Article February 22, 1919 Issue

When Caroline Cowles Richards wrote in her diary that...

The Christian Science Monitor

When Caroline Cowles Richards wrote in her diary that "Grandmother knows her Bible from Genesis to Revelation except the 'begats' and the hard names," it was doubtless in great praise of grandmother. Perhaps grandmother had many favorite passages which she was wont to quote to the children. Indeed, she may have found great solace in the promises of the Bible, and, following the path of many who lived sixty or eighty years ago, nurtured by the memory of gaining the enjoyment of religious liberty, she may have attained a sense of personal protection and comfort which is not experienced to-day by the ordinary Bible student. Such examples illustrate a certain plodding in the Scriptures by that class of readers and thinkers who gain a more or less superficial knowledge but who fail to glean a metaphysical viewpoint of the sacred writings. There is, however, that spiritual touch to every page which leads us to believe in the divine inspiration which prompted the record given by so many writers.

Now the Bible is only humanly interpreted when it is read from a material basis; when only historical fact is found; when genealogical record is sought; when time, place, or mortal act is considered only as concerned with prophet, priest, or king. Of what avail would such gleanings have been to Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science? Centuries have passed since the Scriptures were written, and yet the same spiritual understanding of divine Principle was revealed to the one whom God chose in this age to minister unto Him. As we read in the third chapter of I Samuel, of the child Samuel, whom the Lord called three times before the word of the Lord was revealed unto him, so it was with the Leader of the Christian Science movement, as she describes on pages 8 and 9 of "Retrospection and Introspection." Being repeatedly called by name, and supposing it was her mother summoning her, she responded each time, to be informed that her mother had not called. The word of the Lord had not been revealed unto her, but it was God who had called, and human consciousness interpreted the calling as a distinct voice, saying, "Mary." This coincides with what she writes of a later period in her life (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 27), "The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a fresh universe—old to God, but new to His 'little one.'"

Through successive stages of progress, the revelation of the Christ was received by Mary Baker Eddy. She was animated by the spirit of Truth and Love, and through her Christian Science unfolded to a waiting world. Modestly referring to the fact that she was called of God to proclaim the Truth to this age and to plant His vineyard, she proceeded to care for it, water it, prune it, and purge it under God's guidance, until the mighty works, the healing power of Truth, should demonstrate "God with us" to the melting away, through His presence, of "all the fiery darts of the wicked;" for in His presence only good exists.

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