Article December 17, 1910 Issue

The United States has lost, in the death of Mary Baker Eddy,...

Butte (Mont.) Evening News

The United States has lost, in the death of Mary Baker Eddy, one of the truly remarkable characters of the century. That in this practical age the beliefs and theories of Mrs. Eddy interested and held nearly a million people sincere and devoted to their Leader, and that this fidelity continued year after year with increasing force, demonstrates not only that Mrs. Eddy was a woman of superior intellect, but that she was one of innate goodness to have stood the test of time. Mrs. Eddy's accomplishment is remarkable in that it was attained without evangelizing or proselyting. Her church might be called a natural growth, and it grew with the dignity which characterized the woman herself. It had chiefly to contend with ridicule of the practical class, whose materialistic natures could not and would not accept the teaching of the woman. Some responsive chord her teaching certainly found in the public mind, and nothing has ever shown that her influence was other than good. Even if Mrs. Eddy accomplished nothing more, she effected in her followers a mental harmony which in this busy land, with its tendencies to discord, was in itself—to those who needed it—a benison.

Mrs. Eddy's disinterestedness stands out prominently. She is free from the accusation of promoting her own worldly affairs at the expense of her zealots. The fruits of her years of labor revert to the organization she planned and perfected. Mrs. Eddy was the most striking example the century has had of the power of repose; hers was not a church militant and her church was the antithesis of that of the evangelical whirling dervish whose creed is as transient as it is tempestuous. From all walks of life, high and low, Mrs. Eddy recruited her army of followers; hers was no appeal to any particular class, nor to any particular nationality, and in point of universality in America the sect was in a class by itself. Few will advance the theory that Mrs. Eddy has not left the world better than she found it.

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