MRS EDDY'S STRANGE STORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2924, 30 March 1910, Page 81

MRS EDDY'S STRANGE STORY.

VICTIM OF HYSTEEIA SINCE CHILDHOOD. Many people are curious about the rights and wrongs of Christian Science, and it is just as well that they should know something about the remarkable woman who "has been so intimately associated with the First Church of Christ. Her strange story is set forth in the "Life of Mary Baker C. Eddy," by Georgine Milmine, which comes from the press of Hodder and Stoughton, London. Mrs Eddy was born in 1821, near Concord, in New' Hampshire, U.S.A. Her father was Mark Baker, a man out of the ordinary, with great natural force, and strong convictions, but cursed with a childishly passionate temper and a deep perversity of mind. —Heard "Voices."— As child and woman she suffered from this condition, and its existence explains some phases of her nature and certain of her acts which otherwise might be difficult to understand and impossible to estimate.

Like little Samuel, she received ghostly i visitations in early youth. She writes: j For some 12 months, when I was about j eight years old, I repeatedly heard a; ' voice calling me distinctly by name three times in an ascending scale. I s thought"' this was my mother's voice, and some- j times went to her, beseeching her to tell ' me what she wanted. Her answer was j always: "Nothing, child? What do you mean?" Then I would say: "Mother, ■who did call me? I heard somebody call •'•Mary' three times." This continued until I grew discouraged, and' my mother yraa perplexed and anxious. Mary continued, as she gcpew to girlJiood, to have her own way. Her hysteria j was her most effective argument in securing her way. Like the sword of Damocles, it hung perilously over the household, which constantly surrendered and conceded and made shift with Mary to avert the inevitable climax. Confusion and excitement and agony of mind lest Mary should die was the invariable consequence I of her hysterical outbreaks, and the busi- j iness of the nouse and farm was at a standstill until the "tragedy" had passed. —Writhing and Screaming.— i These attacks, which continued until ] 1 Mrs Eddy was growing very old, have j been described by' many eye-witnesses to j Georgina Milmine, some of these- witnesses -i having watched by her bedside and treated j her with" Christian Science for her afflic- ■ tion. •At times the attack resembled con- ; I vulsions. Mary "fell headlong to the floor, | writhing and screaming in apparent agony. Again she dropped as if lifeless, and lay Burp and motionless till restored. At other times she became rigid like a cataleptic, and continued for a time in a state of suspended animation. :At home ' ' the family worked over her, and the doctor was sent for, and Mary invariably recovered rapidly after a few hours, but year after year her relatives fully expected that she would die in one,of these spasms. Nothing had- the power of exciting Mark Baker like one of Mary's fits. His neighbours remember hini as be went I to fetch Dr Ladd ; how he lashed his horse down the hill, standing upright in his 1 waggon and 'shouting in his tremendous | •voice, "Mary is dying!" —Mary Had Ten Devils. — Outside the family Mary's spells did not inspire the same anxiety. The tinsympathetic called them "tantrums, aftera better acquaintance with.her, and declared that she used her nerves to get her own way. In later years Mark Baker came to share this neighbouring opinion, and on one occasion, after Mary had grown to womanhood, he tested her power of self-control by allowing her to remain on the'floor, where she.had thrown herself when her will was crossed, and leaving her to herself. An hour later, when he opened the dcor, the room was deserted. Marv had gone up-stairs to hei - room, and nothing was heard from her until she appeared at supper, fully recovered. After that Mary's nerves lost their power .over her father to a great extent, and when hard put to it he someP times complained ,to his friends. A neighbour passing the house one • morning storied at Mark's gate and inquired why Ma?? who was at that moment pushing wild'lv up and down the second-storey SSI, was so excited; to which Mark feplied bitteriv, "The Bible says Mary Magdalen- hacTseven devils, but our Mary ta &nowSnab!y, Mary's attacks represented to a great degree a genuine affliction. Though Dr Ladd ..sometime* unpa- ' tientlv 'diaunossd them m. i V*;f u3 2 mingled with oad temper," J«.^ doubt C S Jg iSS^erhnited.«! whom iiC f °S ' trol her movements by f "lean make fkfA -gvrl in the gtyg any time, merely .by. willing at, ho used ' to\ell his friends, and Ue often demonstrated that he could do.it.Mary was 21 years oid she \ mariSd 1 SaS but he? husband dying, Mary was St with a baby boy, to an unnatural aversion -from the beginning, aiid went back to her relatives. - _A Passion for Swinging.— Sometimes Mrs Glover was so nervous thatX could not have anybody m. the with her, and then the boyjoild +£ a strinc to the seat and awing her her exa«» lc , d t sen< i for old &J£&2?SJS; corce and «** \* V,v becoming, a teacher Pupil" Ke who aT«tsl living are fond ot W ent to school to M.^'required' the Stma^ou^S-m^ngthe following refrain: "We will tell Mrs Glover How much we love .her; By the light of the moon "We will come to her. ** becaS abnormal being who> «J?* wa Science Church, was a weaver wiu jburn for spiritualism.