Higher education

Readers of this blog who also attend Wednesday meetings at the Christian Science church at Redcliffe may recall my speaking about a dilemma I had been placed in with the announcement that Mary Baker Eddy: the Years of Discovery would be the Book of the Month for August. 

Why was that?  Well.  I was three-quarters of the way through the book at that time.  The dilemma: to stop reading and start again, or finish reading and then start again.  

I finished reading.  However, there were some notes I had written on an end paper which were perhaps ready for comment. So, here we go again – Years of Discovery.  

One impression I was left with on finishing the reading was that I could see I must be grateful for every one of Mary’s early students, even the ones who eventually left her and turned against her. Just so, I can be grateful for those in this era who have been loyal students but have turned against the church. 

Through all of these experiences Mrs Eddy was taught lessons in Christian Science that had to be learned for the development of the Science.  Her textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, gives evidence of her having had experience in practically any difficulty a mortal may be faced with. As she said on page one of the textbook, “...I speak from experience” (line 5). 

I find that my original edition of the book is looking almost like new.  It hasn’t had my attention like the third book of Peel’s series, The Years of Authority, which is falling apart.  That volume is such a mighty help for the earnest student. 

Robert Peel graduated from Harvard and taught literature at the august University in Boston. It shows in his books! I reckon we could almost gain a degree in literature by studying all the literary works cited in them, along their authors. 

I suppose one could begin a list! ?  And a list of religions and of places of learning and historical events mentioned. Authors and poets: 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (pages 6, 7, 22)

Lucy Larcom (7, 20, 32)

Lyman Beecher (8)

Pope (9)

John Greenleaf Whittier (10, 43)

Harriet Martineau (10)

Harriet Beecher Stowe (11, 12, 30)

Bacon/Locke/Voltaire/Hume (12)

Jonathan Edwards (13, 14, 21, 29)

Oliver Wendell Holmes (16)

Goethe (17)

Byron (17, 23)

Castlereagh/Talleyrand/ Metternich (17)

Pope/Young/Thomson (18)

Emily Dickinson (20, 39)

Henry Thoreau (21)

Thomas Carlyle (21)

Charles Lyell (21)

Sir Walter Scott (23)

Felicia Hemans (23, 35)

Tom Paine (25)

Herman Melville (26, 27)

Bronson Alcott (37)

Noah Webster (37)

William Wordsworth (38)

Addison & Goldsmith/Milton & Pope/Johnson & Gray (38)

And that is all from Chapter One! The student in me must look them all up. What a blessing that the internet will provide much material to enlighten.                                                             

One might say that Peel was a champion of education – higher education.

Speaking of the battles between science and religion in the 1800s, P eel says “… Christian Science from the start occupied ground in full view of both contending armies” (page xv). And that strong combo brings healing through both religion and science.

Joyce Voysey