Article April 11, 1931 Issue

Your issue of July 25 carries an article, reprinted from...

Aaron E. Brandt, Committee on Publication for the State of Pennsylvania,—Pittsburgh

Jewish Criterion

Your issue of July 25 carries an article, reprinted from another periodical, entitled "The Power of Persistency." The author comments at some length upon the life-history of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, as an example of persistency. Owing to the unreliable source of the author's information, she erroneously assumes that Mrs. Eddy's success, popularity, and purpose depended upon "wiles" to focus attention on herself, fighting for recognition, laboring to make of herself an "important person," and similar efforts.

Now the traits of character thus enumerated are not at all in accord with the spirit of Christianity, and they certainly do not comport with Mrs. Eddy's methods and purpose. People living to-day, who knew her personally, can vouch for Mrs. Eddy's unselfed devotion to mankind and to her Cause. Mrs. Eddy's persistency was due to the strength of her convictions and not to efforts at self-aggrandizement. In explaining her discovery to others she necessarily came into the limelight, but drawing attention to her own personality was quite at variance with Mrs. Eddy's wishes and contrary to her teaching. In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 120) she says, "Those who look for me in person, or elsewhere than in my writings, lose me instead of find me."

The author of the article mentioned ventures to guess that "Christian Science has reached its height of influence and will sooner or later pass from off the scene." The father to this thought is the wish. It has no foundation in fact, and the evidence is all to the contrary. During the official year ended June 1, 1930, eighty-two new branches were added to the many Christian Science organizations scattered throughout the world, as well as five new university organizations, and Mrs. Eddy's teaching is increasingly accepted as demonstrable Science.

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