Public Figure, Private Life
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Public appearances
Newspaper sketch: Mrs. Eddy addresses audience at Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass
Starting in the late 1870s and throughout the 1880s, she delivered lectures and preached sermons to larger and larger crowds in Lynn and Boston and even spoke in Chicago and at New York’s Steinway Hall.
Even after retiring from the public eye in 1889 and moving to Concord, New Hampshire, she returned to Boston several times to deliver addresses to her followers. On occasion she received groups of Christian Scientists at Pleasant View, her home at Concord.
In 1898, in the midst of an intense year of work, she took time to deliver a sermon on the 91st Psalm to a crowded Christian Science Hall in Concord. Reporters in the audience remarked on the facility with which she addressed this large gathering.
Mrs. Eddy addresses thousands of Christian Scientists visiting
Pleasant View, June, 1903
The following year she addressed the church’s Annual Meeting which, because of the over-flow audience, was held in Boston’s imposing Tremont Temple.
In 1900 and 1901 she was driven by carriage to the New Hampshire State Fair grounds near her home, where she was welcomed by thousands of onlookers (photo above).
Two years later, when Christian Scientists gathered for their June 1903 Annual Meeting, she invited them to visit her at Pleasant View. According to newspaper accounts, some ten thousand showed up at her gate to greet her and hear a few words from her.
