In the early days of Mrs. Eddy's experience in presenting Christian Science to the public, she was invited to give a talk in a small town some distance from Boston. On her arrival in the town her hostess informed Mrs. Eddy that a neighbor was dying in childbirth. She was given permission to see the neighbor and a quick, complete, healing resulted.
Mrs. Eddy writes of what followed, "This scientific demonstration so stirred the doctors and clergy that they had my notices for a second lecture pulled down, and refused me a hearing in their halls and churches." Retrospection and Introspection, p. 40.
In view of such reaction to her teachings, it may have seemed natural enough for Mrs. Eddy to conclude that further public lectures on Christian Science would be unwise. But the course of events was to show that she evidently drew the opposite conclusion: that public lectures are necessary to help bring healing to just the kind of misunderstanding she had encountered in the above instance.
