Accession: L07811
Editorial Title: Mary Baker Eddy to Daniel H. Spofford, December 30, 1876
Author: Mary Baker Eddy 
Recipient: Daniel H. Spofford 
Date: December 30, 1876 - archivist estimate
Manuscript Description: Handwritten by Mary Baker Eddy on lined paper.
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L07811
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Sat.
Dear Student,

Yours just received Now.Editorial Note: This letter is not extant. Dr Spofford wont you exercise reason and let me live or will you kill me? Your mind is just what has brought on my relapse and I shall never recover if you do not govern yourself and turn your thoughts wholly away from me. Do for God's sake and the work I have before me let me get out of this suffering I never was worse than last night and you say you wish to do me good and I do not doubt it then wont you quit thinking of me. I shall write no more to a male student and never more trust one to live with me. It is a hidden foe that is at work read Science and health Page 193 1st par.Editorial Note: The reference here is to the first edition of Science and Health and reads: “Sin is thought before it is deed, and you must master it in the first, or it conquers you in the second instance. Jesus said, to look with foul desire on forbidden objects, breaks a moral precept; hence the stress he laid on the character of a man that is hidden from our perception. Evil thoughts reach farther, and do more harm than individual crimes, for they impregnate other minds and fashion your body. The atmosphere of impure desires, like the atmosphere of earth, is restless, ever in motion, and calling on some object; this atmosphere is laden with mental poison, and contaminates all it touches. When malicious purposes, evil thoughts, or lusts, go forth from one mind, they seek others, and will lodge in them unless repelled by virtue and a higher motive for being. All mental emanations take root and bear fruit after their own kind. Consider, then, the guilt of nurturing evil and impure thoughts, that send broadcast discord and moral death. Sooner suffer a doctor infected with small-pox to be about you, than come under the treatment of one that manipulates his patients’ heads, and is a traitor to science.”

No student nor mortal has tried to have you leave me that I know of Dr. Eddy has tried to have you stay you are in a mistake, it is God and not man that has separated us and for the reason I begin to learn. Do not think of returning to me again I shall never again trust a man They know not what manner of temptations assail God produces the separation and I submit to it so must you

There is no cloud between us but the way you set me up for a DagonEditorial Note: Dagon was a Philistine deity. See I Sam:5:2-7. is wrong and now I implore you to turn forever from this error of personality and go alone to God as I have taught you.

It is mesmerism that I feel and is killing me it is mortal mind that only can make me suffer. Now stop thinking of me or you will cut me off soon from the face of the earth

Ever your friend
M B G.
L07811
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Reproduced from the archive of The Mary Baker Eddy Library
X

Copied document link to clipboard.

Sat.
Dear Student,

Yours just received Now.Editorial Note: This letter is not extant. Dr Spofford wont you exercise reason and let me live or will you kill me? Your mind is just what has brought on my relapse and I shall never recover if you do not govern yourself and turn your thoughts wholly away from me. Do for God's sake and the work I have before me let me get out of this suffering I never was worse than last night and you say you wish to do me good and I do not doubt it then wont you quit thinking of me. I shall write no more to a male student and never more trust one to live with me. It is a hidden foe that is at work read the P Science and health Page 193 1st par.Editorial Note: The reference here is to the first edition of Science and Health and reads: “Sin is thought before it is deed, and you must master it in the first, or it conquers you in the second instance. Jesus said, to look with foul desire on forbidden objects, breaks a moral precept; hence the stress he laid on the character of a man that is hidden from our perception. Evil thoughts reach farther, and do more harm than individual crimes, for they impregnate other minds and fashion your body. The atmosphere of impure desires, like the atmosphere of earth, is restless, ever in motion, and calling on some object; this atmosphere is laden with mental poison, and contaminates all it touches. When malicious purposes, evil thoughts, or lusts, go forth from one mind, they seek others, and will lodge in them unless repelled by virtue and a higher motive for being. All mental emanations take root and bear fruit after their own kind. Consider, then, the guilt of nurturing evil and impure thoughts, that send broadcast discord and moral death. Sooner suffer a doctor infected with small-pox to be about you, than come under the treatment of one that manipulates his patients’ heads, and is a traitor to science.”

No student nor mortal has tried to have you leave me that I know of Dr. Eddy has tried to have you stay you are in a mistake, it is God and not man that has separated us and for the reason I begin to learn. Do not think of returning to me again I shall never again trust a man They know not what manner of temptations assail until God produces the separation and I submit to it so must you

There is no cloud between us but the way you set me up for a dagon DagonEditorial Note: Dagon was a Philistine deity. See I Sam:5:2-7. is wrong and now I implore you to turn forever from this error of personality and go alone to God as I have taught you.

It is mesmerism that I feel and is killing me it is mortal mind that only can make me suffer. Now stop thinking of me or you will cut me off soon from the face of the earth

Ever your friend
M B G.
 
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This letter is not extant. The reference here is to the first edition of Science and Health and reads: “Sin is thought before it is deed, and you must master it in the first, or it conquers you in the second instance. Jesus said, to look with foul desire on forbidden objects, breaks a moral precept; hence the stress he laid on the character of a man that is hidden from our perception. Evil thoughts reach farther, and do more harm than individual crimes, for they impregnate other minds and fashion your body. The atmosphere of impure desires, like the atmosphere of earth, is restless, ever in motion, and calling on some object; this atmosphere is laden with mental poison, and contaminates all it touches. When malicious purposes, evil thoughts, or lusts, go forth from one mind, they seek others, and will lodge in them unless repelled by virtue and a higher motive for being. All mental emanations take root and bear fruit after their own kind. Consider, then, the guilt of nurturing evil and impure thoughts, that send broadcast discord and moral death. Sooner suffer a doctor infected with small-pox to be about you, than come under the treatment of one that manipulates his patients’ heads, and is a traitor to science.” Dagon was a Philistine deity. See I Sam:5:2-7.