The Discovery
An incidence occurred in 1866 that
quietly changed the course of history. It was winter. A woman fell on an
icy street in Lynn Massachusetts sustaining a severe injury in the fall.
Doctors determined it to be a spinal injury which they deemed incurable
and to be ultimately fatal. As her condition worsened the local
Clergyman stopped by before his Sunday service to prepare her for death,
fearing that she might be gone if he waited until after his service. It
was in this extreme hour with the shadows fast falling around her, that
she mentally protested, remembering the healing effects that were so
easily accomplished by Christ Jesus and his followers almost two
millennia earlier.
Something must have jarred her
thinking in the flow of those moments. Perhaps it was the realization
that miracles don't actually happen in the 'real' world so that every
phenomenon has a underlying principle that produces the phenomenon. She
might have realized also that the ancient healings were essentially the
effects of a harmonizing principle instead of personal power, and if so
that the principle would remain valid and universally available
throughout all time and remain understandable and applicable with the
same powerful efficiency.
We are told that something
happened in those moments that should seem impossible, but did occur.
She found herself suddenly well. She got off her deathbed, got dressed,
and when the Clergyman arrived later as promised, she opened the door
for him completely healed.
And this is only the beginning of
her story. Her instant healing also closed the door to all her prior
years of struggling with poor health. Furthermore, the experience
started a grand scientific journey of discovery of the science of the
process that had healed her. It became a period interwoven with healing
others and with teaching her discoveries.
Her name is Mary Baker Eddy. She
wrote about her early experiences
Through four successive years I
healed, preached, and taught in a general way, refusing to take any
pay for my services and living on a small annuity.
At one time I was called to
speak before the Lyceum Club, at Westerly, Rhode Island. On my
arrival my hostess told me that her next-door neighbor was dying. I
asked permission to see her. It was granted, and with my hostess
I went to the invalid's house.
The physicians had given up the
case and retired. I had stood by her side about fifteen minutes
when the sick woman rose from her bed, dressed herself, and was well.
Afterwards they showed me the clothes already prepared for her burial;
and told me that her physicians had said the diseased condition was
caused by an injury received from a surgical operation at the birth of
her last babe, and that it was impossible for her to be delivered of
another child. It is sufficient to add her babe was safely born,
and weighed twelve pounds. The mother afterwards wrote to me,
"I never before suffered so little in childbirth."
This scientific demonstration so
stirred the doctors and clergy that they had my notices for a second
lecture pulled down, and refused me a hearing in their halls and
churches. This circumstance is cited simply to show the opposition
which Christian Science encountered a quarter-century ago, as
contrasted with its present welcome into the sick-room.
Many were the desperate cases I
instantly healed, "without money and without price," and in
most instances without even an acknowledgment of the benefit.
Retrospection
and Introspection (1891) p. 40
During the nine years after her
healing she compiled the result of her journey of discovery in the form
of a textbook, which shed named: Science and Health. When the
book was published in 1875, critics admitted that it was "wholly
original" but added with a smile, "it will never be
read." (p.37)
Well it was read. It was published
in over 300 editions till 1910 under the title Science and Health with
Key to the Scriptures. It was read by millions and became translated
into many languages. Over the years many people testified that they were
healed of all sorts of diseases by simply reading the book.
Such was the scope of its science,
which for many people became a challenge to science itself as the cold
tone of science became modulated with the warm glow of love - the love
unfolding in healing.
The
book is also available in printed form in the format or as a free e-book
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The Discovery
2.
Beyond Theology - Divine Science
3.
The Spark for Healing
4.
Personal Experiences
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