Article October 21, 1916 Issue

"The world," says Sir Henry Taylor in his famous play,...

The Christian Science Monitor

"The world," says Sir Henry Taylor in his famous play, Philip van Artevelde, "knows nothing of its greatest men." It certainly knows uncommonly little about Homer or Shakespeare, which is not exactly what Sir Henry meant, but it also has very much indeed to learn about Mary Baker Eddy, which is very much more what he was aiming at. Mrs. Eddy's life has been written, but very far from adequately. A great biography is, admittedly, a rara avis in this world, and a more difficult person than the Christian Science Leader of whom to write a life it would be hard to find. The Founder of the Christian Science movement lived in a realm so far removed from the aims and passions of this world that it would be difficult to reveal her to the man in the street in a way in which, bound by the prejudices of the street, he could comprehend her. "Acta exteriora indicant interiora secreta" (Outward actions are a clue to hidden secrets), however, say the old Roman law books, and in the public actions of Mrs. Eddy the world which knew her not may first find the key to the door of the depths of her love and compassion for humanity.

Mrs. Eddy did not fathom the secret of Christian Science in a moment. She did, perhaps, grasp in a moment the significance of the word Principle. But she had to plumb the depths of what Burns calls "man's inhumanity to man," and of something far deeper than this, the remote, exciting cause of this inhumanity, before she could begin to forge in Christian Science the weapon for his protection, that scientific understanding of Principle which meets his every need. This understanding of Principle she gave to the world in the Christian Science text-book in the year 1875, and gradually after that, all in their due season, she took the destined steps for the establishment of the movement.

The human mind is intensely material, and accepts reluctantly and rebelliously the mental effort to grasp spiritual things. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Christian Science movement started slowly, or that its early years witnessed a prolonged struggle with ignorance and prejudice. It was not only entrenched orthodoxy of every description which opposed it, but creeds and schools which only yesterday, as it were, had been themselves in the van of the battle for liberty. Still the progress of the movement was irresistible. First came the establishment of churches, an undertaking which, beginning with one tiny organization in Boston, has in far less than half a century, wrapped the churches of the movement like a cloak about the globe. Next came the publishing house, with its books, pamphlets, and periodicals, all flowing out with an ever-increasing volume and impetus to the uttermost parts of the earth. And then, after many years of patient waiting, the daily paper, which was to be the first to claim the suffrage not of a city or a country, but of the world.

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