Virtue's persistent power

The Editors

Thousands of years ago, a wise man asked, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies” (Proverbs 31:10 ). Among the qualities assigned to this woman are trustworthiness, skill, discernment, wisdom, strength, compassion, fearlessness, kindness, and energy.

Through the centuries, many women have exhibited those qualities: Mary, Jesus’ mother, whose courageous love enabled her to stand at the foot of the Master’s cross; the woman who had suffered for years with an issue of blood and risked touching Jesus’ clothes in order to regain her health (she took a huge risk by going against religious norms since her condition rendered her ceremonially unclean and quite literally an “untouchable”); the mother whose persistent pleas led Jesus to heal her daughter. These women were proactive in their desire for healing.

Today, women—even in repressive cultures—are striving to exhibit the virtuous woman's qualities.

Mary Baker Eddy also was proactive in her desire to understand how she had been healed by God of what was diagnosed as a fatal injury. In writing Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and establishing her church, she expressed the virtuous woman’s management skills. She taught healers, printed and sold her book, established a church and publishing society that would continue after her passing. She exhibited the talents of the virtuous woman in relying on spiritual strength to speak in public at a time when women were more often in the audience than on the stage.

The record of healing that flows from testimonies by people who came to her for help shows well her kindness and also her fearlessness in the face of death. The many people healed by encounters with her on her daily carriage ride wonderfully illustrate her compassion, generosity, and genuine Christianity.

Today, women—even in repressive cultures—are striving to exhibit the virtuous woman’s qualities with great courage and persistence. The desire to gain education in order to serve their nations, the insistence on the right to safety from rape and abuse, the hope that society can become more productive for women and men shines through these efforts.

A passage from Mrs. Eddy’s book No and Yes provides a spiritual foundation for prayer in support of this desire for greater freedom and respect. She writes, “In natural law and in religion the right of woman to fill the highest measure of enlightened understanding and the highest places in government, is inalienable, and these rights are ably vindicated by the noblest of both sexes. This is woman’s hour, with all its sweet amenities and its moral and religious reforms” (p. 45 ).

Each virtuous woman—and virtuous man!—reading this editorial can contribute to the “moral and religious reforms” that will bless all people and all nations.

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March 18, 2013

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