How She Pound Her Vocation

She was kind and charitable, so far as circumstances allowed, and had remakable influence over those with whom she came in contact. She made attempts at authorship, and investigated mesmerism, spiritualism, and other occult studies. Through various paths she was groping her way towards the religious cult at which she ultimately arrived.

The most notable incident in this period of spiritual and physical struggle was her visit, in 1862, to Portland, Maine, to consult Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, who was performing marvellous cures as a mental healer. He called his discovery the "Science of Health." He believed that disease and sickness could be conquered by mind.

Mrs. Eddy - Mrs. Patterson she was then - came to Dr. Quimby in a terribly weak condition, so weak, indeed, that she was scarcely able to crawl upstairs to his consulting-room. On her own testimony she left it a cured woman. "I am," she wrote to Dr. Quimby, "a living wonder, and a living monument of your power. . . . My explanation of your curative principle surprises people, especially those whose minds are all matter."

The future founder of the Christian Science movement had at length discovered a vocation as well as obtaining restored health. She continued to be an enthusiastic disciple of Dr. Quimby, and defended his methods in the Press. He died some four years later, but by that time Mrs. Eddy had begun an original and independent study of mind-healing. Essays written by her at this period are still in circulation amongst her first pupils, but Mrs. Eddy characterises them as "feeble attempts to state the Principle and practice of Christian healing, and not complete nor satisfactory expositions of Truth."

The Growth Of Christian Science

Mrs. Eddy's discovery of Christian Science is usually held to date from 1866, when she first began to expound her Scriptural studies. Her first pamphlet on Christian Science was copyrighted in 1870, but it did not appear in print until 1876, because, to use her own words, she "had learned that this Science must be demonstrated by healing before a

World of Women work on the subject could be profitably studied." The first edition of "Science and Health" was published in 1875.

She had started her first school of Christian Science Mind-healing at Lynn, in 1867. The-work had progressed so favourably that in 1881 she opened the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston. During seven years, over four thousand students were taught by Mrs. Eddy in that college.

Meantime Mrs. Eddy was pastor of the first established Church of Christ, Scientist, which she opened in Boston in 1879. She was president of the first Christian Scientist association, convening monthly; publisher of her own works; and (for a portion of the time) sole editor and publisher of the "Christian Science Journal," the first periodical issued by Christian Scientists.

Her Great Book

When her college was at the height of its prosperity she closed it, October 29, 1889, having a deep-lying conviction that she should devote the next two years of her life to making a revision of "Science and Health." The revised edition was published in 1891, and is a volume of some five hundred pages, to which is appended the "Key to the Scriptures." She had retained the charter of her college, and reopened it in 1899.

In "Science and Health," Mrs. Eddy set forth her principle of Mind-healing. " The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time," she declared, "from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light, and sin to reformation. Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural." She claimed that there were thousands of well-authenticated cases of healing by herself and her students to prove the efficacy of her teaching, and that the "cases for the most part had been abandoned as hopeless by regular medical attendants. Few invalids," she wrote, "will turn to God till all physical supports have failed, because there is so little faith in His disposition and power to heal disease."

"Whatever," she said. "is cherished in mortal mind as the physical condition is imaged forth on the body," and she thus advises her practitioners: "Always begin your treatment by allaying the fear of patients. Silently reassure them as to their exemption from disease and danger. Watch the result of this simple rule of Christian Science, and you will find that it alleviates the symptoms of every disease."

Mrs. Eddy regarded Christian Science as to some extent in its infancy, and believed that its practice might be developed until man could restore a lost limb as naturally as the "unthinking lobster" grows another claw.

Christian Science is opposed to mesmerism, animal magnetism the use of drugs, and Materia Medica in general. The refusal of Christian Scientists to call a doctor to their sick has given rise to many law cases and much criticism.

Concessions To The Medical Profession

In her recent by-laws, Mrs. Eddy endeavoured to put her followers in a tenable legal position. They must submit to vaccination, and report cases of contagion as required by law. She further advised that Christian Scientists decline to doctor infectious or contagious diseases, until the public has a better understanding of their methods. An important concession is made to the medical faculty in a by-law which provides that if "a member of this Church has a patient whom he does not heal, and whose case he cannot fully diagnose, he may consult with an M.d. on the anatomy involved. And it shall be the privilege of a Christian Scientist to confer with an M.d. on Ontology, or the Science of being."

For many years Mrs. Eddy, after she had risen to fame, lived in a beautiful house, Pleasant View, in Concord. Thousands of her followers flocked to Concord to have the privilege of seeing the face of the founder of their faith. In January, 1908, Mrs. Eddy removed from Concord to a fine old stone mansion, standing in twelve acres of ground, at Chestnut Hill. Boston. There, at the great age of 89, she was described as being in full possession of her faculties. and working on an average of sixteen hours a day in the oversight of the organisation.

The First Church of Christ. Scientist, in Boston. Mass.. and the publishing house of the

Christian Science Publishing Society in her latter life Mrs. Eddy no longer took patients nor gave medical consultations. She did her last public teaching in the Christian Science Hall in Concord, November 22, 1898, and on December 3rd, 1910. to the unspeakable sorrow of her disciples, she died.