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 Boar