Article April 25, 1901 Issue

The Greatest Book of the Nineteenth Century

BY BEATRIX ISABEL BEST.

Near the close of 1900 The Outlook gave a list of books which had been voted to be the greatest of all books of the nineteenth century. There were ten, I believe, and heading the list was Darwin's "Origin of Species," given that position as being considered the greatest of the great ten.

Reading this caused me to think back several years to a time when my mind was filled with questions and doubts; when the Bible was fast becoming an unused book with me, because I could not understand it, could not get at its meaning for the cordage of human opinions which was wrapped about it. At that time I read "Origin of Species." Did it answer any of my questions? No. It simply seemed more readable to me than the orthodox explanation of the first chapter of Genesis; but it left me as it found me, restless, unsatisfied, with an unknowable Great First Cause as God.

Often in those days I have repeated this prayer of an old British sailor: "Lord, not my grip of Thee, but Thy grip of me." How clearly I see now that this prayer was answered; that I was indeed held "in the hollow of His hand," and brought "into the haven where I would be" — the haven of Christian Science, where God is revealed!

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