SB 55 7MM 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OK THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 OK 
 
 Received 
 Accession No.wv. /ZL (f . Class No. 
 
ar in TDeaven 
 
 <?< 
 
/, / 
 
a^<~^ ^ 
 
 ' . /*i ) 
 
 __^ ivLt-, J i*^<^^- c- r * r s 
 
 ^__^ 
 
 s^sr 
 
 
 r 
 
WAR IN HEAVEN. 
 
 SIXTEEN YEARS' EXPERIENCE IN CHRISTIAN 
 SCIENCE MIND-HEALING. 
 
 JOSEPHINE CURTIS WOODBURY. 
 II 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON, MASS.: 
 
 PRESS OF SAMUEL USHER. 
 
 1897. 
 
6P/S-? 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1897, 
 
 BY 
 JOSEPHINE CURTIS WOODBURY C 
 
THERE was war in heaven : 
 
 REVELATIONS xn. 7. 
 
 WHERE there is no vision, the people perish. 
 
 PROVERBS xxix. 18. 
 
 THE only faith that wears well, and holds its color in all 
 weathers, is that which is woven of conviction, and set with the 
 sharp mordant of experience. LOWELL. 
 
WAR IN HEAVEN. 
 
 FIRST GLIMPSES. 
 
 IN 1879 came to me the first knowledge of a 
 method of healing, called at that time Mind 
 Cure ; and the next year I received my earliest 
 mental treatment, at the same time becoming 
 acquainted with the book written by Mrs. Mary 
 Baker Glover Eddy, called Science and Health, 
 with Key to the Scriptures. At once I found 
 myself spiritually enrolled as an active soldier 
 I trust, on the right side in a warfare be- 
 tween mental forces whose very existence had 
 heretofore been to me a sealed book. 
 
 HEREDITY. 
 
 MY parents were numbered among progress- 
 ive Unitarians and prominent Aboli- 
 tionists, and I was also akin to other advanced 
 educational and moral thinkers ; so that I heard 
 
 5 
 
religious and philanthropic topics constantly 
 discussed, not infrequently by men and women, 
 bearing names now household words in New 
 England, who were leading reformers in the 
 middle of the nineteenth century, and were fre- 
 quent guests in my childhood's home. Though 
 often beyond her comprehension, their ideas ex- 
 erted a marked influence on the future of one 
 juvenile listener. 
 
 Edwin Battles was my father, and Josephine 
 Curtis my mother ; and we lived in Milford, a 
 large manufacturing town in the heart of Mas- 
 sachusetts, where party feeling ran high in pro- 
 slavery sympathy with the rebellious Southern 
 States ; yet the harboring of a contraband be- 
 neath the parental roof did not intimidate me, 
 and I remember asking the privilege of a ride, 
 in the same carriage with my father and a negro, 
 to a political meeting. " Shots may be fired at 
 us in the dark," was the paternal warning ; but 
 the little daughter had her way. 
 
 Thus learning to love justice, right, harmony, 
 and to practice self-sacrifice, there was fostered 
 within me an ambition to be of some use in the 
 world. 
 
 Through the family instrumentality a Unita- 
 rian Society was started, meetings being held 
 in a small and barren hall, devoid of the custom- 
 6 
 
ary worshipful paraphernalia ; and this brought 
 upon my devoted head the jeers of schoolmates, 
 and the distrust of the master, whose sincere 
 though severe views were of a conservative 
 type which forbade his feeling any sympathy 
 with what is called Liberal Christianity. 
 
 When my father also initiated a town library, 
 and asked us children to aid its formative 
 nucleus with contributions of our favorite books, 
 the offering was cheerfully made, though I 
 could not bear to give up my Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin. 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 -. 
 
 THOUGH the youngest member of a large t 
 high-school class, at the early age of six- 
 teen I was graduated as poet and valedictorian, 
 with the added honor of being the only scholar 
 who had ever maintained one hundred percent of 
 attendance for the entire four years, never being 
 once absent, tardy, or even dismissed before the 
 close of a session. 
 
 In 1866 no boarding-school in the country 
 could boast a more famous group of instructors 
 than the seminary established at old Lexington, 
 by Dr. Dio Lewis, where I passed a most 
 valuable year. Among them were Torricelli, 
 7 
 
Grace Greenwood, Theodore Tilton, Catherine 
 Beecher, Thomas Niles, Bocher, Moses Coit 
 Tyler, Virginia Townsend, and Emma Lazarus. 
 The pupils were drawn from representative and 
 intelligent households in all parts of the country; 
 and one might name the Danas, Sharps, Chases, 
 Hills, Lincolns, Sewalls, Sargents, Tudors, two 
 daughters of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and a niece 
 of the poet Saxe. The real principal was the 
 bravely progressive Theodore D. Weld, assisted 
 by his wonderfully heroic and freedom-loving 
 wife, Angelina Grimk6 ; and chiefly from his 
 instructions I imbibed that fondness for meta- 
 physical study which became subsequently the 
 groundwork of my life-thought. 
 
 BLOSSOMING. 
 
 DURING the ensuing years of my earliest 
 womanhood African slavery was politi- 
 cally abolished, free-religious thought waxed 
 triumphant, corporal punishment in schools 
 largely gave place to moral suasion, and there 
 were signs of the incoming of a reign of peace- 
 ful goodness. In a word, it might be said, in 
 the language of Shakespeare : 
 
 Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
 Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops. 
 8 
 
Belonging to a race of men and women for 
 two centuries furnishing educators for the 
 public schools of the old Bay State, it was 
 almost inevitable that I should follow in their 
 footsteps, and for several years be a teacher in 
 Milford, Worcester, and Boston, beginning at 
 the immature age of seventeen ; and some par- 
 donable pride may be allowed in one first to 
 abandon, not only rattan and ferule, but every 
 other form of physical discipline. That this 
 was accomplished without detriment to success- 
 ful pedagogy, is shown by the fact that seven 
 rungs of the ladder led through as many higher 
 schools, and that my retirement, after three 
 years, was attended by the offer of still another 
 promotion. 
 
 WEDLOCK. 
 
 IN 1874 I was married to Edward Franklin 
 Woodbury, of Boston, certain particulars 
 of whose lineage may be germane to this narra- 
 tive ; for he can trace his descent through Gov- 
 ernor Thomas Dudley, of Massachusetts Bay, 
 the drapers Dudley, of London, the ten barons 
 of the same name, including in their line 
 Robert, Earl of Leicester, of Ken il worth fame, 
 back to such English sovereigns as the 
 Edwards, Henry First and Henry Third, John 
 9 
 
(of Magna Charta fame), and Alfred the Great ; 
 while another ancestral chain crosses the Chan- 
 nel to Henry the First of France, and so on to 
 Hugh Capet, the founder of the Capetian and 
 Bourbon line of monarchs, who held the French 
 throne many centuries, ending their actual 
 power only with the ultimate triumph of the 
 French Revolution, and still claiming the right 
 to reign. 
 
 On both sides Mr. Woodbury's progenitors 
 held offices in her towns, and fought in New 
 England's cause, eleven being soldiers in the 
 Revolutionary War; so that his sisters and 
 children, as well as himself, are eligible to 
 membership in the Governor Thomas Dudley 
 Family Association, and in the various societies 
 of the Revolution, Colonial Wars, and Colonial 
 Dames. 
 
 In this connection interesting passages may 
 be found in the Memoir of Honorable Levi 
 Woodbury, LL.D., printed in the New England 
 Historical and Genealogical Register ; the Hon- 
 orable Robert S. Rantoul's History of the 
 Ancient Family of Woodbury, printed in the 
 Historical Collections of Essex (Salem) Insti- 
 tute, Volume xxiv ; and in the Honorable 
 Charles Levi Woodbury's sketch of John Wood- 
 bury, an Old Planter of New England. 
 
 10 
 
Soon after the Pilgrims there came to these 
 shores the Puritans. Among them was this 
 John Woodbury ; and the Woodburys have ever 
 stood for integrity, justice, and religious breadth. 
 
 The Plymouth Church was organized in 
 Holland, before the sailing of the Mayflower; 
 so that the first church actually founded on the 
 New England shore was the one at Salem, to 
 which our Governors Thomas Dudley and Simon 
 Bradstreet once belonged. Says one writer: 
 
 As an original member, John Woodbury bore his share 
 in the building of the first meeting-house, and his descend- 
 ants have a birthright in its spiritual associations. 
 
 Such was John Woodbury's high standing, 
 that he was shortly afterwards sent back to the 
 mother country as a special envoy from colo- 
 nists interested in the Cape Ann settlements. 
 
 Subsequently dissensions arose, and in 1635, 
 though afterwards reflected to the magisterial 
 office, this same Mr. Woodbury was expelled 
 from the General Court, " ostensibly to punish 
 the free speech of his constituent freeman, but 
 really to repress the growth of religious tolera- 
 tion ; " and this founds a claim " to place him 
 among the pioneers of modern liberty." 
 
 John's son, Peter Woodbury, was a prominent 
 citizen of Salem at the close of the seventeenth 
 ii 
 
century, and noted for keeping fast horses, to 
 aid the escape of suspected witches from the 
 provincial jurisdiction. 
 
 Of a later descendant, the Honorable Levi 
 Woodbury, we read : 
 
 In the matter of religious liberty and toleration, won 
 in New Hampshire in 1819, after twenty years of conflict, 
 by repealing the power of towns to settle ministers, and 
 tax the minority for their support, when governor, he 
 avowed his adhesion to the new liberty. 
 
 Another John Woodbury, Frank's grandfa- 
 ther, enjoyed the full possession of his facul- 
 ties to the advanced age of ninety-six ; and he 
 entertained very broad religious views, being 
 excluded from the communion-table for stoutly 
 maintaining that there could be no such thing 
 as total depravity, since he had never found 
 anybody without sparks of goodness. 
 
 Of this man's son, Frank's father, as of my 
 own father, Mrs. Eddy could well say, as she 
 did at the wedding-reception of my brother, 
 Wendell Phillips Battles, in 1889: "They are 
 representative men of New England, standing 
 for ideas." As has been well suggested : 
 
 If there is nobility in descent, all the more indis- 
 pensable is it that there should be nobility of ascent. 
 
MORE LIGHT. 
 
 as yet no special line of helpful- 
 J- ness claimed my attention, there was a 
 heart-pain from the minor chord of human woe, 
 sounding through and beneath the world's life, 
 and not to be drowned by the steady march- 
 beats of human advancement. 
 
 Much suffering being my marital portion, 
 which even a husband's tender care could not 
 greatly alleviate, the problem of physical agony 
 at last seemed unsolvable. Youth's lofty pur- 
 poses to do and dare were fading in the dark- 
 ness and peril of protracted ill-health. Worn 
 out with bodily weakness and the constant ail- 
 ments of my children, disheartened by the 
 failure of various physicians to heal this frame, 
 and of religion to strengthen the soul, the 
 year 1880 found me anxious to be released by 
 death from a hopeless struggle, and it was at 
 this crisis Mrs. Eddy's book was first placed in 
 my hands. 
 
 Just then my boy was abandoned by our doc- 
 tor as hopelessly incurable with membranous 
 croup, a disease to which he had been subject 
 from birth ; and all night long I watched speech- 
 less at his bedside, as he rapidly sank under 
 the worst attack of his life. Happily a Scientist 
 13 
 
was boarding in the same house with ourselves, 
 and in the morning she came to my chamber- 
 door to say that it must be because I had read 
 a part of Science and Health already, that 
 Curtis was still breathing ; and she urged my 
 seeking help from a stronger healer than her- 
 self. I acted on her advice at once. At nine 
 o'clock, leaving the little fellow unconscious 
 and apparently dying, as he had been for hours, 
 thirty minutes later I returned from my call 
 upon the healer, to find him absolutely well, 
 gleeful, and wild with delight at his mother's 
 reappearance. 
 
 TREMBLING IN THE BALANCE. 
 
 SO little was mental healing yet understood, 
 that its practitioners were called Meta- 
 physicians, a name which even then seemed 
 a misnomer ; but I placed myself under this 
 treatment, and in six days was entirely relieved 
 of a difficulty of as many years' standing. In 
 Mrs. Eddy's book was discerned El Dorado, the 
 Golden Land of Promise, upon whose mountain- 
 peaks mortals had only to gaze, in order to be 
 healed. 
 
 In myself the result was wonderful. Youth- 
 ful hopes once more asserted their sway, with 
 visions of a glorious future ; but this enthusiasm 
 14 
 
was only temporary, for now was reached that 
 Slough of Despond which, sooner or later, en- 
 traps the feet of all Pilgrims of Progress in 
 Christian Science. Certain manifestations were 
 unaccountable on any rational theory. Persons 
 whom I persuaded to try this curative system 
 drifted into abnormal actions. Their state- 
 ments, sometimes written as well as spoken, 
 were startlingly contradictory. All was not 
 harmonious among healed and healers, and not 
 yet was reached the tabernacle of peace, wherein 
 a restored invalid might pass her time in serene 
 contemplation. 
 
 In my own " chambers of imagery " also there 
 was mental bewilderment. At one moment all 
 seemed surely good ; yet the next hour the feel- 
 ing supervened that wrong was the great ruler, 
 and that mankind might exclaim with Milton's 
 Satan, "Evil, be thou my Good." Over the 
 sky hung a subtle pall. Was there a vision of 
 the two wonders revealed by the angel of the 
 Apocalypse, the Serpent and the Woman ? 
 
 ANTAGONISM. 
 
 AS experience deepened, it became evident 
 that not only was there War in Heaven, 
 but that here was a call to be a warrior, though 
 15 
 
the recruit was ignorant how or what to fight. 
 Youthful training now made itself felt. Duty 
 called to exertion. If there were antagonistic 
 powers of good and evil, whose potency had not 
 heretofore been suspected, they must be inves- 
 tigated, both for one's own safety and the gen- 
 eral welfare, even at the cost of possible mar- 
 tyrdom ; but might not the plaudit Well Done ! 
 await the winner ? 
 
 EFFECTS. 
 
 DOING my best to convert my boarding- 
 house companions to the new faith, there 
 came one opportunity to forestall an epidemic 
 of fear. Two other children being stricken 
 with malignant chicken-pox, I was urged to 
 remove my little ones. Aforetime this behest 
 would have been heeded ; but no fear now 
 oppressed me, and the children stayed where 
 they were. Moreover, the alarm speedily sub- 
 sided, and no new cases broke out among us. 
 
 As yet an infant in Truth, I knew but one 
 Christian Science healer ; and she professed 
 strong opposition to all variants from the teach- 
 ings of Mrs. Eddy, and declared the methods 
 of these errant practitioners fraught with dan- 
 gers, against which it was necessary to guard 
 both one's self and one's patients. 
 16 
 
These revelations were so alarming that 
 finally our family sought refuge at the seaside ; 
 and, in connection with this removal, occurred 
 some unpleasant personal and business experi- 
 ences, causing a relapse from vigor into a pain- 
 ful illness, and well-nigh wrecking hope and 
 faith. 
 
 SUFFERING AND VICTORY. 
 
 OF course the real cause of these ailments 
 was not at once apparent, but coincident 
 with diligent search for their source, extraordi- 
 nary feelings arose. Great dread overcame me, 
 at times amounting to horror. Old physical 
 troubles resumed their dominion with twofold 
 tyranny. Despite the efforts of a Christian 
 Science healer, I grew steadily worse. Death 
 seemed so near that once, in the unconscious 
 night-watches, those about me summoned a 
 physician ; and after severe maternal peril I 
 rallied long enough to hear him say : " Nothing 
 can save her now but morphine, and that prom- 
 ises only a slight chance ! " 
 
 With superhuman strength I appealed to my 
 stricken husband : " O Frank, help me to cling 
 to God ! " and then locked my teeth and fainted. 
 Later I was assured that the few crumbs of 
 truth assimilated from Science and Health 
 17 
 
had been the sole rescuer ; for no morphine was 
 administered, and the medical attendant left 
 me with the conviction that there was little 
 hope, though the next morning happily found 
 me far on the road to recovery. 
 
 THE TRUE LEADER. 
 
 THESE events convinced me that a mo- 
 mentous spiritual battle impended ; but 
 on which side should one enlist, since different 
 leaders were contending for mastery ? The 
 name of the true leader was demanded, as well 
 as what issue was at stake. A Babel of voices 
 responded, but only one caught my inward ear, 
 a name already heard, and belonging to a 
 woman seen once in the year previous, when 
 she spoke in a "new tongue," not yet under- 
 stood by my heart. This was the authoress of 
 Science and Health, whom some called the 
 Mother of Christian Science. 
 
 In a few days after leaving my sick-bed I 
 determined to judge for myself, and sought 
 Mrs. Eddy in her Lynn residence. While 
 awaiting ^ her coming, in a large sunny parlor, I 
 scented the luxuriant plants in the window-seat ; 
 and of these we spoke, when she presently 
 greeted me with graceful courtesy. Then I 
 is 
 
repeated to her the details of my last illness, an 
 explanation of which, from a mental standpoint, 
 she most kindly offered me. 
 
 Surely here was an exalted leader, and I 
 dimly foresaw a prolonged contest, with 
 thoughts for weapons, against influences por- 
 tentous to the doughtiest heart. Moreover, the 
 antagonism was not between one life and 
 another, but arose within the circle of the 
 same individual life ; thus illustrating the words 
 of Paul, "their thoughts meanwhile accusing or 
 else excusing one another." Here was the 
 exponent of the Christian Science movement; 
 a woman ready, willing, able to "bruise the 
 Serpent's head ; " and perforce the opposite of 
 Christian Science must likewise have its per- 
 sonified purpose. 
 
 At this point my former helper was unable to 
 sustain me, inasmuch as the time had evidently 
 come for me to work out my " own salvation 
 with fear and trembling." 
 
 As soon as my acquaintanceship warranted, 
 Mrs. Eddy was invited to meet, at my home, 
 one of Boston's most eminent divines, who said 
 to her : " I have preached the living God for 
 forty years, but never felt His presence and 
 power as you do." He even invited her to 
 occupy his pulpit some Sunday, though this 
 19 
 
proposal never came to fruition. Of Mrs. 
 Eddy's volume he said : " It leavens all my ser- 
 mons ! " but he pursued his investigations no 
 further. 
 
 COLLEGE AND SORROW. 
 
 IN the spring of the next year, when Mrs. 
 Eddy's school was removed to Boston, it 
 was our privilege to assist in procuring its loca- 
 tion at 569 Columbus Avenue, a house she 
 vacated in 1883 for the one next door, num- 
 bered 571. 
 
 As a result of these relations, Mrs. Eddy 
 invited Mr. Woodbury and myself to enter her 
 primary class, at the reduced rate of a hundred 
 dollars each, one third of the regular price. 
 The course was to include ten evening lessons, 
 and to be attended by four couples beside our- 
 selves ; but the others speedily sought instruc- 
 tion elsewhere, for hardly had the lessons begun, 
 when Dr. Asa G. Eddy, our Teacher's husband, 
 fell violently ill, and the class was unavoidably 
 postponed. 
 
 In May the cloud lifted. Dr. Eddy was 
 better, and another class was formed, consisting 
 of five students ; but after a few lessons, still 
 glowing in my memory, he was again stricken, 
 and in a few days passed away. Here it may 
 
 20 
 
be noted that the demise of this peace-loving, 
 pioneer student, was by some attributed to 
 inimical mental influences. 
 
 Subsequently, in a conversation with my 
 father's old friend, Wendell Phillips, about 
 mental phenomena, I found that he regarded 
 mesmerism rather as pastime than fact ; but he 
 said he had read Science and Health with in- 
 terest and approval, and now extended his sym- 
 pathy to its author, a widow in her affliction; 
 but when besought to study the possibilities of 
 mental slavery he replied : 
 
 My child, no man can successfully identify himself with 
 but one crusade in a lifetime. My mission is well-nigh 
 ended ; for forty years I have held my life in God's hands, 
 to do with it as he willed; but you are started on a 
 warfare ending only with the millennium. The time is 
 not far distant when sickness will be considered as much a 
 mark of ignorance as sin now is. Put your shoulder to 
 the wheel, and never look back. 
 
 Counsel was next sought of a distinguished 
 clergyman, who said he had in his younger 
 days, for entertainment's sake, exercised mes- 
 meric power over a young lady, who suffered so 
 greatly therefrom that he had never again dared 
 exert this influence. Though unconvinced that 
 mesmerism could control unwilling subjects, he 
 regarded Christian Science as but a new form 
 
 21 
 
thereof, and consequently declined further in- 
 quiry into its merits. 
 
 My next call was upon a prominent minister, 
 greatly interested in psychical research ; but he 
 did not care to give special attention to the 
 matter, though afterward, through the press, he 
 argued against the possibility of mental death- 
 dealing, even while he did not deride mental 
 healing or mental influence in general. 
 
 ESTRANGEMENT. 
 
 A WALL now seemed to frame itself be- 
 tween Mrs. Eddy and myself ; for not 
 yet was learned by heart that Scripture proph- 
 ecy, "The serpent shall sting the bruising 
 heel ! " and various misunderstandings kept me 
 from her till the early fall of 1884. Though 
 feeling that she now preferred my absence, her 
 previous lessons held my thought, and guided 
 me anew into a sense of Almighty power. 
 
 w 
 
 DROWNING OVERCOME. 
 
 E were passing the summer at Hull, on 
 the Nantasket seacoast. One day I 
 was quietly sewing in the parlor of the Oregon 
 House, when in rushed the landlady, exclaim- 
 ing : " Your children are drowned ! " With an 
 
unwonted sense of power I went downstairs, 
 forced open the outer door against the wind's 
 fury, and confronted a drenched and almost 
 exhausted man, bearing in his seaweed-covered 
 arms my apparently lifeless children, Gwendo- 
 line, aged seven, and Curtis, a year younger. 
 Their saver was a guest at the hotel, the 
 father of a twelve-year-old lad who had led the 
 smaller children too far out on the unsafe pier, 
 but had saved himself as he saw them swept 
 away. 
 
 Receiving them in my arms I carried them 
 upstairs, and some ninety feet along the corri- 
 dor, laid them (dripping, limp, and purple) on 
 the bed, and locked the door. By the moment 
 I returned to the bedside, Gwendoline opened 
 her eyes. Taking Curtis in my arms I waited, 
 with no sense of death, but clinging with spirit- 
 ual tenacity to what rudiments of Christian 
 Science had taken possession of me. 
 
 In twenty minutes my boy's rosy lips and 
 cheeks were smiling into my face; and in an 
 hour I walked into the parlor, with a dry-clad 
 child grasping either hand, as if nothing had 
 happened. No disagreeable symptoms followed 
 the accident, though I was thereafter told that 
 Curtis sank thrice beneath the waves, before 
 his rescuer could reach him. 
 23 
 
This sign of the healing power of mind 
 brought me about forty people in Hull for treat- 
 ment, though some declared the whole affair an 
 outcome either of diabolism or delusion. 
 
 SYMPATHY AND PROGRESS. 
 
 AN appeal Heavenward had been answered 
 with a healing demonstration ; and as 
 soon as bewildering doubts were banished as to 
 Mrs. Eddy's mission, the way was open for 
 seeking her. It was plain that any misun- 
 derstanding or misrepresentation of Truth's 
 ambassador would obscure Deity as a present 
 help ; while appreciation of her motives, even 
 while her methods seemed obscure, would afford 
 sure access to the blessing of her impartations. 
 
 She received me with exquisite tenderness, 
 listening sympathetically to the tale of the 
 children's rescue, and a description of her stu- 
 dent's strait and thorny road. Her great 
 heart ached over each conflict, and rejoiced over 
 each triumph. She bade me not dwell upon the 
 past, except as it might redound to future profit, 
 and invited me into her new primary class, to 
 be held in November of that year, 1884. 
 
 Already I had been really among her disciples 
 five years, and can name no other student, still 
 24 
 
in the ranks, who was there when I entered 
 them, in 1879; but not till my second term in 
 her class-room did I join the Christian Scientist 
 Association, made up of the graduates of her 
 Metaphysical College. 
 
 TEMPTATION. 
 
 TO abide by the Teacher's supreme lessons 
 was no easy task, since it involved divid- 
 ing " the waters from the waters ; " that is, an 
 analysis of multitudinously surging thoughts, 
 and a conclusion as to their true source and 
 drift. Impulsions from Christian Science would 
 lead me to subjugate every human doubt, dread, 
 appetite, and passion ; for Truth guarantees to 
 the faithful a realization of the Bible promise, 
 " Thou shalt have dominion over all things ! " 
 whereas antagonistic promptings, stealing into 
 the fold of thought, like " wolves in sheep's 
 clothing," would be misleading as to Mrs. 
 Eddy's words and motives, and entice from 
 stern duty as by her inculcated. 
 
 In March, 1885, Mr. Woodbury went through 
 Mrs. Eddy's primary class, joined the Associa- 
 tion, and thenceforward became my warm sup- 
 porter and coworker, our Teacher declaring him 
 one of the best men she had ever taught, and 
 a natural Christian Scientist. 
 25 
 
NEW EFFORTS. 
 
 FROM this period also dates a connection 
 with the newly established Christian 
 Science Journal, a connection involving purse 
 and pen, and continuing until the magazine's 
 control passed into other hands. 
 
 After taking Mrs. Eddy's normal course, 
 in November, 1885, there opened profounder 
 knowledge of the possibilities of good, with a 
 corresponding appreciation of the maelstrom of 
 error. If the latent capabilities of righteous- 
 ness were awakened in the mind of students, 
 there was an equal liberation of mischievous 
 proclivities, demanding restraint ; a youthful 
 pupil being a tender fledgling, needing the pro- 
 tecting strength of motherly pinions. The 
 developing mind is like a field, new plowed 
 and planted, whose teeming fertility attracts 
 birds of prey, not from any wish for the good 
 seed, but from such antipathy as engenders 
 destructive aptitude. 
 
 It was a strange lesson, that the more good 
 a human life reflects, the more sin it encounters. 
 
 Specious falsehoods came uppermost, not only 
 by assertion, but by suggestion. If the Ser- 
 pent's sinuous wiles were not always noted, this 
 was no fault of my Teacher ; but it was difficult 
 26 
 
to remember there was flowing out from cor- 
 rupted human nature a steady stream of evil, 
 threatening to drown Truth's harbinger, as 
 foretold in the Revelation of St. John. 
 
 If Christian Science was so real, and sin so 
 unreal, why need so much time be required for 
 watching the python instead of the angel ? 
 
 WARNINGS. 
 
 THE pitfalls besetting un wariness were not 
 always shunned, and the Teacher's skill- 
 ful strength was oft needed for salvation. She 
 faithfully explained the machinations of sin ; 
 but what student ever accepted her teaching, 
 without mental reservation on this special point ? 
 Who has ever understood her thought, without 
 subsequent corroboration in the fiery furnace 
 or the claws of the dragon ? 
 
 In the sacred hours of the class-room, illu- 
 mined with the supernal light of revelation, did 
 we not bare our feet, like Moses before the bush 
 burning with holy fire ? When selfhood was 
 hushed, we saw the temple-veil rent asunder; 
 neither was Gehenna hidden from our aston- 
 ished gaze. Our Leader opened the door, that 
 we might, like the Revelator, have glimpses of 
 the awfulness latent in mortal mind. Upon our 
 27 
 
hearts rested a sacrament of extreme unction, 
 impelling us forth to fight the senses ; count- 
 ing not the cost of crucifixion, looking not back- 
 ward upon Gomorrah, pressing anew the bleeding 
 footprints of our past Master and our present 
 Mother. As to how we have kept "the faith 
 once delivered to the saints," each must answer 
 at Heaven's tribunal. 
 
 CLERGY. 
 
 ABOUT this time some of my benefited 
 patients urged my presentation of the 
 subject to their revered pastor, an acknowledged 
 spiritual leader in Boston, who was a distant 
 relative of my husband, through intermarriage 
 some two generations ago. This clergyman 
 refused even to hear Mrs. Eddy speak in a 
 friendly house ; and a similar refusal came from 
 an Orthodox preacher, whose wife and daughter 
 had been somewhat under the care of Christian 
 Scientists. Nevertheless there were present at 
 this gathering at least a hundred people, whose 
 questions Mrs. Eddy cordially answered, after 
 her formal lecture. 
 
 Perchance one of these ministers intended 
 the amende honorable, by later arranging for me 
 a private interview, at his house, with a very 
 28 
 
celebrated English divine, to whom it was a 
 privilege to present the subject. 
 
 SCHOOL-CHARTERS. 
 
 IN July, 1886, at the suggestion of Mrs. 
 Eddy, my charter for a Christian Science 
 school was obtained from the State of Massa- 
 chusetts ; and by her further advice, initiatory 
 measures were taken for establishing this school 
 at Lynn, in the very room where she had begun 
 her own work ; but this counsel was speedily 
 recalled because of opposition in that city. 
 Lawrence was then proposed as eligible ground, 
 but there the objectors were Christian Scien- 
 tists. " Evidently Boston is your proper field," 
 said the Teacher; and finally my school was 
 located in the newly erected Hotel Berkshire, 
 192 Dartmouth Street, where during the next 
 three years were graduated about one hundred 
 and fifty students. 
 
 Teaching was trying work, but complaints to 
 the Mother were silenced by her suggestion 
 that it was no more difficult for others than for 
 herself. There was the joy of converting 
 friends by Truth ; but this was counterbalanced 
 by the responsibility felt for one's graduates, 
 who not only found themselves struggling in a 
 29 
 
gulf stream of good and evil influence, but also 
 plunged their instructor into contrary psychic 
 currents. 
 
 GENERAL CONVENTION. 
 
 BOTH my husband and myself were selected 
 by Mrs. Eddy as delegates to the General 
 Christian Science Convention, held in New 
 York City in the February of 1886, and she 
 did Mr. Woodbury the further honor of sug- 
 gesting him as executive chairman ; a position 
 he declined in her favor, though remaining a 
 member of the committee. 
 
 As the National Association was now prop- 
 erly organized, I applied to the officers for a 
 charter under its rules, and forthwith formed 
 Students' Christian Scientist Association Num- 
 ber Three, the preceding numbers, one and two, 
 being assigned to associations instituted by two 
 members of the Charter Committee, though 
 our applications were simultaneous. 
 
 TRICKS AND TRAITS. 
 
 A SINGLE motive actuated my writings for 
 the Christian Science Journal, a dis- 
 position to testify to the sublimity of my 
 Teacher's impartments, and this motive rose 
 30 
 
supreme over all obstacles. When tergiversa- 
 tions were attempted and ignorance led astray, 
 when mistakes found their way into the 
 Journal itself, I fought " as one who beateth 
 the air," trying to fan away the virus of an 
 invisible vampire, though the favoring wind 
 was often defeated by misrepresentation. 
 
 There were times when our depleted regi- 
 ment seemed a forlorn hope ; nevertheless, the 
 recruiting-station was never closed, and our 
 Teacher valiantly grasped the dust-stained ban- 
 ner, and bore it heroically aloft, till there were 
 enlisted fresh Aarons and Hurs to uphold her 
 hands. 
 
 EDITORSHIP. 
 
 WHEN the acting editor of the Christian 
 Science Journal vacated her office, in 
 the closing weeks of 1885, the mantle fell on 
 my shoulders, though only for a brief season. 
 
 The management of the Journal professed 
 partiality for my contributions, and they were 
 generally wrung from heart's blood, shed in 
 passing through the Red Sea, from which I 
 emerged wounded, but thankful for the insight 
 as well as the deliverance, and yearning to save 
 others from similar misfortunes, by frank expli- 
 cations, which might touch their sensibilities 
 31 
 
and " renew their strength as eagles ; " though 
 this intent was often frustrated by suppression 
 and alteration, or by change of signature. 
 
 A BRIGHT BOOK. 
 
 IN 1886 there appeared in a San Francisco 
 paper, indorsed by the Association of 
 Evangelical clergy of that city, a severe on- 
 slaught upon Christian Science, based on Bible 
 grounds. Under Mrs. Eddy's approval this 
 diatribe was taken to an old acquaintance of my 
 father, the Rev. J. Henry Wiggin, a Unitarian 
 clergyman, no longer in harness. 
 
 Though not a convert to Christian Science, 
 he had done some literary work for us, and was 
 a firm believer in fair play ; so he wrote a 
 terse, apt, and logical reply, entitled Christian 
 Science and the Bible, by Phare Pleigh, a 
 brochure which attracted much attention and is 
 still sought by inquirers, its tenor being ex- 
 pressed in this postulate : " If Bible doctrines 
 and wonders be true, why not Christian Science, 
 which carries out those ideas, and aims to repro- 
 duce those marvels ? " On the titlepage in the 
 proof-sheets appeared my name as publisher, yet 
 when the book was issued, the name of Wood- 
 bury had given place to another. 
 32 
 
SUNDAY, WORK. 
 
 THOUGH always an attendant on public 
 worship, never did I become a church- 
 member till 1886, when I united with the 
 Church of Christ (Scientist) in Boston. With 
 this connection came another set of untoward 
 experiences ; but .there was no discord in the 
 home, for the same step was taken in Decem- 
 ber, 1888, not only by my husband, but also by 
 my daughter Gwendoline, only a dozen years old, 
 who was invited to membership by our pastor, 
 Mrs. Eddy, and had already received some 
 instruction in the college class. 
 
 From childhood a Sunday-school teacher, I 
 at one time aided Rev. Rush R. Shippen, in 
 Worcester ; and by him was recommended to 
 the South Congregational Church, Rev. Edward 
 Everett Hale's, when I removed to Boston; 
 whence another warm letter sent me to Rev. 
 Edward A. Horton's Sunday-school, in the 
 Second Church, situated in Copley Square. 
 This last place I resigned, after fully imbibing 
 Christian Science, though the pastor and the 
 superintendent heartily urged my continu- 
 ance. 
 
 It was therefore but natural that Mrs. Eddy 
 should ask me to continue in the same line, 
 33 
 
especially as it was partly to supply my own 
 needs that our Sunday-school in Checkering 
 Hall was begun. Having already perceived the 
 inconsistency of any other parochial connection 
 for a Christian Science family, my children had 
 been withdrawn from Mr. Horton's society; 
 though we missed the wonted and delightful 
 associations at such a school, and were anxious 
 to be in another. 
 
 My new Sunday class increased from four to 
 seventy-four in eight months ; but haunting 
 opposition so interfered that thrice I gave up 
 classes I had gathered ; though each time, 
 at Mrs. Eddy's kind urgency, renewing the 
 undertaking. 
 
 TOWARD THE RISING SUN. 
 
 WEARY, worn, and well-nigh broken- 
 hearted over the prospects of Chris- 
 tian Science in our city, I now decided upon 
 heeding the advice of the Teacher, and going 
 away from home for a season ; though during 
 thirteen years of wedlock my husband and my- 
 self had never been twenty-four hours apart. 
 Accordingly, in the May of 1887, I went to 
 Augusta, Maine. In November I again went 
 thither, and while there was requested, by Mrs. 
 34 
 
Eddy, to write a history of sundry infelicitous 
 experiences. 
 
 The following letter speaks for itself, and has 
 an important bearing on points to be hereafter 
 raised in connection with church organizations. 
 
 385 COMMONWEATH AVENUE, December 25, 1888. 
 To THE CHURCH AND ASSOCIATION OF CHRISTIAN 
 
 SCIENTISTS IN AUGUSTA, MAINE. 
 My dear brethren : On this Christmas morn let me 
 thank you for your labors in Christ's vineyard. Let me 
 send you assurance of the faith that lays hold of all our 
 hearts to-day, that "unto us a Child is born, and the 
 government shall be upon his shoulders ; and his name 
 shall be called Wonderful." Accept my Christmas greet- 
 ings. Accept my prayers. Press on. The Way is Truth 
 and Love. Walk in it. Affectionately yours, 
 
 M. B. G. EDDY. 
 
 Note this, that the Augusta church never 
 had a charter, never had a pastor, never was 
 organized ; so this letter and these facts are 
 alike symbolic. 
 
 CHURCH LOCATION. 
 
 A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE building was 
 now greatly needed in Boston, where 
 sectarianism shut us out from desirable halls. 
 That of the Young Men's Christian Association 
 was refused ; and President Walker was equally 
 35 
 
unwilling to admit us into the commodious 
 auditorium of the Massachusetts Institute of 
 Technology. 
 
 As a last resort was hired Chickering Hall, 
 at 153 Tremont Street, facing the Common, an 
 attractive hall, since transformed to other uses ; 
 though Mrs. Eddy steadfastly protested against 
 its lack of daylight. 
 
 After several students had unsuccessfully 
 tried to procure a suitable site for a new meet- 
 ing-house, she requested Mr. Woodbury to take 
 the matter in hand, which he did negotiating 
 the purchase from the Nathan Matthews family, 
 for about eleven thousand dollars, of the lot 
 whereon now stands the edifice completed in 
 1895. 
 
 In order to gratify her further wish for a 
 corner lot, Mr. Woodbury spent time and pains 
 in replotting the tract of land bounded by Nor- 
 way, Falmouth, and St. Paul Streets ; and then, 
 at considerable expense and her request, pre- 
 pared plans for the proposed building. Though 
 unpaid for his work, it was gratifying to receive 
 the following appreciative message from the 
 Teacher : " I invite you, my dear student, into 
 my class, without charge!" and Mr. Woodbury 
 accepted this offer, though finally paying the 
 price in full, with accruing interest. 
 36 
 
WESTWARD. 
 
 IN November, 1887, I was asked by Mrs. 
 Eddy to visit Colorado, especially the city 
 of Denver, where Christian Science had fallen 
 into some disrepute. Inexpressibly disheart- 
 ened by the presence of Achans in our camp, 
 pained by the obloquy besetting measures in 
 behalf of fellow-workers, having no caretaker 
 to leave with my children, and lacking both 
 courage and means, the mission was then de- 
 clined. 
 
 Two months later, however, the outlook 
 brightened, making me willing to leave Boston ; 
 so away I sped, towards the prairies. The trip 
 occupied a week, instead of the usual three 
 days, but not even my boots were removed 
 during that time. In Chicago the mercury 
 marked sixteen degrees below zero ; and the 
 cold steadily increased, till, beyond Omaha, we 
 plunged into a Dakota blizzard, since renowned 
 as the worst on record. The transit privations 
 need not be described, nor the opportunities for 
 aiding other travelers. 
 
 Perhaps to that storm, bringing me face to face 
 
 with death, is due a renewed awakening to the 
 
 depth of Truth. In a clearer light could now 
 
 be descried the cabals of the year preceding. 
 
 37 
 
Solemnly was a vow registered, to encounter 
 any amount of ignominy, if thereby our cause 
 might shake off the wolf clutching its throat. 
 
 In Denver the time was filled, night and day, 
 with healing and lecturing, besides teaching a 
 large class, in which were five married couples, 
 the husbands as anxious to learn as the wives, 
 which had not aforetime been the case in that 
 city ; and one of the leading dailies called at- 
 tention to the fact that the newly arrived Boston 
 disciple had actually induced some of the men 
 to study. Moreover, I was courteously offered 
 the press columns, through which to propagate 
 my religious views. 
 
 Alas ! on my return to Boston hope and 
 cheer were again lost, through most trying mis- 
 apprehensions concerning my recent journey. 
 
 A CELEBRATED CASE. 
 
 OF the Association's Publication Committee 
 I was in 1887 made chairman by Mrs. 
 Eddy. Ours was the unpleasant duty of keep- 
 ing track of press-attacks anywhere made upon 
 Christian Science, and meeting them, so far as 
 we were able, a task requiring the utmost 
 vigilance. 
 
 Evil designs were plainly discernible, and 
 38 
 
what was known as the West Medford case, of 
 Mrs. Corner, led to the withdrawal from our 
 ranks of some forty or fifty active members. 
 
 In May, 1888, by our Teacher's desire, I 
 became a member of the Christian Scientist 
 Publication Committee, under whose direction 
 our Journal was then issued ; but finding myself 
 never summoned to business meetings, and 
 demurring thereat, I was dropped from the 
 committee. 
 
 At this time Mrs. Eddy recommended Mr. 
 Woodbury as her best successor in the presi- 
 dency of the National Association ; but he was 
 not elected to the position. 
 
 THE GRANITE HILLS. 
 
 IN July I visited New Hampshire, and while 
 there was invited by the pastor to occupy 
 the Lisbon Orthodox Congregational pulpit on 
 a Sunday morning, he listening, in his family 
 pew, to my exposition of Christian Science, 
 an occurrence considered unique in the history 
 of our movement. 
 
 Thence I went to Mt. Washington, spoke a 
 word for Christian Science in the Tip-Top 
 House, and was glad to donate to that famous 
 hostelry some of the writings of our Leader. 
 39 
 
BAPTISMAL SCENE. 
 
 ON the last Sunday in February, 1888, was 
 held the only service of this sort ever 
 celebrated among us, the baptism of twenty- 
 nine children, including a few babes. No water 
 was used, but over each little one Mrs. Eddy 
 lifted her hands, pronouncing its name, and 
 these words : " May the baptism of Christ, with 
 the Holy Spirit, cleanse you from sin, sickness, 
 and death ! " Among these receiving the rite 
 were the two older Woodbury children. 
 
 A GOOD FIGHT. 
 
 IN June, 1888, at the meeting of the National 
 Association, at Chicago, there dawned upon 
 me revelations of a New Heaven and New 
 Earth. Boston students were waking to the 
 issues of the hour, though divided in opinion 
 as to whether they ought not to follow some 
 self-appointed Joshua ; but most students from 
 other sections were determined to abide by our 
 great Teacher, and it was my bounden and joy- 
 ful duty to side with this latter contingent. 
 Silence would have been my choice at this 
 gathering, but for our Teacher's request that I 
 speak for Boston. 
 
 At this convention Mrs. Eddy desired my 
 40 
 
membership of the Executive Committee, but 
 my husband was elected instead. 
 
 PROSPERITY. 
 
 T7NRAPTURED by our Teacher's glorious 
 -I-/ words and conquest in Chicago, the next 
 week found me in Montreal, for pioneer work 
 across the border, where I gained some forty 
 students, besides four others, who later were 
 persuaded to come to our primal inspirer. 
 
 Prosperity attended my Boston academy, 
 though watch and ward were needed over the 
 interests of the association growing out of it. 
 Spiritual sustenance was also indispensable for 
 my Denver adherents. Then there were occa- 
 sional trips to Augusta and Montreal, where 
 Christian Science labor was necessary. 
 
 To these duties must be added the almost 
 daily demand for a public word, the support of 
 our periodical, church, and parental association, 
 all making increased drafts on wallet and faith, 
 while domestic cares could be neither lightened 
 nor evaded ; but as every right-born child brings 
 love with it, so with each burden came divine 
 grace for its bearing, the laborer being calmed 
 by turmoil, uplifted by trials, sweetened by the 
 jewel of adversity ; such friction unwittingly 
 
 41 
 
elevating discipleship higher and higher, from 
 Gethsemane up the Mount of Olives, and even 
 towards the summit of Transfiguration. 
 
 While engaged with a Montreal class, in 1888, 
 came a summons to attend the only obstetric 
 class ever held by Mrs. Eddy, conjointly with 
 her adopted son, Dr. Foster-Eddy, his first 
 effort in this direction, and her second experience 
 with a helper in the class-room, changes which 
 marked a Christian Science epoch, and which 
 to me were the more gratefully helpful, because 
 the instructions were shared with my husband. 
 
 Cheered by the new inspiration I called my 
 own students together for a fresh course of six 
 lessons, and widened my extemporaneous public 
 efforts. 
 
 In March, 1889, my Teacher summoned me to 
 the last session of a primary class, in which 
 were six of my own students, who had, by my 
 advice, betaken themselves to the higher guide. 
 To the class also was invited my daughter, 
 though she was dismissed after the first lesson ; 
 Mrs. Eddy declaring this not a fit class for a 
 girl so young, though later telling Gwendoline's 
 mother that this one forenoon was all the child 
 then needed. Nevertheless, her quaffing this 
 solitary draft, direct from the fountain-head, has 
 been a great gratification to our household. 
 42 
 
ORGANIZATION. 
 
 AT this period the various normal students 
 were largely engaged in chartering and 
 founding branch churches in the order of 
 Christian Science. 
 
 I followed suit, though against my own 
 instincts, procuring a charter and organizing a 
 church in Montreal, Canada, the pastor whereof 
 was a student of Mrs. Eddy's ; but he preached 
 only a few weeks before a contrary breeze set 
 flying the danger-signals. Our Teacher ex- 
 plained that material churches were among 
 what the Book of Common Prayer calls "works 
 of supererogation " ; so this church was dis- 
 solved, that fact might not be lost in symbol. 
 
 FAMILIES ESTRANGED. 
 
 THE National Association of 1889 was held 
 on June n, in Cleveland, Ohio. 
 A bulwark was needed to stem the erotic 
 tide, favored in some quarters ; and moral 
 stamina was the more essential, because the 
 odium of increasing divorce and domestic alien- 
 ation, the land over, was often attributed to 
 Christian Science. 
 
 Certain patent domestic misfortunes among 
 mental workers naturally brought discredit 
 43 
 
upon Christian Science, and increased my 
 strenuous advocacy of the imperative integrity 
 of the home. 
 
 Some essays of mine, on this very subject, 
 were later rejected by the Christian Science 
 Journal, as not coming within its scope ; though 
 it ought here to be said that the manager of 
 this magazine at the time was a gentleman pos- 
 sibly better equipped for his post than any one 
 previously in charge, if we perhaps except the 
 Rev. J. Henry Wiggin, who never pretended to 
 imbibe the doctrines of Christian Science but 
 is always the friend of justice, and ever willing 
 to help earnest truth-seekers to express their 
 ideas clearly and effectively. 
 
 PULPIT SHADOWS. 
 
 ON July 15, 1889, came a notification, from 
 the church-clerk, that, at a special meet- 
 ing, when not present, I had been unanimously 
 requested to fill the Chickering Hall pulpit the 
 following Sunday, a proposition accepted, 
 after much protest on Mr. Woodbury's part, 
 on condition that the day's expenses solely 
 devolve upon me, and not upon a depleted 
 treasury ; but this entire plan was overturned by 
 a series of events hardly worth Christian men- 
 
 44 
 
tion. As one result, however, Mrs. Eddy wrote 
 me that so old a student in Christian Science 
 should no longer rely upon her personal advice, 
 but accept Infinite guidance. 
 
 In this dilemma, comfort came in the hus- 
 band's tonic words : " If your Teacher did not 
 know you could sustain the load, she would not 
 bind it on your conscience." 
 
 ACCIDENT AND DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 IN the midsummer of 1889 there were healing 
 and preaching to be done in Bangor. 
 Thence another visit was paid the Maine capi- 
 tal, where a class was interrupted by the news 
 that my husband, visiting with our boy in Man- 
 chester-by-the-Sea, on Cape Ann, had severely 
 injured his back by an outdoor fall. Unwilling 
 abruptly to forsake the higher duty of teaching, 
 class-lessons and public lectures were continued 
 a week later, when I rejoined Mr. Woodbury, 
 who meanwhile had returned to Boston, with no 
 unusual help beyond a friendly arm, and re- 
 sumed his office work, the ribs which had 
 been broken off near the spine, besides being 
 otherwise fractured having reset themselves, 
 without pain or surgery. 
 
 45 
 
CHANGE OF BASE. 
 
 IT was generally understood among Mrs. 
 Eddy's normal students, that they should 
 not themselves teach affluent or prominent 
 applicants, however worthy, but send them to 
 her college to quench their thirst ; and this we 
 gladly did. 
 
 While teaching in Bath, Maine, in August of 
 this same year, Mrs. Eddy published a notice in 
 the newspapers, stating that she had closed her 
 college. This notice was as follows, and can be 
 found in the September, 1889, issue of the 
 Christian Science Journal : 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS METAPHYSICAL COLLEGE: 
 NOTICE. 
 
 There are one hundred and sixty applications lying on 
 the desk before me for the primary class in the Massachu- 
 setts Metaphysical College, and I cannot do my best work 
 for a class that contains over one quarter of that number. 
 If all these should be taught, another large number would 
 be waiting for the same class, and the other three courses 
 delayed. 
 
 The work is more than one person can accomplish ; but 
 the demand is for my exclusive teaching, and dissatisfac- 
 tion with any other, which leaves me no other alternative 
 but to give up the whole thing. 
 
 Deeply regretting the disappointment this must occa- 
 sion, and with grateful acknowledgments to the public, 
 I now close my college. 
 
 (Signed) MARY BAKER G. EDDY. 
 
 46 
 
Of course this implied a complete change in 
 cooperative methods. Therefore, on the com- 
 pletion of my Bath lessons, September found 
 me at home, seeking no human counsel, but 
 assiduously praying for God's leadership in this 
 deviating highway. 
 
 The cross was indeed changed, but not light- 
 ened, nor set abloom with roses. Appeals for 
 instruction were coming from far and near, my 
 academy being the outcome, not only of familiar- 
 ity with Christian Science, but of an entire 
 life-work. 
 
 Much had been endured, both in my school's 
 incipiency, and in keeping it, through nearly 
 three years, in such pure accord with Divine 
 Science as brought it to a point beyond our 
 most sanguine expectations ; for prosperity had 
 been within a hand-grasp. The irksome task of 
 blazing the trees had been accomplished, leaving 
 a well-defined lane through the forest, with the 
 surety of a cordial welcome at the end. Now 
 this hope was ruthlessly shattered. 
 
 These worldly considerations, however, were 
 in nowise ingredients of my thought ; but the 
 anxiety to discern present duty, so that my 
 action should properly supplement my Teacher's. 
 Not without fear and trembling was the decision 
 reached to withdraw from renumerative work, 
 47 
 
retire personally into the background, and put 
 the Book (Science and Health) foremost ; but 
 this determination was at last made, and 
 promptly communicated to her, and to all others 
 whom it concerned. 
 
 From Mrs. Eddy no reply was at once re- 
 ceived ; but the next month she dissolved the 
 Christian Scientist Association. In October 
 she dissolved her college ; and in the November 
 following sent me an earnest letter, with a copy 
 of the resolutions by which this result was 
 achieved, and a request that I insert them in the 
 Boston dailies, a duty gladly performed. 
 
 ADRIFT FROM THE CHURCH. 
 
 THE next half-year was replete with hard- 
 ships. Consistently with the departure 
 from medicine, when we embraced the healing 
 doctrines of Science and Health, we now felt 
 that disconnection with every visible church 
 should be the outcome of disbelief in such or- 
 ganizations ; and this step was accordingly taken, 
 Mrs. Eddy being duly forewarned of our in- 
 tention ; nor did many weeks elapse before she 
 disbanded the Boston Church altogether, for 
 reasons stated in her previous withdrawal from 
 its pastorate. 
 
 4 8 
 
From the National Association we also with- 
 drew, Mrs. Eddy and the officers being properly 
 notified of our action. Whether these acts were 
 the outcome of untempered zeal on our part, or 
 were the response to a divine call, the future 
 history of the cause must disclose. 
 
 DISSOLUTION AND DISCIPLINE. 
 
 THE next step was the termination of my 
 academy, when its directors heard a 
 statement of the new condition and convictions. 
 Then the Woodbury academic association held 
 a meeting, and listened to an explanation as to 
 the extinction. Though with a few exceptions 
 faithful to my leadership, they voted to discon- 
 tinue their beloved society, and notify the 
 National Association of our charter's surrender ; 
 albeit the fact that no other schools or associa- 
 tions were given up seemed peculiar, as we had 
 never even dreamed of being the Teacher's 
 sole imitators. 
 
 Though often importuned to do so, never was 
 I presumptuous enough to teach any of Mrs. 
 Eddy's direct pupils, or in anywise interfere 
 with the rights of her other authorized graduates. 
 
 Practice and patience developed power in 
 silencing the jarring testimony of the physical 
 49 
 
senses, and apprehending ("laying hold upon ") 
 that by which, as Paul phrases it, " I am ap- 
 prehended " (or " laid hold upon "), the cross of 
 Christ. This was evinced by my little flock, 
 who decided to have no more Sunday preaching, 
 or even weekly meetings for religious discus- 
 sions, but to spend their sacred hours alone, in 
 communication with the Book and the Bible. 
 
 WITH THE LEADER. 
 
 IN January of the new year I enjoyed a visit 
 with my ever-beloved Teacher, who gave 
 comfort in these words, though they were not 
 at the moment received in their deeper import : 
 "Go home and be happy. Commit thy ways 
 unto the Lord. Trust Him, and He will bring 
 it to pass." 
 
 RENEWED MOTHERHOOD. 
 
 HERE this narrative approaches a crucial 
 point. On the morning of June 1 1, 1 890, 
 there was born to me a baby boy ; though, till 
 his sharp birth-cry saluted my ears, I had not 
 realized that prospective maternity was the 
 interpretation of preceding months of poignant 
 physical discomfort, not unreasonably attributed 
 50 
 
to other physiological causes and changes, 
 growing out of my age, and former reliance upon 
 medical opinion, pointing in the direction of 
 some fungoid formation. 
 
 Even the doctor, contemplating our unpre- 
 paredness, could not help an exclamation of 
 surprise ; though not the mother absorbed his 
 attention, but the child, with its wholesome 
 beauty and serene atmosphere. 
 
 An hour after the birth I rose and bathed. 
 In the afternoon I was up and dressed, and at 
 night dined with my tamily. The next day I 
 went out of doors, and every day thereafter, the 
 resumption of customary good health leading 
 me into the open air. We named our boy Prince 
 Woodbury, partly because he came into our 
 family as a veritable harbinger of peace. 
 
 BETHESDA. 
 
 AVOIDING the barbaric outburst of the 
 Fourth of July, we went, the day before, 
 to Ocean Point, for a Maine summering. 
 
 While there occurred the thought of baptiz- 
 ing little Prince, in a singularly beautiful salt 
 pool, whose rocky bottom was dry at low tide 
 and overflowing at high tide, but specially at- 
 tractive at mid tide, with its two feet of crystal 
 51 
 
water. A crowd of people had assembled on 
 the neighboring bluffs, when I brought him 
 from our cottage not far away, and laid him 
 three times prayerfully in the pool ; and when 
 he was lifted therefrom, they joined in a spon- 
 taneously appropriate hymn. While lying be- 
 neath the surface his baby eyes were open, and 
 smiling upward ; and this composure under 
 water continues unto this day, for he loves it as 
 his native element. 
 
 GROWTH IN GRACE. 
 
 r I ^HE isolation of our lonely retreat brought 
 A leisure for contemplation ; and motherly 
 feelings became potentially uplifting, my babe's 
 existence deepening my gaze into a world hith- 
 erto unknown. His loving outcry banished 
 pain ; and his tiny hand waved a sea of turbu- 
 lent thought-billows into a humbling sense of 
 peace. In solitary vigils, not so much the 
 Teacher, or messenger, as the teaching, or divine 
 message, absorbed my thought. 
 
 A new sense transfigured earth and sky. 
 Fearsome spectres faded in the light of celestial 
 dawn. Materiality resolved itself more abso- 
 lutely into subjectivity ; and mortal beliefs, for- 
 merly distinct as forms of ill-health, seemed 
 52 
 
fast melting into their native mist of nothing- 
 ness, described in the Genesis narrative. 
 
 STRAITS AND STRESS. 
 
 / r ~"*HRISTIAN Science work had sometimes 
 \*s. won me an income of several thou- 
 sand dollars a year ; but this revenue now 
 ceased. In giving up both teaching and heal- 
 ing, the cost was not uncounted ; though, just 
 before the change, debts had been incurred 
 with reference to future classes. Large sums, 
 due for services rendered, remain unpaid unto 
 this day ; but, after a brief season, worriment 
 was overcome by the consciousness of right 
 motives, and willingness to abide the divine 
 pleasure. 
 
 A strange posture of affairs ! None approved 
 my course, while many doubted my sanity, if 
 not my integrity. Was there no balm in Gilead, 
 to help a disciple whose future had but recently 
 been so brilliant ? Must her supplications be 
 vain in her extremity ? Oh God of the lonely, 
 come to others with comforting guidance, as to 
 one heart then Thou earnest. Feed them with 
 the manna of Principle ! Quench their thirst 
 at the wellspring of Love ! 
 
 Applicants for aid and instruction had to 
 53 
 
be turned away, money in hand. Though some 
 patient would indignantly exclaim, "She can 
 heal me in an hour, if she will let me see her ! " 
 yet, for nearly two years, every such dollar was 
 refused, while the constant exertion was to 
 conform my life to our Leader's last message. 
 
 During this interval, came occasional letters 
 from my Teacher, filled, as aforetime, with affec- 
 tionate counsel. In some way relief must 
 come, and so it did ; for, through unexpected 
 channels, providential aid flowed into the family 
 coffers. 
 
 NEW HOME AND WORK. 
 
 IN September, 1890, our return to Boston 
 found us in great need of a more commodi- 
 ous home, and, at my earnest solicitation, Mr. 
 Woodbury bought the house we subsequently 
 occupied, No. 412 Newbury Street, in range 
 with the one formerly occupied by our Teacher, 
 on Commonwealth Avenue. 
 
 With the New Year of 1891 came the con- 
 viction that healing and teaching were again in 
 order, though by no means under the old regime. 
 
 One by one fresh students appeared, till, in 
 the next five years, they outnumbered those of 
 my former academy. Usually my teaching- 
 price has been a hundred dollars for twelve 
 54 
 
lessons ; but for a year or two, at that period, it 
 was two hundred, twice the amount charged 
 by Mrs. Eddy's other students, save in a few 
 exceptional cases. 
 
 THE RENEWED CHURCH. 
 
 ON September 23, 1893, Mrs. Eddy reorgan- 
 ized her church. Not for another twelve- 
 month, however, did I try to mingle with her 
 students, but maintained the practice, acquired 
 during the few preceding years, of spending 
 worship-time with the Book, the Bible, and my 
 family. Though non-attendants at the Chris- 
 tian Science meetings, we espoused no other 
 doctrine, and convened no public meetings of 
 any sort ; nor did I meet my students socially 
 more than three times in five years ; inasmuch 
 as all their instructor possessed, her students 
 likewise possessed, God and the Word. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Eddy had removed her home 
 to Concord, N. H. There, in May, 1894, I was 
 told by her that she had felt the great need of 
 a church for the good of humanity. Under 
 these circumstances I naturally wished to help 
 her new organization ; but she said, in response 
 to several proposed plans, " Wait, and Love will 
 open the way." 
 
 Early in 1895, in accordance with her desire, 
 55 
 
expressed through the Christian Science Journal 
 and otherwise, I asked admission to the Mother 
 Church ; and the request was partially granted 
 in April, the petitioner being admitted on a pro- 
 bation of two years. Though hiring and occu- 
 pying a seat in the new meeting-house, dedi- 
 cated that winter, no cordial welcome or fellow- 
 ship greeted me ; and my uplifted voice met with 
 scant approval in the Friday evening conference. 
 
 SACRIFICE. 
 
 MY income from Christian Science in the 
 year 1894 had amounted to several thou- 
 sand dollars ; but now, as five years before, 
 monetary considerations were sacrificed upon 
 the shrine of Love. During 1895, and part of 
 1896, all applications for instruction, and most of 
 those for treatment, were turned aside, the 
 applicants being sent to 95 Falmouth Street, 
 Boston, the church-headquarters for Christian 
 Science healers and teachers. Moreover, I ad- 
 vised my students to seek union with the 
 Mother Church, and attend regularly its meet- 
 ings, when locality rendered this feasible, ad- 
 vice heartily accepted ; but, so far as I am in- 
 formed, no reply whatever was vouchsafed the 
 requests of my students or my daughter. On 
 56 
 
the contrary, all my recognized friends were cold- 
 shouldered, like their teacher. 
 
 At the Friday evening meeting, the last week 
 in October, 1895, 1 spoke virtually as follows : 
 
 Were I able to remember all the experiences given here 
 by honest hearts, I should have a treasure of pearls in- 
 deed ; but, though my memory may not wholly retain 
 them, they will exist in mind, and continue to do good. 
 
 We know how tenderly the Master took note of little 
 things, the widow's mite, the sparrow's fall, the very 
 hairs of our heads ; but that did not cause him to lose 
 sight of the greater demonstrations crowding his career. 
 It is well to offer our little gifts ; but surely, to this shrine, 
 we should also bring our best. All these testimonies go 
 to prove conclusively one point, that the leaves of the 
 Tree of Life are " for the healing of the nations." We, 
 who believe that this tree typifies Divine Science, and that 
 its leaves are the component thoughts of the One Mind 
 which is God, believe also that these leaves come reflected 
 as food for human thought in two ways : abstractly and 
 technically, through Science and Health ; but, vitally and 
 immanently, through the earth-life of one whom we love 
 to name the "Word made flesh," and dwelling among 
 us. 
 
 If the vignette of this woman, which has appeared on 
 the pages of history, does not glow as yet in all the beauty 
 of its spiritual outline, it may be on account of the many 
 crude and mediocre attempts (my own possibly among the 
 number) to reproduce it. The future will give its true 
 perspective. 
 
 And what of the other tree, the Tree of the Knowledge 
 of Good and Evil ! May its leaves not represent the sum 
 
 57 
 
total of the surging opinions, conceptions, delusions, laws, 
 and prophecies of mankind, ever since human nature 
 earned a history? and are not our mortal minds simply 
 bundles of these beliefs, bound, by ancestral cords, into 
 mental fagots, ready to be burned by the torch of Truth! 
 
 May we not feel that the healing is the action of the 
 leaves of the true tree upon the leaves of the false tree, an 
 influence which must go on till every error be destroyed ? 
 
 This brings me to a question so often asked, Do Chris- 
 tian Scientists give or take medicine? I answer, Yes, 
 daily and hourly. What is the medicine? The leaves of 
 the Tree of Life. It has been humorously said that Chris- 
 tian Scientists are the only class of physicians who dare 
 take their own physic, or to prescribe for their own 
 families ; and I know of no other remedy of which it can 
 be said, the more one takes of it, the better he is. 
 
 On the following Monday my name was 
 dropped from the membership roll, the official 
 notification specifying no charge ; nor was there 
 any citation before the church or its officers. 
 However, I was willing to be smitten on both 
 cheeks, and, with my children and students, con- 
 tinued to attend every service, until, early in Jan- 
 uary, the money paid for pew-hire in the church 
 was returned me by mail, with a notification that 
 no longer could our family be allowed to occupy 
 seats. But what of our previous monthly offer- 
 ings ? Were those former dollars less tainted 
 with heresy ? 
 
 In a letter from Mrs. Eddy to my husband 
 58 
 
and myself, dated January 28, 1896, was this 
 passage : 
 
 I did not know that a church-meeting was called, and a 
 vote taken to prevent your leasing seats in our Church. 
 Had I known such a movement was premeditated, I should 
 have objected to it. 
 
 On April 4, 1 896, I was formally notified, by 
 letter, that I had been "excommunicated for- 
 ever from the First Church of Christ, Scientist, 
 in Boston, Mass." 
 
 This excommunication was published in the 
 June, 1896, issue of the Christian Science Jour- 
 nal; and Mrs. Eddy, in a letter dated June n, 
 1896, wrote me that she had not advised the 
 excommunication, nor known of its publication 
 until she read it in the Journal ; and that she 
 had that day sent to Mr. William B. Johnson, 
 the clerk of the church, the following telegram : 
 
 I did not advise it, or know that you published Wood- 
 bury's excommunication, till reading it. Say and do noth- 
 ing more about her. 
 
 It is interesting to note that at the date of 
 this excommunication (April 4, 1896) I was 
 neither a member of the church, nor an appli- 
 cant for membership, had no seats in the edifice, 
 and had not attended service there for about 
 three months ; yet no reasons were adduced to 
 59 
 
justify the absurdity of excommunicating a 
 person not identified with the organization in 
 any particular. 
 
 THE TRUE VINE. 
 
 SO profound has been my trust in God's 
 healing method, as revealed through Chris- 
 tian Science, and so convincing the proofs 
 vouchsafed me, that never since 1880, have I 
 once turned for aid to material medicine, either 
 for myself, or any other member of the family. 
 
 Illnesses have sometimes assumed severe 
 forms ; but, with patience, hope, and courage, 
 I have clung to my mental system of thera- 
 peutics until health was restored. 
 
 The text-book, Science and Health, in all 
 these past years has been my daily companion, 
 adviser, friend, and inspirer. From its pages 
 comes strength to endure trials, resist tempta- 
 tions ; while consolation and calm float ever in 
 upon my sense, in such abundance that never 
 do my feet long to stray into any other fold 
 whatever, wherein sheep and shepherd attempt 
 to thrive by methods not prescribed in its 
 teachings. 
 
 GENEROSITY. 
 
 IN self-defence one thing should here be 
 declared, even though modesty forbids. 
 60 
 
During my years of effort in Christian 
 Science, not one, among the thousands apply- 
 ing to me for aid, has been turned away 
 because of poverty. The poor have been 
 always with me. More has been given than 
 received. In 1895 and 1896, through my 
 husband's ready help, I paid out three times 
 as much as I earned. 
 
 Partially, or wholly, he and I have clothed 
 and supported entire households. Loans have 
 remained unpaid ; and large sums have been 
 given to needy persons, sometimes exceeding a 
 thousand dollars to a single household. My 
 family has paid Mrs. Eddy the full amount re- 
 quired by her for our tuition; and I lavishly 
 aided the Church Building Fund, to forward the 
 purchase of the land upon which the Boston 
 edifice was afterwards erected. 
 
 Prior to the dissolution of the church, in 
 1889, I was one of the largest contributors 
 towards its running expenses. 
 
 I have been a liberal purchaser of Mrs. 
 Eddy's works, buying hundreds of copies of 
 Science and Health, which I began, years 
 ago, to supply gratis, not only to persons of 
 limited means, but to physicians, professors, 
 clergymen, schools, and public libraries. I pub- 
 lished, through the firm of Oliver Ditson & Co., 
 61 
 
and also sold, fifteen hundred copies of Mrs. 
 Eddy's hymn, Christ My Refuge, the net pro- 
 ceeds swelling the Church Building Fund. 
 
 From its outset I adopted the Christian 
 Science Journal into my heart, and labored for 
 it assiduously, increasing its list of readers by 
 hundreds, though this involved the payment, by 
 myself, of many a subscription. 
 
 I obtained for its columns the advertisements 
 of leading business firms, and this at a time 
 when funds were much needed. By my unaided 
 efforts, copies of the magazine were each month 
 placed on sale at every railroad station and 
 leading bookstore in Boston ; and my notice of 
 the contents of each issue was published in 
 several leading Boston papers. I bought and 
 circulated a hundred or two copies of each 
 Journal; and once, when there was a special 
 need, I purchased five hundred copies, for dis- 
 tribution broadcast over the country. 
 
 During the years in which I thus held a 
 laboring oar, I was happy in the work, for the 
 waif was well-nigh friendless ; and even though 
 I knew such arduous duties might not always 
 be needed, there was joy in working, as one 
 should pray, in the closet. 
 
 Many persons applying for instructions I 
 have advised to study with another Christian 
 62 
 
Science instructor, a course involving the loss 
 of dollars by the hundreds. 
 
 Lessons and treatment have been offered and 
 bestowed without charge. Families of several 
 members have been taught for a single fee ; and 
 whole classes have been instructed without a 
 penny's return, an example not, to my knowl- 
 edge, repeated by any other Christian Scientist. 
 In February, 1896, thirty-three pupils were thus 
 taught, the course requiring a fortnight. 
 
 Furniture and house-rent have been contrib- 
 uted freely to kinsfolk and students stranded 
 by misfortune. 
 
 In fact, so far from being mercenary, my 
 almsgiving has often been beyond my means; 
 though in many instances the charity has appar- 
 ently been wasted ; for I have learned to know, 
 with an old writer, that " there are some who 
 bear a grudge, even to those who do them good." 
 
 "Let not your left hand know what the right 
 hand doeth " is the Lord's command and Chris- 
 tian reluctance has heretofore precluded the 
 avowal of facts, now referred to, only because 
 circumstances so demand ; and it is hoped these 
 statements will not be misunderstood by those 
 whose opinion I value, especially students who 
 have so abundantly assisted me with their own 
 benefactions to those in want. 
 63 
 
Moreover, my delight in spreading what to 
 me was the Gospel, has been an incentive to my 
 husband's steady aid in this direction, when my 
 own receipts were too meagre. 
 
 ERRANT MISSIVES. 
 
 GREAT errors oft from little causes spring. 
 Gail Hamilton once wrote a pungent 
 essay on the Total Depravity of Inanimate 
 Things. 
 
 To such depravity may perchance be laid the 
 miscarriage of important letters to Mrs. Eddy, 
 and from her to me, some of which are referred 
 to in this narrative, which have not been returned 
 from the dead-letter office, yet are reported as 
 never reaching their proper destination. 
 
 STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS. 
 
 IN my curative methods, no thought-influence 
 has ever been brought to bear upon a 
 patient or student, that might not be proclaimed 
 to the four winds of the compass ; and rarely do 
 I use the silent argument in preference to the 
 spoken or written word, because open treatment 
 vastly lessens the possibility of misapprehension 
 on the part of the recipient. 
 
 The Golden Rule is, and always has been, the 
 keynote of genuine Christian Science. 
 6 4 
 
CREDO. 
 
 I BELIEVE that God, in Jesus His Christ, 
 manifests Life Eternal, whereby mortals 
 may be delivered from all evil ; as is demon- 
 strated in Science and Health, a digest of faith 
 and practical holiness, born of its author's 
 human experience, yet leading to present and 
 future salvation, physical, mental, and moral; 
 though heavenliness is oft hindered by cunning 
 thought-transferrence, developing intolerant 
 vagaries, liable to deceive the unwary, by charg- 
 ing its own malice upon the heart-purity of 
 others. 
 
 POSTLUDE. 
 
 ANGEL of Mercy, beseeching Heaven with 
 the wail of breaking hearts, didst note 
 the lonely night-vigils ? Sawest thou the white 
 impulses which burst from a bruised spirit, but 
 were pressed back to the aching sense as seduc- 
 tively demoniacal, and labeled Anathema Mara- 
 natha, cursed of God and man? Didst thou 
 convert them into balm for every wound ? 
 
 When before the all-seeing Eye each character 
 page is revealed, 
 
 When the sun grows cold, and the stars are old, 
 And the leaves of the judgment book unfold, 
 
 then shall it appear what manner of woman this 
 
 was, who loved from the beginning unto the end. 
 
 65 
 
MY TENETS SINCE 1879. 
 
 THERE is a special revelation of Truth 
 for the nineteenth century. In Jesus 
 the Christ, Infinite Mind opens to humanity 
 or rather in humanity, a well of salvation, en- 
 abling mortals, while still in the flesh, " to be 
 absent from the body and present with the 
 Lord." 
 
 This way of salvation is now known as 
 Christian Science, caught first as an idea, but 
 subsequently taught as a healing system, sure 
 to result in holiness, or wholeness, of intellect, 
 body, and soul by Mary Baker Eddy, its 
 highest human exponent, in her Science and 
 Health, a volume inspired of God, in so far 
 as it sets forth Deific Principle as the rule of 
 faith and practice, needful for the daily and 
 everlasting health and purity and happiness 
 of the human race. 
 
 This book is the scientifically spiritual inter- 
 pretation of the Holy Scriptures ; but to un- 
 derstand it aright, one must find therein the 
 outgrowth of its author's varied human experi- 
 ences. 
 
 As light both has and implies its correlative 
 darkness, so spiritual life has its antagonistic 
 corruption, acting through subtly malicious hyp- 
 notism, the more dangerous because unseen 
 66 
 
to the mortal eye, and little understood, run- 
 ning into bigoted persecution, yet wearing 
 a lamblike garb calculated to "deceive the 
 very elect, putting on the livery of heaven to 
 serve the devil in," and so confusing good and 
 evil, not only in the minds of the thoughtless, 
 but of the thoughtful also, leading them to 
 such a suspicion of others' motives, even in 
 good actions, as the Saviour once character- 
 ized as the unpardonable sin against the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 Throughout the career of Christian Science 
 this enemy has made its presence " a darkness 
 that maybe felt," and needing right and search- 
 ing analysis for its detection and defeat. 
 
 My own teachings and writings in the Chris- 
 tian Science Journal and other periodicals, in 
 prose and poetry, have rung out no uncertain 
 peal on this subject ; and the aspersion of 
 hypnotism attached to my name is part of the 
 stigma to be borne for trying to unstop the 
 ears of the deaf to this evil ; for if the writer 
 has erred in this line, it is by trying to unmask 
 mental malpractice, never by conniving there- 
 with or indulging therein. 
 
 Not only do serpents poison the crushing 
 heel, but ingratitude stings the beneficent 
 hand ; and I have a right to resent the im- 
 67 
 
putation of evil motives to one whose faults 
 lie in the direction of generosity; but who 
 patiently awaits the verdict of the future, 
 which must sanction her exertions with the 
 signet of Christendom. 
 
 68 
 
First printed in The Outlook, New York, May 26, l8q4. 
 
 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 
 
 THIRTY years ago, above the horizon 
 loomed a new idea. In her text-book, 
 Science and Health, the discoverer gives the 
 date of this idea's advent into her consciousness 
 as 1866 ; its publication being copyrighted later. 
 
 Subsequent to Apostolic days, I find no 
 previous record of such a healing method. In- 
 stances abound of saintly exemption from unto- 
 ward fleshly conditions ; this immunity being 
 attributable to stoical philosophy or exalted 
 faith, operating by a process apparently in- 
 communicable to others, and not analyzable in 
 the crucible of cause and effect, but regarded 
 as specially personal dispensations. 
 
 New Testament wonders are pronounced 
 mere proofs of Messiahship ; and to hope for 
 their repetition, even on a smaller scale, is con- 
 sidered blasphemous. Christian Science asks 
 if all the Saviour's manifestations may not have 
 been rooted in his sense of infinite Love, where- 
 by he strove to teach others his healing rules, 
 which God would confirm by signs following. 
 In his name should they drink poison unharmed, 
 and heal the sick. The worst devils were wolves 
 in sheep's clothing, wizards making merchandise 
 69 
 
of Truth, false Messiahs prophesying lies ; but 
 these demons were expelled, and Jesus there- 
 after affirmed, " I beheld Satan as lightning fall 
 from Heaven." Christian Science shows how 
 mortals, while still in the flesh, may abolish the 
 claims and ills thereof. Obeying the ethical 
 law, in thought as well as deed, believers under- 
 stand that Christ's crown was won at the close 
 of his earthly career; that, as Jesus left no 
 corpse for worms, a similar triumph should 
 grace perfect manhood. As, after Jesus' burial, 
 he talked, ate, grieved, Christian Science de- 
 clares this condition to be an important element 
 in his God-sent demonstration. In our great 
 exemplar we do not find death involving cessa- 
 tion from human emotions, nor can we infer 
 that our common death-experience is like his. 
 
 None of us die and rise like Jesus, who did 
 not regard Heaven as the outcome of death, but 
 death as the last enemy to be overcome. Ac- 
 cording to Christian Science, the Master's 
 miracles are as orderly and interdependent as 
 mathematical axioms, steps upward from 
 fleshly control ; but they are not vicariously 
 profitable. We must tread the wine-press for 
 ourselves, and every step must be taken in 
 sequence. The first is honest thought ; the 
 second, moral courage ; the third, unselfish pur- 
 70 
 
pose. Then the way is open toward that eleva- 
 tion of sense arising from the contrite heart ; 
 but if we reject the Christly foundation-stone, we 
 build on sand. 
 
 Like Peter, some Scientists may think they 
 can now walk on the sea, because Jesus once did 
 so ; that, if he forsook the tomb, they need never 
 enter it ; but the thirty-third Masonic degree is 
 not conferred before its thirty-two predecessors. 
 
 Our world sneers when practitioners fail ; but 
 ancient scoffers derided Christ's success. Popu- 
 lar religion inculcates a hope of immortality, 
 but leaves man horribly uncertain about his 
 body, dismayed by the yawning grave. How 
 different Jesus' victory ! 
 
 Christian Science says, " Be Christlike, and 
 ye, too, may authoritatively rebuke disease ! " as- 
 suring us that we may outgrow a legion of evils. 
 
 Could the Magdalen convey her salvation to 
 other sufferers, or must each apply individually 
 to Jesus ? If the latter, small hope is there for 
 such as never beheld him corporeally. 
 
 It seems reasonable that one immaculately 
 born could heal others of sin and disease ; but 
 if Christian Science, discerned by one ordinarily 
 begotten, can rise to equally saving heights, 
 may not this suggest the greater works predicted 
 by Jesus ? 
 
 7' 
 
Understanding his own spiritual and physical 
 freedom, the Christian Scientist can impart the 
 knowledge to honest students. It is idle to 
 declare the present achievements of this healing 
 school too insignificant for respectful attention. 
 Ignorant and unprincipled adherents may trail 
 its standard in the dust, but wait ! The ring of 
 genuine coin will vibrate in the listening ear. 
 
 The relation of mind with mind involves the 
 moral responsibility of each to all. That hack- 
 neyed phrase, "Mind over matter," implies 
 Job's sublime statement : " Yet in my flesh 
 shall I see God." Of another aphorism, "No 
 sensation in matter," the real meaning is : 
 There is no pleasure or success in wrong-doing, 
 present results to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 There are noble physicians and clergymen, 
 better fitted for royal healing-robes than many 
 who parade Christian Science diplomas. When 
 imminent death or sin, quickens the sharp cry 
 for aid, this may be the opening window for 
 divine strength. If in any Christian Scientist 
 there are increasingly regenerating signs, to 
 that shrine will come the famished, because the 
 wheat and oil are there. Beulah's richness once 
 gained, from its plenitude the needy may be 
 filled. 
 
 JOSEPHINE C. WOODBURY. 
 72 
 
WTIRSITT 
 
REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 THE WONDER IN HEAVEN. 
 
 A CHRISTMAS POEM 
 By JOSEPHINE CURTIS WOODBURY. 
 
 Illustrated by ERIC PAPE. 
 
 Press of SAMUEL USHER, Boston. 
 
 Brochure, $i.qo 
 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven. Rev. xii. I. 
 
 This is a Christmas poem by Mrs. Josephine C. Woodbury. It is a 
 short and striking piece of verse, only seven stanzas in length, and is 
 intended to show that the second coming of Christ is to be a great 
 blessing to the world. The writer affirms that science, when beheld 
 aright, is nature's creed, and that it is to have a large part in giving 
 us the light and earnest of the Christ that is to be. Mrs. Woodbury 
 says in the closing stanza : 
 
 " Transfigured Christ ! 
 Hail happy age, which yokes these twain 
 
 In bond divine, 
 Science and Truth, a wondrous reign. 
 
 This Christmas morn, 
 Earth's waiting watchers clearly see, 
 
 Sweet heralds bring 
 Earnest of Christ that is to be." 
 
 The special attraction of this poem, as here produced, is its artistic 
 form. It is illustrated by Mr. Eric Pape, who is one of the artists on 
 the Century, and whose skill in the pictures of the new biography of 
 Napoleon is notable. In this instance his work is of a different char- 
 acter, and one who studies it carefully will find that it has a marked 
 significance of its own. This little brochure, intended especially for 
 
ii REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 the holidays, and to be had in all the bookstores, is remarkable for its 
 chaste beauty. It is one of the most refined and attractive Christmas 
 presents which has been issued for this season. It is marked by a cer- 
 tain dignity of treatment which is as original as it is beautiful. The 
 full-page illustration of the Virgin Mother means something new in 
 this case, and the illuminated headpieces for each new stanza are a 
 subtle interpretation of the meaning of the poem. The artist and the 
 poet have worked together, and there is a subtle connection between 
 the woman's form, star-crowned, sun-clad, in the front part of the 
 poem and the concluding stanzas. There is something in this poem 
 which strikes a new note, and which will not be found out without 
 much study. Mrs. Woodbury has furnished the public with a Christ- 
 mas poem which is full of fresh meaning. Boston Sunday Herald. 
 
 From Rev. Minot J. Savage, D.D., Pastor of the Church of 
 the Messiah of New York. 
 
 I thank you for your beautiful and unique Christmas song The 
 Wonder in Heaven. Surely you see more than John saw ! The 
 "Advancing God" has advanced in 1800 years; and the promise of 
 the future is glorious ! 
 
 A unique and exquisite Christmas poem. ... It is an artistic and 
 entirely beautiful rendering in verse of the spirit of the I2th chapter 
 of Revelation, illustrated with extraordinary charm. Boston Daily 
 Traveller. 
 
 ... A Christmas poem of a quite unusual kind ... is most attract- 
 ively illustrated. The Boston Budget. 
 
 . . . The little book makes a strong appeal to holiday buyers and 
 the illustrations are exquisitely drawn. Boston Transcript. 
 
 . . . The poem, which embodies an aspiration for a new and fuller 
 Christianity, wedding science and religion, is prettily conceived, and 
 for it Mr. Eric Pape has drawn a series of striking designs which are 
 both poetic and artistic to a high degree. It is novel and attractive. 
 Boston Journal. 
 
 . . . The poem is one of the peculiarly attractive novelties in Christ- 
 mas literature this season. The poem is fine in sentiment and imagery, 
 and Mr. Pape's embellishments are charming. The Beacon. 
 
REVIEWS AND NOTICES. iii 
 
 ... It is published in a neat and attractive form,, with fine illus- 
 trations. Boston Daily Globe. 
 
 One of the most artistic offerings of the season. . . . Nothing more 
 refined in design and detail has been presented here, and the pictures 
 show unusual imaginative power in conception and rare art in execution. 
 
 Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 ... A poem of seven verses, which is prettily and delicately illus- 
 trated . . . such poems have echoed down through the ages, and at this 
 holy time they ever fall on listening ears and ever stir the inner soul of 
 man. Boston Post. 
 
 . . . The brochure is most daintily prepared, and is finely illustrated. 
 
 The Portland Sunday Times. 
 
 ... Is one of the prettiest of the holiday books. . . . The illustra- 
 tions are exquisitely done and the whole is elegantly printed on fine 
 paper. Portland Daily Press. 
 
 A very unique book. . . . The verses are spirited and poetic; and 
 their charm is enhanced by the initial letters, each containing a thought- 
 suggestive bit of picturing. American Art Journal. 
 
 ... It is a thoughtful poem, in excellent form, with a daintiness of 
 white margin and illustration that must make it attractive for the holi- 
 days. The Christian Leader. 
 
 . . . Not only is this poem in itself a literary gem, but it is published 
 in an artistic form entirely outside of conventional forms. . . . It is a 
 poem that possesses a permanent value and while entirely unassuming 
 is in fact one of the notable verse contributions to American literature. 
 
 Daily Kennebec Journal. 
 
iv REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 WAR IN HEAVEN. 
 
 Sixteen Years' Experience in Christian Science. 
 
 By JOSEPHINE CURTIS WOODBURY. 
 
 Press of SAMUEL USHER, Boston. 
 Third Edition, revised, with additions. i6mo. 50 cts. 
 
 And there ivas war in heaven. Rev. xii. 7. 8. 
 
 Lowell said: "The only faith that wears well and holds its color in 
 all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp 
 mordant of experience." This motto Mrs. Josephine Curtis Woodbury 
 uses in her pamphlet, " War in Heaven," wherein she tells of sixteen 
 years' experience in Christian Science and mind healing. 
 
 At this advanced stage in the development of thought and learning 
 it is the narrow-minded only who cavil at creeds. Every man has a 
 right to his own belief, and so long as his life and his deeds are such 
 that he may claim for his belief that it is just and true, his neighbors 
 should not deny him that privilege. . . . 
 
 Like all followers of advanced thought and action, Mrs. Woodbury 
 has been surrounded by those who have charged her with motives other 
 than she professed, even stating that she employed mental powers 
 inimical to the welfare of her followers or students. Mercenary motives, 
 too, have also been laid at her door. All these charges are answered 
 in her pamphlet. . . . 
 
 All broad-minded people to-day, whether in the medical profession 
 or not, admit that there is much to be said in favor of the mind as a 
 healing and saving power; and though all may not agree with Mrs. 
 Woodbury entirely, her words should carry some weight after her long 
 experience. Boston Sitnday Post. 
 
 " War in Heaven " : This is the title of a pamphlet by Mrs. Josephine 
 Curtis (Battles) Woodbury, who writes after sixteen years of experience 
 
REVIEWS AND NOTICES. v 
 
 in what is known as Christian Science, a healing method which includes 
 the cure of sin as essential to the salvation of mankind from disease; 
 and contends that the day of this line of Bible wonders is not past. 
 Mrs. Woodbury belongs to a race of reformatory thinkers, and cleaves 
 to these medical doctrines, whose origin she attributes to Mrs. Eddy, 
 known in Lynn and Boston for years as a teacher of a mental System 
 of healing. The name of Mrs. Woodbury's pamphlet suggests the 
 alienation between herself and her former associates, which she is in- 
 clined to lay at the door of inimical mental forces, which bringing 
 trouble upon honest wprkers, seeking to divide those who ought to 
 labor in unison, impute evil motives to earnest thinkers and healers. 
 Throughout her affiliation with this cause she has not only maintained 
 her faith in Christian Science, but wrought with her pen in its behalf. 
 
 In this brochure she tells an open tale of her personal experience 
 in the realm of hygienic metaphysics, and her encounters with thought- 
 transference both salubrious and insalubrious. 
 
 That there is in mind-cure a fragment of fact is unquestionable, 
 whether we spell " Mind " with or without a capital; and if once its 
 nonsensical barnacles are scraped away it may become of practical 
 value to mankind. No theology prospers without a devil. At first 
 Christian Science had no Satan, as it denied the very existence of evil; 
 for how can there be a devil where there is no deviltry ? This philos- 
 ophy of the nonentity of sin it still maintains, but has found its Satan 
 in hypnotism, so that it may fittingly be named Hypnotus. The pam- 
 phlet is published by Samuel Usher, and will IDC read with special inter- 
 est by all who are interested in the subject of mental healing. Boston 
 Transcript. 
 
 . . . The book will doubtless prove very satisfactory reading to those 
 who are interested in the subject, and who are anxious to discover the 
 reasons that led the author from doubt into certainty. Saturday 
 Evening Gazette. 
 
 . . . There is much in the book which seems marvelous even to the 
 Christian Scientist. Boston Journal. 
 
 . . . The book is published in answer to many charges that have 
 been brought. Portland Evening Express. 
 
 . . . The narrative is straightforward and rather entertaining from its 
 apparent frankness and personal allusions to the many interesting inci- 
 dents in Mrs. Woodbury's professional work. Bangor Commercial. 
 
vi REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 . . . Persons interested in Christian Science will probably find in the 
 little pamphlet matters of moment. It might have been of immense 
 value as a human document if the author had written out in full circum- 
 stance the history of the cabals in the association, at which she con- 
 stantly hints. Boston Herald. 
 
 " War in Heaven " : This is the title taken from the book of Reve- 
 lation, of a little work recently published by Josephine Curtis Wood- 
 bury. Its author probably intends through its pages to refute with 
 facts certain startling statements circulated in connection with herself 
 and Christian Science. She relates her experiences (both agreeable 
 and untoward) in an earnest, candid manner, and one gathers from this 
 little book a strong conviction that Mrs. Mary Eddy has very few be- 
 lievers who accord to her so scientific a place in the world's history as 
 does Mrs. Woodbury. 
 
 The book states that its author, through fhe help gained from Science 
 and Health, has not once found it necessary, during sixteen years, to 
 turn to materia medica for relief for herself or family. 
 
 There is no denial in the book that there has been factional spirit, 
 jealousy, and schismatic action amongst Mrs. Eddy's followers, but Mrs. 
 Woodbury seems to attribute all this to the influence of mental forces, 
 hypnotic in their nature, misleading in their intent, and whose influence 
 is inevitable until genuine Christian Science is enthroned. 
 
 The book has already had a wide sale and has reached its third 
 edition. Maiden Mirror. 
 
REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 ECHOES. 
 
 JiL. BOOK! OIF 
 
 By JOSEPHINE CURTIS WOODBURY. 
 
 Decorated by ERIC PAPE. 
 
 Published in New York and London by G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 
 New York : 27 West 23d Street. London : 24 Bedford St., Strand. 
 
 Sumptuous Decorations by ERIC PAPE. 
 
 Initial Letters designed by ALICE PAPE. 
 
 Decorations, including cover designs, reproduced by Messrs. BOUSSOD, 
 VALADON & CIE., Succrs. de Goupil & Cie., Paris, France. 
 
 Large 8vo. Gilt top. $2.50 
 
 REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 From Dean, Very Rev. F. Wm. Farrar, D.D., Canterbury, 
 
 England. 
 
 Accept sincere thanks for your beautiful book, which I received with 
 great pleasure. . . . 
 
 From Rev. Edward A. Horton, President and Executive Agent 
 
 of the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, and President 
 
 of the Unitarian Sunday-School Society, of Boston. 
 
 High thought and rare art have jointly produced this beautiful volume; 
 the pages are rich with spiritual poems and fascinating illustrations. 
 
 Mrs. Woodbury clusters in lovely array mental visions and inspiring 
 interpretations; she reproduces moods and the traveler's rapt medita- 
 tions; she also sings of great truths and deathless principles. Her 
 stanzas blend the bright and earnest phases of existence. 
 
 In perfect tune is the artist with the author's strains. Mr. Pape re- 
 veals new fertility of design, and gives abounding proof of originality. 
 His embodiments are in the mould of exceptional excellence; not only 
 do they vividly represent the author's ideas, but stir the reader's slum- 
 bering poetry by unexpected suggestions. The entire series is remark- 
 able. 
 
viii REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 There is a completeness everywhere through the work, shown in the 
 exquisite taste of the initial letters, prepared by Alice Pape, and found 
 in the spacious page, gleaming sheet, and ample type. 
 
 The soul of things, the genius of places, the transcendental patterns, 
 are tokened in this book, and through the gateway of the picture 
 and the poem the reader enters into feelings of peace, power, and 
 prophecy. 
 
 From Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D.D., Pastor of the First 
 Church of Cambridge. 
 
 . . . The book is interesting both within and without. The verses 
 are very graceful and pleasing. The thought is good and happily ex- 
 pressed. I am quite sure that to any quiet reader the poems would 
 make the world seem more attractive, more full of good and happy 
 things, and make life more simple and true. 
 
 I have great faith in keeping close to nature. Science is nothing but 
 the knowledge of the way in which God works, and whatever keeps the 
 thought of this constant is of good. . . . 
 
 From Hezekiah Butterworth. 
 
 I thank you most cordially for the exquisite work of thought and art 
 with which you have favored me. I have rarely seen poetic gems so 
 rarely set; my own favorite would be the " Spring Song." The poems 
 in the lighter vein lose their ripple in the deep current of fuller feeling 
 which finds expression here. The book is a garden; I again thank you 
 for it; and especially for the true interpretation of life in "Cross 
 to Crown." 
 
 If I were to make any criticism, it is that the lighter poems should 
 have found place in a volume especially devoted to them. But the 
 book would not then have been a garden of the orchid and field flower. 
 
 From Mrs. Mary A. Livermore. 
 
 I have carefully read your volume of poems, and have greatly enjoyed 
 them. They are of different degrees of merit, as if some were written 
 under strong inspiration, and others were struck off under less powerful 
 impulse. But a spiritual tone pervades them, and all have a high moral 
 purpose. The religious character of the poems, even the least of them, 
 must be felt by all, and no one can fail to be impressed with the fact 
 that they are the breathings of a refined, lofty, and aspiring soul. 
 
REVIEWS AND NOTICES. ix 
 
 The book itself is a most beautiful specimen of typography, and its 
 mechanical execution is superb. You are to be congratulated on the 
 charming setting of your poems. 
 
 From Lilian Whiting, Author of " The World Beautiful." 
 
 The very beautiful book of your poems with the exquisite illustra- 
 tions by Mr. Pape, gives me pleasure and I return you most sincere 
 thanks. I never saw anything more perfect in the art of bookmaking 
 than this sumptuous volume. 
 
 From Mr. Arthur Howard Pickering. 
 
 I have seldom seen a more beautiful book than your " Echoes," as a 
 bit of bookmaking it is quite perfect, and Mr. Pape's illustrations are 
 very lovely and quite in his best vein. 
 
 You may both well be very proud of it. Your verses are always up- 
 lifting, and pure and noble in sentiment. 
 
 I especially care for " Niagara," " A Picture Gallery," and the 
 "Peasant Maid of Domremy"; those poems are noticeably character- 
 istic and original. 
 
 . . . These " Echoes," as heard by the author and transcribed, are, 
 with the exception of the last in the book, a part of the work of the 
 past ten years. The last poem, "Class Ode," was written when the 
 author was but sixteen and was valedictorian of her class. Some of 
 the verses were written during a recent journey in Europe, notably the 
 " Kenilvvorth," " A Roman Vision," and " Peasant Maid of Domremy." 
 The latter, as the title indicates, is a poem of Joan of Arc, whose char- 
 acter is evidently a favorite with the author. 
 
 . . . The poems cover a wide range of subjects. . . . Each poem 
 has its accompanying picture or pictures, and the artist has so caught 
 the spirit of the " Echoes" that great beauty and interest are added to 
 the volume. The frontispiece is particularly attractive. It is the 
 "recording angel" and her "unsealed book," partly illustrating the 
 Roman vision. Boston Sunday Post. 
 
 Among the masterpieces of the modern bookmaker's art is a collec- 
 tion of poems entitled " Echoes," by Josephine Curtis Woodbury, deco- 
 rated by Eric Pape. The full-page illustrations are marvels of delicate 
 beauty, and appeal to the artistic sense of the reader almost as power- 
 fully as the verses themselves. There seems to have been the most per- 
 
x REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 feet bond of sympathy between author and illustrator, and the result is 
 a book that will ornament any library to which it is added. The verses 
 breathe a religious fervor, but have withal a touch of human sentiment 
 as delicate and subtle as the aroma of a violet. One of the finest bits 
 of writing in the book is the " Peasant Maid of Domremy," a word 
 picture of Joan from shepherd's staff to martyr's stake. Boston Daily 
 Globe. 
 
 " Echoes " is a number of poems that are graceful in fancy and artistic 
 in expression. One or two of the poems might well be spared, but the 
 majority will be a pleasant surprise to Mrs. Woodbury's friends, for they 
 show thought, imagination, and tender feeling. The book is charmingly 
 printed, and the decorations by Eric Pape are not only cleverly drawn 
 and imagined, but they are integral portions of the poems that they 
 illustrate. The Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 Echoes. By Josephine Curtis (Battles) Woodbury. 
 
 This is a modest title-page for contents so rich in literary execution 
 and illustration in the best of the art. Our older readers have distinct 
 memories of Rev. Amory Battles, so long our Bangor pastor, faultless 
 in moral intuition, and heedless of consequences when compelled to de- 
 clare himself by an earnest conviction. He had two brothers of the same 
 temperament and similar mental traits, one of whom was our special 
 friend and for a time co-worker. This means that we know the Battles 
 blood. Well, the author of these poems is one of them a niece of 
 Amory and about as independent. Of the twenty-four poems, those 
 which we single out for a test, " The Shadow of the Almighty," 
 "Niagara," "A Roman Vision," "On Peerless Height," " Kenilworth," 
 "Cross to Crown," sufficiently attest that the merit is not exclusively in 
 the rhyme or melody of syllables in both of which they are notably 
 excellent but in the imaginings that would be true poetry even if set 
 in prose. But this broad octavo, or folio, is not needed for the text. 
 The illustrations make a picture gallery, and the decorative pencil is that 
 of a master. The title-page as a sample of decoration is unique in de- 
 sign and faultless in beauty. " Spring Song," " Love's Message," 
 "Mid Ocean," "Mont Blanc," " De Profundis," "Kenilworth," will 
 hold the gaze they arrest, if there is soul behind the physical vision. 
 In mechanical make-up it is difficult to imagine what good thing in the 
 printer's art is left out. But work of this nature to be appreciated must 
 be both seen and read. The Christian Leader. 
 
REVIEWS AND NOTICES. xi 
 
 This is one of the most sumptuous books of the year. Within covers 
 of creamy linen, strikingly decorated by a famous artist, whose work 
 also adorns each page, Mrs. Woodbury has collected twenty-four of her 
 poems which she deems most worthy of permanence. 
 
 The selections have been made judiciously, and the range of subject 
 and treatment in even this limited number of lines is sufficient to demon- 
 strate the author's genuine gifts and evident inspiration. A striking 
 note of reverence runs through nearly all the lines of the book, and it 
 is clear, too, that the selections which comprise this volume have been 
 made with a view to epitomizing the writer's beliefs, aspirations, and 
 philosophy, while at the same time they mirror many of her actual 
 experiences. 
 
 From a strict critical sense not every one of the twenty-four poems 
 here given to the public is worthy of so wide an audience. The wisdom, 
 for example, of including in so pretentious a work such a crude effort 
 as the " Class Ode," which is clearly a product of Mrs. Woodbury's 
 youth, and therefore, except as a measure of contrast, unworthy to 
 stand beside such a genuine piece of poetry and philosophy as this : 
 
 And who art thou, dread, shapeless wraith, 
 
 Across my path 
 With shadows flung, whose icy breath 
 
 My lips doth freeze? 
 " I am thy Past," it saith, 
 " Quick hastening to my death." 
 
 And who art thou, with seraph palm, 
 
 Whose gentle mien 
 My frightened gaze doth hold and calm ? 
 
 " I 'm named To-day : 
 My heart with love is warm; 
 I bring thee Gilead balm." 
 
 Again I spoke, and questioned one 
 
 Who came not near; 
 O'er her, with rainbow-hues, there shone 
 
 Rich, promised joy. 
 " Thy Future, I, ne'er won, 
 But ever leading on." 
 
 Concord (N. //.) Evening Monitor. 
 
xii REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 One of the most beautiful books of the year in typography, illustra- 
 tion, and binding is Mrs. Josephine Curtis Woodbury's volume of 
 poems, " Echoes," just issued by the Putnams, and its contents are in 
 full harmony with its exterior. The tone is pure and elevated, the 
 spirit sweet and sympathetic, and the poems are really " echoes " from a 
 higher life instead of expressions of personal feeling or emotion. Most 
 of them are of a deeply religious character, but in them there is no 
 trace of gloominess or complaint. They are illumined and irradiated 
 by the light of a living and wholesome Christianity, the sunshine of 
 faith and hope. The following little poem, " The Shadow of the 
 Almighty," is a key to the spirit of the whole book : 
 
 " O Mother Love ! Thou broodest still 
 
 In tenderness divine 
 O'er each dear child who does Thy will 
 And finds his strength in Thine. 
 
 The feathers of Thy bosom warm 
 
 His covering shall be, 
 When snare of fowler waits to harm 
 
 Or shut him out from Thee. 
 
 The angels of Thy watchful care 
 
 Are round about Thine own. 
 They triumph over human fear 
 
 Who trust in Thee alone. 
 
 When hatred shoots its poisoned dart 
 
 And clouds of terror lower, 
 They nestle closer to Thy heart, 
 
 Thy truth their shield and power." 
 
 The volume is printed on heavy hand-made paper, and elegantly 
 bound in white with emblematic cover, and there are twenty-eight ex- 
 quisite full-page "illustrations and titles from the pencil of Eric Pape, 
 whose work in this line of art is widely known. The initials and tail- 
 pieces are by Mrs. Pape. The Boston Transcript. 
 
REVIEWS AND NOTICES. xiii 
 
 From J. Henry Wiggin, Clergyman and Journalist. 
 
 MRS. WOODBURY'S NEW VOLUME, " ECHOES." 
 
 The authoress of these poems has passed through varied spiritual 
 experiences. Reared amidst reasonable skepticism as to many Scrip- 
 tural teachings, a distrust based, not on flippant fault-finding, but on 
 deep-searching criticism, she came later into the living conviction of 
 profounder truth permeating the Bible, and its Christian revelation; 
 and mostly these verses are the outgrowth of her maturer years. 
 
 In Mrs. Woodbury's adherence to unusual ideas she has encountered 
 something more painful than mere misapprehension, that is, misrep- 
 resentation, and what often seems like absolute persecution. This 
 misjudgment has been largely caused _by certain inherited character- 
 istics, which are as naturally inevitable in Mrs. Woodbury as lilacs in 
 May or thorns on a rose tree : firstly, her brain power, overtopping that 
 of most people with whom she has been brought into ecclesiastical 
 association; secondly, her keen insight into and often sarcastic com- 
 ment upon opinions, motives, foibles, and blunders (her own 
 included), which set her lambent wit into free play over every subject 
 she touches; thirdly, her poetic temperament, not only gilding what it 
 touches, but enwreathing incidents with airy arabesques of romantic 
 fancy, wholly incomprehensible to obtuse minds; fourthly, a rare frank- 
 ness in the discussion of mundane facts; fifthly, a capacity and aptitude 
 for leadership. 
 
 From such sources has arisen much of the opposition encountered 
 by this lady; since nothing so disturbs people as ridicule, especially 
 when merited; intellectual superiority is a sure rouser of jealousy; 
 and dictators seldom enjoy being themselves directed. 
 
 It is well, therefore, that this lovely volume should drop from the 
 press, " adorned as a bride for her husband," to show the writer's finer 
 nature and loftiest ideals; for it is full of devout aspiration, which finds 
 fit outlet to the eye, through the subtle illustrations by Eric Pape, and 
 the lesser decorations by his gifted wife. 
 
 If some verses are trivial, like her Graduation Ode, these the better 
 serve as milestones to mark the gallop from girlhood, "twenty miles 
 away," to a scene of victory, where enmity and detraction vanish blood- 
 lessly into the dust, itself soon to be laid low by the dews of peaceful 
 starlight. 
 
 The poem on Venice must rouse interest, not only for its rhythmic 
 fire, but for its reversal of the common bridal metaphor. If that old 
 
xiv REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 city be feminine, Queen of the Adriatic, then how could she wed 
 another woman, the Sea ? The groom, of yore, always conferred the 
 ring; and as it was the Doge who dropped this wedlock symbol into 
 the water, surely this implied his city's masculinity; and this is the 
 comparison treated in this poem. 
 
 Again, in her Lullaby, there occurs this stanza, rousing a query in the 
 mind of a leading critic : 
 
 Dear one, watch ! 
 Through Heaven's prism, 
 
 Glows each star, 
 A holy chrism. 
 
 Yet why should not a colorless white star of celestial hope shine 
 through tinted prismatic rays, crowning itself with the colored aureole 
 of human vicissitude? 
 
 The juvenile story of the child climbing into a treetop has its lesson 
 as to the possibility of overcoming daily disagreeables with a vertical 
 glance into the eternal sky. 
 
 Peculiarly beautiful is the Antwerp poem, addressed to " bright birds 
 who soar and sing." 
 
 Somebody asks: "Why not which, instead of who?" Because the 
 birds are personified as devoutly soaring worshippers, in contrast to the 
 kneeling devotees about the altars below, glorifying crucifix and tomb, 
 wherefrom, even by their own theoretic theology, the Saviour had 
 already ascended to the Father above. 
 
 In the poem about the three wishful gifts of Eastertide, we find a 
 quaint legend sublimated into religious thought ; as De Profundis and 
 Jubilate betoken a heart purified by gazing alike into the depths of trial 
 and the relief of self-conquest. 
 
 No wonder the Spring Song has been called an epitome of human 
 life; that the Christian Leader should republish its review of Echoes, 
 to meet the demands of purchasers; that Two Pictures should be pro- 
 nounced a wellrnigh perfect poem; that the Turkey rhyme should be 
 said to fairly disarm criticism; or that one literary expert should aver 
 that Mrs. Woodbury's poems affect him like solemn anthems, with 
 background of organ melody. 
 
 The blank verse of A Roman Vision has been declared unexception- 
 ally excellent, as symbolizing that ancient, yet still waging conflict 
 between Pagan ritualism and the St. Paul . of that free " Jerusalem 
 which is the mother of us all." . . . 
 
REVIEWS AND NOTICES. XY 
 
 PAINTER AND ILLUSTRATOR. 
 
 Mr. Eric Rape's Work with Pen and Brush. 
 Mr. Rape's Salon Pictures. 
 
 A young man is staying in Boston at present who has within a few 
 years achieved no small measure of fame as a painter and illustrator. 
 Mr. Eric Pape is a Californian by birth, an American by nature, and a 
 cosmopolitan by adoption. In 1888 he went to Paris to study art. 
 Boulanger was his first master; later he studied at the Ecole des Beaux 
 Arts and at Julian's. Among his teachers have been Lefebvre, Jean 
 Paul Laurens, Constant, Delance, Blanc, Rixens, and Doucet. ... In 
 October, 1891, he went to Egypt. During two years in that country he 
 painted a large picture, "The Two Great Eras," which brought him his 
 first taste of international reputation. . . . 
 
 . . . Mr. Pape came to New York somewhere about the time when 
 Professor Sloane's " Life of Napoleon " began its long run in the 
 Century. He was at once engaged to prepare the illustrations for that 
 work, and this undertaking kept him busily employed for about a year. 
 A surprisingly large number of pictures were made at this time, for 
 many other books and stories beside the " Life of Napoleon." . . . 
 
 . . . Mr. Pape has made illustrations for a play by Sir Walter Besant, 
 "The Charm," which appeared in one of the magazines; for the story 
 of Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, "My Sad Captains"; for Miss Grace 
 King's "Balcony Stories"; for one of Robert Louis Stevenson's post- 
 humous stories, "The Great North Road "; and for poems, stories, and 
 books by Bret Harte, Katrina Trask, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Beatrice 
 Harranden's "Hilda Strafford," Telford Grosbeck's " The Incas," and 
 many others. . . . 
 
 ... Of Mr. Pape's latest work in the line of preparing illustrations 
 for books, probably the most serious has been the group of pictures 
 made for " Echoes," by Mrs. Josephine Curtis Woodbury, whose guest 
 he is while in Boston. Mrs. Pape, whg was Miss Alice Monroe of this 
 city, the daughter of the late Prof. Lewis B. Monroe, Dean of the Bos- 
 ton University School of Oratory, and whom Mr. Pape met during her 
 six years' study of art at Paris, made the initial letters for the same 
 
xvi REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 volume. The original of the frontispiece will be on exhibition at 
 Williams & Everett's within a few days. . . . 
 
 . . . Mr. Pape submitted sixteen paintings to the Salon this year, the 
 committee accepted them, but were unable to hang the entire number 
 on account of space. They wrote the artist to come to the Salon and 
 select eight which he especially wished to exhibit out of the number 
 rather an unusual proceeding; he chose seven that formed a series, and 
 one other. . . . Altogether Mr. Pape has had twenty-two pictures in 
 the Salon of the Champ de Mars. . . . 
 
 ... He has just completed a large painting, which has not yet been 
 exhibited, entitled " The Angel with the .Book of Life." The light- 
 giving angel stands between the leaves of an enormous book, upon 
 which are written, in gold, the names of samts, giving the effect of 
 illuminated pages. ... In the decorations for Mrs. Woodbury's poems 
 the mystical, spiritual character of the pervading tone was well inter- 
 preted. Boston Sunday Herald. 
 
 From Rev. Chas. A. Dickinson, D.D., Pastor of the Berkeley 
 Temple (Boston). 
 
 ... I have just been looking the beautiful volume through, .'.nd I 
 am greatly delighted with its contents. Beautiful thoughts beautifully 
 expressed. The volume is surely a fitting illustration of Coleridge's 
 definition of poetry : " The blossom and fragrance of human knowl- 
 edge, human thoughts, human passions, emotion, language." ... 
 
REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 
 
 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 VOICES. 
 
 BY 
 
 Josephine Curtis Woodbury, 
 
 Press of SAMUEL USHER, Boston. 
 
 (In Fres Ready June, 1897.) 
 
 8vo. 260 pages* $2.00 
 
 And, behold, there came a voice unto him. 
 
 I Kings xix. 13. 14. 
 
 Et prout vultis ut faciant vobis homines, et vos facite 
 illis similiter. Luke vi. 31. 
 
 Writings of JOSEPHINE CURTIS WOODBURY. 
 J885-J897. 
 
RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 TO ^ 202 Main Library 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 
 
 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk 
 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 WAR .'2 11983 
 
 
 
 rte-dclic. FEB281S 
 
 83 
 
 
 
 
 
 . ; 
 
 
 
 !\r " : ' 
 
 
 
 RECEIVED 
 
 
 
 &P3 7 1995 
 
 
 
 .... . _.,^,^ p, ,..,_,. 
 
 ' -> S_ v 1 , v^ , \ ^ w 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELE 
 FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 12/80 BERKELEY, CA 94720 ^ | 
 
 24 Bedford Street, Strand, London, England.' 
 
CDSSa07271 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY