● ● ● received with interest whenever you choose to lay open your feelings to me. One thing, do not allow yourself to be suspected of bigotry or fanaticism. They are as distinct from true religion, as from true philosophy—its very antipodes.58
Along with the danger of fanaticism ran the danger of the rather flashy sort of pietism which many young girls of Mary’s age were falling into. A new era was inaugurated in 1837 when eighteen-year-old Victoria, called down from bed to be told she was Queen of England, announced, “I will be good.” A number of American young ladies, with rather less regal effect, were proposing to be good in a somewhat self-satisfied or at least self-conscious way.
Very typical of the times is the adjuration by a certain Lydia [Ann] of Claremont in a letter to Mary’s close friend Augusta Holmes: “It grieves me to the heart to know of Sally’s indifference to salvation. . . . I hope my dear Augusta that you will be faithful—unwearied in your efforts to do her good & by your holy life & pious conversation constrain her to come to the Saviour.”59
There is little of this sort of thing in Mary’s letters. Her religious experience apparently ran at another level. A turning point in that experience may have been the arrival of the Reverend Enoch Corser in September, 1837, to take over the pastorate of the Northfield Congregational church in Sanbornton Bridge. A history of the church describes this gentleman with a pleasing vigor:
Then came that strong, blunt, eloquent, and thoroughly devoted man, Rev. Enoch Corser. . . . His sermons were models of method, running through fifthly and sixthly, perhaps not quite to fifteenthly. He was a man of powerful voice and tremendous muscle, which he often used on the desk and Bible in his moments of intense fervor.
58 Albert Baker to Mary Baker, 27 March 1837, 1919.001.0026, LMC. In a letter to an old college friend on July 10, 1838, Albert wrote: “Dickey tells me he thinks of turning his attention to the study of Law. I am glad it is so—He is too clean a fellow for a theologian—asking pardon of the mitre.” Albert Baker to Frederick Harvey, 10 July 1838, 1919.001.0035, LMC. Mrs. Eddy’s own reference to her desire to join the Methodist Church is in Mary Baker Eddy to B. C. Lippincott, 30 March 1910, L04919, MBEL.
59 Lydia Ann to Augusta Holmes Swasey, 19 August 1838, Subject File, Mary Baker Eddy - Childhood, MBEL.