As a child Mary Baker saw visions and dreamed dreams. When eight years
of age she began, like Jeanne d'Arc, to hear "voices," and for a year
she heard her name called distinctly, and would often run to her mother
questioning if she were wanted. One night the mother related to her the
story of Samuel, and bade her, if she heard the voice again to reply as
he did: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." The call came, but the
little maid was afraid and did not reply. This caused her tears of
remorse and she prayed for forgiveness, and promised to reply if the
call came again. It came, and she answered as her mother had bidden her,
and after that it ceased.
These experiences, of which Catholic biographies are full, and which
history not unfrequently emphasizes, certainly offer food for
meditation. Theodore Parker related that when he was a lad at work in a
field one day on his father's farm at Lexington, an old man with a snowy
beard suddenly appeared at his side, and walked with him as he worked,
giving him high counsel and serious thought. All inquiry in the
neighborhood as to whence the stranger came or whither he went was
fruitless; no one else had seen him, and Mr. Parker always believed, so
a friend has told me, that his visitor was a spiritual form from another
world. It is certainly true that many and many persons, whose life has
been destined to more than ordinary achievement, have had experiences of
voices or visions in their early youth.
At an early age Miss Baker was married to Colonel Glover, of Charleston,
S.C., who lived only a year. She returned to her father's home--in
1844--and from that time until 1866 no special record is to be made.
In 1866, while living in Lynn, Mass., Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Glover) met
with a severe accident and her case was pronounced hopeless by the
physicians. There came a Sunday morning when her pastor came to bid her
good-by before proceeding to his morning service as there was no
probability that she would be alive at its close. During this time she
suddenly became aware of a divine illumination and ministration. She
requested those with her to withdraw, and reluctantly they did so,
believing her delirious. Soon, to their bewilderment and fright, she
walked into the adjoining room, "and they thought I had died, and that
it was my apparition," she said.