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Mary Baker Eddy and Abraham Lincoln
Mary Baker Eddy’s great admiration for President Abraham Lincoln is illustrated by an engraving that Eddy displayed in two of her homes. “The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet,” originally painted by Francis B. Carpenter, shows Lincoln’s reading of the Proclamation on July 22, 1862. This subject matter tells us that Eddy not only admired the President, but supported his ideals. She displayed the print both at Pleasant View, where she lived from 1892 to 1908, and at Chestnut Hill, her home from 1908 until her passing in 1910.
Eddy lived through one of the most volatile periods in American history, the antebellum era, the period before the tragedy of the Civil War. This was a time of enormous tension between the southern and the northern states, for even though most Americans did not oppose the institution of slavery, many wished it confined to the South, and not expanded to the new territories of the “far West.” The Emancipation Proclamation, however, was a step in a very different direction: the complete abolition of slavery.
Unlike many Northerners, Mary Baker Eddy had had firsthand experience with slavery. As a young woman she had lived in North and South Carolina, during her brief first marriage to George W. Glover. No doubt her perspectives on slavery and abolition were shaped by her six months in the South. Eddy put it simply in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902: “… I could never believe that a human being was my property” (p. 15).
Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.
February 18, 2013 issue
View Issue-
Letters
JSH-Online comment, Linda Eysenbach, Anne Holway Higgins, Joyce McClure and Gayle Steinmetz
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To end all wars
Michael Pabst
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Clearing 'hurdles' with God
Wallace Wethe
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'Mightier than the noise of many waters'
Fernand Feig
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Accepting a greater love
Juli Vice
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Mary Baker Eddy and Abraham Lincoln
Judy Huenneke
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Apology accepted
Madora Kibbe
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God's saving wisdom
Ann Edwards
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Au pair ad led to answers
Colette Gilroy
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What got me started
Karenlee Mannerino
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Kids ask...
Answer offered by Chet Manchester
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Diagnosed lung cancer healed
Troy Noonan
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Severe chest pain overcome
Cindy Snowden
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Several generations of healing
John H. M. Whitaker
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No more alcohol
Dorothy Davis with contributions from Tom Davis
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Build the economy on Truth
The Editors