Engraving of “Daniel’s Answer to the King” by Briton Riviere. P05371. Joseph Bishop Pratt.
Mary Baker Eddy’s homes in Concord, New Hampshire (Pleasant View), and Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, were filled with artwork. Pieces with spiritual messages were her favorites. So she was thrilled when her student Julia Field-King sent an engraving by Joseph Bishop Pratt, of Briton Riviere’s famed painting “Daniel’s Answer to the King.”
Eddy loved the Bible story of Daniel in the lion’s den.1 In particular, she drew great strength from Daniel’s faith in God to deliver him from harm. On July 6, 1895, she penned this message to Field-King: “I thank you, a million times I thank you for that wonderful picture.”2 The following month Eddy used the painting to offer encouragement to another student, John C. MacDonald:
Do not be disheartened or in the least down cast. God, the God of Daniel, is able to deliver thee. Come into my library and look at that picture if at any time you feel like it. I often stand before it praying to the same God for grace to help me and all the sufferers and sinners of Adam’s race.3
Eddy also shared this painting with members of her household, explaining how she felt that it connected to her own theology. Emma Easton Newman wrote about this in her reminiscence:
It was just at this time that she had received the picture of “Daniel’s answer to the King” and she invited us into the library and asked us to sit down while she “talked it to us.” She pointed out that Daniel had turned his back to the lions and was giving his answer to the king. She said, “He has turned his back to the lower or bestial elements of mortal mind and is giving his answer to the king, to the highest, and that is what I have always done.”4
Engraving of “Daniel’s Answer to the King,” hanging in Eddy’s sitting room at Pleasant View, Concord, New Hampshire.
As you can see above, “Daniel’s Answer to the King” hung in the library at Pleasant View. Once Eddy had moved to her home in Chestnut Hill, it was placed in her bedroom, on the wall opposite her bed (see photo below).
Engraving of “Daniel’s Answer to the King,” hanging in Eddy’s bedroom at Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
Pratt’s engraving of “Daniel in the Lions’ Den,” Riviere’s other painting related to Daniel, depicts him facing the lions. This work also hung in Pleasant View, in the room of Eddy’s secretary Irving Tomlinson.
