August 18 marked one hundred years since the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women’s suffrage. Perhaps less well known, fifteen nations had already enacted similar legislation, beginning in 1893 with New Zealand, followed by Finland, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Russia, Lithuania, Canada, Austria, Latvia, Georgia, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Estonia. And since then, with but a few exceptions remaining in the world, more than 170 countries have legally acknowledged a woman’s right to vote and to hold elective office.

Mary Baker Eddy, who founded this magazine in 1898, The Christian Science Journal in 1883, The Herald of Christian Science in 1903, and the international daily newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, in 1908, never had the opportunity to cast a ballot. But in discovering the Science of the Christianity that Jesus taught and practiced, and in founding a church designed to “reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing” (Church Manual, p. 17), she voted for the elevation of the whole human race and for righteous government everywhere through her prayer, healing, writing, teaching, and preaching. Here are two selections from her writings.