From the Papers: “A Worthy Disciple”

Classes designed to teach students how to effectively practice spiritual healing began not long after a pivotal healing that Mary Baker Eddy had in February 1866. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures she identified that date as marking her discovery of Christian Science.¹ Until 1882 she taught classes in Lynn, Massachusetts, after which she instructed hundreds of students at her Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston. Many returned to their homes to become effective healers. Some also began teaching classes on their own.

Eddy faced the necessity of doing what she could to help ensure that students in both Primary classes and Normal classes² would be receptive to her teachings and practice them effectively. Some of her methods included requiring written applications, endorsements of prospective students, and sometimes one-on-one interviews with her.

Recently we published correspondence between Eddy and Jessie G. N. Clarke (1843–1896) that illustrates some of those methods. Clarke’s first letter to Eddy, no longer extant, was written from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in mid-December 1886. On December 27 she wrote again, reiterating her interest in studying with Eddy at her college and asking for further information. While we have no reply from Eddy to this letter, Clarke apparently had applied to enroll in Eddy’s next Normal class. She had become well-known to Milwaukee Christian Scientists and studied with Eddy’s pupil Silas J. Sawyer. He became alarmed when he found that Clarke was planning to study with Eddy, and on February 3, 1887, he wrote her a strongly-worded letter, insisting that she should not accept Clarke. He began:

It was with painful surprise that I learned to day that a student of mine, Mrs J N Clarke, had made arrangements to take a Normal Course of instructions of you. I telegraphed her I would not endorse her, and <to> you, not to recieve her. I wish to briefly give my reasons for so doing.

Sawyer went on to explain that he had tried unsuccessfully to give Clarke a proper understanding of Christian Science. He felt that she was untrustworthy:

She believes that Swedenborg, and certain philosophers, laid stepping stones to our Science and she even believes Evan’s and other claimants, teach spiritual healing as much as “S & H.”… I am satisfied she wants a “Ci<e>rtificate, to say you endorse her as a teacher, more than she wants the great benefit of the Normal Course…. I believed it my duty to give you this very small portion of facts concerning her and then if you think you can lead her to repentance, m<a>y God bless your efforts. …³

This issue of not fully discerning the differences between Christian Science and other philosophies was not unique to Clarke. Eddy regularly had to make distinctions so that her teachings were not compromised. Of note, she wrote “Important evidence” on the envelope of Sawyer’s letter; if what he had written were true, it could indeed lead her to reject Clarke as a student.

But not all Christian Scientists around Milwaukee agreed with Sawyer’s views of Clarke. For example, Emily S. C. Finch was apparently aware of what Sawyer had told Eddy and wrote to her by telegram on February 4:

Do take Mrs Clarke into your next normal notwithstanding Dr Sawyers letter she can bring testimonials from Best Citizens here she is loyal to you and science eager for truth in its purity having studied with Dr Sawyer I speak understandingly. Refusal will injure Cause here⁴

Eddy replied to Sawyer on February 7, the very day the class in question began, taking him to task for giving her the information so close to the start date:

Your favor at hand – but that and the despatch came too late. Got your Telegram after she must have started to get here and your letter was hand to me at the same time by Mr. Frye Such sumary proceedings are out of the question in a Public School of the character of mine

 

Why had you not let me known of her intentions in time to meet the case? I hope for the Cause’s sake as well as my own that no one unfit for Christian Science will get into my class. The fact that she had been your student and gave you for reference, was, I had hoped enough for one in your vicinity to be safe in receiving.⁵

Despite Eddy’s belief that Clarke must have already been on her way to Boston, she didn’t show up at the class. This caused Eddy concern, and she sent a letter to Clarke on February 10:

I learned from my Sec. Mr Frye that you expected to join this Normal class and he supposed you had left your home to be in Boston at its opening. This gave me an interest to know if such was the case and what had prevented you being here.

 

If any accident has happend to Miss Clark will her friends who read this letter please reply but I cannot think such has been the case Hoping this will find her– in fine condition⁶

Clarke replied on February 14, saying that she had planned to come to Boston, but that because Sawyer had said he would not endorse her, she felt she would not be admitted:

Knowing that I was a stranger to you and that he (as he affirms) was your C. S. Agent for the N. W. and had your full confidence I felt I could not take the expensive journey at the risk of being rejected as a student. If I had been sure you would have taken me on my own merits I would have come regardless of reports of the letters he had written concerning me. I cannot express to you my disappointinent. I had so long anticipated being a student of yours.⁷

Eddy wrote on that letter: “Write her I will examine her my next class and if she is ready will take her into my class Tell her to say nothing of this and”. Those words are crossed out, however. Whether the strikethrough indicates that the task of writing Clarke was finished or, rather, that Eddy subsequently decided not to send Clarke the message, it does indicate she was considering an in-person examination. She sometimes followed such a procedure with potential students, particularly when nobody was available to serve as a reference or there were conflicting reports concerning the prospective student.

The next development in Clarke’s journey toward becoming Eddy’s student came in the form of a July 1 letter to Eddy from Emily Finch’s sister, Julia S. C. Warner:

When Dr Sawyer refused to sign the the paper that would admit Mrs Clarke to your Normal class last spring, many of her friends were indignant and wished to enter a protest then, but in acquiesence to her wishes refrained from doing so, and she went to Chicago, entering Mrs Larminie’s class, rather than have any words here, and even after she recieved her diploma, she begged us all to be very discret in what we said, that no harm should come to the truth. …

 

Now dear Mrs Eddy will you not bid her come to your next class? We do need her here so much, and can you not take her upon Mrs Larminies diploma and her own merits without committing yourself? …⁸

Eddy did ask Clarke to attend her May 1888 Normal class. “I can have a Normal class May 21^st,” she wrote on May 7. “Will you come?”⁹ Not long before it was to begin, she received a May 6 letter from Clarke, reporting on her healing and teaching in Milwaukee:

Since last Aug. have been more active than ever in releasing from the bondage of sin & sickness; and have also had a class every alternate month teaching the rudiments of C. S. and now number fifty three students. Have not supplied or recommended any books excepting such as you endorse. … All are Anticipating the time when I may be welcomed as a student of yours. I encourage all my students to make it possible to study with you. …I’ve only desired to be a disciple of C. S. from the beginning and this is still my desire – to prove mysef<l>f a worthy disciple in thought, word & deed. …¹⁰

From this it is clear that Eddy weighed the input from her students, as well as an applicant’s own words, before deciding whom to select for class instruction.

After attending Eddy’s class, Clarke continued her service in Milwaukee. She became listed in The Christian Science Journal as a Christian Science practitioner and teacher there in 1890, working until the year before her passing in 1896. She also joined The Mother Church (The First Church of Christ, Scientist) in April 1893.

Several years after Clarke attended that Normal class, Eddy published the Manual of The Mother Church. It contains a section on teaching Christian Science that includes this provision: “Christian Scientists who are teachers shall carefully select for pupils such only as have good past records and promising proclivities toward Christian Science.”¹¹

This case of Jessie G. N. Clarke is just one of many in the historical record that clearly shows how Eddy endeavored to follow her own admonition in teaching Christian Science. Often she had to ascertain the readiness of a potential student through soliciting references and conducting personal interviews.

Please note: Quoted references in our “From the Papers” article series reflect the original documents. For this reason they may include spelling mistakes and edits made by the authors. In instances where a mark or edit is not easily represented in quoted text, an omission or insertion may be made silently.