Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/44

20 was preparing to enter the church, and how she wept over the necessity of believing that her unregenerate sisters and brothers would be damned. Peace, however, followed a season of prayer, and when she finally appeared at church for examination on doctrinal points, she flatly refused to accept that of predestination. She says:

Distinctly do I recall what followed. I stoutly maintained that I was willing to trust God, and take my chance of spiritual safety with my brothers and sisters,—not one of whom had then made any profession of religion,—even if my credal doubts left me outside the doors. . . . Nevertheless, he (the minister) persisted in the assertion that I had been truly regenerated, and asked me to say how I felt when the new light dawned within me. I replied that I could only answer him in the words of the Psalmist: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

This was so earnestly said, that even the oldest church-members wept. After the meeting was over they came and kissed me. To the astonishment of many, the good clergyman's heart also melted, and he received me into their communion, and my protest along with me.

The official record bearing on this point, taken from the clerk's book of the Tilton Congregational Church, is as follows:

1838, July 26, Received into this church, Stephen Grant, Esq., John Gilly and his wife Hannah, Mrs. Susan French, wife of William French, Miss Mary A. M. Baker, by profession, the two former receiving the ordinance of baptism. Greenaugh McQuestion, Scribe.

As Mary Baker was born on July 16, 1821, and as this record is dated "1838, July 26," she was evidently seventeen, and not twelve, when the event described above took place.

At home Mary was still allowed to have her own way as completely as in her baby days. Indeed, by this time she, as well as her family, had come to consider this privilege a natural right, and she grew constantly more insistent in her demands upon her parents and brother and sisters, who had