CHAPTER XIV
MES. EDDY ADDRESSES BOSTON AUDIENCES—SHE IS TORTURED BY HER FEAR OF MESMERISM—ORGANISATION OF "THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST"—WITHDRAWAL OF EIGHT LEADING MEMBERS—MRS. EDDY'S RETREAT FROM LYNN
As early as 1878, Mrs. Eddy began to give occasional lectures in a Baptist church on Shawmut Avenue, in Boston, and in 1879 she gave Sunday afternoon talks in the Parker Fraternity Building on Appleton Street. Her audiences were not large. Sometimes, on a fine afternoon as many as fifty persons would be present, while again the number would fall as low as twenty-five. Mrs. Eddy came up from Lynn on Sunday afternoon, attended by Mr. Eddy, and often by several of her students. She usually wore a black silk gown and a hat when she spoke, used gold-bowed spectacles, and was confident and at ease upon the rostrum. Mr. Eddy, dressed in a black frock-coat, acted as usher and passed the collection-plate. Mrs. Eddy spoke on the curative aspect of her Science almost entirely, relating many individual instances of the astonishing cures she and her students had performed. The religious element in her discussions was incidental and rather cold. She never hinted at repentance, humility, or prayer in the ordinary sense, as essential to regeneration. Moral reform came naturally as a result of adopting Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy
262
