Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/376

326 committee told us that the sentiment of the community was (as in Acts xiii. 50) that we leave town.

I said to the committee that I came to visit Mrs. N—— and not professionally; that she was in trouble and there was no power to drive me out.

In the same number of the Journal is printed an extract from a letter written by the mother herself, in which she maintains that the baby's illness was not of a bodily nature, but was clearly the effect of animal magnetism working directly upon the brain:

Little Edward slept and ate well as a rule. He had no bowel affection, as the papers have stated. All the attacks were in belief, in form of brain trouble, and plainly from animal magnetism; the prayers of church members and the whole thought of the place being expressed in the hope that "God would remove the N——s' child, so that they might come back into the church." At two o'clock on the day that he passed, I sent for Mr. N—— [the father], and in the evening of the same day I called the undertaker. We buried the little boy ourselves, quietly, without any minister present, being accompanied by a number who believe in Christian Science because it has healed them.

Our trials have been severe, but we work to stand fast. We are determined to demonstrate the nothingness of this seeming power.

This case is chosen for illustration for the reason that the parents of these children were not ignorant or colourless people; they were not mystics or dreamers or in any way "different." They were young, ambitious, warm-hearted, and affectionate; they loved each other and their children, and their home was full of cordiality and kindliness. Their children were fine children; one, now grown, has become a young scholar of promise. The woman was not a religious fanatic, but a young mother. She could combat "the last temptation" over her dead baby simply because she believed with all her heart and soul that it lay with her, as a test of her faith, whether her child lived