Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/394

342 concerts during the latter years of the '80's, and appealing to every member of the church and to every student at the college to set aside a weekly sum to be paid into the fund.

In the Christmas holidays of 1887 Mrs. Eddy moved from her dwelling in Columbus Avenue to a more pretentious house at 385 Commonwealth Avenue. The Christian Science Journal, under the head "Material Change of Base," announced her removal in the following enthusiastic language:

At Xmastide Rev. Mary B. Glover Eddy began to occupy the new house which she has purchased on Commonwealth Avenue, No. 385. The price is recorded in real estate transactions as $40,000. It is a large house in the middle of the block and contains twenty rooms. . . . The spot is very beautiful and the house has been finished and furnished under the advice of a professional decorator. The locality is excellent. For the information of friends not acquainted with Boston, it may be stated that Commonwealth Avenue is the most fashionable in the city. Through the centre of it runs a slim park with a central promenade, leaving a driveway on each side of the main thoroughfare. Within a few yards of Mrs. Eddy's mansion is the massive residence of his Excellency, Oliver Ames, the present Governor of Massachusetts. To name the dwellers on this avenue would be to name scores of Boston's wealthy and influential men. On Marlboro' Street, which is the next toward the river, are many more families of note; while everybody knows that Beacon Street, which is next in line, claims the blue blood of Boston for its inheritance, especially on the water side.

The fact that some of the members of Mrs. Eddy's own Boston church began to murmur texts about the foxes having holes and the birds of the air having nests, and that Mrs. Crosse, the editor of the Journal, felt it necessary to print an apologetic explanation of this notice, augured ill for the year that was just beginning. A great discontent had been growing in the Boston church, and for more than two years there had been two factions in the organisation: those who were absolutely