The Experience of Francis Hodgson Burnett and Louisa M. Alcott With a Healer.
An Outline of the Faith of the New Sect Called "Christian Scientists."
Hotel Vendome, July 2, 1885.—It is easy to live so near to any subject of interest that practically one knows nothing about it. It ceases to be objective to one and that which may be done any day is apt to be done on no day at all. Here in Boston, for instance, we are so accustomed to hearing of the marvels of the "mind cure" that we fail to really learn as much of its mysteries as people often do from a distance, and pondering all these things in my heart one day I resolved to go and see Mrs. Eddy, or Rev. Mary B. G. Eddy, as she is known, president of the Metaphysical College, and the originator, as she claims, and as I have no reason to doubt, of "Christian Science," popularly known as "mind cure." Now of this I am neither a disciple nor a scoffer. My mental attitude toward the phenomena is, per se, of no importance or interest, but in view of what I am about to relate I beg to preface that I went to Mrs. Eddy with no positive feeling either way of either conviction or skepticism. In a general way, most persons of average thought in this day and age are quite willing to admit, I fancy, that there "are more things in heaven and earth than we have dreamed in our philosophy," and I quite share that feeling. But it has happened that I had never even seen a "mind curer," never heard one of their lectures, and had not read extensively of their special literature, when I suddenly resolved to call upon Mrs. Eddy, if she would permit me to do so. My note of inquiry was met by a very courteous invitation to come to her at an hour named in it, and accordingly at 8 o'clock on that evening I rang the bell of the large and handsome residence on Columbus Avenue, near West Chester Park, known as the Metaphysical College. A maid ushered me
