Article July 9, 2012 Issue

Trials, not troubles

Elizabeth Kellogg

“Trials are proofs of God’s care” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p. 66).

How grateful we can be that Mary Baker Eddy used the word trials and not troubles in that sentence! Her choice of the word trial gives us an immediate starting point for prayer, because it brings with it the concepts of innocence and justice. Eddy is clearly not promoting the idea that God likes to show His care for us by punishing us. Instead, to an innocent person, a trial is the legal opportunity to prove his or her innocence.

Legal references are plentiful in Eddy’s writings, drawn from personal experience. Aside from what she learned about law as a girl from her brother Albert (a successful lawyer, member of the New Hampshire state legislature, and colleague of Franklin Pierce, who later became president of the United States), she learned firsthand by working through more than one lawsuit filed by disgruntled former students. When I come across a legal term in her works, I find it helpful to pause and think deeply about its meaning.