Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/492

434 May the love that must govern you and the church influence your motives, is my fervent wish; But remember, dear student, that malicious hypnotism is no excuse for sin. But God's grace is sufficient to govern our lives and lead us to moral ends.
 * With love

On April 8 Mrs. Eddy wrote to Mrs. Woodbury:

Now, dear student try one year not to tell a single falsehood, or to practise one cheat, or to break the decalogue, and if you do this to the best of your ability at the end of that year God will give you a place in our church as sure as you are fit for it. This I know. Don't return evil for evil, and you will have your reward.

April 17 Mrs. Eddy again wrote Mrs. Woodbury a warning letter:


 * I am willing you should let them read my letter. I forgot to mention this, hence my second line to you. Now mark what I say. This is your last chance, and you will succeed in getting back, and should. But this I warn you, to stop falsifying, and living unpurely in thought, in vile schemes, in fraudulent money-getting, etc. I speak plainly even as the need is.

I am not ignorant of your sins, and I am trying to have you in the church for protection from those temptations, and to effect your full reformation. Remember, the M. A. M., which you say in your letter causes you to sin, is not idle, and will cause you to repeat them, and so turn you again from the church, unless you pray God to keep you from falling into the foul snare. In the consciousness that you and your students are mentally speaking to me, I warn you this is forbidden by a strict rule of the by-laws as well as by conscience.

After her admission to the Mother Church, Mrs. Woodbury did not go through her two years' probation. Her name was dropped from the church roll in the fall of the first year, and in the following spring (March 24, 1896) she was reinstated. Ten days later she was, in the language of the directors, "forever excommunicated."