From the Papers: All in a day’s work—December 27, 1886

Between March 1884 and December 1887, Mary Baker Eddy lived and worked at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, on Columbus Avenue in Boston. Although in later years she employed a large staff, at this time she had just one secretary, Calvin A. Frye, and Eddy still shouldered much of the work herself in establishing Christian Science.

Have you ever wondered what a day in Eddy’s life might have entailed during this busy and dynamic period? Exploring the Mary Baker Eddy Papers sheds some light on this.

To annotate and digitally publish the Mary Baker Eddy Collection, the Papers team is working through Eddy’s correspondence, manuscripts, sermons, and other materials in chronological order. This gives us the unique experience of seeing the history of Christian Science unfold as it occurred: day by day. Recently published letters dated December 27, 1886, exemplify the wide and varied scope of people, issues, and ideas that might have presented themselves to Eddy on any given day.

At that time it wasn’t unusual for a dozen or more pieces of correspondence to flow in and out of Eddy’s home daily. And although it was only two days after Christmas, Monday, December 27, 1886, didn’t find the pace of Eddy’s correspondence slackening. The collection contains 12 letters bearing that date.¹

Literature requests

Four letters to Eddy contained orders for written works. For example, the 16th edition of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures had been issued earlier in the year. A major revision, it was inspiring a large uptick in orders.² Additionally, by the end of 1886 Eddy had written several shorter works published in pamphlet form, and demand for those was strong as well.

Ella F. Bickford wrote from De Pere, Wisconsin:

Please send to my address the Book Mental Healing Historical sketch the pamplet of 24 Pages. Enclosed find Postage for same.³

The pamphlet Bickford ordered, Historical Sketch of Metaphysical Healing, had been issued in 1885. When advertised for sale in The Christian Science Journal, it was described as “Next to Science and Health, the most important work on this subject ever published.”⁴ Orders often came from people new to Christian Science, as Bickford was, seeking to answer their initial questions and begin their investigation.

Fidelia S. Brown wrote to Eddy from Aurora, Illinois, explaining that she had begun studying and practicing Christian Science the previous year. She continued:

… can I open corespondence with you., I have always been an invalid, & deafness was the main point I had in my hearring consideration, which is not wholly restored yet … let me know if you have any time to give to strangers Please send samples of magazines or any litrature which will be beneficial, & I will remit monny for same ….⁵

In addition to ordering literature, Brown was also sensing out whether Eddy would be willing to treat her. In fact, Eddy had placed this notice in the February 1885 issue of the Journal: “PROF. EDDY takes no patients at present, has no time for consultation on disease, and reads no letters containing inquiries in that department: all such should be addressed to those whose names [Christian Science practitioners] appear below.”⁶ In spite of this notice—either because they weren’t aware or because in their desperation for healing they hoped for an exception—it wasn’t uncommon for newcomers to continue making such requests.⁷

M. Annie Willis wrote from Minneapolis: “I enclose a money order of $3.17. Please send one of your latest books on Science and Health with the Key to the Bible”⁸ Although Eddy was surely interested in and gratified by such evidence of Science and Health’s ever-expanding reach, the volume of letters she received of this sort may explain why the Christian Science Publishing Society had been formed in October 1886, eventually taking over responsibility for some of the orders for Christian Science literature.

Last is a telegram from Ellen Brown Linscott to Frye: “Send immediately twenty four 24– sience and Health”⁹ Linscott had taken Eddy’s Primary and Normal classes and was actively working to establish Christian Science in Chicago. In May 1886, Eddy had directed her students to open institutes in major American cities; several opened that year in Chicago alone.¹⁰ By the end of 1886, as new institutes continued to open and interest increased, students frequently ordered large quantities of Science and Health and Eddy’s other writings to distribute to students, patients, and others in their growing fields.

Publication issues

While receiving orders for her existing books, Eddy was also continually revising Science and Health and managing its printing and publication. John Wilson and Son, her publisher, wrote to Eddy that day:

We shall deliver to the binder on Wednesday next (29th), the sheets of the 25th Edition of Science & Health. We suppose the portraits will be ready.

 

We don’t understand how the weight of the book has increased; for the paper is the same weight as before.¹¹

The 16th edition of Science and Health had been issued in February 1886, and this letter shows that only ten months later the 25th edition was already underway. Its reminder of the need for portraits¹² and mention that the the book’s weight had mysteriously increased exemplify the endless details surrounding its publication that regularly required Eddy’s attention.

Class instruction

Two letters dated December 27 concerned requests for admission to Eddy’s classes. That year Eddy had taught 107 students, in two Primary and three Normal classes. At the end of December, she would have been preparing to teach her upcoming 1887 classes, including a Primary in January and a Normal in February.

Mary B. Bull wrote to Eddy from Quincy, Illinois:

I am very desirous of taking a course of lectures on Christian Science healing with you- A year ago I studied with Miss Ellen Brown of Chicago and since then have demonstrated with very fair success…. Hoping to hear favorably from you, and that I am in time to be admitted to your January class¹³

Bull must have heard favorably, because 14 days later, on January 10, 1887, she was sitting in Eddy’s Primary class, having traveled from Quincy to Boston in the interim.

Antoinette “Nettie” P. Belden wrote from Bath-on-the-Hudson, New York: “… I wish to take the course of study with you as early as possible; but the terms are quite beyond my present means and I must wait, and work & study until light dawns on the financial question.”¹⁴ The financial question must have been quickly resolved; Belden was present in Eddy’s Normal class when it opened on February 7, 1887.

As these two letters show, Eddy’s prospective students sometimes accomplished the many steps necessary to attend her classes in a very brief time. For her part, Eddy reviewed applications, followed up on references, determined each student’s fitness for a class, and sometimes even provided advice on and assistance with lodging options and other particulars. This short, flurried process for filling Eddy’s classes seemed to be more the rule than the exception in the mid-1880s.¹⁵

Field notes

Another category of Eddy’s frequent incoming correspondence involved reports, questions, and observations from those working to establish Christian Science in the wider field. Along these lines, our final letter to Eddy dated December 27 was from Ursula N. Gestefeld, a student who had taken Eddy’s 1884 class in Chicago. The two would part ways in 1888 because of theological differences and Gestefeld’s drift toward spiritualism and Theosophy,¹⁶ but in 1886 Eddy still saw her potential as a useful and effective worker. Gestefeld wrote:

… People need to be drawn to Christian Science; and many will listen when their interest is aroused …. If I am able to so start out, go from place to place and give public lectures on “Christian Science” it will help the practitioners and teachers in every place I visit. The interest I am able to arouse, will flow toward them naturally; so it will be a co-operative work….¹⁷

“… I think it is a good plan and hope you will succeed with it,” Eddy wrote in her reply. “We need lecturers at this present time more than teachers and I think you with experience you can do well on the platform”¹⁸ Although the Christian Science Board of Lectureship wasn’t established until 1898, this exchange shows that the need for lecturers was felt as early as 1886. It also reveals Eddy’s receptiveness to her students’ ideas and her encouragement to apply and hone their aptitudes in support of the cause.

Outgoing correspondence

In addition to the foregoing eight letters written to Eddy on December 27, the collection contains four letters that Eddy wrote to others on that date. One was to Augusta E. Stetson, who had taken Eddy’s Primary and Normal classes and had just moved to New York City to begin practicing, teaching, and founding a church there. The beginning of this letter exemplifies much of Eddy’s voluminous correspondence with Stetson:

Mrs Stetson, I am shocked by what I hear from New York! It does not come from a student of mine but from good authority that you are telling that I sent you to N. York to watch my students there!

 

I cannot credit it that ever you said a thing so far from the facts I shall hope to hear from you at once contradicting it.

Yet after this strongly disapproving beginning, Eddy closed on a much warmer note: “Wishing you happiness and all blessings … you know I have no other motive but to bless you and honor the Cause”¹⁹ Stetson and Eddy had a complicated and often turbulent relationship, marked by tension between Stetson’s important and impactful work and Eddy’s almost constant need to monitor, rebuke, and rein her in. This letter shows that dynamic was present in their relationship from the beginning—and it would continue in this way, until Stetson was at length expelled from Mother Church membership in 1909. Here is an example of how Eddy tended not to give up on people, but rather continually sought to correct and guide them.

In addition to rebuking and redirecting students who were not moving in the right directions, Eddy freely and frequently thanked and encouraged those who were. Rounding out her correspondence for the day—and in distinct contrast to her words to Stetson—Eddy wrote three letters to students who proved steady and loyal to Christian Science throughout their lives.

First, she wrote to Caroline D. and Gideon P. Noyes—pioneers of Christian Science in the midwestern United States who at the time had just opened the Illinois Christian Science Institute in Chicago:

My interest and affection are the same for you, but every year I have less time for correspondence having so many more added to my list of correspondents. I hope your School is prospering and especially that you are gaining more and more power over all error– sickness, sin and death.²⁰

Next, she wrote this in a note to Mary M. W. Adams, who the previous month had chartered the Union Park Institute of Christian Science in Chicago along with fellow student Elizabeth Webster:

My heart goes out to you to day with a yearning to say I love you and am pleased to know you are building your superstructures on a sure foundation

 

Every day may you gain a few steps onward, and every year’s reminesences show you a journey has been made toward the great goal of harmony, heaven, home.²¹

And finally, she sent a warm greeting to Carrie Harvey and Fremont D. Snider in New York: “Accept my profound thanks for your memory of me and the beatiful attestation of it in the draft inclosed. With many heartfelt desires for your happiness this and every succeeding year I am Most affectionately Yours”²² Eddy expressed this sort of sincere gratitude, interest, and support to her dedicated students nearly every day during this period.²³

What can we discover about Eddy’s leadership of Christian Science from closely examining her correspondence from December 27, 1886? It’s notable that most of her incoming correspondence concerned the somewhat mundane, clerical, or routine details of the work: orders for literature, issues with printing and publishing Science and Health, applications to classes, and the occasional appeal for treatment through prayer.

Meanwhile, all of the outgoing correspondence Eddy wrote on that day tended to the larger and more fundamental duties of guarding, guiding, and growing her movement. December 1886 marked the middle of a decade in which Eddy went from doing one hundred percent of the work of founding Christian Science, to removing herself entirely from many of the daily activities in Boston and focusing on its most important visionary and leadership aspects.

Correspondence from any single day can provide a detailed snapshot of what this dynamic and transitional time looked like. It helps illustrate that, while she was still managing many tasks herself, Eddy was striking an effective balance between focusing on the forest and the trees. From the mundane to the momentous, it was all in a day’s work.

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, a deletion or insertion may be made silently.