Public Figure, Private Life

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Critics, adversaries, dissidents

From the start, invective and insult were hurled at Mary Baker Eddy and at Christian Science. Her teachings challenged conventional thought - religious, medical, and scientific - and some members of those communities were quick to denounce her and what she taught. Several authors, notably Mark Twain, wrote parodies, highly distorted biographies, and outright attacks on her. On the other hand, a number of ministers, medical doctors, and natural scientists investigated her teachings and their effects, and left their vocations to became prominent workers in the Christian Science movement.

Dissident students.

The most troublesome antagonists were disaffected students who wanted to topple her as Leader of the Christian Science Movement and strike out in directions of their own. Several times break-away groups bolted from the ranks. Some turned on her in the press and tried to influence public opinion against her and Christian Science.

The Woodbury lawsuit.

1899-1901. In June 1899, Mrs. Eddy sent a message to her church on the occasion of its Communion Sunday. The message was pastoral in nature. But its topics included sin, which was characterized in strong words quoted from the book of Revelation, alluding to “the Babylonish woman.”

A disaffected former follower, Josephine C. Woodbury, claimed these words were aimed at her. One month later she sued Mrs. Eddy for libel.

Mrs. Woodbury was represented by attorney Frederick Peabody, who went on to spend much of his career attacking Christian Science and its Leader. Peabody published articles, gave lectures, and provided distorted views and misinformation to hostile biographers.

The suit brought on a time of intense persecution and suffering for Mrs. Eddy. In 1901, after two years of Woodbury attempting to try her case in the press, the suit finally came to trial in court. It was summarily decided in Mrs. Eddy’s favor.

The “Next Friends” lawsuit. 1907.

In March 1907 attorney William Chandler, a former New Hampshire state senator, filed a suit on behalf of a group of plaintiffs referred to as Mrs. Eddy’s “next friends.” They included Mrs. Eddy’s son, George Glover, her granddaughter, Mary Baker Glover, her nephew, George W. Baker, and others. Chandler’s junior counsel was the same Frederick Peabody who had represented Mrs. Woodbury.

The stated object of the so-called “Next Friends” suit was to declare the 85-year-old Mrs. Eddy incompetent to manage her own interests and income. The litigants claimed that her staff were manipulating her to control her assets. If successful, the suit would have wrested control of her affairs from her, effectively ending her leadership of the Christian Science movement and discrediting her teachings.

The suit was initially bankrolled by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, which six months earlier had run sensational feature-length articles falsely asserting that Mrs. Eddy was seriously ill, unfit to conduct business, and under the control of members of her household.

To determine Mrs. Eddy’s competence, Judge Robert Chamberlin appointed a three-man committee of experts to interview her: a judge, a New Hampshire attorney, and a medical doctor who specialized in cases of insanity. The court-appointed committee, accompanied by lawyers for both sides, interviewed Mrs. Eddy in her home at Pleasant View. They found her to be totally competent to conduct her own business.

The attorney for the plaintiffs, realizing that he could not possibly win, withdrew the suit a few days later, before a verdict could be rendered. In scores of newspapers throughout the United States and even overseas, articles and editorials recognized the unjust nature of the suit, characterized it as nothing short of religious persecution, and commended Mary Baker Eddy’s fortitude, graciousness, and mental acuity.

The Stetson challenge.

Mrs. Eddy’s student, Augusta Stetson, had helped found, First Church of Christ, Scientist, New York City. Throughout much of the first decade of the 1900s, Mrs. Stetson was attempting to build up that branch church as a base for her ambition to become Mrs. Eddy’s successor as Leader of the Christian Science movement.

Late in 1909 Stetson was expelled from membership in The Mother Church. By the beginning of 1910, with Mrs. Eddy’s timely intervention, the rift that had threatened the structure of her church was healed.