discovery. This is now the generally accepted date. Her enemies have naturally made much of the seeming inconsistency of these statements. To disprove her claim that she had a knowledge of mind healing as far back as 1844 or 1853, they quote Mrs. Eddy's own words in the Christian Science Journal of June, 1887. She there says that before her visit to Quimby in 1862, "I knew nothing of the Science of Mind-healing. . . . Mind Science was unknown to me."
It is scarcely necessary to remark that each of these dates might be intrinsically correct, as each might mark an important advance in Mrs. Eddy's mastery of her science. It would be extremely difficult for any discoverer to date exactly the inception of an idea which eventually absorbed him completely. Doubtless these seeming inaccuracies on Mrs. Eddy's part would have been passed over as due to mere inexactness of expression, had not each date been given to meet some specific charge as to her indebtedness to Quimby—and given, as it would seem, mainly for the purpose of extricating herself from the difficulty of the moment.
As shown above, in the first edition of Science and Health (1875), she said that it was in 1864 that she first discovered that "science mentally applied would heal the sick."
Eight years after Mrs. Eddy had announced 1864 as the correct and authentic date of her discovery, Julius A. Dresser,[1]
- ↑
Julius A. Dresser was born in Portland, Me., February 12, 1838. He was in college in Waterville, Me., when his health failed. He had a strongly emotional religious nature and intended to become a minister in the Calvinistic Baptist Church. When he went to Mr. Quimby in the summer of 1860, he apparently had only a short time to live. Quimby told him his "religion was killing him." Quimby treated him successfully for typhoid pneumonia, according to Mr. Dresser's son, Horatio W. Dresser of Cambridge, and "gave him the understanding which enabled my father to live thirty-three years after his restoration to health."
Mr. Dresser became an enthusiastic convert to the Quimby faith and for some years devoted himself to explaining Quimby's principle of mental healing to new patients. In this way he met Miss Annetta G. Seabury, whom he married in September, 1863, and Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Patterson.
After his marriage Mr. Dresser took up newspaper work in Portland and in 1866 moved to Webster, Mass., where he edited and published the Webster Times.
The death of Quimby was a great shock to Mr. and Mrs. Dresser. It was generally expected by Quimby's followers that Mr. Dresser would take up the work as Quimby's successor. Mrs. Dresser hesitated to attempt it publicly, knowing her own and her husband's sensitiveness, and after consideration they decided not to undertake it at that time. "This," says Mr. Horatio W. Dresser, "was a fundamentally decisive action, and much stress should be placed upon it. For Mrs. Eddy naturally looked to father as the probable successor, and when she learned from father that he had no thought of taking up the public work, the field became free for her. I am convinced that she had no desire previous to that time to make any claims for herself. Her letters give evidence of this."
Mr. Dresser's health again weakened from overwork, and after living in the West for a time he returned to Massachusetts and began his public work as mental teacher and healer. In Boston Mr. Dresser found that Mrs. Eddy's pupils and rejected pupils were practising with the sick, and he believed that their work was inferior to Quimby's. This gave him confidence to begin. In 1882 Mr. and Mrs. Dresser began to practise in Boston, and in 1883 they were holding class lectures, teaching from the Quimby manuscripts and practising the Quimby method.
From this the facts with regard to Mrs. Eddy and Mr. Quimby spread, and this was the beginning of the Quimby controversy.
