Article January 29, 1916 Issue

Whether confidence in prayer is more or less of a superstition...

Judge Clifford P. Smith—White Plains, N. Y.

Westchester News

Whether confidence in prayer is more or less of a superstition than faith in medicine, and whether the practice of Christian Science requires less or more arduous preparation than the practice of medicine, are questions which a recent editorial in Puck entitled, "Enter Prayer, Exit Pill," was more likely to agitate than answer; and I am willing to leave these questions where Puck left them. With your kind permission, however, I would offer your readers some authentic information regarding Mrs. Eddy, of whom Puck spoke as "illiterate" and "an extremely commonplace New England woman."

So far as systematic instruction is concerned, Mrs. Eddy received as much or more of it than was usual with the children of prosperous parents in New England in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a young girl she wrote poetry of such merit that it was sought for publication by newspapers and magazines. Two of her poems were republished at Manchester, N. H., in 1850, and again at Boston in 1856, in a collection of poems and essays by New Hampshire authors. As a young woman she was regularly paid by several periodicals for writing articles on topics of public interest. Before her discovery of Christian Science she was offered and declined a salary of three thousand dollars a year to become associated with the Rev. Albert Case as editor of the Oddfellows' Magazine.

Among Mrs. Eddy's tutors was the Rev. Enoch Corser of Tilton, N. H., a well known Congregational clergyman and educator, who spoke of her as "an intellectual and spiritual genius." This he said while she was still a girl or young woman. Another clergyman who knew Mrs. Eddy well was the Rev. Richard S. Rust, for many years principal of the Methodist Seminary at Northfield, N. H., in which institution he offered Mrs. Eddy a position as a teacher. He was afterward state superintendent of public instruction in New Hampshire, later president of Wesleyan College at Cincinnati, Ohio, and subsequently president of the Union Central Life Insurance Company. Having kept up his acquaintance with Mrs. Eddy for more than half a century, Mr. Rust spoke of her as one of the brightest women he ever knew.

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