Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/546



Mrs. Eddy's autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, she gives the following story of her ancestry:

My ancestors, according to the flesh, were from both Scotland and England, my great-grandfather on my father's side being John McNeil of Edinburgh. His wife, my great-grandmother, was Marion Moor, and her family is said to have been in some way related to Hannah More, the pious and popular authoress of a century ago. John and Marion Moor McNeil had a daughter who perpetuated her mother's name. This second Marion McNeil was married to an Englishman named Joseph Baker, and so became my paternal grandmother. Joseph Baker and his wife, Marion McNeil, came to America seeking freedom to worship God, though they could scarcely have crossed the Atlantic more than a score of years prior to the Revolutionary period. A relative of my grandfather Baker was General Henry Knox, of Revolutionary fame. In the line of my grandmother Baker's family was the late Sir John McNeil, a Scotch knight who was prominent in British politics and at one time held the position of ambassador to Persia.

The statements made by Mrs. Eddy concerning her connection with the McNeil family of Scotland having been published in a way that brought them to the attention of that family in Scotland, drew a denial from the granddaughter of the real Sir John MacNeill. In the Ladies' Home Journal for November, 1903, there appeared an article entitled "Mrs. Eddy as She Really Is," introduced by an editorial note which stated: "The writing of this article and the making of illustrations on the opposite page were done with the special permission of Mrs. Eddy, and both pages having been seen by her in proof, received her full approval." In the course of this article, it is