Development and Demonstration

I have been pondering the fact that often we refer to nature as feminine and God as masculine and I wondered: do the two make a whole? This little thought had presented itself to me as I read the title of a series of lectures given in 1845-6 by Andrew Jackson Davis, “The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind” as mentioned by Peel in our book, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery, bottom page 160. 

Then, on page 161, speaking again of Andrew Jackson Davis: His two co-eternal principles – mind and matter, or Father-God and Mother-Nature as he was later to call them – really gave matter the primacy even when he seemed to deny it.

There are always clues to Mrs. Eddy’s eventual development of her themes in Science and Health in what Peel writes about the literature of her day.

On page 178 I have noted that a newspaper report of a talk given by Mrs. Eddy (then Patterson) said this about her public speaking:  This lady is not in the habit of public speaking, at least we should judge so from the tone of her voice which was too feminine to fill the hall.  Perhaps we can gather from that report that the ability to hold an audience and have her voice reach as far as needed - in which she later succeeded - was a demonstration for her, and was one more use for the Science she discovered.

I have perhaps said it before, but I will reiterate: How different was the mental atmosphere in New England from that in Australia at that time.  Not too many thinkers here of the calibre Peel talks about.

Joyce Voysey