Article January 14, 1950 Issue

FOLLOWING OUR LEADER

ETTA MAE HOAGLAND

Humanity needs leadership today, not of persons or organizations, but divine guidance, which leads thought out of the dark wilderness of materiality into the light of freedom and spiritual understanding. Such is the leadership that Mary Baker Eddy gave and is still giving to the world through her writings and the church activities which she established.

Without an adequate appreciation of our Leader, an adequate appreciation of Christian Science cannot be gained. When the understanding of the Christ, Truth, began to flood her consciousness, family and friends misunderstood her, with the result that she was deprived of the solace of unity with them. But she persisted in her righteous course, undisturbed by any seeming deprivation. Companioned by the divine Father, she gladly worked in a seclusion which permitted her to prepare herself for her great life mission of leadership. "Her attitude," we read in "Historial Sketches" by Judge Clifford P. Smith (p. 159), "was that she had to obey God, even before she knew the reason why."

Even as a young girl, it was said of our Leader by her tutor, the Rev. Enoch Corser (ibid., p. 37): "I never before had a pupil with such depth and independence of thought. She has some great future. ... She is an intellectual and spiritual genius." Mrs. Eddy's earthly experience covered a period of nearly ninety years. The first forty-five years seemed to be weighted down with hardships, struggles, and disappointments to which one with less of the spirit of Christ might easily have succumbed. Mrs. Eddy, however, grew stronger through these hardships and rose to greater and greater spiritual heights. The second forty-five years bore abundant fruit of the toil and sowing and planting, and gave full evidence of the true nature of her leadership.

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