While Mrs. Eddy was working out her larger policy she never forgot the
little things. The manufacture of Christian Science jewelry was at one
time a thriving business, conducted by the J. C. Derby Company, of
Concord. Christian Science emblems and Mrs. Eddy's "favorite flower"
were made up into cuff-buttons, rings, brooches, watches, and
pendants, varying in price from $325 to $2.50. The sale of the
Christian Science teaspoons was especially profitable. The "Mother
spoon," an ordinary silver spoon, sold for $5.00. Mrs. Eddy's portrait
was embossed upon it, a picture of Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy's
signature, and the motto, "Not Matter but Mind Satisfieth." Mrs. Eddy
stimulated the sale of this spoon by inserting the following request
in the _Journal_:[3]
"On each of these most beautiful spoons is a motto in bas
relief that every person on earth needs to hold in thought.
Mother requests that Christian Scientists shall not ask to
be informed what this motto is, but each Scientist shall
purchase at least one spoon, and those who can afford it,
one dozen spoons, that their families may read this motto at
every meal, and their guests be made partakers of its simple
truth."
"MARY BAKER G. EDDY.
"The above-named spoons are sold by the Christian Science
Souvenir Company, Concord, N. H., and will soon be on sale
at the Christian Science reading rooms throughout the
country."
Mrs. Eddy's picture was another fruitful source of revenue. The
copyright for this is still owned by the Derby Company. This portrait
is known as the "authorized" photograph of Mrs. Eddy. It was sold for
years as a genuine photograph of Mrs. Eddy, but it is admitted now at
Christian Science sales-rooms that this picture is a "composite." The
cheapest sells for one dollar. When they were ready for sale, in May,
1899, Mrs. Eddy, in the _Journal_ of that date, announced:
"It is with pleasure I certify that after months of
incessant toil and at great expense Mr. Henry P. Moore, and
Mr. J. C. Derby of Concord, N. H., have brought out a
likeness of me far superior to the one they offered for sale
last November. The portrait they have now perfected I
cordially endorse. Also I declare their sole right to the
making and exclusive sale of the duplicates of said
portrait.
"I simply ask that those who love me purchase this portrait.
"MARY BAKER EDDY."
The material prosperity of the Mother Church continued and the
congregation soon outgrew the original building. At the June communion
in 1902 ten thousand Christian Scientists were present. In the
business meeting which followed they pledged themselves, "with
startling grace," as Mrs. Eddy put it, to raise two million dollars,
or any part of that sum which should be needed, to build an annex.
In the late spring of 1906 the enormous addition to the Mother
Church--the "excelsior extension," as Mrs. Eddy calls it--was
completed, and it was dedicated at the annual communion, June 10, of
that year. The original building was in the form of a cross, so Mrs.
Eddy had the new addition built with a dome to represent a crown--a
combination which is happier in its symbolism than in its
architectural results. The auditorium is capable of holding five
thousand people; the walls are decorated with texts signed "Jesus, the
Christ" and "Mary Baker G. Eddy"--these names standing side by side.
According to the belief of Mrs. Eddy's followers, every signal victory
of Christian Science is apt to beget "chemicalization"; that is, it
stirs up "error" and "mortal mind"--which terms include everything
that is hostile to Christian Science--and makes them ugly and
revengeful. The forces of evil--that curious, non-existent evil
which, in spite of its nihility, makes Mrs. Eddy so much trouble--were
naturally aroused by the dedication of the great church building in
1906, and within a year Mrs. Eddy's son brought a suit in equity which
caused her annoyance and anxiety.
_Suit Brought by Mrs. Eddy's Son_
Among the mistakes of Mrs. Eddy's early life must certainly be
accounted her indifference to her only child, George Washington
Glover. Mrs. Eddy's first husband died six months after their
marriage, and the son was not born until three months after his
father's death--a circumstance which, it would seem, might have
peculiarly endeared him to his mother. When he was a baby, living with
Mrs. Glover in his aunt's house, his mother's indifference to him was
such as to cause comment in her family and indignation on the part of
her father, Mark Baker. The symptoms of serious nervous disorder so
conspicuous in Mrs. Eddy's young womanhood--the exaggerated hysteria,
the anaesthesia, the mania for being rocked and swung--are sometimes
accompanied by a lack of maternal feeling, and the absence of it in
Mrs. Eddy must be considered, like her lack of the sense of smell, a
defect of constitution rather than a vice of character.
Mrs. Eddy has stated that she sent her child away because her second
husband, Dr. Patterson, would not permit her to keep George with her.
But although Mrs. Eddy was not married to Dr. Patterson until 1853, in
1851 she sent the child to live with Mrs. Russell Cheney, a woman who
had attended Mrs. Eddy at the boy's birth. George lived with the
Cheneys at North Groton, New Hampshire, from the time he was seven
years old until he was thirteen. During the greater part of this time
his mother, then Mrs. Patterson, was living in the same town. When
George was thirteen the Cheneys moved to Enterprise, Minnesota, and
took him with them. Mrs. Eddy did not see her son again for
twenty-three years. She wrote some verses about him, but certainly
made no effort to go to him, or to have him come to her. On the whole,
her separation from him seems to have caused her no real distress. The
boy received absolutely no education, and he was kept hard at work in
the fields until he ran away and joined the army, in which he served
with an excellent record.
After he went West with the Cheneys in 1857, George Glover did not see
his mother again until 1879. He was then living in Minnesota, a man of
thirty-five, when he received a telegram from Mrs. Eddy, dated from
Lynn, and asking him to meet her immediately in Cincinnati. This was
the time when Mrs. Eddy believed that mesmerism was overwhelming her
in Lynn; that every stranger she met in the streets, and even
inanimate objects, were hostile to her, and that she must "flee" from
the hypnotists (Kennedy and Spofford) to save her cause and her life.
Unable to find any trace of his mother in Cincinnati, George Glover
telegraphed to the Chief of Police in Lynn. Some days later he
received another telegram from his mother, directing him to meet her
in Boston. He went to Boston, and found that Mrs. Eddy and her
husband, Asa G. Eddy, had left Lynn for a time and were staying in
Boston at the house of Mrs. Clara Choate. Glover remained in Boston
for some time and then returned to his home in the West.
[Illustration: THE MOTHER CHURCH IN BOSTON
THE ORIGINAL BUILDING, AT THE RIGHT, IS IN THE FORM OF A CROSS, AND
THE IMMENSE "ANNEX," WITH ITS DOME, IS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT A CROWN,
THE TWO BUILDINGS THUS FORMING THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SEAL--THE CROSS
AND CROWN]
George Glover's longest stay in Boston was in 1888, when he brought
his family and spent the winter in Chelsea. His relations with his
mother were then of a friendly but very formal nature. In the autumn,
when he first proposed going to Boston, his plan was to spend a few
months with his mother. Mrs. Eddy, however, wrote him that she had no
room for him in her house and positively forbade him to come. Mrs.
Eddy's letter reads as follows:
Massachusetts Metaphysical College.
Rev. Mary B. G. Eddy, President.
No. 571 Columbus ave.
Boston, Oct. 31, 1887
DEAR GEORGE: Yours received. I am surprised that you think
of coming to visit me when I live in a schoolhouse and have
no room that I can let even a boarder into.
I use the whole of my rooms and am at work in them more or
less all the time.
Besides this I have all I can meet without receiving
company. I must have quiet in my house, and it will not be
pleasant for you in Boston the Choates are doing all they
can by falsehood, and public shames, such as advertising a
college of her own within a few doors of mine when she is a
disgraceful woman and known to be. I am going to give up my
lease when this class is over, and cannot pay your board nor
give you a single dollar now. I am alone, and you never
would come to me when I called for you, and now I cannot
have you come.
I want quiet and Christian life alone with God, when I can
find intervals for a little rest. You are not what I had
hoped to find you, and I am changed. The world, the flesh
and evil I am at war with, and if any one comes to me it
must be to help me and not to hinder me in this warfare. If
you will stay away from me until I get through with my
public labor then I will send for you and hope to then have
a home to take you to.
As it now is, I have none, and you will injure me by coming
to Boston at this time more than I have room to state in a
letter. I asked you to come to me when my husband died and I
so much needed some one to help me. You refused to come then
in my great need, and I then gave up ever thinking of you in
that line. Now I have a clerk[4] who is a pure-minded
Christian, and two girls to assist me in the college. These
are all that I can have under this roof.
If you come after getting this letter I shall feel you have
no regard for my interest or feelings, which I hope not to
be obliged to feel.
Boston is the last place in the world for you or your
family. When I retire from business and into private life,
then I can receive you if you are reformed, but not
otherwise. I say this to you, not to any one else. I would
not injure you any more than myself. As ever sincerely,