Mary Baker Eddy

In a newspaper interview in 1908, Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, stated: "Mrs. Eddy should have the respect, admiration and love of the whole nation, for she is its greatest woman. Love permeates all the teachings of this great woman -- so great, I believe, that at this perspective we can scarcely realize how great -- and looking into her life history we see nothing but self-sacrifice and unselfishness." -The Boston American, 1/6/1908).

Mary Morse Baker was born in 1821 in the rural obscurity of a New Hampshire farmstead, the youngest of six children. Her childhood years were spent amidst family, the local Congregational church, and country schooling, the latter often interrupted by illness. In the years of womanhood, she met with the early death of her first husband, single parenthood, and semi-poverty. Her continuing efforts to find health through various medical systems yielded no sustained results. The Bible was her greatest comfort and support.

In the year 1866, a fall on winter ice left her disabled and suffering, her friends not expecting her to recover. When her physician, having done all he could, departed, she turned to the Bible and in the spiritual insight found in a New Testament passage immediately recovered health, to the astonishment of all. The remainder of her long life would be devoted to following the leadings of this spiritual inspiration. Eddy first characterized this spiritual insight as a sense of "Life in and of Spirit" -- a palpable presence of God's love and compassion. She identified this saving power with Christ, not in a human, personal sense, but rather as eternal and unchanging Love and Truth, which actually healed. Eddy was convinced that Jesus comforted and healed through this love, as did the early Christians. As she lived and prayed in this Love, she began remarkably and abundantly to heal others through prayer; the accounts of this healing are quite moving and inspiring. She found that, since this Love was universal, it was possible for others to learn its healing practice; she came to believe that Christian healing was still as potent and relevant today as it was in the time of Christ Jesus.

Eddy named this understanding and utilization of laws of God's goodness, Christian Science. She saw it as a Science because God's love was unchanging to such a degree it constituted a law of life. She wrote, "Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause." Eddy came to think that the usual material sense of limitations that mankind accepts was not an unchangeable fact, but only a temporal sense of the limits of a material outlook. As spiritual sense was awakened and acknowledged, what she claimed to be the present truth of God's kingdom proportionately appeared.

The year 1875 brought forth the first edition of her principal work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which she continued to revise until her passing in 1910. In 1879, with a few followers, she founded a small church. In the following years she taught classes, lectured, established and edited periodicals and published further writings -- all elucidating the presence and power of Christ. The church she founded, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, now has over 1000 branch churches worldwide, including 32 churches in Oregon.

Late in her life, during the heyday of yellow journalism, Eddy founded The Christian Science Monitor, an international daily newspaper that set editorial high and impartial standards and has received seven Pulitzer prizes and numerous other awards.

The Christian Science religion characterizes God as Father-Mother, though not as two divine persons; rather, as one divine nature reflecting all the good qualities characterized as masculine and feminine. Eddy reproached the legal statutes of her time for their inequitable treatment of women, especially regarding property and employment. She supported women's suffrage and expanded rights for women. In her church's polity, she encouraged a balance of men and women in church leadership and established no barriers to women serving in the highest offices. By her example, she presented the world with woman as a foremost citizen, author, founder and leader of an international religious movement. When she passed on in December 1910, hundreds of newspapers worldwide paid tribute to her. The Boston Globe stated, "She did a wonderful -- an extraordinary work in the world and there is no doubt that she was a powerful influence for good."

Honored by: The Christian Science Churches of Oregon. Written by Bruce Fitzwater