Pale star to guiding star

With just one student, Baker Eddy started teaching around 1867. After establishing the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in 1881, over 4000 students were taught in a 7-year period. More were to follow. What a story of resilience and dedication. 

Her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures was subsequently published in 1891 and is still being read and studied by thousands of people around the world today.

The Preface to Science and Health establishes the book's scriptural roots in the opening paragraph. With new-old vocabulary, Mrs. Eddy refers to "prophet-shepherds", "the Bethlehem babe" and the "Wise-men". She sketches a picture of "a night of error" and "benighted understanding" giving way to the dawn of "morning beams" and a "daystar". These opening twelve lines shine with vivid, light-filled imagery unmistakably referencing the Bible. They shine with present promise.

What a lovely project, to be noticing Biblical references in Science & Health. Won't you join us in this adventure? 

Julie Swannell

 

At the beginning

I find those pages without numbers at the beginning of books very interesting and informative. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy these pages do really have numbers, but they are in Roman numerals and don't begin until page vii with the Preface. One can go back and put in iii, ii, and i etc. (except the computer often insists on a cap I instead of i).

Now, here is an interesting point. The Manual of The Mother Church has ordinary numbers on the relative pages, while Prose Works also has the Roman numerals. AI (Artificial Intelligence) puts these numerals in caps. To my understanding AI has it wrong on this occasion! The ordinary numbers are called ordinal numerals or ordinal number words.

In the paperback version I am using, I find there are two unnumbered pages after the endpapers and preceding the Roman-numerated ones.

Page i announces the title and author, and introduces Mary Baker Eddy as President of Massachusetts Metaphysical College and Pastor Emeritus of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Massachusetts. Then we have the wonderful Cross and Crown registered trademark and Mrs. Eddy’s signature.

Ah! Page ii explains that the Cross and Crown seal and the facsimile signature of Mary Baker Eddy are trademarks of The Christian Science Board of Directors, and are registered in the U.S. and other countries.

The top of the page lists Copyright renewals up till 1934.

Here is part of an interview with Kevin Ness, a legal man in Boston. The excerpt is from the March 2012 edition of The Christian Science Journal.

Is it true that Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is no longer under copyright? 

That is true. Generally under United States law, items first published before 1923 are in the “public domain,” which means that Mrs. Eddy’s original published writings in English are no longer under copyright. In the case of Science and Health, the copyright was extended beyond its normal duration by special legislation in 1971, but this legislation was later reversed by a court decision. However, most non-English translations of Science and Health and Mrs. Eddy’s other published writings still remain under copyright.

This means that anyone can make alterations to the textbook and Mrs. Eddy’s other writings and publish the adulterated copy. And they have.

Don’t you love page iii? It quotes from John viii. 32, Shakespeare, and includes Mary Baker Eddy’s wonderful little prayer: 

Oh! Thou hast heard my prayer;

And I am blest!

This is Thy high behest:--

Thou here, and everywhere. 

I have been known to include that prayer in Wednesday evening readings. And what a sense of the universality of Christian Science is given with that emphasised everywhere.

Page v has the Contents. I think the order may have changed during the many revisions by Mrs. Eddy of her textbook.

And so on to page vii Preface. We still haven’t reached the actual page 1. But we will with that stupendous chapter Prayer.

Joyce Voysey