Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/517

Rh officers of the Mother Church in Boston. This action was brought in the Superior Court of New Hampshire. Mr. Glover asked for an adjudication that Mrs. Eddy was incompetent, through age and failing faculties, to manage her estate; that a receiver of her property be appointed; and that the various defendants named be required to account for alleged misuse of her property. Six days later Mrs. Eddy met this action by declaring a trusteeship for the control of her estate. The trustees named were responsible men, gave bond for $500,000, and their trusteeship was to last during Mrs. Eddy's lifetime. In August Mr. Glover withdrew his suit.

This action brought by her son, which undoubtedly caused Mrs. Eddy a great deal of annoyance, was another result of those indirect methods to which she has always clung so persistently. When her son appealed to her for financial aid, she chose, instead of meeting him with a candid refusal, to tell him that she was not allowed to use her own money as she wished, that Mr. Frye made her account for every penny, etc., etc. Mr. Glover made the mistake of taking his mother at her word. He brought his suit upon the supposition that his mother was the victim of designing persons who controlled her affairs—without consulting her, against her wish, and to their own advantage—a hypothesis which his attorneys entirely failed to establish.

This lawsuit disclosed one interesting fact, namely, that while in 1893 securities of Mrs. Eddy amounting to $100,000 were brought to Concord, and in January, 1899, she had $236,200, and while in 1907 she had about a million dollars' worth of taxable property, Mrs. Eddy in 1901 returned a signed