Julia Michael's Johnston's language in this month’s book, Mary
Baker Eddy: Her Mission and Triumph constantly surprises me: she employs fresh
and thoughtful images.
Here's an example from page 141: "Mental pioneer that she was, she dealt courageously with the ragged edges of human thought, where hope and faith meet with marauding fears, and was ever led into safety of realization and calm conviction."
Mental pioneer
What an excellent description of Mary Baker Eddy. Just as
Beethoven pioneered the movement of music in stunning new ways, so Mary Baker
Eddy pioneered a movement of mental healing.
In her Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, pp. 34:28-9
is the following question and answer regarding the founding of mental healing:
Who is the Founder of mental healing?
The author of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” who discovered
the Science of healing embodied in her works. Years of practical proof, through
homœopathy, revealed to her the fact that Mind, instead of matter, is the
Principle of pathology; and subsequently her recovery, through the supremacy of
Mind over matter, from a severe casualty pronounced by the physicians
incurable, sealed that proof with the signet of Christian Science. In 1883, a
million of people acknowledge and attest the blessings of this mental system of
treating disease.
The apostle Paul wrote of the need to watch our thinking (the mental aspect):
Finally, brethren, whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are
of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on
these things. (Philippians 4:8)
Courage
- “dealt courageously” describes perfectly the demeanour of the
Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.
Wait on the LORD: be of good
courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD. (Psalms
27:14)
When it comes to
courage, Mrs. Eddy stresses the moral over the physical:
There is too much animal
courage in society and not sufficient moral courage…. Moral courage is
requisite to meet the wrong and to proclaim the right. (Science and Health with
Key to the Scriptures, pp. 28:32–1, 327:23–24)
The ragged edges of human thought
This phrase suggests humanity's untidy, abrasive, stressed
state of thought. This reminds me of the metaphor "run ragged" which
an online search explains "draws on the visual imagery of being chased,
worked, or driven so hard that you are literally or figuratively worn down to
threads—looking and feeling as tattered and frayed as an old rag."
Hope
and faith meet with marauding fears
My online Oxford dictionary explains “marauding” as: to go
about in search of things to steal or people to attack.
Safety of realization and calm conviction
This asserts the powerlessness of those “marauding fears”
to displace mental poise.
Perhaps this sentence from Science and Health explains the
term “realization”:
When we reach our limits of
mental endurance, we conclude that intellectual labor has been carried
sufficiently far; but when we realize that immortal Mind is ever active, and
that spiritual energies can neither wear out nor can so-called material law trespass
upon God-given powers and resources, we are able to rest in Truth, refreshed by
the assurances of immortality, opposed to mortality. (p. 387:5)
Mrs. Johnston was a practitioner and teacher of Christian
Science based in New York. Her book has been described as “not another
biography, but rather a chronicle of the upward path taken by Mary Baker Eddy,
the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.” (Christian Science Sentinel –
Notices, 14 Sept. 1946).
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