The Origin of Christian Science
9781465615381
400 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
One of the most remarkable movements of modern times is Christian Science. It claims hundreds of thousands of adherents. It has gone into many lands. It has made converts of the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterate, of the mighty and the meek. When we note that it has accomplished this in the brief period of less than fifty years and consider the radical character of its teaching, affecting profoundly its followers religiously, medically, socially, and intellectually, we are the more ready to wonder at its rise and progress. Christian Science is associated with the name of Mary Baker G. Eddy. She claims to be the discoverer and founder of it. And this claim is reiterated by all loyal Christian Scientists. No decrees issuing from the Vatican have found a more ready response from loyal subjects than the expressed will of Mrs. Eddy; and no Pope, it seems, has assumed such sublime right to give commandments to mankind. I am concerned in this essay with only one thing, namely, Mrs. Eddy's claim to be the discoverer and founder of Christian Science. The ability of Mrs. Eddy can be and, I think, should be freely conceded. In fact she has proved herself to be a genius. Her moral character too has stood very well the fierce fires of criticism, though there are some things in her history and some qualities in her disposition that are not flattering. These matters, however, weigh nothing as concerns the question before us in this discussion, namely, the original source of the principles of Christian Science.
