"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd"

In our March book Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy (Expanded edition) by Rev. Irving C. Tomlinson, MA, CSB, I was interested to read about Mary Baker Eddy and Shakespeare. I knew she was familiar with Shakespeare's work.

 

Doesn’t Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (written by Mary Baker Eddy) have a Shakespearean quote (from Hamlet) on page iii, set between a quote from John’s gospel and a poem by the author?

There is nothing either good or bad,

but thinking makes it so.

 

Tomlinson tells us that she was able to quote from Macbeth Act 5, scene 3. He writes (page 17):  Mrs. Eddy addressed us by repeating the following from Macbeth act V, scene 3 –

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?

 

He goes on,

These lines were repeated without hesitation, and with the accent and intonation which indicated a familiarity that might be expected of a noted actor. I asked two longtime workers in Mrs. Eddy’s household if they remembered it as a quotation often used by Mrs. Eddy. Both said that they had never heard her use the lines before.

 

One can certainly understand why those lines were so meaningful to Mrs. Eddy.

 

On page 30 we find a passage which tells us of Mrs. Eddy’s handling of an unruly child in the school she started in Tilton for children 8 to 10 years. (This would have been before she discovered the Christ Science.)

 

I shall copy it here.

A mother whose ten-year-old son was so ungovernable that she had sent him to the reform school came to me and begged that I take her boy into my school. I hesitated but at last yielded to her entreaties. The first day the boy behaved very badly. I asked him to remain after the others had gone and I could see him looking for a chance to escape. His eyes glanced to the door and to the windows as if he would break away. I fastened the door and put the key in my pocket. He looked up at me defiantly and said, “Shan’t I go out and get you a stick?” I talked gently to him of God, and the rude boy melted and the tears ran down his cheeks. Then I read to him from the Bible and I prayed with him until I knew my prayer was answered. We went home together hand in hand. When at home he amazed his mother by asking for the Bible and going apart with it to read and pray. The dear boy became transformed. A short time later he joined the Congregational Church and grew to be an honorable and upright man.

 

Another gem on page 31:

Mrs. Eddy once told of moving to North Groton, New Hampshire, in 1855 when she was Mrs. Patterson: “It was a beautiful spot, and among other good people there was one saintly man who was known as Father Merrill. I went to this good man and asked him if we could not on the Sabbath day hold a prayer meeting in the schoolhouse. He said, ‘Oh no, there would be no one attend. The people don’t care for such things and it would do no good.’ He yielded to my entreaties, and the following Sunday at three o’clock was appointed for our prayer meeting. The day dawned fair and beautiful, and three o’clock found Father Merrill and myself at the little school ready for the service. Congregation or no congregation we were resolved upon our service and we two held our service of prayer and praise. Fervent indeed were the offerings laid upon God’s altar that beautiful Sabbath afternoon. A service was announced for the following Sunday at the same time and place, and when the hour arrived there were three others present. The following Sunday there came together a good congregation and before the month was out the schoolhouse could not hold all who sought admittance. We opened the windows that those without might share the service.”

This reminds me of the ten Boom sisters (Corrie and Betsy) getting a prayer group going in a Nazi concentration camp. See Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place.

Joyce Voysey