To the Editor.
Among other things, as reported in your paper, Dr. John Madden declares that Christian Science originated in a highly emotional, uneducated woman. Those who know of the wonderful career of the Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, and who know her unparalleled mental equilibrium, are led to ask, From whence has this gentleman derived his information? Mrs. Eddy in her childhood wrote verses which would have done credit to a woman of mature years. Very early in life there was a demand for her literary productions. When about eighteen years of age she wrote for the Belknap Gazette, published in New Hampshire, and later for the New Hampshire Patriot. After an academic course she graduated under Prof. Dyer H. Sanborn, the celebrated author of the "Sanborn's Grammar." Later she wrote for leading magazines of the south, and upon her return to the north, after the death of her beloved husband, Colonel Glover, she was offered an annual salary of three thousand dollars by the Rev. Albert Case, editor of the Odd Fellows' Magazine, published by the United States lodge. Other leading magazines, both north and south, have allowed her to name her salary and never objected to paying it. If all the poems which she wrote in early years, and which have appeared in public print, were collected, they would fill a good-sized volume. Mrs. Eddy has lectured in large crowded halls at Portland and Waterville, Me.; Boston and Lynn, Mass.; Concord, N. H.; Providence, R. I.; New York City; Washington, D. C, and Chicago. In 1846 the Rev. Richard Rust, D.D., at that time principal of the Methodist Conference Seminary in Northfield, N. H., called upon Mrs. Eddy to supply the place of his principal female teacher during her absence for a few weeks. Among other pleasing memories of that occasion Mrs. Eddy recalls entering a class-room one day and finding upon the black-board a kind compliment to Mrs. Glover written by the Professor.
Such a record could scarcely have been made by an uneducated woman. When we consider how extensively Mrs. Eddy has written during the past thirty-five years, and note that she has been ever highly progressive, we must concede that she has acquired in those years literary ability and celebrity. No one can deny that the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, is a wonderful literary production. In this work she has handled a most difficult subject in a marvelous manner. The rumors afloat charging the Leader of the Christian Science movement with being incompetent have been started by the enemies of Christian Science, and for the purpose of belittling the Science itself. No one who is in the slightest degree acquainted with the wonderful wisdom and stability which characterizes the Discoverer of Christian Science, would dare make the assertion that she could be swayed by aught except the Truth. No one but an individual richly endowed with the grace of God could have pioneered the great Christian Science movement, and have carried it to its present successful heights.
