Did Mary Baker Eddy say it? “You have saved that woman centuries of work.”

We are sometimes asked about the authenticity of a statement attributed to Mary Baker Eddy, concerning a patient who had passed away while one of her students was providing Christian Science treatment. Did Eddy ever counsel that student—who evidently felt that his prayerful work amounted to nothing—with the assurance that he had, in fact, saved his patient “centuries of work”?

We can confirm that there is an account of such an experience. It comes from the undated reminiscence of Eddy’s student Edward Norwood. There he recalled having heard that his associate Edward H. Hammond (1842–1905) had this conversation with their teacher:

Another student (Edward H. Hammond) also lived at the [Massachusetts Metaphysical] college for a time. He told Mrs. Norwood and me this incident: “Mrs. Glover [Eddy] turned a patient over to me for treatment (I think he said it was cancer) and though I worked [prayed] as best I could, the woman passed on. I was much troubled, and said to Mrs. Glover, How do you explain it – two months’ work gone for nothing. Mrs. Glover laid her hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Gone for nothing! Why my dear man, you have saved that woman centuries of work.’”¹

Hammond attended one of Eddy’s Primary classes in 1883 and went on to take her Normal class in 1885. He was listed in The Christian Science Journal as a teacher and practitioner of Christian Science until the time of his passing.