A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land
Motto upon the cover of the "Christian Science Sentinel"
At the June communion of the Mother Church, 1895, a telegram from Mrs. Eddy was read aloud to the congregation, in which she invited all members who desired to do so to call upon her at Pleasant View on the following day.[1] Accordingly, one hundred and eighty Christian Scientists boarded the train at Boston and went up to Concord. Mrs. Eddy threw her house open to them, received them in person, shook hands with each delegate, and conversed with many. This was the beginning of the Concord "pilgrimages" which later became so conspicuous.
After the communion in 1897, twenty-five hundred enthusiastic pilgrims crowded into the little New Hampshire capital. Although the Scientists hired every available conveyance in Concord, there were not nearly enough carriages to accommodate their numbers, so hundreds of the pilgrims made their joyful progress on foot out Pleasant Street to Mrs. Eddy's home.
Mrs. Eddy again received her votaries, greeted them cordially, and made a rather lengthy address. The Journal says that her manner upon this occasion was peculiar for its "utter freedom from sensationalism or the Mesmeric effect that so many speakers seem to exert," and adds that she was "calm and unimpassioned, but strong and convincing." The Journal also states that upon this occasion Mrs. Eddy wore "a royal purple silk dress covered with black lace" and a "dainty bonnet." She wore her diamond cross and the badge of the Daughters of the Revolution in diamonds and rubies.
In 1901[2] three thousand of the June communicants went from Boston to Concord on three special trains. They were not admitted to the house, but Mrs. Eddy appeared upon her balcony for a moment and spoke to them, saying that they had already heard from her in her message to the Mother Church, and that she would pause but a moment to look into their dear faces and then return to her "studio." The Journal comments upon her "erect form and sprightly step," and says that she wore "what might have been silk or satin, figured, and cut en traine. Upon her white hair rested a bonnet with fluttering blue and old gold trimmings."
The last of these pilgrimages occurred in 1904, when Mrs. Eddy did not invite the pilgrims to come to Pleasant View but asked them to assemble at the new Christian Science church in Concord. Fifteen hundred of them gathered in front of the church and stood in reverent silence as Mrs. Eddy's carriage approached. The horses were stopped in front of the assemblage, and Mrs. Eddy signaled the President of the Mother Church to approach her carriage. To him, as representing the church body, she spoke her greeting.
The yearning which these people felt toward Mrs. Eddy, and their rapture at beholding her, can only be described by one of the pilgrims. In the Journal, June, 1899, Miss Martha Sutton Thompson writes to describe a visit which she made in January of that year to the meeting of the Christian Science Board of Education in Boston. She says:
"When I decided to attend I also hoped to see our Mother.... I saw that if I allowed the thought that I must see her personally to transcend the desire to obey and grow into the likeness of her teachings, this mistake would obscure my understanding of both the Revelator and the Revelation. After the members of the Board had retired they reappeared upon the rostrum and my heart beat quickly with the thought 'Perhaps she has come.' But no, it was to read her message.... She said God was with us and to give her love to all the class. It was so precious to get it directly from her.
"The following day five of us made the journey to Concord, drove out to Pleasant View, and met her face to face on her daily drive. She seemed watching to greet us, for when she caught sight of our faces she instantly half rose with expectant face, bowing, smiling, and waving her hand to each of us. Then as she went out of our sight, kissed her hand to all.
"I will not attempt to describe the Leader, nor can I say what this brief glimpse was and is to me. I can only say I wept and the tears start every time I think of it. Why do I weep? I think it is because I want to be like her and they are tears of repentance. I realize better now what it was that made Mary Magdalen weep when she came into the presence of the Nazarene."
Mrs. Eddy's Last Class
After the pilgrimages were discouraged, there was no possible way in which these devoted disciples could ever see Mrs. Eddy. They used, indeed, like Miss Thompson, to go to Concord and linger about the highways to catch a glimpse of her as she drove by, until she rebuked them in a new by-law in the Church Manual: "Thou Shalt not Steal. Sect. 15. Neither a Christian Scientist, his student or his patient, nor a member of the Mother Church shall daily and continuously haunt Mrs. Eddy's drive by meeting her once or more every day when she goes out—on penalty of being disciplined and dealt with justly by her church," etc.