Peter Henniker-Heaton

I have been thinking about Peter Henniker-Heaton.  A remarkable man, who was healed after having been bed-ridden for ten years.  He went on to work for the Christian Science movement in an editorial capacity at The Christian Science Monitor and then as Associate Editor of the periodicals.

Near the end of our book there is a poem quoted as having been read at the close of the TV series ”How Christian Science Heals.”  The poem is titled “Easter Certainty” and was printed in The Christian Science Journal, but no author is credited.

Our wonderful JSH-Online.com brought me easily to the poem.  It was written by none other than Peter Henniker-Heaton. (Ed.: See the April 1949 edition of The Christian Science Journal or follow the link: http://journal.christianscience.com/issues/1949/4/67-4/easter-certainty)

All of this makes me wonder if Peter had some input into the compilation of A Century of Christian Science Healing, considering his editorial expertise and the fact that his name is not attached to the poem.

What a great time I have had with this book.  Thank you Christian Science Reading Room Redcliffe, for choosing it for the book club.

Joyce Voysey

"Love can never be destroyed"

Last night I reached the wonderful testimony from the Austrian woman which Julie has talked about in the blog. (See pages 136-151 of our book A Century of Christian Science Healing.) I am sure this testimony has helped me very much over the 50 years I have been familiar with it.  (I remember going to a testimony meeting in Newcastle just after the 9/11 happening in New York.  The readings must have been in support of prayer about the situation.  This testimony came to mind as an example of how folk working to help practically at such a time can be guided on how to tend people in need.)  Adrienne was so full of the truth she had been imbibing from her continual reading of Science and Health, that she, “Spoke the truth to every form of error,” as she worked among the Hamburg survivors from the terrible air raids.  And folk responded.

I actually know a dear woman who, as a child, was evacuated from Hamburg to Bavaria at this time.  It was a very sad time for her.

How we can keep on learning from these testimonies!

A woman healed of cancer speaks of finding “new significance in the New Testament account of Jesus’ disciples” (P. 150).   I will quote in full from the record –

I found new significance in the New Testament account of Jesus’ disciples.  Not only the spiritual qualities of thought that each of the disciples represented, but the human failings each had to overcome.

For instance, Peter, who denied Jesus three times.  And as I searched my own thought, I saw that I’d sometimes denied the Christ too.  Saying that I was sick was denying the Christ, Truth, which Jesus expressed in his healing work and which is always available.

And the two disciples who wanted to sit, one at the right hand and the other at the left hand of Jesus.  They reminded me that I had thoughts of pride and vainglory to overcome.

But when it came to Judas, I said to myself, “Well, there’s one thing sure, I’ve never been like Judas.”  But then I thought, “His main problem was jealousy.”  I bowed my head.  I knew I’d been jealous at times.  I’d long been jealous of a member of my family.  Here was the root of the problem, and I saw that the solution lay in a better understanding of divine Love.

Then I thought of John, the beloved disciple.  He expressed Love always; and Love can never be destroyed!  And just as Jesus lovingly washed the feet of his disciples after the Passover supper, the understanding of the truth and love he taught could cleanse my thought of jealousy, doubt, pride, apathy – everything standing in the way of my healing.

And such was the case.  It took a number of years but these were fruitful years.  There was a wonderful mental purging going on during that time, and it led to a complete healing.  I was entirely healed and healthier and stronger than I’d ever been in my life.  That was thirty years ago.

Mrs. Adelina Werner

Joyce Voysey

Wonderful steadfastness and staunchness

Probably one of the most memorable accounts from our book A Century of Christian Science Healing comes from Mrs. L. Adrienne Vinciguerra, whose description of finding Christian Science while a prisoner of war in Stalag 17A in 1942 is very moving. 

As we read, we can trace the angel-messages which transformed her life as she fell in love with the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: from being able to walk out of the prison camp in broad daylight to being sustained with food and lodging in wartime Europe without having the necessary papers. 

This testimony is so sincere and uplifting. The reader feels the Christ-presence as we take the journey with the author. I especially love the final paragraph:

"I still kept reading the textbook from cover to cover (that was about the fourth time by then). My desire to know more about Christian Science made me feel that as soon as I could I'd like to go to England. ...the English people had had wonderful steadfastness and staunchness. They stood on the truth they had learned - the English Christian Scientists. The testimonies in the English churches after the war were just absolutely wonderful..."

Julie Swannell

A spectrum of spiritual healing

Isn’t it beautiful the way a phrase can pull you up and make you think?

This happened when I came across “treatment of medical diseases” (p. 59 of our book "A Century of Christian Science Healing") which appears in the long article Why I became a Christian Scientist by medical doctor Edmund. F. Burton. The relevant section reads, “For about fifteen months I studied the theory of Christian Science and investigated its results.  As I read and investigated I found it not difficult to be convinced that it might do away with the use of drugs in the treatment of medical diseases.”

So, a student of Christian Science takes it a bit further to state that Christian Science takes away not only the drug but the medical disease itself.

How many diseases are medically invented?

Another “stop and think” passage is on page 70.  The editor, in speaking of the quick healings of earlier chapters (testimonies taken from the early Christian Science periodicals), says that in later years there are even more healings recorded, “but they are part of a widening spectrum of healing involving a greater variety of problems and demands on Christian character.”

How this aspect has increased by the year 2016, fifty years on from the writing of this book!  The Christian Science Monitor is informing us of those problems and demands each day.  And students are rising to the demands with their prayers for the world. 

I love Mrs. Eddy’s phrase, “a wilderness of dullards.”  “A small group of wise thinkers is better than a wilderness of dullards and stronger than the might of empires” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany p. 162:7-9)  Just so, we can appreciate the good effect of the prayers of those in touch with the Science of Christianity.

Joyce Voysey

                                                                      

"Divine Science understood and acknowledged"

How thrilling to re-read these marvellous accounts of the wonders wrought in healing in the early days of Christian Science!

I have been doing some thinking about then and now.  It seems to me that, over the years, the world of medicine and surgery has seen and noted what can be accomplished by scientific prayer, and has found ways of emulating these great works, mainly through surgery, such that most folk now believe that physical things can be "fixed" through material, "superior", up-to-date, materia medica methods.  Mrs. Eddy declared that: “Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and supremacy of Mind it is better for Christian Scientists to leave surgery and the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, while the mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental reconstruction and to the prevention of inflammation.  Christian Science is always the most skilful surgeon, but surgery is the branch of its healing which will be last acknowledged” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 401:27-3).

I was reminded via this while pondering the account of Aaron’s rod.  Remember the story in Exodus (7:8-12)?  Moses and Aaron were endeavouring to get Pharaoh to let the people go out of Egypt –   

And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent.  And Moses and Aaron went unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent.  Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.  For they case down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.

Pharaoh refused to let the people go.  He never did let them go, actually, did he?  Moses had to listen and follow God’s guidance in leading the people out through the Red Sea.

Science and Health (S&H) tells us that “Sickness, sin, and death must at length quail before the divine rights of intelligence, and then the power of Mind over the entire functions and organs of the human system will be acknowledged” (p. 384:30). In my search for “acknowledged” in Mrs. Eddy’s writings, I found this in the Glossary of S&H:  “Hiddekel (River). Divine Science understood and acknowledged” (p. 588:5).

Now the river Hiddekel is the present day Tigris River.  It flows from Turkey through Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Kuwait.  Eddy's definition is divinely scientific, so could it mean that there will to be a cleansing of these countries of wrong thoughts about God, making way for Divine Science, i.e. that Divine Science will be championed there?

One could remark on the remarkable stirring and overturning that is going on in religions at this time, sure evidence of "the breaking up of material beliefs" - “The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears” (S&H p. 96).  Does this signify a purifying of thought, as exemplified by Mrs. Eddy when she tells us that, “The muddy river-bed must be stirred in order to purify the stream” (S&H 540:9-11).  How appropriate for the Hiddekel/Tigris!

Joyce Voysey

The remarkable Eastamans

Our book’s records of healings begins with Joseph Eastaman’s entry into the world of Christian Science. A remarkable story of a remarkable man; a story which very much includes his wife, Mary. Joe (I discovered in later articles in the Christian Science periodicals that he called himself Joe) was a sea captain who had faced many dangers on the seas. Mary was not expected to live long; the medical had given up.  He found himself visiting Mary Baker Eddy asking for help. Mrs. Eddy suggested that he join one of her classes and heal Mary himself. Thus started a beautiful adventure for this couple.

I wanted to read more about Joe and Mary, so looked them up on JSH-Online.com.

One of the first records I found was a letter from Mrs. Eddy in which she states that, although Mary and Joseph’s names were somehow not included in those recorded in the corner stone of the Original Mother Church, God had provided a special acknowledgment of their work: the $1,000.00 which they gave to the Building Fund was used for the platform and pulpit. Mrs. Eddy said in her letter that this was “a type of their solid standing in the platform of Christian Science.”  

(http://journal.christianscience.com/issues/1894/7/12-4/nota-bene - article Nota Bene: see The Christian Science Journal July 1894)

I found that Mary was Treasurer of the church in the years 1894/5/6 (at least); a children’s concert at the Easter Services of May 1888 was under the direction of Mary Eastaman; she was President of the committee of “Our Fair” (see January 1888 edition of The Christian Science Journal - http://journal.christianscience.com/issues/1888/1/5-10/our-fair)

which raised money for the Building Fund. Stephen A Chase was the treasurer of this fund.

Joseph was delighted that he could contribute to the Sentinel, the new weekly publication of Christian Science movement. He wrote from a different angle, addressing the publication itself. (See Christian Science Sentinel January 5, 1899 - http://sentinel.christianscience.com/issues/1899/1/1-19/our-weekly). I would love to quote all of it! Perhaps our editor will allow this gem: 

In my heart I welcomed you ten weeks ago, for I feel sure you are destined to do much good to the cause of Christian Science as well as to Christian Scientists everywhere, and though you are only a few weeks old, already the Field is anxiously looking for the little messenger that brings to all words of peace and guidance from our dear Mother and guide. 

Our Weekly Jan 5, 1899.

There is a series of articles, The Travail of my soul, in the Christian Science Journals of 1892. Here Eastaman records his hair-raising experiences at sea and in the sea.  What a dangerous occupation to be a sea captain in the 19^th Century! The Captain tells us that he came through it all through his faith in God. In those days he would say, “God help me, God help me”. When he became better acquainted with God through the study of Christian Science, he would say, “God helps me.”

One thing he is quoted as declaring is, “Everybody loves me, and I love everybody, because God is Love and ‘God is all.’”

I love this excerpt about learning to swim – or being cured of it –

When I was less than seven years of age, I was, with other boys, learning to swim by holding to a line passed from a ship and fastened to the wharf; when about midway I lost my hold, and went down at more than three fathoms depth. My brother John, happening to pass by on the wharf just in time to see me lose my hold and go down, jumped into the water, rescued, took me to land, and gave me a good thrashing—which cured me of trying to learn to swim. Up to today, I n-ever have learned to swim, though spending many years on the ocean amid all the dangers of a seaman's life.                                 
The travail of my soul. Jan. 1892, The Christian Science Journal - http://journal.christianscience.com/issues/1892/1/9-10/the-travail-of-my-soul.

[In my delving I found that, in 1900, the Baltimore church, which seated 600, was too small and a new building was required.  250 children were enrolled in their Sunday School, and the average attendance was 200.  (Christian Science Sentinel, Feb. 15 1900 - http://sentinel.christianscience.com/issues/1900/2/2-24/among-the-churches]

Joseph’s name is immortalised in the Deed of Trust in Manual of the Mother Church. The book Pioneers in Christian Science (Longyear Foundation 1972) has photos of Mary and Joseph and brief biographies. He was a member of the Christian Science Board of Directors and one of twelve First Members involved in the formation of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston in 1892.

Mary was present at the last session of Joseph’s class with Mrs. Eddy in December 1884; she had class herself in February 1885; was listed as a practitioner in December 1885; qualified as a teacher of Christian Science after the Normal Class of February 1887; was also one of the twelve involved in the formation of the church in 1892; taught in the Sunday School; was a member of the Bible Lesson Committee, and of course she was a successful teacher and practitioner.

Indeed, a life worth saving!

Scientific revolution

Ah! My old friend A Century of Christian Science Healing. All old friends do not get to be so ragged as this book. My copy has been much used as can be observed from the condition of the dust cover. (When I got this book, I hadn't yet begun the practice of covering my new books with plastic - a wonderful idea, for I love to keep the covers on the books.)

If you were to turn to the printer's end pages (at the back of the book), you would find my recording of the healings and their page numbers. How I longed for an index to this book.

Of course, the book was produced in 1966, a full century after Mary Baker Eddy's discovery of the Science of Christianity in 1866. It is of interest that this week we have noted the sesquicentennial (150th year) since that discovery.

In the Foreword, the Christian Science Board of Directors state: "This book has been prepared under the supervision of Christian Science Church's Committees on Publication" (page x). I had been under the impression that church historian Robert Peel compiled the book and was responsible for the final chapter, but a contributor to Wikipedia says that he was responsible for a "significant editorial contribution". 

I believe we have talked about Robert Peel on this blog site on at least one previous occasion. On checking under "Robert Peel" I see some comments were published on November 4, 2012. I found the comments interesting - perhaps others will too - and easy to find on the blog.

Robert Peel was ever on a quest to have the "scientific" world recognize Christian Science for what it is. 

I am reminded that recently, in my consecutive reading of Mrs. Eddy's Prose Works, I came to this, from Miscellaneous Writings p. 25:32:

"No human hypotheses, whether philosophy, medicine, or religion, can survive the wreck of time; but whatever is of God, hath life abiding in it, and ultimately will be known as self-evident truth, as demonstrable as mathematics."

Shortly afterwards, I found a beautiful passage in a lecture by William P. McKenzie in the bound volume of The Christian Science Journal 1899. The lecture (published April 1899) was titled "The Health-giving Theology of Christian Science." Here is the passage:

"Because of the benefits they have received from Christian Science, its adherents are eager to have others understand it. They are certain that when understood, Christian Science will be accepted universally as scientific astronomy."

Then a friend pointed me to Dr. Laurance Doyle's talk at Arden Woods, as presented on YouTube (Scientific Healing - a Talk by Laurance Doyle; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRB1mNyTdtg).

Doyle is an astrophysicist. He is a devoted student of Christian Science and says in his talk that he reads Mrs. Eddy's work Science and Health as "science and reality". He speaks of the "scientific" world's estimate of Mrs. Eddy and her discovery of Christian Science through the years as follows: in the 19th century a revolution in religion; in the 20th century a somewhat revolution in medicine and healing; and in this century he expects the scientific journals to give her recognition as a revolutionary in science. "It will be, if my little crusade is effective," he says.

Joyce Voysey

The bugle call: healing physical sickness

In the Foreword to our book this month, A Century of Christian Science Healing, the then (1966) Christian Science Board of Directors points out an interesting fact: that Mrs Eddy (the Discoverer of Christian Science) considered physical healing to be but the "bugle call to thought and action" - a quote from Eddy's book Rudimental Divine Science p. 2.

How often has a physical need stirred us and caused us to ponder deeply the whys and wherefores of our experience; maybe even caused some to wonder about the things of the Spirit?

I love the call of the bugle: it is a rousing sound. Surely, Eddy's 1866 healing "from serious internal injuries caused by a fall on the ice" (p. 3) was a bugle call to which she responded with selfless dedication and tireless work for mankind's salvation from sin, disease, and death.

Chapter One points out something that might still be misunderstood in any observation of the practice of Christian Science healing: that "a setting right of one's basic spiritual relations may result in physical changes" (p. 4). This is a wake-up call worth responding to. 

Julie Swannell