Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/490

432 in which Mrs. Eddy said: "Those awful reports about you, namely that your last child was illegitimate, etc. I again and again tried to suppress that report; also for what you tried to make people believe; namely, that that child was an immaculate conception, . . . and you replied that it was incarnated with the Devil."

Mrs. Eddy was the more vexed with Mrs. Woodbury because she herself had undoubtedly taught that in the future, when the world had attained a larger growth in Christian Science, children would be conceived by communion with the Divine mind; but she probably had no idea that any one of her students, ambitious to "demonstrate over material claims," would actually attempt to put this theory into practice. She was wise enough, moreover, to see that such extravagant claims would bring Christian Science into disrepute, and she vigorously denounced Mrs. Woodbury's zeal.

Besides her school in Boston, Mrs. Woodbury had a large following in Maine, where she usually spent the summer. In 1896 Fred D. Chamberlain began a suit against her for the alienation of his wife's affections—his wife being a pupil of Mrs. Woodbury's. At this time, the Boston Traveller, in discussing Mr. Chamberlain's charge, took up the question of the claims that were made for Mrs. Woodbury's son, Prince. The Traveller asserted that some of Mrs. Woodbury's students had been induced against their will to buy stock in an "air-engine" which Mr. Woodbury was exploiting, and published interviews with George Macomber and H. E. Jones, both of Augusta, Me., who stated that their wives had believed that Mrs. Woodbury's child was immaculately conceived, had desired to make presents