Editorial April 7, 1986 Issue

Finding Mary Baker Eddy in her writings

CAROLYN B. SWAN

As the decades roll by since Mrs. Eddy's lifetime, questions that arise about her place in relation to Christian Science demand and deserve answers. But where should we look for those answers? Should we look to the fragments or personal recollections—no matter how precious—of her early followers? Or should we look to Mrs. Eddy's own writings?

Mrs. Eddy opines, "Those who look for me in person, or elsewhere than in my writings, lose me instead of find me." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 120.}

As we look for her in her writings, we soon find that there are indeed wide discrepancies between some opinions held about Mrs. Eddy and her own well-thought-out and modestly worded appraisal of her own identify and contributions as Discoverer, Founder, and Leader of Christian Science and divinely inspired author of the text-book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. In fact, many who have embraced Christian Science as adults have rejected the world's ignorant underestimates of her only to find that they have then been faced with the necessity to work their way through the personal effusiveness that has built up among some Christian Scientists themselves!

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