Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/415



MRS. EDDY RALLIES HER FORCES—GROWTH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE IN THE WEST—THE MAKING OF A HEALER—THE APOTHEOSIS OF MRS. EDDY

, publicly, made little of the fact that she was losing support in Boston. "The late much ado about nothing," she writes in the Journal of September, 1888, "arose solely from mental malicious practice, and the audible falsehood designed to stir up strife between brethren, for the purpose of placing Christian Science in the hands of aspirants for place and power." In practice, however, she heeded the warning. She braced up the course in "Metaphysical Obstetrics" in her college by engaging the services of Ebenezer J. Foster, who held a degree of Doctor of Medicine, and who had taken a course in Christian Science the previous autumn. Dr. Foster was to act as Mrs. Eddy's "assistant in obstetrics." The course was made longer and the tuition fee was doubled. "Doctor Foster," read Mrs. Eddy's announcement in the Journal, "will teach the anatomy and surgery of obstetrics, and I, its metaphysics. The combination of his knowledge of Christian Science with his anatomical skill, renders him a desirable teacher in this department of my college. In twenty years' practice he has not had a single case of mortality at childbirth. . ..