A
student of Christian Science to-day may find it hard to comprehend the way
people in the 1880's were trying to practise Mrs. Eddy's teachings without
having a solid basis in Christianity. Peel tells us all about them. [Ed. See Peel Years of Trial, page 206 as an example.] What a
student was our Robert Peel! I love that we are told in a recent blog that he
got lots of laughs in amongst his labours.
However,
these difficult students caused Mrs. Eddy to give us, at that time, some of the
precious little books we find in her Prose Works: Rudimental Divine Science;
Unity of Good; and No and Yes. Books so crucial to a
student's progress in Christian Science.
Peel (Note #68 p. 360) points us to No and Yes 34:18-28 as a “typical example of the book's
double-edged approach to traditional theological questions, in this case the
doctrine of the sacrificial blood of Christ.” [Ed. This appears in a section titled "Is There No Sacrificial Atonement?"]
I love
that we have a reference to the “Word becoming flesh” in our book, especially as the passage “...all
flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:6 all) is the Golden Text for this week's
Lesson-Sermon. See Christian Science Quarterly's Bible Lesson for week ending March 19, 2017. In Peel's words: “the
absolute must be experienced humanly as redemption and transformation, not
merely as nonattachment and abstraction" (p. 205).
It was
interesting to learn that the Theosophical Society was formed two weeks after Science
and Health was published. We are told about it on pages 206-207. Madame
Blavatsky is perhaps the only famous name we hear of in regard to its
teachings.
Joyce Voysey
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