Memorable passages in Peel's "Years of Trial"

Here are some passages that caught my attention in Peel’s book Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial -

Page 140: “The miraculous was not an exception to universal law, but an illustration of it.”

Page 140: Mrs. Eddy saying that the only treatment she gave a woman suffering from a cancer which had “eaten its way to the jugular vein”, was to turn away and know “in the most positive way that God knew nothing of such a thing.” The only treatment, but what exact knowing of God's truth!

Here, we are reading about the time Mrs. Eddy was preaching in Boston. When she could not preach, others filled in for her. One of these was Andrew P. Peabody. Note #5 on page 350 tells us about him:

This remarkable personage at the age three was racing through full-length books of every description, reading them as easily upside down as right side to. At seven he memorized the entire Bible with scarcely any effort. At nine he was teaching classes in arithmetic and writing his cousin, “I am perfectly satisfied that Colburn's Arithmetic is founded on an excellent plan, and that it will be of great use in instructing those who know nothing of Arithmetic.” At twelve, when already proficient in Latin, Green, French, and German, he was admitted to Harvard College. He was deeply loved by several generations of Harvardians, and a plaque in Appleton Chapel announces that “for thirty-three years he moved among the Teachers and Students at Harvard College and wist not that his face shone.”

Ah yes! [Ed. At the foot of page 158 and on to page 159, Peel describes the stark difference between Eddy’s Massachusetts Metaphysical College and Harvard College “across the Charles River.” The latter, Peel describes as fitting the “familiar definition of the ideal college as consisting of] Mark Hopkins at one end of a log and a student at the other.” This quote sticks in my memory as something that needs explaining. Up till now I have never looked up Mark Hopkins, but this time I have. Encyclopedia Britannica puts the quote exactly, I trust:

Mark Hopkins, (born Feb. 4, 1802, Stockbridge, Mass., U.S.—died June 17, 1887, Williamstown, Mass.), American educator and theologian of whom U.S. President James A. Garfield, a former student, once declared, “I am not willing that this discussion should close without mention of the value of a true teacher. Give me a log hut, with only a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on one end and I on the other, and you may have all the buildings, apparatus, and libraries without him.” 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mark-Hopkins-American-educator-and-theologian

Britannica.com says, of his teaching, that it included moral philosophy, theology, piety; and that moral values were stressed as much, or more than, intellectual achievements.

It seems to me that one would need to be a student of literature to comprehend what Peel says on pages 164 and 165. And one could add considerably to his knowledge of literature (or is it philosophy?) if one looked into those remarkable men and their work. No women!

But one woman was giving mankind a truth far ahead of the teaching of those men. Speaking of Mrs. Eddy's classes in Christian Science, Peel avers that, “Many a college education of four years' length has produced less fundamental change in a person's thought processes and life attitudes than did Mrs. Eddy's twelve lessons” (page 166). She was giving the world the truth of being, which she consolidated in the scientific statement of being - see her Science & Health, p. 468.)

A major part of Eddy's teaching was to establish a correct concept of God. I ask myself, What was my concept of God when I was led to Christian Science? Well. I had had an experience where I knew that God was communicating with me, and I could communicate with Him. So I would say that my concept of God was a wonderful sense of good, an almost overwhelming joy of knowing that God was a real presence and could influence my thinking and my life.

Another reference that has stayed with me is on page 171. It is somewhat of a rebuff to us when we complain of the heat. Peels writes, “When the summer heat caused a certain amount of restiveness in one of her classes, Mrs. Eddy asked dryly, ‘Shall we move to some cooler part of the city, or shall we remain and make our own atmosphere?’ The restiveness stopped.”

Joyce Voysey

Perfect description of the Christ and clear classification of evil

I continue to be grateful for Robert Peel’s authorship. Peel enunciates spiritual concepts using refreshingly original terminology, causing one to reassess how one thinks, and especially how one describes Science to another.

This paragraph describing the Christ is pertinent this week, since we are studying the Lesson on Christ Jesus:

     “The Christ, she taught, had been expressed in varying measure by prophet and sage and apostle; as the true idea of God, it was still available for all men to express in the measure that they followed the example of Jesus, thought as he did, drew on the same inexhaustible source of good which he called “Father.” Nevertheless, though she emphasised the universal availability of the Christ-power and the Christ-spirit, she held that Jesus had embodied them with unique perfection, and this fact ensured his role as Exemplar, or Way-shower, till the end of time. This uniqueness she attributed to the spirituality of Mary’s conception of him……….” (Mary Baker Eddy: Years of Trial p 27).

Such a perfect and concise description of the Christ. And how about the arresting notion that we can draw on the same inexhaustible source of good which he called “Father”!

Peel is also brilliant on p 33 where he explains the way evil is classified in Christian Science. He comprehends the laws of logic, and also is well-versed in the thinking of philosophers and mystics, and so is able to draw on that knowledge to mount a convincing and clear argument:

     “The metaphysical logic of Christian Science left no place for evil to operate in the perfectly ordered universe of Spirit. But in the relativities of human life this logic was confronted daily by the empirical evidence of evil. Mrs Eddy’s answer to the riddle was that the false evidence, not the true logic, must go. To minds trained in formal philosophical disciplines such an answer was almost incomprehensible…But if one’s very acknowledgement of its (evil’s) lack of absolute (ie spiritual) reality resulted in wiping it out of relative human experience - possibly in contradiction to all known physical law and psychological experience - then a “demonstration” of a different order had been offered.”

When I draw quotes out of the context of the whole, they lose some of their impact, but suffice to say, I find the book illuminating. It matures one.

Marie Fox

Stand tall

It is always a revelation to read Robert Peel. His work is a fine combination of sharp, observant scholarship with wisdom and artistry. The result is a rich tapestry of compelling observations about life in general, and Mrs Eddy’s life in particular. I always feel I have learned valuable life lessons after reading him.

Here is something in the early pages of Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial that exemplifies that. On page 10, he writes of Putney Bancroft that “he lacked the stamina and perhaps the audacity to outface the storms that lay ahead”. In the next paragraph, he further discusses qualities of leadership needed in the movement. “They were leaners more than leaders - more, even, than followers” Such succinct writing and observation!

So, the obvious derivative from that is to ask ourselves: Do I have the audacity and stamina to be a leader? Such great words.

Audacity: boldness or daring, especially with confident disregard for conventional thought or personal safety. Dauntlessness, courage, adventurousness. Paul speaks of boldness, doesn’t he.

Stamina: Strength, vigour. Power to endure. Backbone, endurance, energy, fortitude, heart, indefatigability.

I also liked his deeper look at the distinction between Divine Science and science on page 12: that it is eternal not empirical; it requires both past authority and present experience; that, as divine law, it is both insight and power.

All very insightful.

Marie Fox

Meticulous research, and demand for the truth

On page 81 Peel writes about Mrs. Eddy's desire to have Christian Science "made more respectable in the eyes of society". She had read a book called The History of Medicine for the Last 4000 Years, by Rufus King Noyes, M.D. of Lynn. 

Peel writes:

“The history of medicine, Noyes held, was one of imposture – 'a practice of fundamentally fallacious principles, impotent of good, morally wrong, and bodily hurtful.'”

This thinking heartened Mrs. Eddy, and it reminds one of pages 162-164 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (S&H) which quote famous medical professors on the dangers of medical practice.

I have long loved this quote from Voltaire, 18^th century French Enlightenment philosopher, historian, and writer, “The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease” (quoted in The People’s Idea of God, p. 6:11 by Eddy). I first came across Voltaire's quote in Tolstoy's great work, “War and Peace.”

It is nice to become reacquainted with William Dana Orcott's book “Mary Baker Eddy and Her Writings”, mentioned on page 83 of Peel’s book. Orcutt’s book is a wonderful account of the history of the printing of S&H. What a history!

The culmination of this history, for me, is the printing of the Subscription Edition of that book. There is a Subscription Edition of S&H in the foyer at First Church of Christ, Scientist, Perth – I admire it every year at my Christian Science Association meeting.

The 30^th edition of S&H included, for the first time, the 'scientific statement of being.' Now found on page 468, this statement is practically the Christian Scientist's rock of salvation. Peel comments that Mrs. Eddy did not use the pronouns He or She to indicate God, except in this edition. He classifies these as being too disconcerting to the ear. She does, however, quite freely use the term Father-Mother.

It comes as a surprise, perhaps shock, to hear that the 3^rd edition names names in regard to demonology, while the impersonality of evil is so prominent a part of her later teaching.

For about ten years, Mrs. Eddy's work was centred in Lynn, a seaside town about 10 miles from Boston. Lynn has historic monument to Mary Baker Eddy and the town's website has a long history of her connection with that city.

Peel champions the women who actually helped Mrs. Eddy at this period; most of the men couldn't take it. Peel says (p. 108), “Mrs. Eddy did not ask for women half the world that men had made; instead, she demanded an entirely new world for both of them.” Isn't that great?

This book has a valuable reference to the Quimby-Dresser controversy (pp. 125-136). Possibly the definitive authority because of his meticulous research, and demand for the truth.

Joyce Voysey

"A truth to be lived"

I have had my copy of Peel's book Mary Baker Eddy: Years of Trial since February 1976. It was a gift from a church friend, inscribed by her on the flyleaf just prior to my departure from Perth to Sydney where our first child was born a few months later. What a tender memory this kind gift has for me now.

I love that texts reveal new hues upon re-reading. The topic of empiricism is one of interest in our age. A quick Google search explains that in philosophy, an empiricist is one who "supports the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses" and offers as an example phrase: "most scientists are empiricists by nature". 

Furthermore it explains that empiricism is based on "the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses".

In the light of these definitions, Peel's comments on p. 11 and 12 arrest attention. He compares Thomas H. Huxley's loyal devotion to the then current natural science (including unwavering support of Darwin's theory of evolution) with Mary Baker Eddy's adherence to her discovery of Christian Science. This latter Science, he describes as “an eternal rather than an empirical science, a truth to be lived rather than a methodology to be worshipped”.

Julie Swannell

Meticulous record by Peel

Book Club Feb. 2017

Robert Peel's Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial

Of course I have read this book before, though not so many times as the third book in the trilogy: Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority.

Right here at the beginning I would advise the new reader that there is a need for two bookmarks for this book. The end notes are a must read.

The book certainly lives up to its name: years of trial are certainly meticulously recorded.

The tone of the book might be taken from the last sentence on page vii: “For in the lexicon of Christian Science, a trial of faith has a special significance: it is the theological equivalent of a laboratory test.” This account, then, chronicles the discovery and emergence into society of a Science: the Science of Christianity. Mrs. Eddy discovered what was true and what was untrue about this Science through living it.

Ever the academic and historian, Peel tells us on page 9 that by 1978 the chapter of Science and Health called Some Objections Answered had been "analysed in doctoral dissertations and studied by readers in Polish, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian, Portuguese". Peel seems to hope and trust that the literary world will study this biography of his.

Mrs. Eddy felt the lack of leaders among her early students. Peel speaks of there being more leaners than leaders. Peel uses strong words to describe what was needed – stamina and audacity (p. 10)!

In 1876, the centenary of Independence for the United States, there was a Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Professor Peel would perhaps have us deepen our historical knowledge with his mention of it. T.H. Huxley and Johns Hopkins University should have us delve their history too (p. 11).

Page 27 speaks of the Christ: “The Christ, she taught, had been expressed in varying measure by prophet and sage and apostle; as the true idea of God it was still available for men to express in the measure that they followed the example of Jesus, thought as he did, drew on the same inexhaustible source of good which he called “Father.””

Another list of intellectuals on page 32: Rimbaud, Zola, Dostoevsky, Ibsen, Nietzche. Unlike the times in which Peel wrote, we have the internet to learn more about these men – just Google it!

More history: The Salvation Army was founded in 1878 by William and Catherine Booth. Now I did Google that. Wikipedia says that Catherine was called the “Mother of The Salvation Army.” William preached to the poor, and Catherine spoke to the wealthy, gaining financial support for their work. She also acted as a religious minister, which was unusual at the time. Peel likens The Salvation Army to Christian Science in that the two movements shared in common the sense of a Christian fight to be fought – fought with discipline, energy, and persistence.

All that is recorded about Asa Gilbert Eddy, Mrs. Eddy's husband, offers us a gentle, tender, neat-in-appearance man, one we would like to be friends with. And what a great help he was to Mrs. Eddy in the year 1878. He was there for her even when wrongly imprisoned and put on trial on a horrible trumped up charge.

In a lecture given at Christmas time Mrs. Eddy's text was, “For unto us a child is born.” Peel's writing about it on pages 68 and 69 deserve to be read in full, but I would love to quote what Peel quotes from the talk.

Here the vision of Mary rose above the maternal instinct, giving place to prophecy, and mutely she pondered the fate of her son. Even a mother's pride and fondness were not blind to the necessities of history when the divine meets the human and the human struggles with the divine. But conscious of the power of Truth, the supremacy of Spirit over matter, she early made demands upon her idea of God to present this proof, saying to her son at the marriage feast, “They have no wine.” He replied, “Mind hour is not yet come,” but the persistent mother had a clearer sense tht God gives dominion to man and she urged the exhibition of this power and the demonstration that her idea was begotten of Truth, namely, that Mind is creative,causal, and must present its own ideals; therefore she said to the servants, “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it,” and Jesus turned the water into wine.

A precious note (#39) on page 331 quotes from a sermon given by Mrs. Eddy around 1880. It is about the Communion Services:

In communion with Christ bread and wine can only stand for the thoughts they express...Could I only give you a new and vivid sense of the faith and love the greatness and truth of which they tell...

Joyce Voysey