The Growth of Christian Science - The Remarkable Career and Personality of the late Mrs. Eddy the Founder of this School of Thought - Christian Science Publications - Concessions to the Medical Profession

The growth and spread of Christian Science is one of the most remarkable phenomena of recent times.

The first school of Christian Science Mind-healing was started by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, with only one student, in Lynn, Massachusetts, about the year 1867. Now there are upwards of 50,000 adherents scattered throughout the world. The greatest number of followers, however, still belong to the United States of America.

Mrs. Eddy founded The Mother Church in Boston, in 1879. It is termed the First Church of Christ, Scientist. There are now upwards of 700 branch churches in the United States, Canada, and other parts of the world. Some of these, particularly the one in New York, are of cathedral-like proportions. The Mother Church, in Boston, has now a fine temple, called the Extension, built beside the historic little church where the early disciples met.

In Europe the majority of churches are in Great Britain. London will soon have three. The first is a handsome building in Sloane Street, Chelsea; a second is in course of erection in Curzon Street; and a third is planned. In addition, there are many societies in and around London not yet incorporated into churches. The number of societies in various parts of the world is rapidly increasing. Attached to the churches and societies are a little army of readers, teachers, and practitioners of healing. There are no preachers. The text-book of the community is Mrs Eddy's "Science and Health," with key to the Scriptures, a portion of which is read in conjunction with selections from the Scriptures at all services, and which is the authoritative statement of Christian Science principles. It has passed through hundreds of editions.

The Christian Science publications are the "Journal," published monthly; the

"Sentinel," a weekly; and the "Monitor," a daily newspaper, which has a wide circulation, and gives in attractive form the news of the world. It only has one article on Christian Science in each issue.

It is brought out in an up-to-date American style. with bold headlines. Disease and crime are never mentioned in its columns, on the principle that they should be banished from the mind. No exception was made even in the famous case of Dr. Crippen. A novel and most helpful feature in the "Monitor" a free advertisement page for the unemployed. These papers are issued from the publishing offices in Boston. The "Monitor" was floated with lightning-like rapidity some two years ago. Mrs. Eddy expressed a wish to her board of directors that there should be a Christian Science daily paper. in ninety days it was an accomplished fact. In that time some old property was pulled down and the newspaper offices built on the site, machinery installed, the staff of the paper formed, and the entire venture organised as a going concern.

Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science Copyright Fules Manrice Gaspara

Women are given perfect equality in the Christian Science movement. Where there are two readers to a church, or society, one is always a woman, and sometimes both are women. Many of the finest churches have been founded by women. There is no office throughout the organisation which a woman may not hold, and the head and founder of the community is the revered "Mother," Mrs. Eddy.

The Founder's Life-Story

The life-story of this remarkable woman is practically the history of Christian Science. She was Mary Baker, the daughter of a New England farmer, and was born on July 16, 1821, at the Baker homestead at Bow, near the city of Concord, Massachusetts. Her earliest ancestor emigrated from East Anglia to Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1634.

Mrs. Eddy was not an ordinary child. She was extremely delicate and sensitive, and, according to some accounts, very difficult to manage, being subject to alarming fits of hysteria. She had practically no education until she was in her teens, when her father removed to Sanborton Bridge, near Tilton, eighteen miles from Concord. There she attended school.

In her autobiography, "Retrospection and Introspection," Mrs. Eddy records that she was kept b ck from much learning because her ' brain was too large for her body." She is graifi.d to remember that after she discovered Christian Science most of the knowl dge which she "had gleaned from school-books vanished like a dream." She gloried in the face that her mind was virgin soil to receive the seeds of Divine learning or science. Mrs. Eddy was strictly brought up in Pu.itan principles, and early became a member of the Congregational Church at Tilton.

Her Three Husbands

Mrs. Eddy is described as having been an attractive and graceful girl, dressing with taste, and desirous of making a good impression. She had great influence over men and inspired considerable devotion in her successive husbands, of whom there were three. At twenty-two she married George Glover, a sturdy, good-natured young man, a builder and contractor by profession. He died six months later, and his posthumous son was his wife's only child. In 1853 she married Dr. Patterson, a dentist, and in 1877 became the wife of Mr. Asa Gilbert Eddy, who died in 1882.

Until she was forty-six years of age, Mrs. Eddy's life was a continual struggle with ill-health and sordid circumstances; so much so that in her autobiography she wipes out the years from her twenty-third to her forty-sixth birthday as having nothing worthy of note to record. From other sources we learn, of her eccentricities, her hysteria, which manifested itself in ways somewhat trouble-some to her family and friends. At one time she had a swing, or cradle, attached to the ceiling in which she would be oscillated for hours to relieve the nervous tension of her body.