plaintiff by means of his said power and art great suffering of body and mind and severe spinal pains and neuralgia and a temporary suspension of mind and still continues to cause the plaintiff the same. And the plaintiff has reason to fear and does fear that he will continue in the future to cause the same. And the plaintiff says that said injuries are great and of an irreparable nature and that she is wholly unable to escape from the control and influence he so exercises upon her and from the aforesaid effects of said control and influence.
The students thronged to Mrs. Eddy’s house before the suit was tried, beseeching her to join with them, to at least attend the hearing at the Supreme Judicial Court in Salem. She at last yielded to the extent of accompanying them on that morning in May, 1878. A new student, Edward J. Arens, argued the case. Mrs. Eddy was amazed at his arguments so contrary were they in their purport to her teaching, especially the argument that Miss Brown had no power to withstand the injuries she complained of. Nor was Mrs. Eddy at all surprised at the decision of the judge that it was not in the power of the court to control Mr. Spofford’s mind. “Most certainly it was not in the power of the court,” Mrs. Eddy declared to her students. She rebuked them severely, pointing out that the suit was but an exhibition of their own wilfulness in attempting to protect mind and health otherwise than as she had taught them. She returned to her home to insist for the future more strenuously, more decidedly, on her doctrine of meeting evil by resting in the confidence of Divine Love.
