The system of nature assures us that benevolence is a leading principle in the divine mind. But that system is at the same time deficient in a means of making this benevolence of invariable operation. To reconcile this to the character of the Deity, it is necessary to suppose that the present system is but a part of the whole, a stage in a Great Progress, and that the Redress is in reserve.125
Always perfection lay ahead—in a promised heaven or an evolved earthly paradise. But would even that hypothetical redress justify the cruelty and waste of the present, all the needless suffering inflicted on those whose only guilt was to have been born? One had need of a deep wellspring of gladness in the heart to face such questions.
Three related problems hung over the two years that Mrs. Glover lived with Abigail Tilton: her separation from her son, her increasingly severe attacks of illness, the difficulty of being a proud dependent in a still prouder home. Yet she apparently put as cheerful a face on the matter as she could and at least to outside eyes appeared tranquil enough.126
It was during these years that young Sarah Clement lived across the street from the Tiltons and saw Mrs. Glover almost daily.127 “I never saw her when she was the least depressed,” she declared later. Mrs. Glover read a great deal, she added, and used to borrow books from ● ● ●
126 Cf. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s comment in Uncle Tom’s Cabin regarding a very different sort of captive:
Though parted from all his soul held dear, and though often yearning for what lay beyond, still was he never positively and consciously miserable; for, so well is the harp of human feeling strung, that nothing but a crash that breaks every string can wholly mar its harmony; and, on looking back to seasons which in review appear to us as those of deprivation and trial, we can remember that each hour, as it glided, brought its diversions and alleviations, so that, though not happy wholly, we were not, either, wholly miserable. (vol. 2, p. 60)
127 Her reminiscences contain the following passage: “I, although not being a Christian Scientist, was positively enraged at the articles in McClure’s Magazine. . . . They were so absolutely untrue. . . . There was a mean, underlying currant to them, and I should think the author, whoever he or she is, would have them on his or her conscience. . . . Mrs. Eddy was so entirely unlike the run of New England country people that they could not understand her.” Reminiscences of Sarah Clement Kimball, as found in Ruth W. Wardwell to The Christian Science Board of Directors, 1 February 1920, Reminiscence, p. 8, MBEL.
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