Alfred Farlow, a midwesterner, was attracted to Christian Science in the mid-1880s for its promise of healing. After reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, he desired to be taught by its author, Mary Baker Eddy. In 1887, Farlow went through two of her courses in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston. Consequently, he left his manufacturing business to enter the full-time public practice of Christian Science. Throughout the 1890s, he taught Christian Science classes and worked as a Christian healer in Kansas and Missouri, starting branch Churches of Christ, Scientist, in both states. At the end of the decade, Mrs. Eddy called him to Boston to serve as her Church's Committee on Publication. In this capacity, he was responsible for correcting misinformation about Christian Science and its Founder that appeared in the press. Farlow's devotion to the Cause of Christian Science and the Church was exemplified in his serving in this position for fourteen years without ever taking a vacation. He once said of his work: "What people oppose is not Christian Science, but some misconceptions of Christian Science. I have never known a man to object to Christian Science when it was properly explained to him."The Christian Science Journal, March 1903, p. 734 .
My Introduction to the . . . Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, was in May, 1887. I had exhausted my faith in drugs and had gone further West to the thrifty little city of Beatrice, Nebraska, in the hope of benefit through higher and drier atmosphere, but this forlorn hope had also failed me when through near-by neighbors the Christian Science textbook was placed in my hands and my attention was thereby drawn to Christian Science. In May of the following year I went to Boston, Massachusetts, for the purpose of entering a class taught by Mrs. Eddy. I had hoped to have a private interview with her before the opening of the class, but this pleasure was not realized. In this connection I herein submit a quotation from the very first newspaper production of my pen. It was written at the solicitation of the editor of the Gage County Democrat and appeared in his paper about May 7, 1887. It runs as follows:
"We arrived in Boston at 10 o'clock P. M. of the 27th, having had a very pleasant journey. The next morning we repaired to the Massachusetts Metaphysical College expecting to meet Mrs. Eddy. But Mrs. Eddy, who is a very busy woman, could not see us on that day or on the next. Not until the morning of May 2 at the opening of the class were we presented even a glimpse of her.
