Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/482

424 because they believed that he could influence Mrs. Eddy for or against any one.

Mrs. Eddy's word had made Foster, and her word unmade him. From the moment the Christian Scientists understood that he was no longer in favour with his mother, Dr. Foster was ostracised. The people who had once crowded about him whenever he appeared in public no longer recognised him when they passed him in the street. When he approached a group of Christian Scientists, they melted away. Legally, of course, he was still Mrs. Eddy's adopted son, but she did not trouble herself about that, apparently. She made no charge against him, demanded no explanation, but erased him from her consciousness as if he were a coachman whom she had hired and discharged. Dr. Foster travelled in the West and in Alaska for a time, and then settled down at his old home at Waterbury Center, Vt., where he now lives. Like the rest of Mrs. Eddy's outworn favourites, he has been content to live very quietly since his fall, and he has not even resumed the practice of medicine, for fear of further angering his adopted mother.

Mrs. Eddy's retirement in Concord meant no relaxation of her vigilance over her church. Scarcely a day passed that one of her executives did not board the train at Boston, take the two hours' ride up the Merrimac, and present himself at Pleasant View. The affairs of the Mother Church ran much more smoothly with Mrs. Eddy out of the city. The hundred little annoyances which had so often led her into indiscretions were now kept from her. She planted and pulled up, built and tore down,—or, as she says, armed with pen and pruning-hook, she commanded and countermanded,—as tirelessly as ever;