Article April 15, 1996 Issue

Mary Baker Eddy: a fearless healer

Rosalie E. Dunbar

From her childhood Mary Baker Eddy was interested in spiritual healing. As a child, she accomplished a number of healings through her trust in God. These are well documented by her biographers.

At the time, the people around her never dreamed she would eventually write a book that would heal millions of people through the reinstatement of the healing method used by the master Christian, Christ Jesus. Nor could they have imagined that she would found a church with branches around the globe, establish several magazines, and launch an international newspaper. Yet that's exactly what she did, and at a time when women were generally expected to be followers, not leaders.

Historically speaking, the first half of her life, from 1821–1866, was preparation for the tremendous work of the second. Within a year of her marriage in 1843, her husband died a few months before their only child was born. She endured widowhood, needing to rely on the charity of others in order to have a home. Ten years later she was married a second time—to an itinerant dentist who proved unfaithful. The marriage failed to bring the stable home she hoped for, and she lost the custody of her son. It ended in divorce twenty years later. Through this difficult period ill health led her to make an intense search for physical healing.

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