Her telegraphic response was read to the Association at next day's meeting:
“All hail! He hath filled the hungry with good things and the sick hath He not sent empty away.--MOTHER MARY.”
Which Mother Mary is this one? Are there two? If so, she is both of them; for, when she signed this telegram in this satisfied and unprotesting way, the Mother-title which she was going to so strenuously object to, and put from her with humility, and seize with both hands, and reserve as her sole property, and protect her monopoly of it with a stern By-law, while recognizing with diffidence that it was “not applicable” to her (then and to-day)--that Mother--title was not yet born, and would not be offered to her until five years later. The date of the above “Mother Mary” is 1890; the “individual, endearing title of Mother” was given her “in 1895”--according to her own testimony. See her By-law quoted above.
In his opening Address to that Convention of 1890, the President recognized this Mary--our Mary-and abolished all previous ones. He said:
“There is but one Moses, one Jesus; and there is but one Mary.”
The confusions being now dispersed, we have this clarified result:
There had been a Moses at one time, and only one; there had been a Jesus at one time, and only one; there is a Mary and “only one.” She is not a Has Been, she is an Is--the “Author of Science and Health; and we cannot ignore her.”
1. In 1890, there was but one Mother Mary. The President said so. 2. Mrs. Eddy was that one. She said so, in signing the telegram. 3. Mrs. Eddy was not that one for she says so, in her Associated Press utterance of January 17th. 4. And has “never claimed to be that one”--unless the signature to the telegram is a claim.
Thus it stands proven and established that she is that Mary and isn't, and thought she was and knows she wasn't. That much is clear.
She is also “The Mother,” by the election of 1895, and did not want the title, and thinks it is not applicable to her, and will excommunicate any one that tries to take it away from her. So that is clear.
I think that the only really troublesome confusion connected with these particular matters has arisen from the name Mary. Much vexation, much misunderstanding, could have been avoided if Mrs. Eddy had used some of her other names in place of that one. “Mother Mary” was certain to stir up discussion. It would have been much better if she had signed the telegram “Mother Baker”; then there would have been no Biblical competition, and, of course, that is a thing to avoid. But it is not too late, yet.