Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/365

Rh left the house and never communicated with Mrs. Eddy again. Mrs. Eddy afterward attacked her savagely in the Journal, and applied to her the old terms of opprobrium.

In the fall of 1885 Mrs. Sarah H. Crosse succeeded Mrs. Hopkins as assistant editor of the Journal, and she, in turn, was succeeded by Frank Mason, who became both editor and publisher about the end of 1888.

In its early years the Journal of Christian Science was almost as much Mrs. Eddy as was the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. At sixty-two Mrs. Eddy fell to playing editor with the same zest with which she had entered upon the activities of her church and college. She wrote much of the Journal herself, and what she did not originate she selected and largely rewrote, keeping a sharp eye on the articles and editorials written by her assistants and revising them very thoroughly. She was especially solicitous about the articles which dealt with herself, and she was almost equally anxious that the articles should deal with little else. The Journal of Christian Science was then scarcely more than the monthly gazette of Mrs. Eddy's doings—the diary which chronicled her thoughts and activities, and which minutely recorded the tributes of her courtiers. She no longer had to get out a new edition of Science and Health to give vent to her feelings about a newly discovered mesmerist. Once a month she audited her accounts, and the Journal was her clearing-house. Through its columns the new favourite was exalted and the old relegated to his place among the mesmerised. In one column we find, in large type, a card of thanks for a twenty-one-pound turkey which some one had sent for Mrs. Eddy's New Year's dinner; in