Reading Room discovery

I have loaned my copy of the book, Mary Baker Eddy Mentioned Them, thinking I would find one to borrow in my church's Reading Room lending library. Alas, no copy there, so I had to find another road to finding the articles which make up the substance of the book.

Recently, when I was in the Reading Room before our Wednesday Testimony Meeting, I chose, at random, a volume of the Christian Science Sentinel (an annual 'bound volume') to browse through. What do you know? The 1958 volume opened up to an entry about General Henry Knox (1750-1806) from the 22 February 1958 edition of the Sentinel. I learned that this hero of the American War of Independence was a relative of Mary Baker Eddy's on her grandmother's side. In her Retrospection and Introspection Mrs Eddy tells us, 'I was fond of listening, when a child, to grandmother's stories about General Knox, for whom she cherished a high regard' (Ret. 2:27) -- as did George Washington, according to the Sentinel account.

Now, I knew that these pieces had been first printed as a series in the Christian Science Sentinel, so I looked for more in that volume of Sentinels. I found that they did not appear weekly, but by patiently turning the pages I came to others.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) -- a Scottish chap: Sentinel, 25 January 1958. Carlyle is mentioned in Eddy's Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 33 and The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, pp. 154, 193. In the latter reference, Mrs Eddy commends Carlyle's sentiment: 'Give a thing time; if it succeeds, it is a right thing' (My 193: 22).

At this stage, my thought was of gratitude that Mrs. Eddy found support for her ideas from characters such as these recorded in our book. It seems she felt that they were reaching for the truth she found in divine Science, and grasping a little of that truth. Sometimes she takes the message higher through a reference to the Bible.

John Albion Andrew (1818-1867) -- a contemporary of Mrs. Eddy: Sentinel, 8 February 1958. The reference to this man is in Mrs. Eddy's Poems. The Sentinel account has a wonderful tribute to Abraham Lincoln (a hero of mine), but I will refer here to another quote relevant to Christian Science: 'In respect to principles I am always radical. In respect to measures I am always conservative. Principles are of God...Measures, on the other hand, are human devices by which men attempt to actualize in human affairs the principles they perceive and believe in' (Mary Baker Eddy Mentioned Them, p. 16).

One is reminded of the absolute and relative in our work as students of Christian Science.

Dr John Abercrombie (1780-1844 – a Scot) and Dr James Johnson (1777-1845): Sentinel, 8 March 1958. These men are coupled in one entry in the Sentinel. They too appear in Mrs. Eddy's writings. In The People's Idea of God, p. 6, Abercrombie is quoted as saying, 'Medicine is the science of guessing.' Johnson, Surgeon to William IV, King of England,  is even more forthright, 'I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long observation and reflection, that if there was not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality...” See Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 163 and The People's Idea of God, p. 6.

David Hume (1711-1776) - Sentinel, 22 March 1958. Ah! Hume is one of a group of thinkers who Mrs Eddy's critics felt 'must have been the originators of the Science of Mind-healing as...stated [in Science and Health]'. See Retrospection and Introspection, p. 37.

I still have five more blokes to comment on, so I will give the editor and the reader a break here.

Actually, there is another session I had on Friday in the Reading Room that I must chat about...

Joyce Voysey