Books by Mary Baker Eddy

CHAPTER I: To the Christian World
page 600

CHAPTER I: To the Christian World

   In the midst of the imperfect, perfection is reluctantly
seen and acknowledged. Because Science is unimpeachable,
it summons the severest conflicts of the ages
and waits on God.
   The faith and works demanded of man in our textbooks,
the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures," and proof of the practicality of this faith
and these works, show conclusively that Christian Science
is indeed Science, - the Science of Christ, the Science of
God and man, of the creator and creation. In every age
and at its every appearing, Science, until understood, has
been persecuted and maligned. Infinite perfection is
unfolded as man attains the stature of man in Christ
Jesus by means of the Science which Jesus taught and
practised. Alluding to this divine method, the Psalmist
said: "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine
a vain thing?"
   I have set forth Christian Science and its application
to the treatment of disease just as I have discovered
them. I have demonstrated through Mind the effects
of Truth on the health, longevity, and morals of men;
and I have found nothing in ancient or in modern systems
on which to found my own, except the teachings
and demonstrations of our great Master and the lives
of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only

MY 104

authority. I have had no other guide in the strait and
narrow way of Truth.
   Jewish pagans thought that the learned St. Paul, the
Mars' Hill orator, the canonized saint, was a "pestilent
fellow," but to-day all sorts of institutions flourish under
the name of this "pestilent fellow." That epithet points
a moral. Of old the Pharisees said of the great master
of metaphysics, "He stirreth up the people." Because
they could find no fault in him, they vented their hatred
of Jesus in opprobrious terms. But what would be
thought to-day of a man that should call St. Paul
a "pest," and what will be thought to-morrow of him
who shall call a Christian Scientist a "pest"? Again,
what shall be said of him who says that the Saviour
of men, the healer of men, the Christ, the Truth, "stirreth
up the people"?
   It is of the utmost concern to the world that men
suspend judgment and sentence on the pioneers of
Christianity till they know of what and of whom these
pioneers speak. A person's ignorance of Christian Science
is a sufficient reason for his silence on the subject,
but what can atone for the vulgar denunciation of that
of which a man knows absolutely nothing?
   On November 21, 1898, in my class on Christian Science
were many professional men and women of the highest
talents, scholarship, and character in this or any other
country. What was it that brought together this class
to learn of her who, thirty years ago, was met with the
anathema spoken of in Scripture: "Blessed are ye, when
men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all
manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake"? It
was the healing of the sick, the saving of sinners, the works

MY 105

even more than the words of Christ, Truth, which had
of a verity stirred the people to search the Scriptures and
to find in them man's only medicine for mind and body.
This Aesculapius, defined Christianly and demonstrated
scientifically, is the divine Principle whose rules demonstrated
prove one's faith by his works.
After my discovery of Christian Science, I healed consumption
in its last stages, a case which the M.D.'s,
by verdict of the stethoscope and the schools, declared

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