Mrs. Eddy's masterful personality controlled and compelled much, but it could not control disease, old age, and death.
It was about 1879 when Mrs. Eddy was agitated in talking of " Malicious Animal Mesmerism " that her students first noticed the violent trembling of the head, which was the beginning of the palsy which afterward afflicted her. At her lectures Mrs. Eddy would use spectacles instead of overcoming the defect by mental healing, as Christian Science would suggest. Occasionally a visitor would express surprise at this. This generally annoyed Mrs. Eddy, who on one occasion sharply replied, "I wear glasses because of the sins of the world." She probably meant the idea of failing eyesight was so prevalent for ages that she could not overcome it at once.
Mrs. Eddy left Boston in 1889 and removed to Concord, New Hampshire, and retired from public work. Age was coming on, and with it increasing infirmities. At the end of three years, she bought a property known as Pleasant View, adding more land to the estate, building stables, and a gardener's house.
"All the members of her household lived as if they were exactly as old and as much enfeebled as Mrs. Eddy. They rose early, retired early; never went out of the house except upon her commissions; never dined out, received visits, or went to Boston for a holiday.... Her breakfasts, her nap, her correspondence, her visitors, her clothes, even, were matters of the greatest importance. Her faithful women especially delighted in dressing her hair which, since she had left Boston, she had ceased to color, and which was now soft and white" (M., pp. 413, 414).
After she took up her residence at Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy visited Boston but four times, only remaining on each occasion a few hours.
In 1907 Mrs. Eddy's son, G. W. Glover, brought an action against ten prominent Christian Scientists. He asked for an adjudication that through his mother's old age and failing faculties she was incompetent to manage her estate, and that a receiver of her property be appointed. She promptly met this by declaring a trusteeship for the control of her estate. Mr. Glover withdrew the suit.
This lawsuit disclosed one interesting fact, namely, that while in 1898 securities of Mrs. Eddy amounting to $100,000 were brought to Concord, and in January, 1899, she had $236,200, and while in 1907, she had about $1,000,200 of taxable property, Mrs. Eddy in 1901 returned a signed statement to the assessors at Concord that the value of her taxable property amounted to $19,000. This statement was sworn to year after year" (M., pp. 457, 458).
In 1895 Mrs. Eddy adopted the title "Mother" and instituted the Concord "pilgrimages," which became so conspicuous. That year 180 Christian Scientists responded to her invitation. In 1897, 2,500 people made the pilgrimage. The Journal states that upon this occasion Mrs. Eddy wore a "royal purple silk dress covered with black lace" and "a dainty bonnet." She wore her diamond cross and the badge of the Daughters of the Revolution in diamonds and rubies. In 1901 3,000 "pilgrims" arrived. The pilgrimages ceased in 1904, but that year the "pilgrims" were invited to meet her at the new Christian Science Church in Concord. Fifteen hundred "pilgrims" responded. She made no speech, but addressed the President of the Mother Church from her carriage. Her voice was very weak, and she had aged very considerably since her last official appearance. This was her last meeting with the general congregation of her Church.
"After the pilgrimages were discouraged there was no way in which her devoted disciples could ever see Mrs. Eddy. They used indeed to go to Concord and linger about the highways to catch a glimpse of her as she drove by, until she rebuked them in a new by-law in the Church Manual: Thou shalt not steal, Sect. 15. Neither a Christian Scientist, his student or his patient, nor a member of the Mother Church, shall daily and continuously haunt Mrs. Eddy's drive by meeting her once or more every day when she goes out -on penalty of being disciplined and dealt with justly by her Church" (M., pp. 444, 445).
Thus did Mrs. Eddy endeavor to hide her weakness from the eyes of her deluded followers. She, who had taught that disease, weakness, senility, and death were illusions, could not deliver herself, and in her own person was the denial of her own system in every practice of her life and in her physical condition.
In 1907, when in her eighty-seventh year, Mrs. Eddy purchased a mansion in Newton, a suburb of Boston. The house was re-modeled and enlarged in great haste at a cost which must nearly have equaled the original cost, $100,000. Hundreds of workmen night and day worked upon it in feverish haste. On Jan. 26th, 1908, Mrs. Eddy, with nearly a score of her followers and a doctor, boarded the train at Concord. A pilot engine brought up the rear to ensure perfect safety. It is probable that her move was actuated by her old dread of "Malicious Animal Magnetism." Two large vaults were built into the house-a strange addition to be made by an old lady who taught that death was an illusion of the senses, an error of the mind. It certainly looks as if she knew that she was humbugging others, whilst she prepared for the great reality-DEATH.
The end came in 1910. We cannot obtain any account of her last moments. A Christian Scientist lady in charge of one of their handsome sale-rooms informed us there was nothing to relate. She drove out every day till one day the daily drive had to be foregone, and two days later she died. This lady used the expression "she died," just as any ordinary person would have used the expression. A physician has testified that she died of pneumonia, and that her appearance in death was that of an old woman.
And thus this strange mixture of strength and weakness, astuteness and folly, who had built up with such force of will and tenacity of purpose out of the denial of every Scripture doctrine, and out of the denial of every solid fact of nature, the strangest and most fantastic of delusions, passed away into the region where she would wake up to the awful reality of things she had lived to deny, and into the realm where she could fool no one.
For what had she gained in the light of the truth of Scripture? Nothing, infinitely worse than nothing! Her loss is irreparable and terrible, and she has left behind her an influence which she cannot undo.
The only possible explanation of her success is that the Christian Science movement is SATANIC, and has behind it Satan's influence and subtlety.
May God preserve each reader from Mrs. Eddy's soul-destroying delusions, and may he or she believe