self which she submitted to him for inspection and correction. But she never left any of hers with him, and never had any of his, to more than look at.[1] She had the opportunity to copy some, and possibly did. After she left his care, she delivered some lectures on his method of healing. . . . Up to the time of his death, no one could have been more loyal to father than she. She gave him full credit for curing her and teaching her the very ideas she later had revealed to her from Heaven.
“Now a word about that great court decision. One E. J. Arens, of Boston, made a statement which he could not prove, that Mrs. Eddy got her ideas from father, and that his writings and Mss. would prove it. He went into court and could not prove what he said, and now Mrs. Eddy and her adherents claim that because he could not prove that there were such Mss., that there are none! I would not allow him to use the Mss. in court, and consequently he could not prove what he said.”[2]
Writing to another man, George Quimby said in part:
“The basis of the whole misunderstanding has been that everything that has emanated from the Eddy side has been taken for God's truth, and everything that has been stated in opposition to her has been pronounced and believed to be lies. By assuming all she has said as true, on the start, it doesn't leave much for the other side.
“To begin with, you must understand that I was with my father during the term he was in Portland, and had had an intimate personal acquaintance extending over two or more years with Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Patterson). I am not stating hearsay, but personal knowledge. As I was father's clerk, bookkeeper and sec'y, and as it was the wish of his life that I take his place and carry on his work, I ought to know what he believed and claimed, and how he treated the sick, and what he wanted me to learn. I have a package of Mrs. Eddy's letters to my father, covering a period from 1862 to 1864. . . . In all her letters she gives him full credit for discovering and reducing mental healing to a science. . . . This Mrs. Patterson knew, and this she
- ↑ That is, Vol. I, loaned her by Mr. Dresser, as already stated.
- ↑ [Mr. Quimby did not loan his father's manuscripts to Mr. Arens because he was not in a position financially to engage in a suit. Moreover, he was naturally and rightly asked why he should take part in a suit to establish what was true? Dr. Quimby had taught that truth could take care of itself, when the time came. His son believed that his father's rights would be established when the time should come to publish the Mss. Finally, Mr. Arens had made unwarranted statements to the effect that Dr. Quimby was not only the originator of mental healing and the terminology of Christian Science, but was actually the author of the book, “Science and Health.” To put the matter in the right light it would have been necessary to show, as we have shown in this volume, that there was a large collection of manuscripts, original and revised, containing the whole theory of mental healing and Christian Science; and that what Mrs. Eddy used was the essential terminology, the methods, and the reasonings which establish the principle that “all causation is mental” in the origination and cure of disease.]
