Eddy, Mary Baker

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[[Image:Marybaker.jpg|thumb|250px|left|Mary Baker Eddy]]
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{{epname|Eddy, Mary Baker}}
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'''Mary Ann Morse Baker''' founded Christian Science, and was well known in
 
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her day as a religious reformer, and a healer. Best known as simply '''Mary Baker Eddy''' (July 16, 1821 - December 3, 1910) founded the [[Church of Christ, Scientist]] in 1879 and was the author of its fundamental doctrinal Textbook, ''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures''. Unbeknownst to most, she received that from intense prayer and faith, that she would find a way to help out
 
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all of her fellow human beings, this was her motive. Mary Baker Eddy overcame years of ill health and great personal struggle to make an indelible mark on society, religion and journalism.
 
  
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==Life & Family==
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[[Image:Marybaker.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Mary Baker Eddy]]
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Mary Baker Eddy, the youngest of the six children of Abigail and Mark Baker was born in Bow, New Hampshire. She spent most of her childhood near Concord.
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'''Mary Baker Eddy''' (July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was the pioneer of a system of prayer-based healing that led her to found the [[Church of Christ, Scientist]] in 1879. She was the author of its fundamental doctrinal textbook, ''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures'', which has sold more than ten million copies. She is also the founder of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, founder of a publishing house, and founder of the [[Pulitzer Prize]]-winning [[newspaper]] ''[[The Christian Science Monitor]].''
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<ref>{{cite web | title = Longyear Historical Foundation - Short Biographical Sketch on Mary Baker Eddy | url = http://http://www.longyear.org/mbe.html | accessdate = 2006-05-30 }}</ref>
 
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Because Mary was a sickly child suffering from a variety of childhood diseases, she spent most of her life being homeschooled by her older brother, student of Dartsmouth, Albert.
 
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When she was only 20 years of age, this beloved most favorite brother died. During the 19th Century, there were also limitations to the quality and quantity of education offered to females at that time in American history. This was in part due to the fact that the piety of the Puritan heritage, especially in New England, was very real, and had great influence on society and therefore did indeed have an impact.
 
  
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Mary Baker Eddy was raised a [[Congregational Church|Congregationalist]], she rebelled against teachings like [[predestination]]. She suffered chronic illness and developed a strong interest in the biblical accounts of early Christian healing.
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Mary Baker Eddy overcame years of ill health and great personal struggle to make an indelible mark on American society. She made her discovery of Christian Science at a time when women could not vote and were generally barred from pulpits, seminaries, and the medical profession.
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{{toc}}
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In 1995 Eddy was elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame and in 1998 she was named one of the 25 “most significant religious figures for Americans in the 20th Century” by the PBS program ''Religion & Ethics Newsweekly''.
  
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In 1843 she married George Washington Glover. He died three months before the birth of their only child, George Washington Glover, Jr. In 1853 she married Dr. Daniel Patterson. This marriage did not last and ended in a divorce, in 1873, due to the fact the man had committed adultery, and he admitted it openly.
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==Life and Family==
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''Mary Baker Eddy'' was born Mary Ann Morse Baker, the youngest of the six children of Abigail Ambrose and Mark Baker on July 16, 1821, near Concord, [[New Hampshire]] in the town of Bow. Named Mary Ann Morse after her grandmother, she never used her full name Mary Ann, but signed herself Mary (Cather and Milmine 1909). She spent most of her childhood suffering from a variety of childhood diseases. Her poor health was reportedly related to a spinal weakness that caused spasmodic seizures, followed by prostration, which resulted in a complete nervous collapse. It is referred to as chronic invalidism.
  
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In 1877, she married a third time, Asa Gilbert Eddy, he tragically died in 1882.
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Both her parents were descendants of members of the [[Congregational Church]]. Raised with Puritan values, daily [[Bible]] reading, and talk of God's healing power, she spent many years looking for healing.
  
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One of Mary Baker’s brothers was [[Albert Baker]], a graduate of [[Dartmouth College]], who studied [[law]] with [[Franklin Pierce]] (who later became [[President of the United States]]), and was admitted to the bar in both [[Massachusetts]] and New Hampshire. Albert helped home-school her in moral science, [[natural philosophy]], [[Latin]], [[Greek language|Greek]], and Hebrew grammar.
  
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Due to the condition of her health, she was determined to find a way to not only cure herself of ailments but also help others. This was a time long before the advent of antibiotics. She researched what was available to her at the time, homeopathy, and allopathic therapies. Her heart's desire was to find the connection of mind and body relationship and understanding. Mary Baker Eddy did intense study of the Bible, seeking the secrets of spiritual healing.
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The Baker family moved to Tilton when Mary was fifteen and she then attended the private school of Professor H. Dyer Sanborn. Under his instruction and the guidance of the Rev. Enoch Corser, pastor of the Tilton Congregational Church, she began to develop her intellectual and spiritual maturity.
  
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In the 1860s she began to explore faith-healing and associated with [[Phineas Quimby]]. His influence on her is disputed; the Christian Science Church maintains she thought highly of him personally but ultimately disavowed his technique as more [[mesmerism]]-based than Christian.
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===Marriages===
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In 1843 Mary Baker married George Washington Glover, her thirty-three-year-old brother-in-law. She was twenty-two. George Glover's sister had married Mary's eldest brother, Samuel, in 1831. Originally from Concord, New Hampshire, Glover had established a business in Charleston, [[South Carolina]].  
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About a year after their [[marriage]], while on a business trip to Wilmington, [[North Carolina]], her husband contracted [[yellow fever]] and died in about nine days. Mrs. Glover returned to her father's home. She gave birth to a boy not long after her return, and she named him after her husband, George Washington Glover.
  
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==Healing==
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Mary Baker Glover suffered a prolonged illness following childbirth. Her son's custody become a major issue when her mother died in 1849. In 1850 her father married Elizabeth Patterson Duncan. Her father made it clear that the boy wasn't welcome and he stayed with a series of different relatives. Later her sister, Abigail Tilton, offered her a home, but with the stipulation that her son George was not welcome. She felt she couldn't take care of her ill sister and the young boy. As a result George W. Glover was sent to live in North Groton, New Hampshire, forty miles away from his mother. He lived with the family's former servant, Mahala, who had married a farmer, Russell Cheney. She wrote the poem "The Mother at Parting with her Child" soon afterward.
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After a severe life threatening injury in 1866, Mary turned to the [[Bible]] and recovered due to the spiritual healing techniques she was able to gain from the contents of the Scriptures which she studied intensely with the desire to not only heal her own body, but to share this with all people of the entire world. She was determined, to find the secrets of the works of Christ Jesus, and his example of healing.
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In 1853, Mary married Daniel Patterson, a relative of her father’s second wife. Mary's father warned Patterson about his daughter's invalidism, but he chose not to heed the advice. She had hoped Patterson would take her son in, but he also decided he wanted no part of him. Although the couple lived near the Cheneys in North Groton in 1855, George Glover's adopted family took the boy with them when they moved to [[Minnesota]] in 1856. George Glover did not see his mother again for twenty-three years.
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The marriage to Patterson proved unhappy, and the couple separated after 13 years, when Daniel deserted her. Seven years later, she sought and obtained a divorce on the grounds of his adultery.  
 
   
 
   
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These were not meant only for those in that age, but as children of God, we can harness that power of healing, each of us have that power and ability, if we have the faith to do so. Mary Baker Eddy was able to share this with others, learning to
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In 1877 Mary Baker Glover was married for the third time to Mr. Asa G. Eddy, who had been sent to her for treatment. She had healed him, had taken him through one of her classes, and placed many of her affairs in his charge. He died in 1882, reportedly of heart disease.
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heal them, through demonstration, she then taught many others the healing process and system, and she then named it, "Christian Science."
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==Her spiritual journey==
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From the age of eight Eddy began having spiritual experiences when she heard her name being called by an unseen voice. In her teens she boldly rebelled against [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] doctrines like [[predestination]] as she was being admitted as a member of her parents’ Congregationalist church.
  
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She then devoted the next three years to biblical study and the development of [[Christian Science]]. Convinced that illness was, at base, a mental illusion that could be healed through a clearer perception of God, she began teaching her theory of healing to others privately. She felt that she had discovered a positive rule  or ''Principle'' to healing in a new understanding of God as divine Principle and infinite Spirit above the limitations of a material sense of reality that she termed error.
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Poor health began to afflict her during her adolescence and as she became an adult and married she experimented with allopathic medicine and alternative therapies, particularly with [[homeopathy]]. Following her first husband's sudden death she developed an interest in [[mesmerism]] (hypnosis), animal magnetism, [[spiritualism]], and [[clairvoyance]]. She also continued her study of the [[Bible]] with an intense focus on the healing powers of [[Jesus]].
  
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==Faith of Mary Baker Eddy==
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In 1862 Eddy received treatment from mental healer, Phineas P. Quimby in Portland, [[Maine]], and was cured quickly. Though her health tended to fluctuate, she maintained a devoted relationship with him and his ideas until he died in 1866. His influence would shape her belief of Christian Science as she integrated her own Christian faith with Quimby's ideas.
  
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Mary was inspired by prayer and devout desire to understand the heart's response to God's majesty, and overflowing love, that was being taught at that time and place, by a well-known minister at the time by the name of [[Jonathan Edwards]], this was his tradition.
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A crucial turning point in Eddy's life occurred one month after Quimby died. A severe fall on an icy sidewalk left her in critical condition. Unable to call on Quimby she asked for her Bible and, while reading an account of Jesus' healing, found herself suddenly well.  
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She showed a deep desire to understand the Bible beyond a surface level, and this was very evident from a very young age. Mary was determined to find and harness the power of faith in the Holy Spirit, of healing oneself of physical and internal illness.
 
  
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She set forth her understanding of this discovery in a book entitled "Science and Health" (years later retitled [[Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures]]), which she called the textbook of Christian Science, and which she published in its first edition of one thousand copies in 1875, writing therein, "In the year 1866
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She spent the next nine years in intensive scriptural study, healing activity, and teaching. In 1875 she published ''Science and Health''. In this book she stated her belief in the "science" behind Jesus' healing method.  
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I discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and named my discovery Christian Science" (page 107).  
 
  
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Eddy would devote the remaining years of her life to the establishment of her church, authoring its governing bylaws, "The [[Manual of the Mother Church]]," and revising "Science and Health."
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===Founding the Church===
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When the existing Christian churches did not embrace her beliefs, Eddy decided to start her own church. In 1879 she secured a charter for the Church of Christ, Scientist, established "to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." Two years later, she founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, where she taught her classes until 1889, when she closed the institution to focus on a major revision of ''Science and Health'', which became ''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures''. Eddy proved effective at teaching hundreds of students, most of them women, to go out across the nation as Christian Science practitioners, organizing societies and recruiting more practitioners. She retained her charter to the College and reopened it in 1899.
  
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Mary Baker Eddy was a highly controversial religious leader, author, and lecturer, thousands of people flocked to her teachings and claimed to find healing. She had a gift, of sincerity and deep desire to help others, and many were drawn to this kind of deep connection she emanated with God. Making the relationship with Heavenly Father, a meaningful daily experience for others, through the teachings she was able to receive through her life of prayer.
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In 1884 Eddy spent a month in [[Chicago]], initiating the westward expansion of her church. In 1888 she again visited Chicago, this time to attend the National Christian Scientist Association where she made an address at the Central Music Hall before an audience of about four thousand. A year later she addressed an audience in Steinway Hall, [[New York]], but thereafter withdrew more and more from public appearances.
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Her influence is felt to this day all over the world.
 
  
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==Founding the Church==
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In 1888, a reading room for her writings and other publications opened in Boston. In 1894, Boston-area Christian Scientists moved into the first church building (The Mother Church), built under Mrs. Eddy's direction. In 1895 she published a church manual, establishing guidelines that are followed to this day.  
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First edition of Science and Health was published in 1875, with "Key to the Scriptures", which was a revolutionary way of looking at her healing system she had researched and found and called, Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy would found and build the Church,in 1879. For ten years she worked as the pastor to serve as an example. On the strength of this healing work by both herself as well as over four thousands students that she taught at her [[Massachusetts Metaphysical College]] in Boston, Massachusetts between the years 1882 and 1889.  These students spread across the country practicing healing by her teachings. Through the auspices of her church, she would authorize these students to list themselves as [[Christian Science Practitioner]]s in her church's official monthly organ, the [[Christian Science Journal]].
 
  
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In 1908, at the age of 87, she founded [[The Christian Science Monitor]], a daily newspaper devoted to balance. She also founded the [[Christian Science Journal]] in 1883, a monthly magazine focused chiefly on the church audience; the [[Christian Science Sentinel]] in 1898, a weekly religious periodical written for a more general public audience, and the [[Herald of Christian Science]], a religious magazine with editions in non-English languages, for children, and in [[Braille|English-Braille]].
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During the formative stages the church saw many rivalries, scandals, and dissident movements. One such example was the dispute between Mary Baker Eddy and Edward J. Arens, her former student, and Julius Dresser, who along with his wife and son, disputed Eddy's originality. The main accusation against Eddy was that she plagiarized Quimby's works. Eddy also found herself the subject of severe criticism from such notables as [[Mark Twain]] and [[Willa Cather]]. She would later explain that the phenomena of self-will used by Quimby to heal was distinct from the understanding of spiritual principles she used for healing.
  
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Mary Baker Eddy established  the publishing company in 1898, for the sake of others, which was the reason for founding "The Christian Science Monitor," in 1908.
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===Church beliefs===
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For over 90 years "Science and Health", as a best seller, has been translated in over 17 languages and Women's National Book Assoc. chose it as a very best book by women, picked out of over 75 books, works or words having the effect and impact of changing our world, and making it a better place. Remarkably, during the 20th century, sold over one million copies.
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{{readout||right|250px|A central tenet of the Church of Christ, Scientist founded by Mary Baker Eddy is spiritual healing of disease}}
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Christian Science agrees with mainstream [[Christianity]] with regards to the existence of an all-powerful God and the authority and inspiration of the Bible. Christian Scientists also believe the [[crucifixion]] and [[resurrection]] of [[Jesus]] to be essential to human redemption.  
  
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Recognition of Mary Baker Eddy's great achievements,the National Women's Hall of Fame, inducted her in 1995.
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A fundamental difference between Christian Science and traditional Christianity lies in its belief that creation is entirely spiritual and perfect and matter does not exist. Sin, sickness and death also do not exist; we only think they do. "The only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise" (Science and Health, 472:27-29).
  
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The Mary Baker Eddy library for the Betterment of Humanity, opened to the public, with access to thousands of documents and artifacts.  
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A central tenet of the Church of Christ, Scientist is spiritual healing of disease, for its own sake as well as for its evidence of redemption from the flesh. The church's most controversial practice is refusal of medical help for disease. Modern Christian Scientists, however, offer the caveat that healthcare decisions are always a matter of individual choice.
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Their core teachings are read at every church service in the "Scientific Statement of Being":
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:''There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.''
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:''All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.''
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:''Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error.''
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:''Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal.''
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:''Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness.''
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:''Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.''
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===Publishing arms of church===
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In 1883 the ''Journal of Christian Science'' was first published. It later became ''The Christian Science Journal'' with Eddy as the editor and publisher. It was also published in [[German language|German]] as ''Der Herold der Christian Science''. She also founded the ''Christian Science Sentinel''; ''The Christian Science Quarterly'' (which contained the weekly Christian Science Lesson-Sermons); and ''[[The Christian Science Monitor]]'', a daily newspaper that went on to win seven [[Pulitzer Prize]]s, including three for International Reporting (1950, 1967 and 1996).
  
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In 1908, just two years before her death, Eddy started ''The Christian Science Monitor'' because she felt that the "[[yellow journalism]]" of the American press was unfairly prejudicial against her faith. Its object and journalistic ethic established by her was "to injure no man, but to bless all mankind." The Monitor provides an independent voice in [[journalism]], and, though published by The Christian Science Publishing Society, it is not a religious periodical. The newspaper reports national and international news, with related features and commentary.
  
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In 1921 on the 100th anniversary of Mary Baker Eddy's death, a 100 ton, 11 foot high granite pyramid was dedicated on the site of her birthplace in Bow, Massachusetts. A gift from the Masons (the only other religious society church members are permitted to join), it was later dynamited by order of the Mother Church Board of Directors who feared that, Mary Baker Eddy's home in Pleasant View which they also demolished, it was becoming a place of pilgrimage.
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==Later life==
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From 1892 to 1908 Eddy resided at Pleasant View, a house situated on the outskirts of Concord, New Hampshire. It was here that Eddy spent her time fine-tuning the organization of the Christian Science church and in clarifying and deepening her own understanding of Christian Science.  
  
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Although Mary Baker Eddy cultivated personal praise in her lifetime for various reasons, including for publicity and fund raising, Christian Science theology shuns both the cult of personality, and religious reliquaries. It was not her character to be arrogant or self centered, she was in fact a humble person.
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In her final years she began withdrawing more and more and discouraged any personal adulation which the beneficiaries of Christian Science might be inclined to place upon her. By the time she died in 1910 her church was growing nationally and internationally (80 different countries), and her best-selling book was in the process of being translated for the first time (into German). Hundreds of tributes appeared in newspapers around the world. She is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge in a tomb at Halcyon Lake,
  
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==Biographies==
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==Legacy==
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* Peel, Robert ''Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery'' ISBN 0875100856, ''Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial'' ISBN 0875101186, and ''Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority'' ISBN 0030567092. (1966-1971)
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The church texts were frozen at Eddy's death and remain the authoritative documents for the Church. After Eddy died leadership in the Church passed to the five-person Board of Directors of the Mother Church in [[Boston, Massachusetts]]. They oversee the production of standard editions of all Eddy's writings.
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* Gill, Gillian, ''Mary Baker Eddy'', Perseus Books Group (1999) ISBN 0738202274
 
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* Gottschalk, Stephen, ''Rolling Away the Stone, Mary Baker Eddy's Challenge to Materialism'', Indiana University Press (2006) ISBN 0253346738
 
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* Eddy, Mary Baker, ''Mary Baker Eddy, Speaking for Herself'', Writings of Mary Baker Eddy (2002) ISBN 0879522755
 
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* Cather, Willa and Milmine, Georgiana ''The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science'' University of Nebraska Press (1993) ISBN 0803214537
 
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* Grekel, Doris and Grekel, Morris, ''The Discovery of the Science of Man: (1821-1888)'', ISBN 189310723X, ''The Founding of Christian Science: The Life of Mary Baker Eddy 1888-1900'', ISBN 1893107248, and ''The Forever Leader: (1901-1910)'' ISBN 0964580381.
 
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* Dittemore, John V. Bates, Ernest Sutherland,  ''Mary Baker Eddy - The Truth and the Tradition'', Knopf (1932)
 
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* Zweig, Stefan, ''Mental Healers Franz Anton Mesmer, Mary Baker Eddy'', Ungar Publishing Co. (1962) ISBN 0804429952
 
  
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==Quotes==
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In 1921 on the 100th anniversary of her birth, a 100-ton, 11-foot high granite pyramid was dedicated on the site of her birthplace in Bow, Massachusetts. A gift from the [[Freemasons]] (the only other religious society church members are permitted to join), it was later dynamited by order of the Mother Church Board of Directors. They also ordered her home in Pleasant View to be demolished as it was becoming a place of [[pilgrimage]].
  
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Today, almost 1,700 Christian Science churches are active in 76 countries throughout the world. People from all walks of life continue to practice this religion and use the system of health that Eddy codified almost 150 years ago.
  
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"True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning
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Eddy’s book ''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures'' was a best seller for decades, and was selected as one of the “75 Books By Women Whose Words Have Changed The World,” by the Women's National Book Association. In 1995, Eddy was inducted in the National Women's Hall of Fame and in 1998 she was named one of the 25 “most significant religious figures for Americans in the 20th Century” by the [[PBS]] program ''Religion & Ethics Newsweekly''. In 2002, The Mary Baker Eddy Library opened its doors, giving the public access to one of the largest collections about an American woman.
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to love, and to include all mankind in one affection."
 
  
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"Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven."
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For more than a century, ''The Christian Science Journal'' and the ''Christian Science Sentinel'' have been publishing accounts of restored health based on the system of care that Eddy taught. The ''[[Christian Science Monitor]]'' newspaper has won several [[Pulitzer Prize]]s.
  
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"The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent
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===The Longyear Museum===
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of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the  
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Mrs. Mary Beecher Longyear was born in Milwaukee, [[Wisconsin]], in 1851, the daughter of Samuel Peck and Caroline (Walker) Beecher. Her father was a member of the well-known Beecher family of New England. Mrs. Longyear and her husband John were very helpful to Eddy and the early Christian Science church in providing the funds to purchase land for the church and for the Christian Science Benevolent Association in Chestnut Hill.
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portal of humanity."
 
  
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Mrs. Longyear was a pioneer in the field of historic preservation. She searched the back roads of Massachusetts and New Hampshire to locate and purchase four houses in which Eddy once lived. She had portraits painted of Mrs. Eddy and Mrs. Eddy's early students and had reminiscences written by many of those who knew her.
  
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For over three-quarters of a century the Longyear Museum has provided exhibits and resources about the life and achievements of Mary Baker Eddy. The Museum moved into its new building in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts in 1999.
  
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"Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government.
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==Quotes==
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Truth makes man free."
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''"True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection."''
  
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''"Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven."''
  
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"To talk the right and live the wrong is foolish deceit,
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''"The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the portal of humanity."''
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doing one's self the most harm."
 
  
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"''Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes man free."''
  
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"Moral conditions will be found always harmonious and  
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''"To talk the right and live the wrong is foolish deceit, doing one's self the most harm."''
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health-giving."
 
  
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''"Moral conditions will be found always harmonious and health-giving."''
  
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"We should master fear, instead of cultivating it."
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''"We should master fear, instead of cultivating it."''
  
 
==Works==
 
==Works==
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*''Rudimental Divine Science'' ISBN 0766103307
 
*''Rudimental Divine Science'' ISBN 0766103307
 
*''No and Yes'' ISBN 0879522372
 
*''No and Yes'' ISBN 0879522372
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*''Christian Science versus Pantheism'' (1898)
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*''Christian Science versus Pantheism'' ISBN 978-1175276834
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*''Message to The Mother Church, 1900''
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*''Message to The Mother Church, 1900'' ISBN 978-1113267047
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*''Message to The Mother Church, 1901''
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*''Message to The Mother Church, 1901'' ISBN 978-1141253326
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*''Message to The Mother Church, 1902''
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*''Message to The Mother Church, 1902'' ISBN 978-1454498315
 
*''Christian Healing'' ISBN 0879520582
 
*''Christian Healing'' ISBN 0879520582
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*''The people's idea of God: Its effect on health and Christianity '' ASIN B0006F8RMC
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*''The people's idea of God: Its effect on health and Christianity '' {{ASIN|B0006F8RMC}}
 
*''The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany'' ISBN 0766102262
 
*''The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany'' ISBN 0766102262
 
*''The Manual of The Mother Church'' ISBN 0930227239
 
*''The Manual of The Mother Church'' ISBN 0930227239
  
 
==References==
 
==References==
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<references/>
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* Cather, Willa and Georgiana Milmine. [1909] 1993. ''The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science''. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803214537
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* Bates, Ernest Sutherland, and John V. Dittemore. 1932. ''Mary Baker Eddy - The Truth and the Tradition''. Knopf. {{ASIN|B002SFX1BK}}
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* Eddy, Mary Baker. 2002. ''Mary Baker Eddy, Speaking for Herself''. Writings of Mary Baker Eddy. ISBN 0879522755
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* Faser, Caroline. 2000. ''God's Perfect Child:Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church''. Owl Books. ISBN 0805044310
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* Gill, Gillian. ''Mary Baker Eddy''. Perseus Books Group, 1999. ISBN 0738202274
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* Gottschalk, Stephen. 2006. ''Rolling Away the Stone, Mary Baker Eddy's Challenge to Materialism''. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253346738
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* Grekel, Doris, and Morris Grekel. 2011. ''The Discovery of the Science of Man: (1821-1888)''. ISBN 189310723X
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* Grekel, Doris, and Morris Grekel. 2011. ''The Founding of Christian Science: The Life of Mary Baker Eddy 1888-1900''. ISBN 1893107248
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* Grekel, Doris, and Morris Grekel. 2011. ''The Forever Leader: (1901-1910)''. ISBN 0964580381
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* Peel, Robert. 1991. ''Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery''. ISBN 0875100856
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* Peel, Robert. 1991. ''Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial''. ISBN 0875101186
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* Peel, Robert. 1980. ''Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority''. ISBN 0030567092
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* Zweig, Stefan. 1962. ''Mental Healers Franz Anton Mesmer, Mary Baker Eddy''. Ungar Publishing Co. ISBN 0804429952
  
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==External links==
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All links retrieved November 7, 2022.
  
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==Point of Interest==
 
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* [[Longyear Museum]]
 
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* [[Mary Baker Eddy Historic House]]
 
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* [[Massachusetts Metaphysical College]] with a complete list of students of Eddy
 
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* [[Septimus J. Hanna]] student of Eddy and vice-president of the [[Massachusetts Metaphysical College]]
 
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* [[William R. Rathvon]] student of Eddy, early Christian Scientist and lone person to leave an audio recording of his hearing Lincoln's [[Gettysburg Address]] at the age of nine.
 
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* [[Bliss Knapp]] childhood friend of Eddy's whose father was one of the first Directors of Eddy's church. Bliss was a somewhat controversial Christian Scientist.
 
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==External links==
 
 
*[http://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/ The Mary Baker Eddy Library]
 
*[http://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/ The Mary Baker Eddy Library]
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*[http://www.mbeinstitute.org/index2.html Mary Baker Eddy Science Institute]
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*[http://www.mbeinstitute.org Mary Baker Eddy Science Institute]
 
*[http://www.endtime.org/ Christian Science Endtime Center]
 
*[http://www.endtime.org/ Christian Science Endtime Center]
 
*[http://www.longyear.org/ The Longyear Museum]
 
*[http://www.longyear.org/ The Longyear Museum]
 
*{{gutenberg author|id=Mary_Baker_Eddy|name=Mary Baker Eddy}}
 
*{{gutenberg author|id=Mary_Baker_Eddy|name=Mary Baker Eddy}}
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*[http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=57 National Women's Hall of Fame] (Inducted in 1995)
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*[https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/mary-baker-eddy/ Mary Baker Eddy] National Women's Hall of Fame (Inducted in 1995)
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*[http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/ucbio_mary_baker_eddy.htm Women's History]
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*[http://christianscience.com/ Christian Science]
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*[http://www.tfccs.org/ First Church of Christ, Scientist]
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*[http://www.christianway.org/ Christian Way: Former Christian Scientists for Jesus Christ]  
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*[http://www.christianway.org/ Christian Way: Former Christian Scientists for Jesus Christ] (See Discussion under "Balance")
 
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*[http://www.phineasquimby.com Phineas Parkhurst Quimby]
 
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*[http://www.bookwire.com/bbr/life/with-bleeding.html The Boston Book Review]
 
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*[http://www.watchman.org/profile/ChrSciProfile.htm Watchman Fellowship Profile]
 
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[[Category:History and biography]]
 
 
[[Category:Biography]]
 
[[Category:Biography]]
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[[category:religion]]
  
 
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Latest revision as of 16:00, 7 November 2022

Mary Baker Eddy

Mary Baker Eddy (July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was the pioneer of a system of prayer-based healing that led her to found the Church of Christ, Scientist in 1879. She was the author of its fundamental doctrinal textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which has sold more than ten million copies. She is also the founder of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, founder of a publishing house, and founder of the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper The Christian Science Monitor.

Mary Baker Eddy overcame years of ill health and great personal struggle to make an indelible mark on American society. She made her discovery of Christian Science at a time when women could not vote and were generally barred from pulpits, seminaries, and the medical profession.

In 1995 Eddy was elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame and in 1998 she was named one of the 25 “most significant religious figures for Americans in the 20th Century” by the PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.

Life and Family

Mary Baker Eddy was born Mary Ann Morse Baker, the youngest of the six children of Abigail Ambrose and Mark Baker on July 16, 1821, near Concord, New Hampshire in the town of Bow. Named Mary Ann Morse after her grandmother, she never used her full name Mary Ann, but signed herself Mary (Cather and Milmine 1909). She spent most of her childhood suffering from a variety of childhood diseases. Her poor health was reportedly related to a spinal weakness that caused spasmodic seizures, followed by prostration, which resulted in a complete nervous collapse. It is referred to as chronic invalidism.

Both her parents were descendants of members of the Congregational Church. Raised with Puritan values, daily Bible reading, and talk of God's healing power, she spent many years looking for healing.

One of Mary Baker’s brothers was Albert Baker, a graduate of Dartmouth College, who studied law with Franklin Pierce (who later became President of the United States), and was admitted to the bar in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Albert helped home-school her in moral science, natural philosophy, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew grammar.

The Baker family moved to Tilton when Mary was fifteen and she then attended the private school of Professor H. Dyer Sanborn. Under his instruction and the guidance of the Rev. Enoch Corser, pastor of the Tilton Congregational Church, she began to develop her intellectual and spiritual maturity.

Marriages

In 1843 Mary Baker married George Washington Glover, her thirty-three-year-old brother-in-law. She was twenty-two. George Glover's sister had married Mary's eldest brother, Samuel, in 1831. Originally from Concord, New Hampshire, Glover had established a business in Charleston, South Carolina.

About a year after their marriage, while on a business trip to Wilmington, North Carolina, her husband contracted yellow fever and died in about nine days. Mrs. Glover returned to her father's home. She gave birth to a boy not long after her return, and she named him after her husband, George Washington Glover.

Mary Baker Glover suffered a prolonged illness following childbirth. Her son's custody become a major issue when her mother died in 1849. In 1850 her father married Elizabeth Patterson Duncan. Her father made it clear that the boy wasn't welcome and he stayed with a series of different relatives. Later her sister, Abigail Tilton, offered her a home, but with the stipulation that her son George was not welcome. She felt she couldn't take care of her ill sister and the young boy. As a result George W. Glover was sent to live in North Groton, New Hampshire, forty miles away from his mother. He lived with the family's former servant, Mahala, who had married a farmer, Russell Cheney. She wrote the poem "The Mother at Parting with her Child" soon afterward.

In 1853, Mary married Daniel Patterson, a relative of her father’s second wife. Mary's father warned Patterson about his daughter's invalidism, but he chose not to heed the advice. She had hoped Patterson would take her son in, but he also decided he wanted no part of him. Although the couple lived near the Cheneys in North Groton in 1855, George Glover's adopted family took the boy with them when they moved to Minnesota in 1856. George Glover did not see his mother again for twenty-three years.

The marriage to Patterson proved unhappy, and the couple separated after 13 years, when Daniel deserted her. Seven years later, she sought and obtained a divorce on the grounds of his adultery.

In 1877 Mary Baker Glover was married for the third time to Mr. Asa G. Eddy, who had been sent to her for treatment. She had healed him, had taken him through one of her classes, and placed many of her affairs in his charge. He died in 1882, reportedly of heart disease.

Her spiritual journey

From the age of eight Eddy began having spiritual experiences when she heard her name being called by an unseen voice. In her teens she boldly rebelled against Calvinist doctrines like predestination as she was being admitted as a member of her parents’ Congregationalist church.

Poor health began to afflict her during her adolescence and as she became an adult and married she experimented with allopathic medicine and alternative therapies, particularly with homeopathy. Following her first husband's sudden death she developed an interest in mesmerism (hypnosis), animal magnetism, spiritualism, and clairvoyance. She also continued her study of the Bible with an intense focus on the healing powers of Jesus.

In 1862 Eddy received treatment from mental healer, Phineas P. Quimby in Portland, Maine, and was cured quickly. Though her health tended to fluctuate, she maintained a devoted relationship with him and his ideas until he died in 1866. His influence would shape her belief of Christian Science as she integrated her own Christian faith with Quimby's ideas.

A crucial turning point in Eddy's life occurred one month after Quimby died. A severe fall on an icy sidewalk left her in critical condition. Unable to call on Quimby she asked for her Bible and, while reading an account of Jesus' healing, found herself suddenly well.

She spent the next nine years in intensive scriptural study, healing activity, and teaching. In 1875 she published Science and Health. In this book she stated her belief in the "science" behind Jesus' healing method.

Founding the Church

When the existing Christian churches did not embrace her beliefs, Eddy decided to start her own church. In 1879 she secured a charter for the Church of Christ, Scientist, established "to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." Two years later, she founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, where she taught her classes until 1889, when she closed the institution to focus on a major revision of Science and Health, which became Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Eddy proved effective at teaching hundreds of students, most of them women, to go out across the nation as Christian Science practitioners, organizing societies and recruiting more practitioners. She retained her charter to the College and reopened it in 1899.

In 1884 Eddy spent a month in Chicago, initiating the westward expansion of her church. In 1888 she again visited Chicago, this time to attend the National Christian Scientist Association where she made an address at the Central Music Hall before an audience of about four thousand. A year later she addressed an audience in Steinway Hall, New York, but thereafter withdrew more and more from public appearances.

In 1888, a reading room for her writings and other publications opened in Boston. In 1894, Boston-area Christian Scientists moved into the first church building (The Mother Church), built under Mrs. Eddy's direction. In 1895 she published a church manual, establishing guidelines that are followed to this day.

During the formative stages the church saw many rivalries, scandals, and dissident movements. One such example was the dispute between Mary Baker Eddy and Edward J. Arens, her former student, and Julius Dresser, who along with his wife and son, disputed Eddy's originality. The main accusation against Eddy was that she plagiarized Quimby's works. Eddy also found herself the subject of severe criticism from such notables as Mark Twain and Willa Cather. She would later explain that the phenomena of self-will used by Quimby to heal was distinct from the understanding of spiritual principles she used for healing.

Church beliefs

Did you know?
A central tenet of the Church of Christ, Scientist founded by Mary Baker Eddy is spiritual healing of disease

Christian Science agrees with mainstream Christianity with regards to the existence of an all-powerful God and the authority and inspiration of the Bible. Christian Scientists also believe the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus to be essential to human redemption.

A fundamental difference between Christian Science and traditional Christianity lies in its belief that creation is entirely spiritual and perfect and matter does not exist. Sin, sickness and death also do not exist; we only think they do. "The only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise" (Science and Health, 472:27-29).

A central tenet of the Church of Christ, Scientist is spiritual healing of disease, for its own sake as well as for its evidence of redemption from the flesh. The church's most controversial practice is refusal of medical help for disease. Modern Christian Scientists, however, offer the caveat that healthcare decisions are always a matter of individual choice.

Their core teachings are read at every church service in the "Scientific Statement of Being":

There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.
All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.
Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error.
Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal.
Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness.
Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.

Publishing arms of church

In 1883 the Journal of Christian Science was first published. It later became The Christian Science Journal with Eddy as the editor and publisher. It was also published in German as Der Herold der Christian Science. She also founded the Christian Science Sentinel; The Christian Science Quarterly (which contained the weekly Christian Science Lesson-Sermons); and The Christian Science Monitor, a daily newspaper that went on to win seven Pulitzer Prizes, including three for International Reporting (1950, 1967 and 1996).

In 1908, just two years before her death, Eddy started The Christian Science Monitor because she felt that the "yellow journalism" of the American press was unfairly prejudicial against her faith. Its object and journalistic ethic established by her was "to injure no man, but to bless all mankind." The Monitor provides an independent voice in journalism, and, though published by The Christian Science Publishing Society, it is not a religious periodical. The newspaper reports national and international news, with related features and commentary.

Later life

From 1892 to 1908 Eddy resided at Pleasant View, a house situated on the outskirts of Concord, New Hampshire. It was here that Eddy spent her time fine-tuning the organization of the Christian Science church and in clarifying and deepening her own understanding of Christian Science.

In her final years she began withdrawing more and more and discouraged any personal adulation which the beneficiaries of Christian Science might be inclined to place upon her. By the time she died in 1910 her church was growing nationally and internationally (80 different countries), and her best-selling book was in the process of being translated for the first time (into German). Hundreds of tributes appeared in newspapers around the world. She is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge in a tomb at Halcyon Lake,

Legacy

The church texts were frozen at Eddy's death and remain the authoritative documents for the Church. After Eddy died leadership in the Church passed to the five-person Board of Directors of the Mother Church in Boston, Massachusetts. They oversee the production of standard editions of all Eddy's writings.

In 1921 on the 100th anniversary of her birth, a 100-ton, 11-foot high granite pyramid was dedicated on the site of her birthplace in Bow, Massachusetts. A gift from the Freemasons (the only other religious society church members are permitted to join), it was later dynamited by order of the Mother Church Board of Directors. They also ordered her home in Pleasant View to be demolished as it was becoming a place of pilgrimage.

Today, almost 1,700 Christian Science churches are active in 76 countries throughout the world. People from all walks of life continue to practice this religion and use the system of health that Eddy codified almost 150 years ago.

Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures was a best seller for decades, and was selected as one of the “75 Books By Women Whose Words Have Changed The World,” by the Women's National Book Association. In 1995, Eddy was inducted in the National Women's Hall of Fame and in 1998 she was named one of the 25 “most significant religious figures for Americans in the 20th Century” by the PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. In 2002, The Mary Baker Eddy Library opened its doors, giving the public access to one of the largest collections about an American woman.

For more than a century, The Christian Science Journal and the Christian Science Sentinel have been publishing accounts of restored health based on the system of care that Eddy taught. The Christian Science Monitor newspaper has won several Pulitzer Prizes.

The Longyear Museum

Mrs. Mary Beecher Longyear was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1851, the daughter of Samuel Peck and Caroline (Walker) Beecher. Her father was a member of the well-known Beecher family of New England. Mrs. Longyear and her husband John were very helpful to Eddy and the early Christian Science church in providing the funds to purchase land for the church and for the Christian Science Benevolent Association in Chestnut Hill.

Mrs. Longyear was a pioneer in the field of historic preservation. She searched the back roads of Massachusetts and New Hampshire to locate and purchase four houses in which Eddy once lived. She had portraits painted of Mrs. Eddy and Mrs. Eddy's early students and had reminiscences written by many of those who knew her.

For over three-quarters of a century the Longyear Museum has provided exhibits and resources about the life and achievements of Mary Baker Eddy. The Museum moved into its new building in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts in 1999.

Quotes

"True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection."

"Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven."

"The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the portal of humanity."

"Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes man free."

"To talk the right and live the wrong is foolish deceit, doing one's self the most harm."

"Moral conditions will be found always harmonious and health-giving."

"We should master fear, instead of cultivating it."

Works

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Cather, Willa and Georgiana Milmine. [1909] 1993. The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803214537
  • Bates, Ernest Sutherland, and John V. Dittemore. 1932. Mary Baker Eddy - The Truth and the Tradition. Knopf. ASIN B002SFX1BK
  • Eddy, Mary Baker. 2002. Mary Baker Eddy, Speaking for Herself. Writings of Mary Baker Eddy. ISBN 0879522755
  • Faser, Caroline. 2000. God's Perfect Child:Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church. Owl Books. ISBN 0805044310
  • Gill, Gillian. Mary Baker Eddy. Perseus Books Group, 1999. ISBN 0738202274
  • Gottschalk, Stephen. 2006. Rolling Away the Stone, Mary Baker Eddy's Challenge to Materialism. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253346738
  • Grekel, Doris, and Morris Grekel. 2011. The Discovery of the Science of Man: (1821-1888). ISBN 189310723X
  • Grekel, Doris, and Morris Grekel. 2011. The Founding of Christian Science: The Life of Mary Baker Eddy 1888-1900. ISBN 1893107248
  • Grekel, Doris, and Morris Grekel. 2011. The Forever Leader: (1901-1910). ISBN 0964580381
  • Peel, Robert. 1991. Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery. ISBN 0875100856
  • Peel, Robert. 1991. Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial. ISBN 0875101186
  • Peel, Robert. 1980. Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority. ISBN 0030567092
  • Zweig, Stefan. 1962. Mental Healers Franz Anton Mesmer, Mary Baker Eddy. Ungar Publishing Co. ISBN 0804429952

External links

All links retrieved November 7, 2022.

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