Article March 1, 1900 ISSUE

A Remarkable Event

Recovery of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy after an Accident in Lynn Recalled.

Alfred Farlow

In 1866 Mrs. Eddy met with an accident in Lynn, Mass., as stated below, and was healed through Divine Power.

It has recently been stated in the public press that she was healed by Dr. Cushing, and we publish the following as a correction of this report.

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To the Editor of the Herald:—After the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker G. Eddy, met with the accident in Lynn, Mass., 1866, which history records, the following report of it was published the next day in a Lynn newspaper, which article was alleged to have come from a conversation with Dr. A. M. Cushing.

At that date Mrs. Mary M. Patterson was the name of the present Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. In her book, "Retrospection and Introspection," she names her second marriage, and it was to Dr. Patterson (deceased).

The newspaper article reads as follows: "Mrs. Mary M. Patterson of Swampscott fell upon the ice near the corner of Market and Oxford Streets, on Thursday evening, and was severely injured. She was taken up in an insensible condition and carried to the residence of S. M. Bubier, Esq., near by, where she was kindly cared for during the night. Dr. Cushing, who was called, found her injuries to be internal, and of a very serious nature, inducing spasms and intense suffering. She was removed to her home in Swampscott yesterday afternoon, though in a very critical condition."

The above-named Dr. Cushing, a homœopathic physician, was called on Thursday night to attend her. He left some powders to be taken, but she declined to take them, and three days thereafter, on Sunday, through the divine Power, she rose from her bed in health. When the doctor called again on Monday he found her well, and congratulated himself on having healed her. She then stepped to her table, opened the drawer, and said, "Look, doctor; all your medicine is here; I never swallowed it." He arose, stood by her side, and looked, as if dazed, at the powders; took up one of them and opened it, then laid it back in the drawer, and made many inquiries as to how she was healed. Afterward he called on her once; at that interview his sole conversation and apparent purpose was to learn what he could about this event, which had stirred the good people in Swampscott and Lynn.

The third day after the accident Mrs. Eddy enjoyed better health than she had ever before known, hence the self-evident fact that she did not need a doctor. Some of the loving friends who were with her at that momentous hour have away, but they knew and had told others that she took no medicine, and for three reasons—I. Dr. Cushing gave her no encouragement that she could recover; 2. At that date she had lost all faith in drugs; 3. She did not even ask for a doctor; it was her friends who sent for him.

Mr. Calvin A. Frye of Concord, N. H., states: "Mrs. Eddy holds the original article that she clipped from a Lynn newspaper, and that I have copied for you."

Mrs. Eddy says: "Rather than quarrel over being vaccinated, I recommend that, if the law demand an individual to submit to this process, he obey the law, and then appeal to the Gospel to save him from any bad results. Whatever change belongs to this century, or any epoch, we may safely submit to the providence of God, to common justice, individual rights, and governmental usages." She also recommends in our text-book, Science and Health, to leave surgery at present to surgeons. Her very nature would incline her not to dictate terms to them, but strictly to comply with their methods, if one were employed.

Alfred Farlow.

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