Beauty everywhere

After reading about the "deep waters" (p. 205, Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy by Irving Tomlinson) of the Next Friends Suit and Mrs. Eddy's calm trust that she was "safe in His green pastures" (ibid), it is lovely to now read about her love for home.

Those familiar with her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures will recall her statement that "Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre though not the boundary, of the affections" (SH 58).

In speaking of her move to Pleasant View, Tomlinson describes the transformation of "what had once been ugly and desolate into a home of beauty, comfort, and peace" as "a splendid example of her vision and foresight" (p. 211, Twelve Years). Her improvements had made the home "almost unrecognizable from its former dilapidated condition" (ibid p. 212). 

Tomlinson remarked that "there was beauty everywhere" (ibid), including lots of flowers.

This reminds me of John Wyndham's experience in setting up business premises when he returned home after having been a prisoner during WW2. He writes (The Ultimate Freedom p. 87): "The premises had been neglected during the war years and looked uninviting and dull to say the least. Again the irresistible urge to beautify came over me. But there seemed to be no way of paying even the smallest amount for such an undertaking."

"My Bible companion book had told me that "Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color" (SH 247). This Mind, which I had learned to trust and listen to, I felt would point the way." 

He was able, step by step, to transform the space such that: "Soon the reception room was a glory of color and beauty, with new desks, built in seats for clients, and a large colored illuminated mural of an orchard in blossom. There were also beautiful arrangements of fresh flowers to feast the eyes on" (p. 89, The Ultimate Freedom).

Blog readers will be most interested to read Tomlinson's observations regarding Mrs. Eddy's intense love of all things beautiful in Twelve Years, especially pp. 211-214. 

He summarizes: "Mrs. Eddy was a deep lover of beauty. She held beauty as symbolizing the purity, the loveliness of Soul" (p. 213). 

Julie Swannell

My breakfast read

I am very much enjoying reading the Irving Tomlinson’s Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy. 

I find it works for me to leave the book on the dining table where it has become my breakfast read.

I’ll share two passages that have provoked my thought.

On page 77, Tomlinson recounts that he and his sister were to take up the roles of First and Second Reader In Concord, New Hampshire. When Tomlinson asked Mrs Eddy’s advice about making adequate provision for both home and work, Mrs Eddy’s reply indicates that she recognised that keeping house was a full time occupation for a woman. If she would do the role of healer and Reader well, then that would require all her care and effort, and she couldn’t be expected to keep house as well. “All one’s time is none too much for this and also that of the Readership.” What kindness to his sister!

And what perception of the obligations and commitment involved in doing our work the best we can in any sphere. It requires all our care. This gives an idea of the passage in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures where Mrs Eddy writes: “The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible” (SH 199:21–22).

This tells me that we need to be wholly committed to God’s work, whatever that may be; that we cannot spread our fire and hope to succeed. It also reflects kindness and insight into the demands placed on women at that time, and of not wanting to overburden Mary Tomlinson. Very touching.

The second passage is on page 89, and this is a big one that we all must confront. Mrs Eddy asked: “What was it that made Jesus the Messiah?” Her answer was that he “loved righteousness and hated iniquity” (Hebrews 1:9). 

She then proceeded to explain that the true Christian must not close his eyes to wrong-doing. He must be willing to uncover the evil in himself and others; to take steps to unmask the wrong-doer and bring the evil-doing to an end. We are not to draw back from our duty of exposing error and thus causing it to be destroyed.

Mrs Eddy said she herself found this so hard. She said she would rather - as we all would - “dwell on love alone and get away from error…”. But she said that would not do; it would allow error to increase.

My favourite sentence here is “We are to do right and leave the consequences to God.”

 Marie Fox

She asked that the lessons be prepared at once.

This week I was alerted to a webinar produced by The Mother Church for Reading Room librarians and workers. The topic (on christianscience.com) is “The Bible Lessons and the ‘prosperity of Christian Science.’” 

I especially appreciated hearing from a lady in California who had shared the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson with a young woman whose family had found themselves homeless. The young woman took an interest in what she had been given to read and soon started coming to church. Her family recently found a home.

There are many references to the Christian Science Bible Lessons in our periodicals. You might start your research in jsh-online.com by typing “Lesson sermon” in the search bar. Among the many articles there is one from The Christian Science Journal of May 1899. It was written by Irving Tomlinson, who served on the Bible Lesson Committee for many years from its inception. Here’s an excerpt:

          The Maker of the Christian Science sermons is God, for He "made all that was made." Humanly speaking, God's agents do His work. As Christ Jesus said, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." The subjects for these sermons, as is quite well known, were furnished by our Leader. These subjects cover the essentials of Christianity. As has been observed, they follow the order she was wont to employ in teaching her classes. ...

Irving Tomlinson gives further background in his book Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy (amplified edition) on p. 187. Here he points out that once Mrs. Eddy was sure of God's direction, she permitted no delay in carrying it out:

Not only the verbal form of the subjects of the Christian Science Bible Lessons, but their order in the Christian Science Quarterly is entirely Mrs. Eddy's arrangement. …

When in the summer of 1898 Mrs. Eddy sent down the topics for the new lessons, she asked that the lessons be prepared at once. This meant the immediate arrangement of twenty-six lessons—there being only a week's time in which to plan for the first lesson of July 3, 1898…

With the entire Bible from which to select and six hundred pages of Science and Health open to the Bible Lesson Committee, I found, as a member of this committee, that there was opportunity for endless variety. …

A more recent contributor to the periodicals (Michael Mooslin, “Me, we, and them”, Christian Science Sentinel 3 March 2025) wrote:

Mrs. Eddy explained that we don’t attend church to worship God but to express Him. “We study these lessons six days,” she continued, “then we go to Church to express God for the world—to give the world a treatment” (William Curtis Coffman, Memoirs of a Christian Scientist, 1955, p. 3).

I love that “the Bible and the Christian Science textbook are our only preachers” (Explanatory Note read prior to the Lesson-Sermon at each Christian Science church service).

Julie Swannell