Pursuing the "high goal"

Having covered the years of Mary Baker Eddy's life up to 1882, Gill now opens the second part of her biography. Her theme is always to weigh up the evidence she is uncovering against the writing of earlier biographers. 

She explains to the reader her own initial reluctance to treat Eddy's life purpose as God-ordained or God-directed and her subsequent reconciling with the idea that "[w]hat matters, from both a historical and a biographical viewpoint, is whether the [individual's] vision changes the person's life and activates him or her to achieve practical things which...would be placed between difficult and impossible" (297). 

Here, Gill notes the often derogatory effect of Eddy's gender on the interpretation of her life-work by many commentators. In short, she contends that much of the opposition to Christian Science and its leader has been opposition to the idea of a female religious leader.

And so, chapter 16 "The Massachusetts Metaphysical College" opens a window on the newly widowed sixty-year-old Mary Baker Eddy and her imperative need for "good lieutenants and aides" (302) to help her in her mission. Gill now introduces the reader to thirty-seven-year-old widower, the "incorruptible" (304) Calvin Frye. She suggests that his life in Eddy's employ enabled him to be "in an environment wholly different from his parents' desolate home" (ibid). Here he was a willing and vital participant in a thrilling new movement that "was changing the landscape of American religion and medicine" (ibid). 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Eddy was at work! Gill lists some of the herculean tasks she embarked on at this time and comments that one of her students, Julia Bartlett, "was in awe before Mrs. Eddy's energy and capacity for hard work" (305).

Trials and tribulations abounded, but Mary Baker Eddy kept her eye on "the high goal", a prescription laid out in the Christian Science textbook:

The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 426:5–8)

Julie Swannell

Why read this biography of M. B. Eddy?

Those who look for me in person, or elsewhere than in my writings, lose me instead of find me.
(The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 120:2–4)

In October 1999, the Christian Science Sentinel produced an edition which focussed on the Leader of the Christian Science movement, Mary Baker Eddy.

One of the articles in that edition (October 4, 1999) of the weekly magazine was by Gillian Gill, the author of this month's book club book. She answers a question about the importance of knowing about the life of Mrs. Eddy. Here's an excerpt:

MARY BAKER EDDY'S MESSAGE & HER LIFE PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER  

Excerpts from a Q&A session with biographer Gillian Gill

Gillian Gill

...At the start of my research, I was reading all of the published literature on Mrs. Eddy, much of which is extremely critical, often viciously so. And so I started to see that the most important way in which Christian Science was attacked was through the personality of its Leader.

Her message was being blocked, and I would suggest to you that it is still true, that unless we have a clear perception of what she really was and what she really did, we will constantly be dealing with half perceptions, misperceptions, the "facts" as presented by other people.

Mrs. Eddy's Christian Science was immediately perceived by contemporaries as a challenge to the established order. 

...These early negative presentations of Mrs. Eddy continue to be given currency today. Many people writing books don't do original research but go to already existing biographies, and often use the ones about Mrs. Eddy that are negative. 

...Mrs. Eddy was an original thinker—that had its problems and its pluses—but her lack of classical education could have freed her to do what she did. She says, I'm not formally equipped for this; I'm going to do it anyway. This is the only way I can get my message out, and that's what I need to do. And she does it

I am grateful that this author took the trouble to dig deeper in order to dispel some of the myths about Mary Baker Eddy that have been perpetuated down the decades. It is right that these errors be corrected.

Julie Swannell

Final thoughts on finishing the Gill book

I have now finished the whole book (Mary Baker Eddy by Gillian Gill), including all the end stuff. I have noted a few things which I may be able to comment on. I’ll start from the back.

Peel

The very last paragraph of the Notes refers to Robert Peel. Gill writes:

It is hard to overestimate the debt I owe Robert Peel in my own research and understanding of Mrs. Eddy. This is especially true of the first two volumes, which cover Mrs. Eddy’s life up to 1892. The third volume, although the longest of the three, and the one dealing with the movement correspondence and official documentation which I myself had least access to, is also the least satisfying, the most guarded. I found myself consulting Peel Authority in vain for information I knew the author must have had, and it seemed to me that Peel was increasingly being obliged to toe some invisible party line.

p. 700

This is so interesting because Authority is the one most valuable, the most spiritual, in my opinion, to the student of Christian Science. My copy is falling to pieces.

[Ed. I am reminded of the statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 343: 6: "Is not finite mind ignorant of God's method?"]

 

Note to parents

In light of the current pandemic situation there is an interesting note which tells of Mrs. Eddy’s son George refusing to have his son Andrew vaccinated. I gather he thought this was the Christian Science way, but Mrs. Eddy wrote to the parents, “But if it were my child, I should let them vaccinate him and then with Christian Science I would prevent its harming the health of my child” p. 684.23.

 

Gill's perspective

Re care of children. The author (Gillian Gill) gives her perspective:

... the Christian Scientists I have met in the course of my research seem to have their children given routine injections, follow careful and sensible preventative health-care strategies, take their children to traditional doctors in critical situations, and resort only in extreme emergencies to surgical procedures and medications such as painkillers and antibiotics. This seems to me a stoic but not unenlightened policy which many traditional physicians would endorse.

p. 678.12

 

Calvin Frye diary note

Calvin Frye recorded in his diary in October 1893:

Mrs. Eddy’s charge to Mrs Monroe and myself.

The first thing in the morning call on God to deliver you from temptation and help you to be awake. Then do your chores, not as a dreary hashish eater but with a clear sense of what to do and just how to do it.

Then sit down and first get yourself into a consciousness of your power with God and then take up the outside watch. Sit until this is clear if 2 hours.

p. 693.18

 

Demonstration and understanding

As I read Gillian Gill’s biography of Mary Baker Eddy, I was reminded that Mrs. Eddy says that Christian Science is not understood until demonstrated. “We must recollect that Truth is demonstrable when understood, and that good is not understood until demonstrated” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 323:14–16). So, Gill does not speak at length about the Science; after all the biography is of Mrs. Eddy as a person, and what science can be understood by one who doesn’t study and demonstrate it?

 

Capitalisation

One of the first things I noticed about the text of the book was the way “The Mother Church” was capitalised. In a majority of cases, “the” is lower-case, but there are some instances where it is capitalised, as Mrs. Eddy directed it should be*. I wonder if this is typist’s error or a deliberate intention of the author.

*Manual of The Mother Church, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 70:21-- Titles. Sect. 2. “The First Church of Christ, Scientist,” is the legal title of The Mother Church. Branch churches of The Mother Church may take the title of First Church of Christ, Scientist; Second Church of Christ, Scientist; and so on, where more than one church is established in the same place; but the article “The” must not be used before titles of branch churches, nor written on applications for membership in naming such churches.

 

Building The Mother Church

I found the author’s synopsis of the building of the Original Mother Church to be even more exciting that Joseph Armstrong’s in his book Building of The Mother Church.

 

Mrs. Eddy

I find it gratifying that she doesn’t just use “Eddy” in referring to her subject. She always has “Mrs. Eddy.”

Joyce Voysey