Maria Louise Baum and the Hymns of Mary Baker Eddy

This morning I have read in the Hymnal Notes, Maria Louise Baum’s The Hymns of Mary Baker Eddy.  How beautiful!  Sort of sacred writing.  She gives us a little task: Look up “dove” in the Concordances to Mary Baker Eddy’s works, in reference to the dove as illuminating a sense of peace.

I think Maria Louise Baum was one-time Editor of the Home Forum Page of The Christian Science Monitor.  I looked her up on http://JSH-OnLine.com and found an article titled “Love’s Omnipresence” From the October 6, 1906 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel and which begins: 

“Several years before I became a member of The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, I had an experience which I have often wished to record, yet I have hesitated because human language seems so feeble an expression of those things which we have seen and handled of the Word of Life. The help lately found in hearing a similar testimony from a friend has, however, prompted this present attempt.......The circumstances were such that it seemed the greatest battle I had ever won, but the immediate reward appeared to be nothing better than anxiety for my future and threatened nervous prostration. I had heard and thought a good deal about Christian Science, but had not persisted in my interest, and now turned to a doctor for advice. The doctor prescribed merely rest and the endeavor to be free from troublesome or exciting thoughts. In following these directions, I turned away from my worldly affairs, thought much of God, strove to be occupied with such peaceful things as the beauties of nature, hymns, and quiet books. One day there suddenly swept over me ...” 
 

[Ed. Read the article in its entirety from the October 6, 1906 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.]

How great is our debt to Maria Louise Baum for the words of seven precious hymns in the CS Hymnal:

1.     Here, O God, Thy healing presence................... 109, 110

2.     High to heaven let song be soaring........................... 112

3.     If the Lord build not the house.................................. 141

4.     In Thee, my God and Saviour..................................... 152

5.     Like as a mother, God comforteth His children........ 174

6.     Put on the whole armor of pure consecration......... 292

7.     Rouse ye, soldiers of the cross.................................. 296

Joyce Voysey

Editor:

Readers may be interested to know that the article “The Hymns of Mary Baker Eddy”, referred to above, was adapted for the Concordance to Christian Science Hymnal and Hymnal Notes (pages 171 -174) from an article in The Christian Science Journal of February 1914, and may be read either at http://jsh-online.com or from the bound volumes available in many Reading Rooms world-wide.  Some of the lovely points made by Ms Baum about Eddy’s poems are that they express “the actual need of the hour” and that this gives them their “marvellous vitality”; also that “every word of hers is used for its exact and full value”.  Further on she tells us that “her clear speaking follows from a knowledge that what she says is true”.

Baum refers in detail to the seven poems we now have as hymns in our hymn book and it’s most interesting to find out about a couple of significant changes made by Eddy to her poems Christ My Refuge (see hymns 253 – 257) and Mother’s Evening Prayer (hymns 207 – 212):

  “wait to know a world more bright”  became “wake to know a world more bright”; and

  “finds her home and far-off rest” became “finds her home and heavenly rest”.