0.0 – Christian Science Publication Contents

"Recollections of Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, as Preserved in the Diary Records of James F. Gilman Written During the Making of the Illustrations for Mrs. Eddy's Poem, Christ and Christmas, in 1893 – With an Introductory Critique by Gilbert C. Carpenter, C.S.B., Sometime Assistant Secretary to Mrs. Eddy, and Gilbert C. Carpenter, Jr. C.S.B." includes 31 page Introductory Critique by Gilbert C. Carpenter Jr. CSB.

The writer of these records first appeared to Mrs. Eddy as a lone, homeless wanderer, with a native ability for picture making. Since then it has appeared that there was much truth in this, for a little retrospective analysis has revealed that he had, indeed, through many years, been peculiarly, and often literally, a lone wandering seeker-as well as a homeless one seeking even from his youth, the definition and fulfilment of soulful, but yet undefined ideals. 

     A vague, nameless sense of Infinite Beauty attended his thought from childhood, and as he grew toward maturity, the things that had dominated his thought before grew in urgency and pressed him to find the opportunity for their unfoldment in some appropriate, practical action. 

     In order to break the seeming limitations of his outward circumstances which appeared to bar his way to ideal unfoldment and to forbid education along usual academic training, he found himself ready to accept joyfully, at the age of twenty, a simple, humble way that was then presented to him through the kindly impulse of a neighbor who, knowing of his exceptional capacity for drawing, offered to pay him if he would make for him a good pencil drawing of his home place, thus unconsciously pointing a way of gaining a self-supporting art-practice that was felt to be necessary to the successful art-endeavor aspired to.