Only small thinking could resent a woman being the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Some such resistance in my thought was overcome when I talked with a Christian Science practitioner about it. Our conversation went something like this:

Myself: "I find some prejudice in my thinking about Mary Baker Eddy being the author of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, and the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science—the fact she was a woman, I mean."

Practitioner: "Mr. Hayes, if you had fallen into deep water and couldn't swim and were shouting for help, would you really care if a woman, instead of a man, threw you a life preserver?"

Myself: "No, of course not! I'd feel so relieved to be saved from drowning—the thought wouldn't occur to me."

There is a sense of completeness about a woman being chosen to fulfill the revelation of Truth by writing a textbook about it: first the man Christ Jesus, our great Way-shower, and then Mrs. Eddy, who discovered the Principle behind his words and works and wrote Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Of course, humanly considered, without the superb demonstrations of the ever-presence of God by Christ Jesus, and by spiritually-minded men such as the apostles, the prophets, and others of later years, there would be no Church of Christ, Scientist, as we know it today. Between Christ Jesus' time and Mrs. Eddy's spiritually alert persons, such as St. Augustine, John Wesley, and others, perceived to some extent the deceptive nature of the human sense of life and the power of divine Love and wrote their experiences for us to read today. We cannot lightly dismiss these spiritual pioneers and fail acknowledge our debt of gratitude to them. There is no telling how invaluable their contribution to Christian metaphysics was, perhaps even speeding the day when, in the late nineteenth century, Mrs. Eddy found it possible to write the text-book that forever proclaims the falsity of materiality and the allness of Spirit.

It should be obvious that Christian Science is not a religion only for women. It is for all mankind. It is a way of life for hemen, since requires a great deal of courage to challenge and overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil through spiritual understanding. The church could not flourish without the strength and intelligence that proclaim God as Father, any more than it could lack the love and constancy of God as Mother.

God's law is in three words, 'I am All;' and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of another law," ^{No and Yes, p. 30;} writes Mrs. Eddy. When this important metaphysical statement is understood, egotism cannot initiate and perpetuate resistance to the Founder of Christian Science, nor can the so-called "battle of the sexes" go on unresolved.

The serious seeker will not let the gender of Truth's messenger to this day and age prevent him from accepting the message. He will recognize this as evil's way of delaying his emergence into Spirit. Seeing creation as material and sexual instead of spiritual can only be an impediment. The very word "sex," derived from the Latin word secare meaning to cut, or divide, is a reminder that one cannot afford to let himself be cut off from the oneness of Truth by concerning himself with such an irrelevance as wishing the Leader of the Christian Science movement were a man. The Bible makes this absolute and spiritual statement in regard to man: "There is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." ^{Gal. 3:28;} Jesus is the master Christian, and Mrs. Eddy is his follower. She has her unique place, but has not displaced Jesus.

One way to overcome skepticism about Mrs. Eddy is to find out all one can about her. We all have some familiarity with the human life of Jesus, the culture and conditions of his day, and so should we have with the life and times of Mrs. Eddy. No one having read the biographies that expose the severe trials she underwent in preparation for the revelation, the struggles that led to its publication and protection through the founding of the church, would have anything but love, compassion, and deep respect for her. When I visited the places associated with Mrs. Eddy's life, I loved and appreciated everything I saw, and felt much closer to her.

Some men—and women—may wonder why Mrs. Eddy, above all others in our time, was chosen to reveal the truth of being. May it not simply be that she was best equipped for this mission? And why, one may ask, was young America its birthplace? Perhaps the new view of Truth had to be born where there would be least resistance to it. Mrs. Eddy herself makes clear the impersonal, inevitable nature of Christian Science: "No human pen nor tongue taught me the Science contained in this book, Science and Health; and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it." ^{Science and Health, p. 110.}

In our time, the mother-love of God has shone through its messenger to bestow upon mankind the beneficent Comforter promised by Christ Jesus. Let us accept it with no reservations at all.