A brilliant response in defence of Christian Science

Julie's blog has prompted me to look further into the history of this little book. And a source of information is our book from March – Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial (Robert Peel).

Peel tells us that Mrs. Eddy's “Defence of Christian Science” was published in the March 1886 edition of The Christian Science Journal and later as a separate pamphlet (page 155).

When one reads the preceding pages one understands the necessity for this defence. One particular critic's comments were perhaps the last straw. “One has only to open the published volumes of its lady apostle in this city to find such a creed of pantheism and blasphemy as has been rarely compounded” (from a letter by Rev. A. J. Gordon, read in Tremont Temple and applauded by Joseph Cook). [Ed. See March 1886 Journal for Eddy's brilliant reply.]

And that leads us to the famous ten minutes allowed to Mrs. Eddy by the Rev. Cook in which she could respond at one of his Monday Morning Lectures. 

These pages of Peel's book are arresting in their description of the drama of those times (a few pages around page 155).

At this point, Peel doesn't explain the destiny of "Defence of Christian Science", but on page 185 he talks of “her powerful Defence of Christian Science (nucleus of her later book No and Yes).” So Mrs. Eddy must have amended the article for the printing of the pamphlet. This was a time when she recognised the necessity of reaching the educated world with her teaching. Or, as Peel has it: “Through the theological controversies of 1885 it became clear to her that the movement's lines of communication with the educated world needed strengthening” (p. 155).

Joyce Voysey

Ed. Readers may be interested to read some snippets from the May 1887 Journal which explain that "This pamphlet is now out of print. Its place is more than supplied, however, by the new work, entitled Christian Science: No and Yes, by M. B. G. Eddy."