Return: 1844
Mary Baker Eddy would later write of God as having been “graciously preparing” her during the first half of her life for the discovery of Christian Science.1 The grace might be visible in retrospect; it was far from evident at the time. In many ways her life now seemed to be a progress from frustration to frustration rather than a triumphal march toward greatness. Yet the final pattern disclosed that delicate interlocking of events which makes a great life seem inevitable when it rounds to its unpredictable end.
To go forward toward her destiny the widowed Mrs. Glover had first to go back toward her beginnings. There was neither reason nor means for her to stay in Wilmington. Glover’s money had all been sunk in the lost building materials. Whatever slaves he had—probably not more than one or two at this time—she allowed to go free.2 The only ● ● ●
1 [Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (Boston: Christian Science Board of Directors, 1934), p. 107.]
2 It is inconceivable that he would have been described as “indigent” at the time of death if he had possessed a large number of slaves. Carl Sandburg quotes an unnamed Kentuckian as saying to Lincoln: “You might have any amount of land, money in your pocket, or bank stock, and while traveling around, nobody would be any wiser; but if you had a darky trudging at your heels, everybody would see him and know you owned a slave. It is the most glittering property in the world. If a young man goes courting, the only inquiry is how many negroes he or she owns.” Quoted in Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1926), vol. 2, p. 23.
It was impossible to free slaves in South Carolina except by special action of the legislature. In North Carolina they could be freed legally but there is no record of any such action by Mrs. Glover. However, it was possible for her simply to let them go free, as owners did from time to time, although this sometimes led to later legal complications.