As the Leader of one of the most remarkable religious...

South Bend (Ind.) News

As the Leader of one of the most remarkable religious movements the world has ever witnessed, Mrs. Eddy found it necessary as well as agreeable to her to live in dignified seclusion, appearing to the followers of her faith at times when the proprieties called for her presence.

Mrs. Eddy's life was notable for its longevity as well as for its purity, beauty, and usefulness. She was born ninety years ago in Bow, New Hampshire, and her youth was spent in sympathetic touch with the picturesque beauty of nature for which the region is famed. Her great grandfather was a man of honored reputation and bore a commission conferred by the provincial assembly. Her father and grandfather were sturdy farmers who fostered in their children the elements of a noble character. The intellectual tastes and assertive strength of her father and the piety and loving winsomeness of her mother were united in her nature, and one who knew her intimately in her girlhood has spoken of her as being distinguished even then for "superior ability and scholarship, her depth and independence of thought, and her spiritual-mindedness," all of which were prophetic of her future work in the world.

The education of the young girl was given careful consideration by her parents, and at sixteen her fertile pen and her ceaseless inquiry and investigation began to disclose that instinct of the poet and truth-seeker which in later years was to achieve such beneficent and far-reaching results. She is said to have been constantly seeking that revelation of truth which would bring her heart assurance and peace, and she followed the path which leads from the plane of common experience to the higher levels of spiritual apprehension. In an hour of hopeless physical suffering she is said to have reached such a realization of the present healing potency of the Master's word that she was immediately made whole. This was in 1866, and since that time Mrs. Eddy has been devoted to the teaching of her faith and its practical application to human needs.

The visible results of Mrs. Eddy's work are found in the establishment of nearly a thousand churches in this and other countries, where the Christian Science faith is taught, and more than a million followers of that faith. Perhaps no religious movement was ever more derided and obstructed in its progress, but it has steadily advanced, and in some particulars, especially in the building of churches without an entailment of indebtedness, has set a new and commendable example.

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