Practical good

To wander a little from our Club  book –

In my current re-reading of Mrs. Eddy’s Prose Works, I have just read about her approval of, and contribution to, a monument being erected to Baron and Baroness de Hirsch. See Miscellany p. 287 (chapter title: Tributes).

Not intellect

I like what Emma Shipman wrote about being a student in Mrs. Eddy’s last class of 1989:

“Her teaching made me see what I had not gasped before, that Christian Science cannot be attained through the intellect, but that it must be interpreted through the purified affections and is learned only as we live it.”  Page 509.

Perhaps Christian Science can be likened to the learning of mathematics – We start with simple sums and the rules get impressive results when applied correctly, but as we master those, our teachers move us on to harder ones.  Christian Science is Science, and like any science one must learn and practise and learn the vocabulary. 

Joyce Voysey

In the secret place

Today, my friend Pam remarked that she had opened our book recently and discovered Mrs Eddy's note to Judge Septimus J. Hanna, recorded on page 399 of our book. 

How precious was her instruction: he was to ensure that, in addition to his many other duties, four hours each day were devoted exclusively to "reading, prayer and meditation alone with God". Furthermore, this time must be undisturbed and uninterrupted. He was to "shut out observation and the world".

Julie Swannell

The scope of healing

What stirring examples of the scope of Christian Science healing are given to us in this interesting book: Mary Baker Eddy - Christian Healer.

One that stood out to me this evening was of a tree that wasn't looking too healthy. The gardener had decided to pull it up, but Mrs Eddy urgently requested he not do that, but continue to look after it in the best way he knew. In the meantime, Eddy "took the question up according the Christian Science" and pretty soon the tree was again beautifully healthy. See page 268.

Another was when Eddy found she was losing her hair at an alarming rate. She knew she had to change her thought about it and not neglect the situation, but rather apply metaphysics. Her answer came from the Bible, that "the very hairs of your head are numbered". See page 273. 

I was also interested to note the importance of getting Christian Science into the hands of new readers. For instance, when the founder of the Salvation Army, General William Booth, was reported as ill, Mrs Eddy instructed one of her students to get a copy of Science and Health into his hands so that he might be healed, while another student sent a copy of Mrs Eddy's "stand on Armament and Arbitration" to the President of the United States. (See pages 262 and 270.)

Julie Swannell

Eyeballs restored

On Page 459, we are told that Mrs. Emilie Hulin recounted this in her reminiscences of the Primary Class she had with Mrs. Eddy in November 1888:

     Mrs. Eddy was showing in class the definition of God…and showing that “Mind” is the “all seeing.”

     She said that through the understanding of this she had healed a man of blindness whose eyeballs had been destroyed, and the eyeballs were resorted whole.  Someone in the class asked, “Well, if Mind is all that sees, why was it necessary for the eyeballs to be restored?”

     Mrs. Eddy replied: “Ah, I anticipated that you would ask that question.  The effect of Christian Science is this.  Science restores that standard of perfection which mortal mind calls for.  If the eyeballs had not been restored, no one would have believed him when he said he could see.”

How enlightening is that!

Joyce Voysey

Jerry - the horse

I love the story about Jerry, the horse, related on page 585 (note 9):

On one occasion a different horse than usual was harnessed to her carriage. “’Where is Jerry?’ asked Mrs. Eddy.  ‘Jerry is lame,’ was the reply. ‘Put Jerry in the harness,’ said Mrs.  Eddy. The coachman obeyed, and soon the carriage came up the driveway, with Jerry in the harness, limping at each step. ‘Jerry,’ said Mrs. Eddy, ‘mind your own business.’ and Jerry stopped limping.”

Joyce Voysey

Church rules or the Golden Rule?

When reading about the beginnings of Mrs. Eddy's teaching of Christian Science healing, I was struck by the fact that people came because scientific Christian healing presented a way of making a living. When we consider that for Mrs Eddy, healing was almost consistent with breathing, the wonder is that she was able to find a method of imparting it to others. How much she must have learned through the early days of teaching. 

On pages 169 - 170, I came to this:

   "In the March 1892 issue of the Journal, Mrs. Eddy wrote of church organization in the same terms she used to describe marriage. 'If our Church is organized, it is to meet the demand suffer it to be so now. The real Christian compact is love for another. This bond is wholly spiritual and inviolate.' The prosperity and progress of the organization rests on the love felt and expressed by its members for each other."

Hello, I thought! I had noted something like that a few pages back. A search of the Index helped me locate the passage on page 161. It was December 1889, the time of the disorganization of the church. The passage reads: "Mrs. Eddy requested her students in Boston to continue to conduct church services, but as a voluntary association that acted under the commandment to love one another, rather than under congregational rules." This too, was a suffer it to be so now arrangement, but it surely gives us food for thought on how to minister to a church. 

On the previous page, we find that she wrote of "...dropping all material rules whereby to regulate Christ, Christianity, and adopt alone the Golden Rule for unification, progress, and a better example as The Mother Church."
    ch 
Joyce Voysey

Wonderful results

Our October book, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, is much loved by many readers. 

On this reading, I decided to note each particular healing and find how Eddy approached her patient. What has struck me more than anything else is that she lifts her thought to God. 

It's wonderful what happens when we do that.

Julie Swannell

Rouse ye

October Book Club  

Book: MARY BAKER EDDY: Christian Healer 

by Yvonne Cache von Fettweis & Robert Townsend Warneck.

Page 42 (readers of the earlier edition will find this on page 20) has my first pencil mark at the paragraph beginning “Six decades later…”. Here the authors recount Mrs. Eddy's conversation with Irving Tomlinson where she pointed out the difference between homeopathy and her discovery of Christian Science. While in homeopathy she had eliminated the drug altogether in healing a woman of dropsy (she referred to this experience as “the falling apple” and “the enlightenment of the human understanding”, the discovery of Christian Science she described as “the revelation from the divine Mind.” 

I am left wondering if, in my practice of Christian Science, I am sometimes merely endeavouring to enlighten the human understanding instead of seeking Truth directly from the divine Mind.

On page 91 (expanded edition) we find the healing of a mute girl. There is also a footnote - “1”.  At the footnote (page 557) we find some more healing of deafness and dumbness.  In each case it seems that stubbornness was handled.  

I like the word “rouse.”  Mrs Eddy roused the patients with extraordinary declarations like “It is well you have never heard or spoken to give voice to your wicked thoughts.”  The child’s anger was roused and she spoke.

I am reminded of the great hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal, “Rouse ye.”

Hymn 296

Maria Louise Baum - Based on hymn by M. H. Tipton

AMSTERDAM - James Nares

Rouse ye, soldiers of the cross,

And lift your banner high;

Servants of a mighty cause,

Put sloth and slumber by.

Rouse ye, rouse ye, face the foe,

Rise to conquer death and sin;

On with Christ to victory go,

O side with God, and win!

Waken, hear your Captain’s call,

And follow where he trod;

Rout the cringing host of fear

By faith that walks with God.

Rouse ye, rouse ye, face the foe,

Rise to conquer death and sin;

On with Christ to victory go,

O side with God, and win!

Rouse ye: long the conquest waits

For valor’s act supreme;

Rouse ye, rest not, do the deeds

That break the earthly dream.

Rouse ye, rouse ye, face the foe,

Rise to conquer death and sin;

On with Christ to victory go,

O side with God, and win!

Joyce Voysey