Times of crisis

Mrs. Eddy was no stranger to struggles and difficulties. Robert Peel's Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial makes that plain. 

With her discovery of Christian Science and the publication of the first edition of her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, students were coming to learn from her. But some of those students presented her with contradictions:  loyalty and disaffection, conspiracy and reconciliation, praise and scorn. (It is interesting that "they laughed [Jesus] to scorn" for his declaration that the dead-12-year-old girl was "not dead, but sleepeth". See Luke 8: 52-53.)

Through the turmoil, Peel gives us some insight into Mrs. Eddy's means of staying on course when confronted with evil intent. He explains (p. 46) that she had "redefined" evil as "error, demanding correction". Her beloved Bible would give her the means of correcting the error: 

Again and again in times of crisis she would note down in her Bible a particular verse through which she felt God had spoken to her and given her direction, noting also the date on which she had turned to it.

I love this. Her Bible was her "chart of life", as she was to note in Science and Health on page 24: 

Acquaintance with the original texts, and willingness to give up human beliefs (established by hierarchies, and instigated sometimes by the worst passions of men), open the way for Christian Science to be understood, and make the Bible the chart of life, where the buoys and healing currents of Truth are pointed out.

I ask myself if I turn to my Bible with such confidence? Am I acknowledging and noting in it the day-by-day the answers coming to me from its pages?

Peel reminds us that "discipline, energy, and persistence" were and are required - see p. 47. He warns that "...the struggles [of 1878] ...harried and  and almost destroyed Christian Science" (p. 50). 

Julie Swannell

holding hands

Robert Peel recounts a lovely story about Mrs. Eddy -- then Mrs. Glover -- when she was living at 8 Broad Street in Lynn, Massachusetts.

 https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Lynn,_Essex_County,_Massachusetts_Genealogy

A Mr. Orville Clough noticed her coming out of the house holding the hand of a small child and remarked on the "beautiful sign" on her home. It was the Cross and Crown emblem that she had adopted as a symbol of Christian Science and can be found on the cover of her work Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. 

Mrs. Glover remarked that: "We all have the Cross but each one must become as this little child before he can have the Crown." (See Mary Baker Eddy: the Years of Trial by Robert Peel, 2nd edition, footnote 43, p. 20.)

Julie Swannell

Transformed zeal

The Oxford online dictionary has definitions for zeal including passion, fire, fondness, devotion, enthusiasm, eagerness, energy, zest and gusto. 

The apostle Paul (previously known as Saul of Tarsus) describes himself as “a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee” (Acts 23: 6), “more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of [my] fathers than many of [my] equals (see Galatians 1: 14).

But Saul of Tarsus was "an ardent young pupil"* of the wise and highly regarded Rabbi Gamaliel, portrayed by Bible scholar Thomas L. Leishman as “of notable broad sympathies”*: broad-minded, moderate, thoughtful, and kindly. He also “did not object to Greek learning”*. 

Like the young Jesus of Nazareth, the young Saul had thorough training in the Hebrew Scriptures. Leishman cautions that although the “tradition of the elders might be of value in some instances…it was inclined to become a list of arbitrary human opinions or regulations”*. Unfortunately, in following these regulations, the young Saul persecuted Christians “with fanatical zeal”*.

Gamaliel may have tried to temper Saul's zeal. 

Readers may remember how he featured in a court case involving the early apostles. It started out like this:

“...by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people” (Acts 5: 12), and
“believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women” (ibid v 14).

This alarming situation had roused the indignation of the high priest and his cohorts, and resulted in the apostles’ imprisonment. But when the soldiers went to transfer the prisoners from the prison to the council chambers, the prison was empty. Instead, they found the erstwhile prisoners in the temple “teaching the people” (v. 25)!

How could anyone not admire Gamaliel’s measured response to the Sanhedrin (the “supreme Jewish council”*) during the trial that followed:

            If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God. (Acts 5: 38-39)

I have had to learn that there are two types of zeal. Here the textbook of Christian Science definition has been helpful:

           The reflected animation of Life, Truth, and Love. Blind enthusiasm, mortal will. (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 599: 4-5)

The early zeal of a well-intentioned but destructive Pharisee-Saul was motivated by mortal will and blind enthusiasm. After his conversion, Apostle-Paul's zeal was tempered and softened to become the humble but earnest reflected animation of Life, Truth, and Love. 

His Christ-directed life-work was transformed from “persecutor” to “staunch adherent of Christianity”*, from tyrant to untiring servant.

 Julie Swannell

*See “Saul the Pharisee” by Thomas Leishman in the February 1975 issue of The Christian Science Journal.