"[3] Powell's own biographer, Charles S. Macfarland, wrote that this first book on the subject "it was clear, had been written in a spirit of extreme irritation.

[citation needed] Before writing the new book, Powell told Macfarland, "Mary Baker Eddy should be made known to the world - through the medium of one who was neither her disciple nor her enemy.

"[6] He travelled to Boston, and despite his previous negative book, the Mother Church gave him access to their extensive archives; in hope that the biography would rebut the recent criticisms of Edwin Franden Dakin.

[citation needed] Ernest Sutherland Bates, a critic of Christian Science, negatively reviewed Powell's 1930 biography commenting "His method of vindicating Mrs. Eddy is simply to ignore all the charges against her including those which he himself has made."

Bates noted that Powell's criticisms of Eddy that he made in 1907 such as the accusations of indebtedness to Phineas Quimby do not appear in his later biography.