Mary Baker Eddy was raised in the Christian faith and epitomised Christian qualities like kindness and compassion throughout her life. She loved her fellow man, animals, and nature. But her life trajectory was to extend her Christianity to be scientific and practical. Her discipleship included strict discipline and insight in meeting cases involving both sin and disease.
Her students were not always immediately successful in their healing work and the book Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer* offers examples of her instructions in some of these cases. One example (see p. 376-377) comes from a worker in Mrs. Eddy's home, Mrs. Ella Sweet, who sustained a strained ankle and "quite a wound" to her face as a result of an accident during a visit to the building site of a Christian Science church in Concord.
When Mrs. Sweet tried to hide the difficulty, Mrs. Eddy questioned her about the incident and the "help ... being given". Mrs. Sweet responded that "she was handling the false claim of accidents."
"Mrs. Eddy replied, 'That will not meet the case. Animal magnetism is trying to separate you from me and I need you.' She talked a little and complete healing followed."
A little further on the book (p. 381-384) is the account of how Mrs. Eddy responded to "a hard-boiled, belligerent bunch of old-timers ... [who] hoped and expected to 'dig up' a lot of scandal" about her.
One of the reporters, a Mr. Weadlock, was very ill - "he had lost his voice entirely and was not able to speak a word" (p. 381). He had "an extremely painful growth on this throat ... which at times completely overwhelmed him" (p. 384).
Furthermore, he was angry that Mrs. Eddy had asked her representative to convey, by telephone, a message specifically to him, "the head man" (ibid). After the call, the account continues: "when the reporter turned away from the phone, he could not only speak perfectly, but he was completely healed" (p. 381).
The authors of our book note that "one can see Mrs. Eddy's insightfulness, wisdom, leadership, and tenderness, but most of all her love for her students" (p. 391). Christian qualities indeed.
She was also diligent, and encouraged her students to be diligent. To Septimus J. Hanna she wrote:
"I beg of you to have rules like the Medes and Persians that change not. Make them imperative and unalterable viz.: That certain hours you cannot be seen nor communicated with. Do not let the caller in at those hours, nor a letter or message be sent to you. Had not I established this system for myself, I never could have accomplished what little I have done" (p. 402).
In a similar vein she wrote to Clara E. Choate: "We must have system. This great Cause cannot progress in a desultory fashion. Everything must be done decently and in order" (p. 428).
Love and Principle - terms for God - work hand in hand to meet our challenges.
Julie Swannell
*by Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck (Amplified Edition)
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