Fact versus fiction regarding Mary Baker Eddy's life

Mrs. Eddy’s Reply to McClure’s Magazine begins on page 308 and ends on page 316.  We find that it is refutation of errors she found in the articles about her which were published in 1907 in a series of 14 installments. in McClure's magazine.  The series was originally purported to have been compiled by Georgine Milmine, but was eventually attributed to Willa Cather.

One can read all about it on the Internet.  The material was printed in book form in November, 1909, and was titled The Life of Mary Baker Eddy and the History of Christian Science.  The book was eventually reprinted in 1971 and again in 1993 and is still apparently available for purchase.  The sad thing is that this book has been used as a reference for searchers into the life of Mary Baker Eddy.  There is no mention that I have found that refers readers to the many corrections given by Mrs. Eddy.  I counted at least 20 important points about herself and her family which Mrs. Eddy has corrected in her article.

Once again, we have Robert Peel to thank for providing facts - see between pages 260 to 282 of Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority.  

McClure’s magazine was classed by Theodore Roosevelt as having a “muckraking” reputation. 

I am grateful that Mrs. Eddy was able, in her Reply to McClure's Magazine, to provide us with some facts about her life and family which are not recorded in her autobiographical work Retrospection and Introspection.  

Joyce Voysey

Tributes - Chapter 16

I have reached Chapter Sixteen, titled "TRIBUTES." It opens with Mrs. Eddy's article "Monument to Baron and Baroness de Hirsch" (My. 287:2) which appeared in the New York Mail and Express.  I wrote about Baron and Baroness de Hirsch and their good works in my blog dated 30^th October, but I will here repeat the link which will take those interested to a record of how their benevolence helped Jewish immigrants to the USA to become farmers on their own land: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-168547743.html. (The article is titled "Recollections of a Connecticut Jewish Farmer's Son.")

Here is a quote about education: “All education is work” (My. 289:1).

The chapter “Tributes” includes some remarkable statements and loving thoughts for those facing the loss of a dear one.  Tribute is paid to Queen Victoria, President McKinley, Lord Dunmore, Joseph Armstrong, and Edward Kimball.

Here is one remarkable statement: 

My beloved Edward A. Kimball, whose clear, correct teaching of Christian Science has been and is an inspiration to the whole field, is here now as veritably as when he visited me a year ago.  If we would awaken to this recognition, we should see him here and realize that he never died; thus demonstrating the fundamental truth of Christian Science.  (Page 297)

And how is this for a recipe for unity in churches: “Father, teach us the life of Love” (My. P. 301)?

Joyce Voysey

Education brightening

In reading Chapter xii of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany (by Mary Baker Eddy), the word “education” stood out to me.  As Christian Scientists we are all students gaining education in its true sense, the education that gains us more understanding of our relationship to our Creator, God; to our true being.

On page 252 we find: “The entire purpose of true education is to make one not only know the truth but live it – to make one enjoy doing right, make one not work in the sunshine and run away in the storm, but work midst clouds of wrong, injustice, envy, hate; and wait on God, the strong deliverer, who will reward righteousness and punish iniquity.”  And on page 253: “We understand best that which begins in ourselves and by education brightens into birth.”

Then the title “The Board of Education” took my attention.  This is the Board which oversees the teaching of students up to the standard of being teachers of Christian Science.  The different classes are called Primary and Normal; the Normal being undertaken in Boston (class is held every three years). Teachers then return home to teach the Primary Class once a year. 

But what a big, expansive idea suggested by that title, “The Board of Education”!  To me, it signifies that all true teaching and learning occurs through Christian Science.

In my JSH-Online.com search, I discovered that the system we now have for teaching Christian Science evolved over the years.  I also discovered this, which surprised me:

·         A man who had been a Special Agent of the United States Treasury Department, worked for Thomas Edison's Telephone and Light Company, and had lived in both South America and Europe, Joshua Bailey had taken Primary class instruction from Mrs. Eddy in 1888. As the newly appointed Editor of the Journal, he was asked by Mrs. Eddy to take notes during both the 1889 Primary and Normal classes taught by her. A very small selection of the Primary class notes was published in her Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896 (pp. 279-282). Some additional notes from the same class, part of the Library's collection, are published below.¹

We can't make ourselves whole and see our neighbor sick.

One God, one Mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. In this truth we are in the divine harmony. The loving of our neighbor as ourself is just as imperative as one God. Thou shalt love thy neighbor &c. Then we have only one interest, no divided interest. It is no longer "My interest," mine & thine, but it is ours.

There is no healing physically without healing morally. You are healing mind, not matter. It's an action upon mind, not upon matter.

Do all we know, and God gives us strength. The only treating should be done by God, the only Mind, and stand there so consciously that those so-called minds have no power. One other thing . . . . If you don't succeed on this basis, then you must look for the malicious element. The power of hate was the ultimate of what the Master had to meet on the cross. This requires that you so love that there is no power of hate.

¹ A12065, courtesy of The Mary Baker Eddy Collection↑  

I particularly like the first truth recorded in these notes: “We can’t make ourselves whole and see our neighbor sick.”  My!  There is plenty of work to do as students of this Science of Christianity.

We have no record of this procedure having been repeated.  So Mrs Eddy obviously discarded the idea as not necessary or impractical.  Of course, The March Primary Class (Mis. 279-282) is well known and precious to students of Christian Science.

Joshua Bailey’s history in the annuls of Christian Science is quite fully recorded in Robert Peel’s Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial.

Joyce Voysey

Leadership and hope

Bible teacher Madelon Maupin has said that a leader is, by definition, one who has followers. 

What qualities define leadership?  The dictionary tells me that leadership involves guidance, stewardship, and command. I would add humility, vision, and alertness, along with the ability to serve a great cause and those working for it. And we mustn't forget hard work. Leaders need to stay in tune and ahead; they must be informed. This requires diligence, accountability, and the ability to see things through to completion and beyond. 

A leader will not do the work of another, but will often show the way by doing. Mary Baker Eddy was, and still is, the leader of the Christian Science movement, but she has said that her followers should follow her only so far as she follows Christ. She refused to be put on a pinnacle, but knew her place as Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

Great leaders care for their flocks and Eddy surely demonstrates this in her voluminous writings, including in our book this month, The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany (we are reading chapters 10 to 20). Her exquisite letters "To a First Reader" (My 247) and "The Christian Science Board of Lectureship" (My 248-9) are inspirational and point to her adherence to the inspired word of the Bible. I love when she quotes Ecclesiastes 11:1 about "cast[ing your] bread upon the waters" and finding it returning to us "after many or a few days" (p. 247: 24).

Such encouragement certainly sustains hope.

Julie Swannell

 

1901 and the public thought

There is so much wisdom in Mrs. Eddy’s A Word to the Wise (The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany p. 223)! How relevant it is to our times, and, of course, all times. The patience theme is reiterated.  

I was curious as to the circumstances of this message. Why?  When?

Stand and Wait

Chapter ten of First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany is a collection of timely instructions for the student of Christian Science from their Leader, Mary Baker Eddy.  

We learn that filling our thoughts with “Truth and Love” (p. 210) benefits others; that ignoring error is not Christian Science (p. 210-211); that children should look to “advance in the knowledge of self-support, and see the need of self-culture” (p. 216). We -also learn that the study of Christian Science provides opportunities for progressive advancement (p 217-8), and that we should not disobey the laws of the land in regard to vaccination (p. 219). And I was most interested to read her paragraph about China (p. 234), which includes the sentence: “Silent prayer in and for a heathen nation is just what is needed.”

But what stays with me at this reading

O Christian Scientist!

I love this one-liner from page 222 of Miscellany in the article Christian Science Healing:

                                                Be patient, O Christian Scientist!

What a jumping-off point for contemplation and pondering!  My first thought is of hymn 263’s line, “Patient, wait the brighter morrow;”  perhaps I will be back with more thoughts on this stunning sentence. 

Joyce Voysey

Busy Bees

Regarding the article The Children Contributors (page 216:14 of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany (My)), readers may wonder, as I did, about the Trust Fund and its history. It is all recorded in the 25th May, 1935 edition of the Christian Science Sentinel, under Items of Interest/Trust Fund for “Busy Bees.” 

Here is the link: http://sentinel.christianscience.com/issues/1935/5/37-39/items-of-interest

Also of interest is the following editorial note (http://sentinel.christianscience.com/issues/1902/7/4-45/a-recruit-for-china),

Lessons in morality

It may seem that David, King of Israel, was a flawed leader. It may seem that all leaders have moral weaknesses, and that none can be perfect. After all, we may think, they are only human, just like us. 

But where does that leave us?

Strength in numbers?

The last chapter of II Samuel speaks of the census which David called to number the people, and for which a “pestilence” was sent.  There are two articles on JSH-Online (see http://jsh.christianscience.com/) which mention this census. They are by Floyd C Shank

David's Thanksgiving Psalm

What balm to come to II Samuel, Chapter 22!

Writing for posterity

I've been thinking about David (of course).  Would he have been famous as a king if he had not written the Psalms?  Many people are famous because of what they have written and set down for posterity. 

O my son Absolom!

Having read up to the end of Chapter 14, I was a bit tired of Absolom so I thought I would by-pass the rest of the Absolom story of his turning against the king by stealing the hearts of the men of Israel.  Then I recalled something David said about him – “O my son Absolom, my son, my son Absolom! 

A bald imposition

I haven’t mentioned Joab.  I looked him up in the Bible Dictionary.  He was “the second and most prominent son of David’s sister Jeruiah.”  He commanded David’s army.  We read of him as being a “skilled and courageous soldier and a shrewd politician, fiercely loyal to his king and people,” but also, “unscrupulous, calculating, and occasionally brutal.”  The dictionary says he and his brothers were “foils to the gentle, vacillating king.” That description of David’s nature came as a surprise to me.  I would be inclined to give him different qualities, though I wouldn’t classify “gentleness” as a negative.  Brave, compassionate, considerate, loving, above all – God-directed, but not without sensuality and other human failings.

And so on to Chapters 11 and 12 and the familiar story of David and Bathsheba.  What a convoluted way of providing David with his son and heir, Solomon!  Quite an example for future Soap Operas! More sensuality in Chapter 13: the rape of David’s son Absolom’s sister, Tamar, by another of his sons, Amnon.  Talk about convoluted.  David’s direct family line must be almost big enough for every other mortal to have descended from him -- a claim that was put forward about one of the recent subjects on television show “Who do you think you are?” (Andrew Denton, I think.)  It could not be proved.

So, I wondered what Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures has to say about sensuality. The concordance lists many references under "sensual" and its derivatives.  It occurs to me that this is a “bald imposition” on man.  Page 99 of Science and Health states:

    

 The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the manifestations of which are health,

     purity, and self-immolation, must deepen human experience, until the beliefs of

     material existence are seen to be a bald imposition, and sin, disease, and death give

     everlasting place to the scientific demonstration of divine Spirit and to God’s

     spiritual, perfect man.

I think I am being given a clue here.  If I am not countering all the claims of sensualism that I am seeing in this Bible story and in my world, I am adding to its seeming influence.  How much of the bad news on television is related to the claim of sensuality and the effects thereof?

Many of the references to sensualism (et al) occur in the Glossary definitions in Science and Health, e.g. Angels, Canaan, Children, Ham, Jacob, Jerusalem, Levi, Pharisee, Red Dragon, Reuben, Rock, Shem. I seem to recall that the names represent types. 

It is pleasing to note that Shem (Noah’s son) represents “reproof of sensualism” (p. 594), while Noah's other two sons are defined this way:

Japhet (Noah’s son).  A type of spiritual peace, flowing from the understanding that God is the divine Principle of all existence, and that man is His idea, the child of His care (p. 589);

Ham (Noah’s son).  Corporeal belief; sensuality; slavery; tyranny (p. 587);

and interestingly 

Canaan (the son of Ham). A sensuous belief; ...the error which would make man mortal and would make mortal mind a slave to the body.(p. 582).

We can refer to Genesis 9:18-27 for the story which stands at the back of these definitions.  The account tells us that from these types the whole earth was believed to be peopled. Perhaps we can also turn to the Glossary to find types which counteract the degrading claims of sensualism.  Here is a good start: 

Angels. God's thoughts...counteracting all evil, sensuality and mortality (p. 581).

Asher (Jacob’s son). ...the ills of the flesh rebuked (p. 581).

Benjamin, Elias, Gad, Joseph, Judah, and Noah are all there teaching us that the real man of God’s creating is good.  

It is, however, the definitions of Jesus (p. 589) and of Christ (p. 583), which give us the highest teaching for our development as Christians and Christian Scientists.

Getting back to David.  His beloved Psalms tell us of the trials he endured (physically and mentally) and how he turned to God as the source of his salvation.  What a fine example he is for us and how he has blessed mankind and will continue to bless through the innate spirituality and humility of his recording of his communion with God through these hymns of praise.

Joyce Voysey

Ed.

I love this passage from Jude:24, 25 - 

Now unto him that is able to keep  you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty dominion and power, both now and ever.

No need to steady the ark

What is going on in chapter six and how can we learn from it today?

I turned to www.BibleGateway.com; read from a couple of different translations there; then I had a look at Matthew Henry's commentary for a deeper explanation. It was very thorough and illuminating.

David finding his feet

Chapter 6.  David’s “sm[iting] of the Philistines” had freed the Ark of God from Philistine possession.  This ark seems to have been treated as somewhat of a magic thing.  I find its history rather blurry.  David’s wife Michal, Saul’s daughter,  seems to have been despised by him, and he believed that God had prevented his blood and Saul’s from being mingled because she was never to bear a child; a fact he cherished.

Jerusalem: The City of David

Chapter 4.  A case of “Here we go again!” Saul’s son Ishbosheth is killed and avenged in a similar fashion to Abner.

Chapter 5 finds David anointed to be king of Israel as well as Judah. 

A new book about King David

I didn’t expect II Samuel to be quite so interesting…and topical, but then, any Bible study always seems to end up being compellingly relevant.

Today I was reading SAM, the alumni magazine for Sydney University (my husband did his Master’s degree there), and came across a piece about Australian author and 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner (for fiction), Geraldine Brooks. It transpires that although she now resides in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, she is in Australia this month for her annual visit to family and to promote her latest historical novel ­The Secret Chord (published by Hachette).

And which famous Biblical character do you suspect is the central character in The Secret Chord? It’s none other than King David, who we’ve been getting to know in the course of our reading this month. I am sure readers of this blog will be interested to chase up a copy for themselves (and your editor hopes she can find a bookstore in Malaysia that might have a copy).

In the SAM interview, Ms Brooks is quoted as saying “I am bound to the facts as far as I can know them. In this case, I was surprised to discover that in 1000 BC they did not ride horses. It felt odd having a king like David ride a mule, but I couldn’t lie.”

I will be interested to hear from readers who manage to read the book.

In the meantime, I wonder why David took so many wives plus concubines. My internet is patchy here, so I haven’t been able to do any research. 

Julie Swannell

A good man dies (revenge killing)

I wonder what the time span is between Moses pronouncing the Ten Commandments and David’s time?  I seem to recall one of the ten was: Thou shalt not kill!!!  Somebody said the Israelites took it to mean, in practice, “Thou shalt not kill an Israelite.”

(Looked up the time thing – Moses c. 1250 BC; David in II Samuel c. 1000 BC.)

Chapter 3 has Joab and his brother Abishai slaying Abner (remember we thought he had a good attitude even though he was in Saul’s family’s camp?) because he had slain their brother.  Sounds like “A life for a life.”  The only probable Bible verse I found for the origin of this saying is Deut. 19:21, “And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”  The page heading for this is, “Laws which are to be observed in war.”  Like the Ten Commandments, these laws were given by Moses. 

We could get confused about the law/laws!

I wonder if the Israelis of to-day rely on Moses’ rules of war?

Anyway, David and “all the people” mourned for Abner.  For verses 33, 34, Moffatt's Bible translation offers: 

The king also sang this dirge for Abner:

    Was this how Abner had to die,

    as dies a godless wretch?

    Your hands no man did tie,

    more chained your feet!-and

      then,

    as godless wretch

    you fell to ruthless men!

The New Revised Standard Version also puts the words in to verse form, and notes, “The Hebrew term rendered fool in English Bibles refers to someone who commits a serious breach of society’s norms; ….David’s point is that Abner is a prince and a great man (v. 38) and should not have suffered the ignominious death of an outcast lacking the protection of society.”

NRSV of the dirge -

   Should Abner die as a fool dies?

   Your hands were not bound,

        your feet were not fettered;

   as one falls before the wicked

        you have fallen.

Joyce Voysey

Wives and daughters

It’s interesting to read about the women’s role in David’s time.

Already, in the first two chapters, we encounter references to the women. The two verses in chapter one appear to cast the women in the role of

“Shall the sword devour for ever? knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?”

Chapter 2

How wise and humble David was in asking God what his next move should be.  It was decided that he would go to Hebron, in Judah; he and his wives and household.  The text reads as a very modest new start for David.  However, the men of Judah came

"How are the mighty fallen"

II Samuel.

The book opens with somewhat of a bang.

The man who comes to tell David that Saul and Jonathan are dead is in turn killed because he had “slain the Lord’s anointed.”  This he had done at Saul's own request,

Practical good

To wander a little from our Club  book –

In my current re-reading of Mrs. Eddy’s Prose Works, I have just read about her approval of, and contribution to, a monument being erected to Baron and Baroness de Hirsch. See Miscellany p. 287 (chapter title: Tributes).

Not intellect

I like what Emma Shipman wrote about being a student in Mrs. Eddy’s last class of 1989:

“Her teaching made me see what I had not gasped before, that Christian Science cannot be attained through the intellect, but that it must be interpreted through the purified affections and is learned only as we live it.”  Page 509.

Perhaps Christian Science can be likened to the learning of mathematics – We start with simple sums and the rules get impressive results when applied correctly, but as we master those, our teachers move us on to harder ones.  Christian Science is Science, and like any science one must learn and practise and learn the vocabulary. 

Joyce Voysey

In the secret place

Today, my friend Pam remarked that she had opened our book recently and discovered Mrs Eddy's note to Judge Septimus J. Hanna, recorded on page 399 of our book. 

How precious was her instruction: he was to ensure that, in addition to his many other duties, four hours each day were devoted exclusively to "reading, prayer and meditation alone with God". Furthermore, this time must be undisturbed and uninterrupted. He was to "shut out observation and the world".

Julie Swannell

The scope of healing

What stirring examples of the scope of Christian Science healing are given to us in this interesting book: Mary Baker Eddy - Christian Healer.

One that stood out to me this evening was of a tree that wasn't looking too healthy. The gardener had decided to pull it up, but Mrs Eddy urgently requested he not do that, but continue to look after it in the best way he knew. In the meantime, Eddy "took the question up according the Christian Science" and pretty soon the tree was again beautifully healthy. See page 268.

Another was when Eddy found she was losing her hair at an alarming rate. She knew she had to change her thought about it and not neglect the situation, but rather apply metaphysics. Her answer came from the Bible, that "the very hairs of your head are numbered". See page 273. 

I was also interested to note the importance of getting Christian Science into the hands of new readers. For instance, when the founder of the Salvation Army, General William Booth, was reported as ill, Mrs Eddy instructed one of her students to get a copy of Science and Health into his hands so that he might be healed, while another student sent a copy of Mrs Eddy's "stand on Armament and Arbitration" to the President of the United States. (See pages 262 and 270.)

Julie Swannell

Eyeballs restored

On Page 459, we are told that Mrs. Emilie Hulin recounted this in her reminiscences of the Primary Class she had with Mrs. Eddy in November 1888:

     Mrs. Eddy was showing in class the definition of God…and showing that “Mind” is the “all seeing.”

     She said that through the understanding of this she had healed a man of blindness whose eyeballs had been destroyed, and the eyeballs were resorted whole.  Someone in the class asked, “Well, if Mind is all that sees, why was it necessary for the eyeballs to be restored?”

     Mrs. Eddy replied: “Ah, I anticipated that you would ask that question.  The effect of Christian Science is this.  Science restores that standard of perfection which mortal mind calls for.  If the eyeballs had not been restored, no one would have believed him when he said he could see.”

How enlightening is that!

Joyce Voysey

Jerry - the horse

I love the story about Jerry, the horse, related on page 585 (note 9):

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.”

Joyce Voysey

Church rules or the Golden Rule?

When reading about the beginnings of Mrs. Eddy's teaching of Christian Science healing, I was struck by the fact that people came because scientific Christian healing presented a way of making a living. When we consider that for Mrs Eddy, healing was almost consistent with breathing, the wonder is that she was able to find a method of imparting it to others. How much she must have learned through the early days of teaching. 

On pages 169 - 170, I came to this:

   "In the March 1892 issue of the Journal, Mrs. Eddy wrote of church organization in the same terms she used to describe marriage. 'If our Church is organized, it is to meet the demand suffer it to be so now. The real Christian compact is love for another. This bond is wholly spiritual and inviolate.' The prosperity and progress of the organization rests on the love felt and expressed by its members for each other."

Hello, I thought! I had noted something like that a few pages back. A search of the Index helped me locate the passage on page 161. It was December 1889, the time of the disorganization of the church. The passage reads: "Mrs. Eddy requested her students in Boston to continue to conduct church services, but as a voluntary association that acted under the commandment to love one another, rather than under congregational rules." This too, was a suffer it to be so now arrangement, but it surely gives us food for thought on how to minister to a church. 

On the previous page, we find that she wrote of "...dropping all material rules whereby to regulate Christ, Christianity, and adopt alone the Golden Rule for unification, progress, and a better example as The Mother Church."
    ch 
Joyce Voysey

Wonderful results

Our October book, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, is much loved by many readers. 

On this reading, I decided to note each particular healing and find how Eddy approached her patient. What has struck me more than anything else is that she lifts her thought to God. 

It's wonderful what happens when we do that.

Julie Swannell

Rouse ye

October Book Club  

Book: MARY BAKER EDDY: Christian Healer 

by Yvonne Cache von Fettweis & Robert Townsend Warneck.

Page 42 (readers of the earlier edition will find this on page 20) has my first pencil mark at the paragraph beginning “Six decades later…”. Here the authors recount Mrs. Eddy's conversation with Irving Tomlinson where she pointed out the difference between homeopathy and her discovery of Christian Science. While in homeopathy she had eliminated the drug altogether in healing a woman of dropsy (she referred to this experience as “the falling apple” and “the enlightenment of the human understanding”, the discovery of Christian Science she described as “the revelation from the divine Mind.” 

I am left wondering if, in my practice of Christian Science, I am sometimes merely endeavouring to enlighten the human understanding instead of seeking Truth directly from the divine Mind.

On page 91 (expanded edition) we find the healing of a mute girl. There is also a footnote - “1”.  At the footnote (page 557) we find some more healing of deafness and dumbness.  In each case it seems that stubbornness was handled.  

I like the word “rouse.”  Mrs Eddy roused the patients with extraordinary declarations like “It is well you have never heard or spoken to give voice to your wicked thoughts.”  The child’s anger was roused and she spoke.

I am reminded of the great hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal, “Rouse ye.”

Hymn 296

Maria Louise Baum - Based on hymn by M. H. Tipton

AMSTERDAM - James Nares

Rouse ye, soldiers of the cross,

And lift your banner high;

Servants of a mighty cause,

Put sloth and slumber by.

Rouse ye, rouse ye, face the foe,

Rise to conquer death and sin;

On with Christ to victory go,

O side with God, and win!

Waken, hear your Captain’s call,

And follow where he trod;

Rout the cringing host of fear

By faith that walks with God.

Rouse ye, rouse ye, face the foe,

Rise to conquer death and sin;

On with Christ to victory go,

O side with God, and win!

Rouse ye: long the conquest waits

For valor’s act supreme;

Rouse ye, rest not, do the deeds

That break the earthly dream.

Rouse ye, rouse ye, face the foe,

Rise to conquer death and sin;

On with Christ to victory go,

O side with God, and win!

Joyce Voysey

Channels of thought

I love the reference to the rivers in Genesis chapter two.

Water is a life-giving element on earth. Rivers might also represent mental activity, ideas considered, beliefs held. Mary Baker Eddy offers an insightful definition of the biblical term river as "channel of thought". (See Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures p. 593.)

Here in Genesis, we read about four rivers thus:

Pison (also called Pishon) in the land of Havilah. Here there is pure gold, rare perfumes (bdellium), and precious stones (onyx).

Gihon is in Ethiopia.

Hiddekel (Tigris) flows east of Assyria.

Euphrates is the fourth. 

According to one interesting map ("Geography and Numerics of Eden") , all four rivers come from the one source and then spread out across the known world at that time. 

[https://www.google.com.au/search?q=pishon+river&rlz=1T4WQIA_enAU586AU587&tbm=isch&imgil=Q4k8a64cnCFM3M%253A%253Bb5rWQcBizdO1aM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.kjvbible.org%25252Frivers_of_the_garden_of_eden.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=Q4k8a64cnCFM3M%253A%252Cb5rWQcBizdO1aM%252C_&biw=1438&bih=610&dpr=1.05&ved=0CCgQyjdqFQoTCLTfxrKwicgCFQTGpgodOCUE1w&ei=zJ8AVrTJDISMmwW4ypC4DQ&usg=__zphOmp1q2Z5tH-BhcObgtHoVVqQ%3D#imgrc=XjkHISU1-6iGhM%3A&usg=__zphOmp1q2Z5tH-BhcObgtHoVVqQ%3D]


Julie Swannell

Living Gen One

The word Genesis means origin, production, creation. Close by it in the dictionary are words like generation, genes, generic, generate, and genetic. So we are looking at a book which offers an explanation of life itself.

I have a note in my Bible that Genesis Chapter One was written 850BC, while Genesis Chapter Two was composed 950BC. When Bible scholar Laura Pleming was in Australia some decades ago, she explained that several documents make up what we now call the one book of Genesis. She referred to the E (Elohistic) document, the J (Jehovistic) document, and the P (Priestly) document. Like Aboriginal Australians, the people of that time were story-tellers: we can imagine family groups gathering around a camp fire at night, the elders sharing with the youngsters explanations of how life began. At various periods, in an effort to preserve the stories, they would have been written down on papyrus, and over time such fragments were no doubt collected together and arranged by various editors.

Mary Baker Eddy has written a very helpful chapter called Genesis in her major work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Genesis is the first book in the "Key to the Scriptures" section, beginning on page 501. Here Eddy emphasizes the need to interpret the Scriptures scientifically because this offers the spiritual meaning. This is of major importance for the metaphysician, who wants to know about thoughts, rather than things.

A major theme of the Bible is that nothing occurs without "the Spirit of God", and that phrase is right here in Genesis One verse three. And so, as we listen for, and feel, the Spirit of God, thought is lifted above the mundane facts of time, space, figures and human activities, to the wonder and glory of God's work unfolding before us. This work of God is seen here in qualities such as abundance, enlightenment, order, goodness, blessing, multiplication, renewal, freshness, variety, completeness, attention to detail, and creativity. It is very good! All needs are met; work is accomplished and rewarded. There is work, but there is also rest. There is no depletion, but rather replenishment; and dominion is accompanied by responsibility.

Who wouldn't want to be a child of "Gen One"! And we are!

Julie Swannell





 

Personal presence not necessary

Before we start our discussions on  Genesis, I am going to revert to our August reading.

I have found absolutely fascinating, Mary Baker Eddy's letters to the brand new branch churches which sprouted up around the United States and beyond. See Chapters 8 and 9 of The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany.  

Here are her responses to invitations to personally attend the dedication of branch church edifices. Her answers are invariably to decline the invitation. She frequently cites not only pressure of time and work commitments, but also the fact that her personal presence is not needed. What a lesson to us all as we ponder the concepts of time and space from the higher perspective of Mind's omnipresence, and the instruction to "keep personality out of sight..." (p. 191: 12).

Later she speaks of "a complete subordination of self" (p. 194), and our need of putting our talents to work in order to "silence a deep discontent with our shortcomings" (p. 195).

postscript: In Eddy's letter to the church in Chicago is a reference to Papias' LOGIA, written in AD145. I've never heard of him before! See page 178. Wikipedia has an entry about him, which may be of interest to our readers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papias_of_Hierapolis

Julie S.

book for September

For September, we will be reading the very first book of the Bible, namely Genesis. Choose whichever version pleases you or surprises you the most. If you can read it in the original Hebrew, perhaps you could share your insights with the rest of us who have to revert to English translations and paraphrases. 

In the meantime, if like me, you have not yet finished our August selection (pages 103 - 237 of Miscellany), then there is still time to catch up with all the ideas there.

You may not hear from us for a week or so as your editor sails from the island of Flores into Komodo National Park in the beautiful islands of Indonesia.

Happy reading everyone.

Julie Swannell

Surprises

I wonder if other folk have the same experience that I often do when reading our Book Club books:  I have a period of reading without seeming to have anything to write about, but one phrase can keep coming back to me demanding attention. This morning the phrase is:

And because Science is naturally divine, is this natural Science less profitable or scientific than ‘counting the legs of insects’? (178:10-12)

How valuable is this Science of Christianity!

I had a similar experience last night while reading a few pages of Science and Health (S&H) before going to sleep.  The phrase “influx of light” (47:7-8) left a strong impression and remained with me for much of the night. Without opening the book, I could not remember the full sentence, which is, “The influx of light was sudden”. I was trying to fit in “the Day of Pentecost,” which is in the next sentence. Was it “The sudden influx of light as on the Day of Pentecost”? The words had come to me as a surprise. I couldn't quite gauge the meaning in the context of the paragraph, and the sentence didn’t seem to fit.

As I opened S&H to read the paragraph this morning, it was thrilling! The passage speaks about Jesus’ students receiving the Holy Ghost, but was Mrs. Eddy also describing her own experience of receiving the Holy Ghost as an influx of light, an overwhelming power, just as the disciples had received it (see Acts Chapter 2)?  

Mrs. Eddy seems to intimate that we too can experience that influx of light.  Indeed, we must expect it as our right as children of the Most High.

Sometimes Science and Health surprises the reader in the way it teaches us and opens up our understanding. This reminds me of a delightful hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal – “Sometimes a light surprises the Christian when he sings” (Hymn 313).

Joyce Voysey

Benedictions

Have I mentioned before that I have found many benedictions amongst the writings in Miscellany, benedictions suitable, with sometimes a slight change of words, for church services?

Here is one on page 167 (line 11, adapted a little) – May heaven’s messages of “on earth peace, good will toward men,” fill yours hearts and leave their loving benedictions upon your lives.

Joyce Voysey