Article February 17, 1934 Issue

Mary Baker Eddy's Leadership

ANNE CLEVELAND CHENEY

"The lives of all reformers," our Leader has said, "attest the authenticity of their mission, and call the world to acknowledge its divine Principle" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 98). The preeminence of her leadership over that of all others who have advanced humanity since the advent of the Master, is due to the fact that she has called the world to acknowledge not only the divine Principle of her mission, but all that this term implies—the oneness, the allness, of God, divine Mind.

The remarkable qualities of leadership which she evinced in carrying on her exalted purpose to rich fruition drew their great strength from the firmness and consistency with which she held that demonstration must confirm doctrine; even as the Messiahship of Jesus was authenticated by the practical proofs which he gave of the power of spiritual understanding to disprove the shams of material sense and to restore mankind to the realization of true identity.

As a writer has said of Mrs. Eddy's leadership, "She has set the feet of millions in the path which leads to the mount where the Ten Commandments thunder forth to be obeyed, and the Beatitudes break in blessings to be loved." A vivid, adequate way of saying that she made religion vital! She was exemplar, not doctrinaire. Hosts of men, women, and children acknowledge the Principle of her mission to be divine, because through her teaching they are able to give proof of it. They know that divine Principle, Love, is demonstrable, and that man's inalienable right is dominion, to be sought and found through spiritual understanding. They know that through her discovery they have been enabled to discern in divine Science the promised Comforter. In a sacred hour spent with his small band of disciples Jesus reassured them, saying, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth." Christian Science reveals that Spirit, being God, is the divine Principle or cause of all that in reality exists; and this enables us today, as it enabled disciples of the Master then, to overcome the binding, afflictive claims which the material dream presents. The comfort of being shown how not only to believe on the name of the great Exemplar, but to make manifest the nature of the Christ practically, by way of demonstration, is the blessing which draws and holds multitudes to the leadership of Mary Baker Eddy.

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