Editorial October 1, 1938 Issue

Mary Baker Eddy

Violet Ker Seymer

Inquirers into Christian Science are sometimes heard to say in regard to Mrs. Eddy's work for humanity, "I don't see how she did it." Is not the reason because she knew the hand of God was leading her on to the fulfillment of a prophecy indicated in Jesus' parable of the kingdom of heaven, likened by him to "leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened"? In this connection she writes on page 118 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "Did not this parable point a moral with a prophecy, foretelling the second appearing in the flesh of the Christ, Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visible world?" Our Leader was further upheld by her recognition that divine Science is the Comforter of whom Jesus said that it should guide into all truth, that is, into the full and final revelation which the world was not prepared to receive in his day.

Hostility and doubt have faced prophets during their life-work on earth, and it was not otherwise in the case of Christ Jesus. Hostility faced him when the Pharisees, taking a merely personal view of him, told him that his record of himself was not true. To this accusation he replied, "Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go." He understood himself and his mission and longed for this spiritual recognition, above the human. Then again, doubt of his identity faced him when his disciples failed to recognize him after his resurrection. He reproached them with being "slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken," and then expounded to them "in all the scriptures the things concerning himself."

Many have regarded Mary Baker Eddy as merely an unusually inspired, pure-minded, and consecrated Christian woman, as others before her had been. All this she was, but far more besides; and students of Christian Science are growing to understand her as she grew to understand herself. She tells us of the unfoldment which came to her through her years of Scriptural study, carried on for the purpose of discovering the secret of Jesus' healing power and the meaning of his prophetic words. Unquestionably, she gradually discovered their sequence and sequel and was fortified and upheld by what she discovered. With her faith in Scriptural prophecy deeply rooted, she remained unmoved by the opposition which faced her and her teaching on the part of materialists in general and of those representing religious dogmas and medical systems in particular. Thus she carried on and developed her work successfully, though for a period the way was made even more difficult for her by the falling away of some of her early followers who, failing to perceive her divinely appointed mission, became critical and drifted into disloyalty.

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