Article May 18, 1940 Issue

A letter was published in a recent issue of the Times-Dispatch...

Charles G. McAron, Committee on Publication for the State of Virginia,—Richmond

Times-Dispatch

A letter was published in a recent issue of the Times-Dispatch referring to the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The writer of the letter was apparently not acquainted with the facts, and I therefore ask for space for correction.

The statement was made that Mrs. Eddy forbade the reading of the first edition of Science and Health after later revised editions were published. Mrs. Eddy states on page 361 of the last edition of this textbook, "I have revised Science and Health only to give a clearer and fuller expression of its original meaning." She naturally recommended the study of the last revised edition.

Reference is also made to Mark Twain's challenge, in 1907, of Mrs. Eddy's authorship of Science and Health. To prove that Mark Twain, at a later date, reversed his judgment, I quote from a book entitled "My Husband Gabrilo-witsch," by Clara Clemens (Mark Twain's daughter): "Mark Twain in contradiction to his previous statements said: 'Christian Science is humanity's boon. ... She [Mrs. Eddy] has organized and made available a healing principle that for two thousand years has never been employed except as the merest kind of guess work. She is the benefactor of the age.'"

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