Comments on Wilbur's book

Oh! How I have neglected the Book Club!

Yesterday, I had cause to check up on Jerry, Mrs. Eddy's carriage horse (one of them), so found him on the blog (See post dated 17 October 2015.) Do you remember his story? I think we could stand a repeat -

“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” (p. 585, note 9, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, expanded edition).

While hunting for that quote in the biographies, I came up with another interesting quote about horses from John Salchow's reminiscences about Mrs. Eddy's horses, “It is true that they wore blinders and a checkrein, but in those days it was felt that a horse kept his mind on  his business better with blinders on and was therefore easier to drive” (p. 386, We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, expanded Vol. 1).

                                                            *******************

Now a few words about The Life of Mary Baker Eddy by Sybil Wilbur.

The author had quite a clear understanding of Christian Science when she wrote the book. She must have been a good student. I think I am right in saying that she had Class Instruction after that writing.

It confuses me somewhat as to whether she is reconstructing an event exactly or using her story-telling skills to make an more interesting story.

Now, I have read Mrs. Eddy's Retrospection and Introspection in which she tells of her experience of hearing her name mysteriously called many times. At these times she says she was in the presence of her grandmother. All of those readings have left the grandmother as a passive by-stander for me. But on reading about it this time, I recalled my daughters and their influence on their grandchildren at this time, and realised that this was no passive grandmother. I can imagine the happy and productive times they had.

There is a paragraph on page 47 which talks to me of Shostakovich and his Symphony about the Siege of Leningrad, the 7^th Symphony. A biography of the man gives a vivid description of these terrible times in the history of Russia during the second World War. (I am sorry I cannot quote the book's name or author.) Although I have never heard the music, that paragraph evoked, for me, something of the pathos of those terrible times. 

Perhaps a little fanciful of Miss Wilbur in relating Mrs. Eddy's life to music and its effects?

On page 162 I found the phrase 'years of trial.' Interesting that Robert Peel used that phrase in the title of the second of his trilogy, i.e. Mary Baker Eddy:Years of Trial. Although, for Peel, it is the second phase of the life, while Wilbur is referring to the earlier period, dubbed by Peel as the Years of Discovery.

There is history in this book which I think is not recorded in any of the other biographies of Mrs. Eddy. For instance on pages 162/3 about early students and the hazards of mesmerism. 

On page 268 we see this, “...the deadliest poison is a secretion engendered by the working of hatred.”

And on page 355, it is pleasing to find the phrase “the betterment of humanity.”  It is echoed in the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity, that wonderful facility in Boston where we can to for information about Mrs. Eddy, her writings, and her life.

I am indebted to Wikipedia for this description of the Library:

The Mary Baker Eddy Library is a research library, museum, and repository for the papers of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science.

The library is located on the Christian Science Center, Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, and housed in a portion of the 11-story structure originally built for the Christian Science Publishing Society. While the library holds the archive for the letters and manuscripts of Mary Baker Eddy, it contains other exhibits, including the Mapparium, a three-story stained-glass globe that allows visitors to stand inside a globe depicting the world of 1934.

My “few words” have finished up quote a few, I notice.

Joyce Voysey