Mary Baker Eddy

Mary Baker Eddy

Mary Ann Morse Baker, known as Mary Baker Eddy (July 16, 1821 - December 3, 1910) was the pioneer of a system of prayer-based healing that lead 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 10 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. 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.[1]

Life and Family

Mary Baker Eddy, the youngest of the six children of Abigail Ambrose and Mark Baker was born near Concord, New Hampshire in the town of Bow. She spent most of her childhood suffering from a variety of childhood diseases. Her poor health was related to a spinal weakness that caused spasmodic seizures, followed by prostration, which resulted in a complete nervous collapse.

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.

When she was only 20 years of age Albert died.

Mary Baker Eddy was raised a Congregationalist, she rebelled against teachings like predestination. She suffered chronic illness and developed a strong interest in the biblical accounts of early Christian healing.

Marriage

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.

In 1877, she married a third time, Asa Gilbert Eddy, he tragically died in 1882.

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.

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.

Healing

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.

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 heal them, through demonstration, she then taught many others the healing process and system, and she then named it, "Christian Science."

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.

Faith of Mary Baker Eddy

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. 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.

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 I discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and named my discovery Christian Science" (page 107).

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."

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. Her influence is felt to this day all over the world.

Founding the Church

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 Practitioners in her church's official monthly organ, the Christian Science Journal.The Church has no ordained clergy. In 1895, Eddy named the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as Pastor for worldwide Churches of Christ, Scientist.

She had shown from early on a love for poetry, which later manifested itself in the writing of those hymns found in the Christian Science Hymnal which are treasured by Christian Scientists today for their comforting and healing effects.

The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and its branches in 80 countries. 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 English-Braille.

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. 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.

The Longyears

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[2] family of New England

The Mary Baker Eddy library for the Betterment of Humanity, opened to the public, with access to thousands of documents and artifacts.

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.

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.

Biographies

• 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)
• Gill, Gillian, Mary Baker Eddy, Perseus Books Group (1999) ISBN 0738202274
• Gottschalk, Stephen, Rolling Away the Stone, Mary Baker Eddy's Challenge to Materialism, Indiana University Press (2006) ISBN 0253346738
• Eddy, Mary Baker, Mary Baker Eddy, Speaking for Herself, Writings of Mary Baker Eddy (2002) ISBN 0879522755
• 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
• 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.
• Dittemore, John V. Bates, Ernest Sutherland, Mary Baker Eddy - The Truth and the Tradition, Knopf (1932)
• Zweig, Stefan, Mental Healers Franz Anton Mesmer, Mary Baker Eddy, Ungar Publishing Co. (1962) ISBN 0804429952

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

• Science And Health, With Key To The Scriptures ISBN 0879520388
• Miscellaneous Writings ISBN 1417995424
• Retrospection and Introspection ISBN 1421963132
• Unity of Good ISBN 0879520531
• Pulpit and Press ISBN 1421963574
• Rudimental Divine Science ISBN 0766103307
• No and Yes ISBN 0879522372
• Christian Science versus Pantheism (1898)
• Message to The Mother Church, 1900
• Message to The Mother Church, 1901
• Message to The Mother Church, 1902
• Christian Healing ISBN 0879520582
• 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 Manual of The Mother Church ISBN 0930227239

Point of Interest

• Longyear Museum
• Mary Baker Eddy Historic House
• Massachusetts Metaphysical College with a complete list of students of Eddy
• Septimus J. Hanna student of Eddy and vice-president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College
• 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.
• 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.

External links

• The Mary Baker Eddy Library
• Mary Baker Eddy Science Institute
• Christian Science Endtime Center
• The Longyear Museum
• Works by Mary Baker Eddy. Project Gutenberg
• National Women's Hall of Fame (Inducted in 1995)
• Women's History
• First Church of Christ, Scientist
• Christian Way: Former Christian Scientists for Jesus Christ (See Discussion under "Balance")
• Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
• The Boston Book Review
• Watchman Fellowship Profile
• Mary Baker Eddy and Biblical Criticism

Credits

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