The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 26, 1901, Page 11

REV-MARY BARER G- LDDY - New York Hers:a CLARKE. the last century the acis A “revealed” religion great draught on ower and ferred its . Smith, and the to other hands. ely shortly to Wil it sur- to interview Brigham ity for the Herald d the impression t prophesying in y Baker Glover hard a busi- ) keep all illusions out of Wili her institution t Mormonism does a r the demise of prophet of its foun- is making a higher T its dubious more than a ise of its adop- modern ligions in Utah. Chris- attitude toward disease s to healing by mind aid, has run foul of 1y States—particu- ious diseases. egal attack also where , call in physicians and ath ensues of those in their charge. healers” have been excluded from rela b 80 it runs a_ danger as Mormonism did from her Remarkable Spread of the Cult. Christian Sclence has passed, in a very short tir s religions go. from the condi- tions of an obscure cult, taught and prac- ticed in Boston back parlors, to & church with temples of stone in many citles, a widespread organization and a following of well to do people, variously estimated at from a hundred thousand to a million souls. Itself the development by a woman of the ideas of u curlous old spec- ulator #h mental processes, it has already given birth to a number of similar “phil- osophies,” “religions” and practices that hang on to ite coat tails. Protesting against old religions as tyrannles, and making mind cure disease its test and its glory, it now freely denounces as heretics £nd schismatics the mental curists, mental ecientists and faith curists outside its as- sociation The foe of other Christian churches, the enemy at the start of Popes and prelates, it is developing an embryo prelacy and has a Pope of its own as “4nfallible” as any extant, and who ex- acts an absolute obedience from the faith- ful Its Pope goes among the “loyal” by the simple title of Mother, which, as every echoolboy knows, is the feminine of Papa. She has been audaciously named a ‘*‘fe- male Christ” by some of her indiscreet followers. Mre. Mary Baker Glover Eddy is the Mother of the Christian Scientists, the iisccverer. In the latter sense she can have no successors, but if a prophet sel- a has a progeny of seers to succeed him. a church ruler must obviously have & successor if the church is to hold to- gether. Now, it is a glory to grow oid in a noble life, and it is a gentlewoman's glory to grow old gracefully if haply she Consents to grow old at all. Many worthy dames nowadays, without any Christian Science to sustain them, and only the magazine advertisements to fall back up- on, decline to allow old age any of its time- honored privileges. For many reasons Mrs Eddy should take what measures are within reach to preserve a more or Jess youthful appearance—she, the Apostle of Eternal Youth. But, alas! the years will not be denied. There are unpleasantnesses no art can cover. And the priestess must pass more or less behind the vell if the unlovely truth would be hid. In a figurative if not an actual sense Mrs. Eddy has passed behind the veil. Mother’s Room Long Unvisited. In the granite church of Christian Sci- ence at Boston there is an ornate cham- ber called the Mother's Room, whereof the floors are mosalc, the windows of painted glass, the mantel of onyx and all the furniture of the costliest. It would invite any one, but it has not seen her for years and never may a®ain la lite, a:thourh mosit omen! For Mrs. Edd is more than 80, agree. Some say she is 85, though another calculation she is feeble, whatever her age. She has never been, it is sald for her, a lover of display or cared for personal worship face to face. At any rate, for seven or el lously avoided public appearances. or three vears ago she traveled to Boston, appeared on a platform and spoke there to her people he sign of age then most marked was a trace of senile palsy in her hands. Since then she has been more se- cluded than ever. Like the Pope in the Vatican she has busied he f with her church affairs and confined her outing the neighborhood of her hor times, =ay the people of Conc she drives out in a close carriage, some- in an open one, if the weather is s warm and fair. In the latter case she is carry a small parasol. which she generally dr before her face as sie passes people, though the horses are usually driven at a smart trot. Rain or shirfe, hot or cold, the carriage goes forth and returns. Strange stories have grown up. wont not Mrs. Eddy, but a double kept in the house for the purpose—say some. Th n is velled say others. and it may v one. “She fok,"” #til] others nd the people are con- cealing it, for they dread the effect the news would have on the ‘loyal. and the church must gradually learn to be run by another hand.” Whom Is She Grooming? Is Mrs. Eddy in good health? Is any one else grooming for the position of leader? If so, who? These were questions worth, perhaps, a journey to Concord, N. H., to solve, and it was undertaken in a spirit of sympathy and_discretion, for one would not pry heedlessly or ask to know more than the simple facts. The outcome was humor- ous, or pathetic, as you choose to take it, In its exposition of the difficulties of eternal youth at fourscore years of age. The first thing was to get to Concord, and the next thing was to learn that it uvn;rcnlly did nothing but rain at Con- cord. When New Hampshire's State Legisla- ture is not in session Concord appears to have but two attractions for the world outside of “drummers,” who need no at- traction to bring them anywhere. These attractions are Pleasant View, the house of Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Eddy, and 8t. Paul's School. To the latter well groomed parents, leading boys in knicker- ockers, arrive from other States, dine at the Eagle, drive to the school and depart, leaving the boys, Few and far between are the visitors to Pleasant View of late. The faithful are warned off, and no one else bt a doomed newspaper man would. choose an epoch of downpour for a call. Once a year, in June, come the Chris- tian Scientists in hundreds, overrun the town, swarm out along the broad high- way leading west and hold joy meetings on the broad stretch of lawn that sweeps down to the valley from the ridge whereon the house of Mrs. Eddy stands. In the afternoon they swarm toward the house, and on the balcony appears, they say, the slim figure of a white haired woman, waxen of face, with a waxen smile, who bows in return to their greetings and is gone. “She is very old—over 80, they say, and they all love her and call her mother. They hide from one another any thought that this “pale faced age of ours” is lay- ing_its heavy fingers on her. “How young she looks! Not a day over But 60 to loving eyes is apt to be a false measure. A woman of 9 has look- ed as young 8s Mrs. Eddy before now. “Looks,” indeed, is part of the trouble of Mrs. Eddy. In a way easily explicable she is expected to look young. The faith that she preaches, and of which she claims to be the discoverer, dismisses death as an illusion; sickness likewise. It was as a “healer,” a prolonger of mortal life, that she made way for the spread- ing of her doctrine, and shall she, the h estess, grow palsied and feeble n‘d b’:flun'i%l.l to mount the altar steps with the same firm tread as of old? Then, even at 80-odd, one Is a woman if one Wwas a woman at 20—priestess or no priest- ess—with all the feminine foibles that to be & woman Implies, and there you are. A Princely Income. Bhe is rich and getting richer every day, for she enjoys a great income from her book.{ “Sclence gnd Health’'—the bible of the Christian Sclentists—but money is not all. It is sold at $ a copy, costing per- haps $150, and every votary, yea, the pa- tlent of every votary, must buy one—over 200,000 have been sold—and she has other sources of income besides. And when a new revision of her book is thought nec- essary the new version must be bought, or how is evil'to ve fought and conquered? It is copper-fastened with copyrights. Mrs. Eddy has the business head of a strong man if she has the outgiving gen- lu%huflun apoctle. e large, impressive looking houge lives in reflects this wealth grankly. sti: is reached by a mile or less of broad, pic- turesque road from the elm shaded streets of Concord. That the road might be made pleasant for driving she gave a large sum to the township. The body of the building is like the traditional New England farmhouse—namely, an oblong structure, with a smaller oblong or “L,” as it is locally called, at the end, but with a difference. .An octagonal turret with a spire is at the southedst corner, and a larger octagon that forms a bay for the two upper stories and rests upon the por- tico is, as it were, embedded in the north front. The house has a body color of palest green, with ivory write trimmings and dark roofing, and, as it stands back about thirty feet from the road, looks at- tractive and cool. A granite archway, with the inscription “Eddy,” and there- under ‘“‘Pleasant View,” all in very large modest capitals, gives upon the graveled walk that leads direct to the hall door. Carriages may enter and leave by low wooden gates at either side of the arch, but the carriage of the mistress of Pleasant View alone enters or leaves. And pleasant indeed Is the view, for the house looks down from the ridge over a wide valley—the valley of the Merrimac—that slopes away from the back lawn in a sweep of green and spreads over dotted farmland and wood- land to a distant horizon of purpling hill and mountain. It looks from t{ne ridge far across the valley to_the hamlet of Bow, where Mrs. Eddy was born. So beauty and sentiment and pride of achievement combine to make it de- THE SUNDAY CALL. R 0 THE MOTHER CHURCH sirable to her, To the right of the house, at a respectful distance, {8 the barn, which also has a prinked up classic frontage to match the white Ionic pillars of the portico. In it she has ‘‘every kind of a known carriage,” according to the awe-stricken whisper of the local driver. Farther down the road, past a row of dripping )'Ounfi hemlocks, {s a hand- some house, in which the ‘‘heln,” of which thcre are a dozen or so, are housed. They have luxurious quarters, as things go. Now these “help’’ deserve thus cherish- ing. They are all Christian Scientists and devoted to their mistress. They are not only secretaries, coachmen, gardeners, stewards, cooks, laundresses and wultln‘g maids, with apparently most of the posi- tions ‘Interchangeable, but guardians of a shrine and servants of a mystery, who keep tight lips and watchful eyes where watching is wanted, and avert their gaze discreatly where it is not. They go about their business with the movements of automata while any one is looking, but they are plain, everyday people other- wise, cheerful =nd polite. The First Attempt. These matters were observed in several drives thither in the driving rain. On the occasion of the first drive a pull at the knob beside Mrs. Eddy's hall door brought in reply a single faint gong stroke, and presently a good looking brunette serving maid, with searching brown eyes. One saw at once as she partly opened the portal and put out her head that she stood at the door of the Much Desired, for her jaw firmly set as she asked one's business. Evidently she is used to_turning people away, and one must be firm about that. Stating that the desire was to see Mrs. Eddy, but that a glimpse of Mrs. Eddy's secretary, a fir. Erye, would perhaps arrange the matter more for Mrs. Eddy's convenience, 1 waited. The girl kept the brown eyes steadily on me and rez:lled in a tone suggesting the impious interruption of a sacrificial act: “But Mr. Frye is at dinner.” ‘Well, dinner, even in the world of Soul, is to be respected, and it has some claims on the tireless journalist, so a card was handed to the brown-eyed maid; the call would be repeated later. The door closed ‘with the sharp clicking of a spring lock. " Back and forth to town in the rain, and once mfrgflcroulng thelt vela(}‘ ';m a ung looking man . wi a red forked K:arcf 1 tanding in front of the He lounges self-con- sclously and appears as if about to ad- dress me, but doesn’t, But the hall door opens with a wide sweef and the brown-eyed mald, now wear ng a very fetching smile of welcome, gays “‘Come in.” The hall door clicks to behind me. We cross a small outer vestibule and I ob- serve that there is a second heavy door, which also clicks to. We are now in the hall, which I8 not very wide. There s a parlor on each side. “If you will take off your things you can hang them there,” {ndicating a rack some distance down the hall. Pleasantly ushered into the parlor on the right hand, the girl, still all smiles— the radiance of ‘‘orders” in a house of order—says: “You wish to see Mrs. Eddy? Very well, if you will walt a moment.” And here the lie was to be given to all the reports of feebleness. At any rate, here would be frankness, that did not fear to face the facts of wrinkles, if wrinkles there were, and what. more touching than mother’s wrinkles when she is over #0? I would hear the flowing talk of a wonderful woman. I recalled glee- fully what the somber Robinson had said to me in @oncord. He had talked with her—not lately; no, they shut him out lately, but three years ago. ‘“‘She just went on in a stream, and I had only to say ves and no, and she so full of cheer- fuiness and cleverness.” Five minutes went by. The parlor was not very large. It was richly furnished in a puzzling style, bear- ing out what I had heard about the gifts of the faithful being so showered upon Mrs. Eddy that after filling her house with them she had to send out a notice in the Sentinel, begging that no more be sent, as the house was overflowing. It would not have been a bad idea to stop the gifts a little earlier, for your soulful one may have money, and buy costly things, but who shall her insure good taste? The effect of many bizarre ob- jects was somewhat offset by their ar- rangement, though some of the vases on small stands still cried out to heaven. There was a little Parian bust of Shakespeare, and a little gray toned plas- ter bust of Charles Sumner, which look- ed as If they went back to Mrs. Eddy’s humbler days in house furnishing, and 80 had the personal note. A half life-size Christ in colors faced the door. There ‘were.four or five engravings—one “Daniel Among the Lions,” another Edwin Lang’s “Christ or Diana, Which?' But the ef- fect was bright, and who should look here GATEWAY oF MRS-EDDY'S HousE -. for the finely esthetic or modern? _ All So Busy. Re-enter the brown-eyed mald, agitated, something of dismay on her face, and passing one hand lightly through her hair, as if to assure her appearance. Some- thing was the matter. “You know,’ she began, stammering, “Mrs, Eddy expected you—Mrs. Eddy ex- pected to see you, but now—now-—she can't—she {s—busy.” Ard Mr. Frye?”' “Oh, he? Yes—he is busy with her.” “Can’'t be seen, eh?”’ “Oh, I wouldn't dare—I couldn't.” ““Well, perhaps he will let me know somehow when I can see him and if Mrs. Fddy can be seen.” “‘Oh, she expected to see you; indeed, she did, before she suddenly got—busy. No doubt Mr, Frye will send you word.” Here was a puzzle—-suddenly = go busy.” Fven the secretary, too, Well, patience {s proper. And so we re- turn to town In the drizzle. In the evening a short but husky indi- vidual, with a white brown mustache, who is among other things the BEddy coach- man, drove up in a muddy buggy and sald to me very shortly: “Mr. ¥rre told me to tell you that he gan't grant you .an interview. He Is husy. “How is everybody up there?’ I asked. “Oh—well,"” he answered, with a curlous hesitafion. Well, one can wait even on bad man- ners, and so I waited on, assuring all hn;]ridl by note of my sincerity and good will. Mr. Frye's Influence. It developed, from town report, which, of course, has its unreliabilities, that Mr. Frye—Calvin A. Frye—the secretary, was irndunlly assuming the power of Mrs. 2ddy and was In training for ner mantle when it should please her to pass on Eii- jahwise, and a seclusion imitating hers was gradually being assumed. He pra tically stands between her and every- body else. He is very much in her con- fidence. Rumor had it also that Mrs. Eddy has made him her heir, with some- thing resembling an entail on her prop- erty, and that ne will be the next high priest. A certain disappearance behind the veil was thought auavisable for him also. A day passed. It still rained. The re- gort that Mrs. Eddy was dead, or had een dead for some time, was scouted in Concord, but some held that it was not Mrs. Eddy who drove forth, rain or shine, every day, but a living substitute. The hint indeed of a'wax figure was seriously ventured. In Concord the Christian Scientists are Eeruonu gratae. They pay promptly and ave many interests there. The two daily papers, the Patriot and the Monitor, are said be owned and controlled by them. Mrs. kddy lived in a house on State street for some time before the Pleasant View lace was bought, and while it was build- ng, some siXx or seven years ago. Some relatives named Baker live in the town. Mrs. Eddy is said in Concord to have a son grown to man's estate, to whom she is reputed to have made large gifts in cash and house property. He resides, they say, in the West. Her adopted son, who was a ‘“healer”” in Boston, had a quarrel with Mrs. Eddy some years ago and left the East. Another thing came under notice. It is in Concord naturally enough that the Christian Science souvenir silver spoon 1s made, about which so much has been said from time to time. I saw one, dnd heard about them. e news that Mrs. Eady enjoys a percentage, on each one sold would doubtless cheer every daughter of Christian Science who owns one, but, un- fortuuately it is flatly denied bv the makers and others interested in thelr dis- posal. Yes, every Christian Scientist is expect- ed to buy one, as well as “Science and Health,” but “It is ridiculous to say,” sald one of those interested, “‘that a re- ligion should rest on the sale of books and souvenir spoons.” It is a good spoon, and 11 a dear spoon, with an Inscription on ths back to the effect that “Mind, Not Matter, Fulfilleth,” which is a curious inseription for a spoon. Now came word from Boston mysteri- ously that it would be well to call early in the morning and see Joseph Mann at the Eddy house, 8o again ig the rain we go. “Joseph Mann,' said the brown-eyed maid, “is down at the cottage, and says he is too busy to come up.” Heavens, what a busy place, and how polite of Mr. Mann! Well, the cottage is not far, but there appears to be no one in it. At'last a little hothouse behind the cottage is found; half a dozen men are in it potting plants as busy as may be. One ot them advances. He is of middle age and portly bulld, and wears a low-cut vest, a white satin necktie, with a Chris- tian Science pin, and that class of reddish- brown Dundreary whiskefs which always suggest that the wearer is about to sing a comic Song. “T am Joseph Mann,” he says and I ex- plain. As I do T observe the coachman, who Is Mr. Mann's brother, to be among the plant potters, and also a man with a long iron ay mustache, who whisks away. Joseph Mann isn't f a bad fellow, but he can do nothing without Mr. Frye. I would bet- ter return and he will let me know. 8o, again to town in the rain. Mrs. Eddy Heard From. About 2 in the afternoon a bugs splashes into Concord, and a man han me 4 big square envelope with a great blue seal and is gone. I open it, and under a lordly coat of arms In pale gold I read typewriting: “Dictated. APRIL 24, 1901 “Dear Sir: I am, indeed, snrr{ to dis- appoint you, but beg to say I have not time to give to the present mooted topics relative to Christian Science, since it makes mankind no wiser to interchange mere opinions on this subject. If in one or two hours I could give you sufficlent knowledge of Christian Science to demon- strate the truth of what I had said I would give you this opportunity with much pleasure, knowing that in turn you could elucidate the principle whereof peo ple are now speculating, and largely at their own folly. Most truly . 'B. EDDY. Here was another puzzler. Mrs. Eddy dld not want to talk of the ‘“presa mooted topies,” but she would give me I read the note, one or two hours of elu- cidation of Christian Science. That was not precisely what I was seeking, but it would be interesting, so out in the rain T drove again. Alas! Mrs. Eddy was out driving. ““They will be back in about twenty min- ues.” said the maid, so_there was nothing to do but drive away. Mr. Frye? He was on the box. Well, I shall see them after ail. And as we drove toward the town, sure enough, the carriage was coming. A pair of stout bays, drawing a low square-bodied carriage, which my driver styled a bus, was coming up the hill through the rain. On the box were two men, one man the burly coachman and the other Frye, the secretary, a man with 2 long gray mustache, surely he whom [ had seen whisking out of the nothouse when I spoke to Joseph Mann. In the car- riage, as seen behind the vell of the slant- ing rain, was the figure of an old lady, white of hair and white of face, looking straight ahead. We returned to the house in about a hour. *“said the brown-eyed girl, after her drive to see you. Frye. Joseph Mann ap- Yes, the *4s too bus was Mr. peared and was sympathetic. note might bear the construction that Mrs. Eddy wanted to talk to me, but whatever the note said, a conversation with her was impossible now. Why? Mr, Mann wagged his Dundreary whiskers. “You will see,” said he, “there’s an 1" in the note, and I think it hangs on the He did mot sing it, but it had all the Continued on Page Twelve,