Article June 14, 1930 Issue

Signs of the Times

Sibyl Wilbur

[Review of "The Life of Mary Baker Eddy," by Sibyl Wilbur, in the Herald, Sewickley, Pennsylvania]

When a group of loyal friends and students, troubled at repeated unfriendly attacks made by critics upon Mrs. Eddy, desired their Leader's permission to purchase, read, and circulate her life-story as related by Sibyl Wilbur, Mrs. Eddy's reply included these words (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 298): "I briefly declare that nothing has occurred in my life's experience which, if correctly narrated and understood, could injure me; and not a little is already reported of the good accomplished therein, the self-sacrifice, etc., that has distinguished all my working years." It is, then, safe to assume that Mrs. Eddy was willing to let the facts speak for themselves. And this precisely is what Miss Wilbur has done.

While the author has been given access to such reliable sources of information as town registers, church books, and court records, while she has listened to the word-of-mouth testimony of a number of Mrs. Eddy's contemporaries, she has herself refrained from attempts either to explain or to expound these things; rather has she been content to relate the simple facts as they befell. ... Miss Wilbur was not a Christian Scientist when she began her investigations of the life of Mrs. Eddy, but she was a woman possessed of a spirit of open-mindedness. This mental attitude her book reflects. It states the facts openly, justly, amply; and in consequence these facts illumine ... the human experience of one of the most remarkable world figures of modern times. ...

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