had my notices for a second lecture pulled down, and refused me a hearing
in their halls and churches. This circumstance is cited simply to show the
opposition which Christian Science encountered a quarter-century ago, as
contrasted with its present welcome into the sickroom.
Many were the desperate cases I instantly healed, "without money and
without price," and in most instances without even an acknowledgment of the
benefit.
A TRUE MAN
My last marriage was with Asa Gilbert Eddy, and was a blessed and spiritual
union, solemnized at Lynn, Massachusetts, by the Rev. Samuel Barrett
Stewart, in the year 1877. Dr. Eddy was the first student publicly to
announce himself a Christian Scientist, and place these symbolic words on
his office sign. He forsook all to follow in this line of light. He was the
first organizer of a Christian Science Sunday School, which he
superintended. He also taught a special Bible-class; and he lectured so
ably on Scriptural topics that clergymen of other denominations listened to
him with deep interest. He was remarkably successful in Mind-healing, and
untiring in his chosen work. In 1882 he passed away, with a smile of peace
and love resting on his serene countenance. "Mark the perfect _man_, and
behold the upright: for the end of _that_ man _is_ peace." (Psalms xxxvii.
37.)
COLLEGE AND CHURCH
In 1867 I introduced the first purely metaphysical system of healing since
the apostolic days. I began by teaching one student Christian Science
Mind-healing. From this seed grew the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in
Boston, chartered in 1881. No charter was granted for similar purposes
after 1883. It is the only College, hitherto, for teaching the pathology of
spiritual power, _alias_ the Science of Mind-healing.
My husband, Asa G. Eddy, taught two terms in my College. After I gave up
teaching, my adopted son, Ebenezer J. Foster-Eddy, a graduate of the
Hahneman Medical College of Philadelphia, and who also received a
certificate from Dr. W.W. Keen's (allopathic) Philadelphia School of
Anatomy and Surgery,--having renounced his material method of practice and
embraced the teachings of Christian Science, taught the Primary, Normal,
and Obstetric class one term. Gen. Erastus N. Bates taught one Primary
class, in 1889, after which I judged it best to close the institution.
These students of mine were the only assistant teachers in the College.
The first Christian Scientist Association was organized by myself and six
of my students in 1876, on the Centennial Day of our nation's freedom. At a
meeting of the Christian Scientist Association, on April 12, 1879, it was
voted to organize a church to commemorate the words and works of our
Master, a Mind-healing church, without a creed, to be called the Church of
Christ, Scientist, the first such church ever organized. The charter for
this church was obtained in June, 1879,[D] and during the same month the
members, twenty-six in number, extended a call to me to become their
pastor. I accepted the call, and was ordained in 1881, though I had
preached five years before being ordained.
When I was its pastor, and in the pulpit every Sunday, my church increased
in members, and its spiritual growth kept pace with its increasing
popularity; but when obliged, because of accumulating work in the College,
to preach only occasionally, no student, at that time, was found able to
maintain the church in its previous harmony and prosperity.
Examining the situation prayerfully and carefully, noting the church's
need, and the predisposing and exciting cause of its condition, I saw that
the crisis had come when much time and attention must be given to defend
this church from the envy and molestation of other churches, and from the
danger to its members which must always lie in Christian warfare. At this
juncture I recommended that the church be dissolved. No sooner were my
views made known, than the proper measures were adopted to carry them out,
the votes passing without a dissenting voice.
This measure was immediately followed by a great revival of mutual love,
prosperity, and spiritual power.
The history of that hour holds this true record. Adding to its ranks and
influence, this spiritually organized Church of Christ, Scientist, in
Boston, still goes on. A new light broke in upon it, and more beautiful
became the garments of her who "bringeth good tidings, that publisheth
peace."
Despite the prosperity of my church, it was learned that material
organization has its value and peril, and that organization is requisite
only in the earliest periods in Christian history. After this material form
of cohesion and fellowship has accomplished its end, continued organization
retards spiritual growth, and should be laid off,--even as the corporeal
organization deemed requisite in the first stages of mortal existence is
finally laid off, in order to gain spiritual freedom and supremacy.
From careful observation and experience came my clue to the uses and abuses
of organization. Therefore, in accord with my special request, followed
that noble, unprecedented action of the Christian Scientist Association
connected with my College when dissolving that organization,--in forgiving
enemies, returning good for evil, in following Jesus' command, "Whosoever
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." I saw
these fruits of Spirit, long-suffering and temperance, fulfil the law of
Christ in righteousness. I also saw that Christianity has withstood less
the temptation of popularity than of persecution.
"FEED MY SHEEP"
Lines penned when I was pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist, in
Boston.
Shepherd, show me how to go
O'er the hillside steep,
How to gather, how to sow,--
How to feed Thy sheep;
I will listen for Thy voice,
Lest my footsteps stray;
I will follow and rejoice
All the rugged way.
Thou wilt bind the stubborn will,
Wound the callous breast,
Make self-righteousness be still,
Break earth's stupid rest.
Strangers on a barren shore,
Lab'ring long and lone,
We would enter by the door,
And Thou know'st Thine own.
So, when day grows dark and cold,
Tear or triumph harms,
Lead Thy lambkins to the fold,
Take them in Thine arms;
Feed the hungry, heal the heart,
Till the morning's beam;
White as wool, ere they depart,
Shepherd, wash them clean.
COLLEGE CLOSED
The apprehension of what has been, and must be, the final outcome of
material organization, which wars with Love's spiritual compact, caused me
to dread the unprecedented popularity of my College. Students from all over
our continent, and from Europe, were flooding the school. At this time
there were over three hundred applications from persons desiring to enter
the College, and applicants were rapidly increasing. Example had shown the
dangers arising from being placed on earthly pinnacles, and Christian
Science shuns whatever involves material means for the promotion of
spiritual ends.
In view of all this, a meeting was called of the Board of Directors of my
College, who, being informed of my intentions, unanimously voted that the
school be discontinued.
A Primary class student, richly imbued with the spirit of Christ, is a
better healer and teacher than a Normal class student who partakes less of
God's love. After having received instructions in a Primary class from me,
or a loyal student, and afterwards studied thoroughly Science and Health, a
student can enter upon the gospel work of teaching Christian Science, and
so fulfil the command of Christ. But before entering this field of labor he
must have studied the latest editions of my works, be a good Bible scholar
and a consecrated Christian.
The Massachusetts Metaphysical College drew its breath from me, but I was
yearning for retirement. The question was, Who else could sustain this
institute, under all that was aimed at its vital purpose, the establishment
of _genuine_ Christian Science healing? My conscientious scruples about
diplomas, the recent experience of the church fresh in my thoughts, and the
growing conviction that every one should build on his own foundation,
subject to the one builder and maker, God,--all these considerations moved
me to close my flourishing school, and the following resolutions were
passed:--
At a special meeting of the Board of the Metaphysical College
Corporation, Oct. 29, 1889, the following are some of the
resolutions which were presented and passed unanimously:--
WHEREAS, The Massachusetts Metaphysical College,
chartered in January, 1881, for medical purposes, to give
instruction in scientific methods of mental healing on a purely
practical basis, to impart a thorough understanding of
metaphysics, to restore health, hope, and harmony to man,--has
fulfilled its high and noble destiny, and sent to all parts of our
country, and into foreign lands, students instructed in Christian
Science Mind-healing, to meet the demand of the age for something
higher than physic or drugging; and
WHEREAS, The material organization was, in the beginning
in this institution, like the baptism of Jesus, of which he said,
"Suffer it to be so now," though the teaching was a purely
spiritual and scientific impartation of Truth, whose Christly
spirit has led to higher ways, means, and understanding,--the
President, the Rev. Mary B.G. Eddy, at the height of prosperity
in the institution, which yields a large income, is willing to
sacrifice all for the advancement of the world in Truth and Love;
and
WHEREAS, Other institutions for instruction in Christian
Science, which are working out their periods of organization, will
doubtless follow the example of the _Alma Mater_ after having
accomplished the worthy purpose for which they were organized, and
the hour has come wherein the great need is for more of the spirit
instead of the letter, and Science and Health is adapted to work
this result; and
WHEREAS, The fundamental principle for growth in
Christian Science is spiritual formation first, last, and always,
while in human growth material organization is first; and
WHEREAS, Mortals must learn to lose their estimate of the
powers that are not ordained of God, and attain the bliss of
loving unselfishly, working patiently, and conquering all that is
unlike Christ and the example he gave; therefore
_Resolved_, That we thank the State for its charter, which is the
only one ever granted to a _legal college_ for teaching the
Science of Mind-healing; that we thank the public for its liberal
patronage. And everlasting gratitude is due to the President, for
her great and noble work, which we believe will prove a healing
for the nations, and bring all men to a knowledge of the true God,
uniting them in one common brotherhood.
After due deliberation and earnest discussion it was unanimously
voted: That as all debts of the corporation have been paid, it is
deemed best to dissolve this corporation, and the same is hereby
dissolved.
C.A. FRYE, _Clerk_.
When God impelled me to set a price on my instruction in Christian Science
Mind-healing, I could think of no financial equivalent for an impartation
of a knowledge of that divine power which heals; but I was led to name
three hundred dollars as the price for each pupil in one course of lessons
at my College,--a startling sum for tuition lasting barely three weeks.
This amount greatly troubled me. I shrank from asking it, but was finally
led, by a strange providence, to accept this fee.
God has since shown me, in multitudinous ways, the wisdom of this decision;
and I beg disinterested people to ask my loyal students if they consider
three hundred dollars any real equivalent for my instruction during twelve
half-days, or even in half as many lessons. Nevertheless, my list of
indigent charity scholars is very large, and I have had as many as
seventeen in one class.
Loyal students speak with delight of their pupilage, and of what it has
done for them, and for others through them. By loyalty in students I mean
this,--allegiance to God, subordination of the human to the divine,
steadfast justice, and strict adherence to divine Truth and Love.
I see clearly that students in Christian Science should, at present,
continue to organize churches, schools, and associations for the
furtherance and unfolding of Truth, and that my necessity is not
necessarily theirs; but it was the Father's opportunity for furnishing a
new rule of order in divine Science, and the blessings which arose
therefrom. Students are not environed with such obstacles as were
encountered in the beginning of pioneer work.
In December, 1889, I gave a lot of land in Boston to my student, Mr. Ira O.
Knapp of Roslindale,--valued in 1892 at about twenty thousand dollars, and
rising in value,--to be appropriated for the erection, and building on the
premises thereby conveyed, of a church edifice to be used as a temple for
Christian Science worship.
GENERAL ASSOCIATIONS, AND OUR MAGAZINE
For many successive years I have endeavored to find new ways and means for
the promotion and expansion of scientific Mind-healing, seeking to broaden
its channels and, if possible, to build a hedge round about it that should
shelter its perfections from the contaminating influences of those who have
a small portion of its letter and less of its spirit. At the same time I
have worked to provide a home for every true seeker and honest worker in
this vineyard of Truth.
To meet the broader wants of humanity, and provide folds for the sheep that
were without shepherds, I suggested to my students, in 1886, the propriety
of forming a National Christian Scientist Association. This was immediately
done, and delegations from the Christian Scientist Association of the
Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and from branch associations in other
States, met in general convention at New York City, February 11, 1886.
The first official organ of the Christian Scientist Association was called
_Journal of Christian Science_. I started it, April, 1883, as editor and
publisher.
To the National Christian Scientist Association, at its meeting in
Cleveland, Ohio, June, 1889, I sent a letter, presenting to its loyal
members _The Christian Science Journal_, as it was now called, and the
funds belonging thereto. This monthly magazine had been made successful and
prosperous under difficult circumstances and was designed to bear aloft the
standard of genuine Christian Science.
FAITH-CURE
It is often asked, Why are faith-cures sometimes more speedy than some of
the cures wrought through Christian Scientists? Because faith is belief,
and not understanding; and it is easier to believe, than to understand
spiritual Truth. It demands less cross-bearing, self-renunciation, and
divine Science to admit the claims of the corporeal senses and appeal to
God for relief through a humanized conception of His power, than to deny
these claims and learn the divine way,--drinking Jesus' cup, being baptized
with his baptism, gaining the end through persecution and purity.
Millions are believing in God, or good, without bearing the fruits of
goodness, not having reached its Science. Belief is virtually blindness,
when it admits Truth without understanding it. Blind belief cannot say with
the apostle, "I know whom I have believed." There is danger in this mental
state called belief; for if Truth is admitted, but not understood, it may
be lost, and error may enter through this same channel of ignorant belief.
The faith-cure has devout followers, whose Christian practice is far in
advance of their theory.
The work of healing, in the Science of Mind, is the most sacred and
salutary power which can be wielded. My Christian students, impressed with
the true sense of the great work before them, enter this strait and narrow
path, and work conscientiously.
Let us follow the example of Jesus, the master Metaphysician, and gain
sufficient knowledge of error to destroy it with Truth. Evil is not
mastered by evil; it can only be overcome with good. This brings out the
nothingness of evil and the eternal somethingness, vindicates the divine
Principle, and improves the race of Adam.
FOUNDATION-STONES
The following ideas of Deity, antagonized by finite theories, doctrines,
and hypotheses, I found to be demonstrable rules in Christian Science, and
that we must abide by them.
Whatever diverges from the one divine Mind, or God,--or divides Mind into
minds, Spirit into spirits, Soul into souls, and Being into beings,--is a
misstatement of the unerring divine Principle of Science, which interrupts
the meaning of the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of Spirit,
and is of human instead of divine origin.
War is waged between the evidences of Spirit and the evidences of the five
physical senses; and this contest must go on until peace be declared by the
final triumph of Spirit in immutable harmony. Divine Science disclaims sin,
sickness, and death, on the basis of the omnipotence and omnipresence of
God, or divine good.
All consciousness is Mind, and Mind is God. Hence there is but one Mind;
and that one is the infinite good, supplying all Mind by the reflection,
not the subdivision, of God. Whatever else claims to be mind, or
consciousness, is untrue. The sun sends forth light, but not suns; so God
reflects Himself, or Mind, but does not subdivide Mind, or good, into
minds, good and evil. Divine Science demands mighty wrestlings with mortal
beliefs, as we sail into the eternal haven over the unfathomable sea of
possibilities.
Neither ancient nor modern philosophy furnishes a scientific basis for the
Science of Mind-healing. Plato believed he had a soul, which must be
doctored in order to heal his body. This would be like correcting the
principle of music for the purpose of destroying discord. Principle is
right; it is practice that is wrong. Soul is right; it is the flesh that is
evil. Soul is the synonym of Spirit, God; hence there is but one Soul, and
that one is infinite. If that pagan philosopher had known that physical
sense, not Soul, causes all bodily ailments, his philosophy would have
yielded to Science.
Man shines by borrowed light. He reflects God as his Mind, and this
reflection is substance,--the substance of good. Matter is substance in
error, Spirit is substance in Truth.
Evil, or error, is not Mind; but infinite Mind is sufficient to supply all
manifestations of intelligence. The notion of more than one Mind, or Life,
is as unsatisfying as it is unscientific. All must be of God, and not our
own, separated from Him.
Human systems of philosophy and religion are departures from Christian
Science. Mistaking divine Principle for corporeal personality, ingrafting
upon one First Cause such opposite effects as good and evil, health and
sickness, life and death; making mortality the status and rule of
divinity,--such methods can never reach the perfection and demonstration of
metaphysical, or Christian Science.
Stating the divine Principle, omnipotence (_omnis potens_), and then
departing from this statement and taking the rule of finite matter, with
which to work out the problem of infinity or Spirit,--all this is like
trying to compensate for the absence of omnipotence by a physical, false,
and finite substitute.
With our Master, life was not merely a sense of existence, but an
accompanying sense of power that subdued matter and brought to light
immortality, insomuch that the people "were astonished at his doctrine: for
he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." Life, as
defined by Jesus, had no beginning; it was not the result of organization,
or infused into matter; it was Spirit.
THE GREAT REVELATION
Christian Science reveals the grand verity, that to believe man has a
finite and erring mind, and consequently a mortal mind and soul and life,
is error. Scientific terms have no contradictory significations.
In Science, Life is not temporal, but eternal, without beginning or ending.
The word _Life_ never means that which is the source of death, and of good
and evil. Such an inference is unscientific. It is like saying that
addition means subtraction in one instance and addition in another, and
then applying this rule to a demonstration of the science of numbers; even
as mortals apply finite terms to God, in demonstration of infinity. _Life_
is a term used to indicate Deity; and every other name for the Supreme
Being, if properly employed, has the signification of Life. Whatever errs
is mortal, and is the antipodes of Life, or God, and of health and
holiness, both in idea and demonstration.
Christian Science reveals Mind, the only living and true God, and all that
is made by Him, Mind, as harmonious, immortal, and spiritual: the five
material senses define Mind and matter as distinct, but mutually dependent,
each on the other, for intelligence and existence. Science defines man as
immortal, as coexistent and coeternal with God, as made in His own image
and likeness; material sense defines life as something apart from God,
beginning and ending, and man as very far from the divine likeness. Science
reveals Life as a complete sphere, as eternal, self-existent Mind; material
sense defines life as a broken sphere, as organized matter, and mind as
something separate from God. Science reveals Spirit as All, averring that
there is nothing beside God; material sense says that matter, His antipode,
is something besides God. Material sense adds that the divine Spirit
created matter, and that matter and evil are as real as Spirit and good.
Christian Science reveals God and His idea as the All and Only. It declares
that evil is the absence of good; whereas, good is God ever-present, and
therefore evil is unreal and good is all that is real. Christian Science
saith to the wave and storm, "Be still," and there is a great calm.
Material sense asks, in its ignorance of Science, "When will the raging of
the material elements cease?" Science saith to all manner of disease, "Know
that God is all-power and all-presence, and there is nothing beside Him;"
and the sick are healed. Material sense saith, "Oh, when will my sufferings
cease? Where is God? Sickness is something besides Him, which He cannot, or
does not, heal."
Christian Science is the only sure basis of harmony. Material sense
contradicts Science, for matter and its so-called organizations take no
cognizance of the spiritual facts of the universe, or of the real man and
God. Christian Science declares that there is but one Truth, Life, Love,
but one Spirit, Mind, Soul. Any attempt to divide these arises from the
fallibility of sense, from mortal man's ignorance, from enmity to God and
divine Science.
Christian Science declares that sickness is a belief, a latent fear, made
manifest on the body in different forms of fear or disease. This fear is
formed unconsciously in the silent thought, as when you awaken from sleep
and feel ill, experiencing the effect of a fear whose existence you do not
realize; but if you fall asleep, actually conscious of the truth of
Christian Science,--namely, that man's harmony is no more to be invaded
than the rhythm of the universe,--you cannot awake in fear or suffering of
any sort.
Science saith to fear, "You are the cause of all sickness; but you are a
self-constituted falsity,--you are darkness, nothingness. You are without
'hope, and without God in the world.' You do not exist, and have no right
to exist, for 'perfect Love casteth out fear.'"
God is everywhere. "There is no speech nor language, where their voice is
not heard;" and this voice is Truth that destroys error and Love that casts
out fear.
Christian Science reveals the fact that, if suffering exists, it is in the
mortal mind only, for matter has no sensation and cannot suffer.
If you rule out every sense of disease and suffering from mortal mind, it
cannot be found in the body.