she grew absent-minded. She read very little except the newspapers and the New York Ledger, which she had read