Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/448

392 let us honour Him and keep silence; let us keep from her and settle among ourselves or with God for ourselves, the small concerns for which we have looked to her.

At about this time, Mrs. Eddy also gave up teaching. It was with great reluctance that she closed her college, and here again she felt her way to a final decision. The first plan was that she merely give up active teaching, and remain president of the institution, while her adopted son succeeded her as instructor. She gave this arrangement a trial, but soon announced that, as the demand was for her own instruction exclusively, she would close the college altogether. In the late summer of 1889 Mrs. Eddy again reconsidered, and announced that General Erastus N. Bates of Cleveland would reopen the college and conduct the classes. General Bates, who was a healer and preacher in his own city, gave up his practice there and came on to Boston to take up Mrs. Eddy's work. No sooner had he begun than Mrs. Eddy again changed her mind, and in less than a month after General Bates arrived she closed the college, despite his earnest protest.

Mrs. Eddy next disorganised the Association. At her request it was voted "to set aside the official organisation and the constitution and by-laws of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College Association, and to meet in the future as a voluntary association of Christians to promote growth in spirituality." The Journal, in its announcement, continues: "What was embraced under the name of 'business' was thus dispensed with. Nothing valuable of the purposes of the organisation had been lost and a new realisation that all is mind and of union in love had been gained." The effect of this disorganisation, the Journal said, would be "to lift them from the material sensual