0.0 – Christian Science 16 Books by Mary Baker Eddy – Other Published Writings Index

No one could miss the dynamism of this first book, as it plunges straight in to the central theme of the revelation with the voice of authority and the ring of conviction. The author knows, and the reader realizes that she speaks from experience. Here is no long introduction, no processing of the minds of mortals, no telling us about God; but directly it conveys to us God's actuality, presence and power. This little book originated in a sermon under the title, "The People's God, Its Effect on Health and Christianity." It was first published in the pages of the Journal in June 1883, and then as a pamphlet in October. Not until 1886, when it was copyrighted, was the name changed to its present form. Mrs Eddy delivered the sermon to the small Christian Science congregation which met at that time in the College on Columbus Avenue in Boston. They were indeed discovering a New World. Today, after a hundred years, one can still sense - and share - the exhilaration with which those early hearers responded to the power of the Word. The People's Idea of God provides a truly remarkable starting-point for the whole series of books because, like the PRAYER chapter in Science and Health, it grasps the end from the beginning: "the great element of reform is not born of human wisdom; it draws not its life from human organizations: rather is it the crumbling away of material elements from reason, the translation of law back to its original language - Mind, and the final unity between man and God" (Peo. I). Clearly, Mrs Eddy saw the reforming work not as a long line of progress but more as a cyclical movement: the goal of deathless being is with us now, "accordingly as the understanding that we are spiritual beings here reappears" (p. I). Therefore, because of Science, we can "behold once again the power of divine Life and Love to heal and reinstate man in God's own image and likeness" (p. 14). Were the end not inherent in the beginning - if man did not originally come from God - he could never work his way back to God, nor have the means to do so..

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The second book is a twin with the first; they date from a similar period, cover parallel ground, and exhibit equal vigour. Because they represent the twin roots of Christian Science, both treat of God as divine Principle, and both relate the understanding of God to healing. Now although Christian Healing was delivered as a sermon and issued as a pamphlet as early as 1880 - which is three years before The People's Idea of God- the Journal did not mention or advertize it until some while after the text of the latter had appeared in its pages. The Journal chronology is our guide, and evidently Mrs Eddy decided to publicize The People's Idea if God first. This parallels our personal experience of Christian Science: although usually it is the healing that engages us first, it is actually the revelation of God's allness that is primary and has in fact produced the healing. The title page of Christian Healing shows it as a sermon, but in the first edition it was described as a lecture. Perhaps this is significant, in that Mrs Eddy's life-work was to shift the emphasis of Christianity away from sermonizing that did not heal and to present it more as practical Science; indeed the term "Science of Christianity" occurs now in this book (p. 7). Note too that the title is Christian healing, not mental or even spiritual. For instance we find, "the genius of Christianity is works more than words; a calm and steadfast communion with God" (p. 2). "The primitive privilege of Christianity was to make men better, to cast out error, and heal the sick" (p. 3). We read that as materialization "stole into religion, it lost Christianity and the power to heal" (p. 3). Again, "metaphysics requires mind imbued with Truth to heal the sick" (p. II). In this unification one begins to hear the same keynote as the second chapter of Science and Health, ATONEMENT AND EUCHARIST. The chapter begins, "Atonement is the exemplification of man's unity with God, whereby man reflects divine Truth, Life, and Love" (S&H 18). It goes on to spell out this unity: "Those who cannot demonstrate, at least in part, the divine Principle of the teachings and practice of our Master have no part in God" (S&H 19). See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)
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On its opening page No and Yes picks up the themes of the first two books and binds them together: "The theology and medicine of Jesus were one." That is, his Christlike understanding of God resulted spontaneously in Christian healing. The purpose of this third book is to explain how they are one. By stripping away man-made doctrines from Christian teachings it reveals their original spiritual meaning and scientific healing power. The result, Mrs Eddy writes, is "that crystallized expression, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" (p. 2). No and Yes is a lively book, brilliantly argued, with wonderful illumination and a strong sense of the transforming power of Truth. Because one can be carried away when excited by a new spiritual idea, the Introduction starts with a wise caution. The idea should be allowed to do its revolutionary work gradually: "Truth is as 'the still, small voice,' which comes to our recognition only as our natures are changed by its silent influence" (p. I). This reformatory, ameliorative, moderating tone is characteristic of the entire book. Like the chapter MARRIAGE in Science and Health, No and Yes brings forward the theme of at-one-ment into another area: it urges the wedding of Christianity to Science and of Science to Christianity. "The two largest words in the vocabulary of thought are 'Christian' and 'Science.' " (p. 10), and this book magnificently declares their natural unity, which no man can sunder. It had its origins in a spirited little pamphlet of 1885 entitled "Defence of Christian Science," which answered in a masterly way the theological attacks of two Boston clergymen. The pamphlet was also published in full in the Journal of March 1885, and in 1887 it was enlarged into "Christian Science: No and Yes." It was revised again in 1891 and renamed, the original material comprising pages 13-46 of the present edition. "The question now at issue is: Shall we have a practical, spiritual Christianity, with its healing power, or shall we have material medicine and superficial religion?" (p.46). Christian theology is concerned with the relations of God and man, God's perfection, man's fall, sin, prayer, redemption and so on. When these archetypal concepts are re-examined in the light of Christian Science and one asks searching questions about their meaning, the conclusions are apt to be both no and yes - No to the material sense of them but Yes to their spiritual signification. Yes, in that sin, for example, certainly exists to human sense, in the same way that a mistake in mathematics can seem to be 'real;' but No, in that sin is unreal in God and so is to be treated as a lie (see pp.30-33). The law of Christ 'forgives' sin by destroying it - "and will not let sin go until it is destroyed ... It is Truth's knowledge of its own infinitude which forbids the genuine existence of even a claim to error" (p. 30). While traditional theology starts from an actual fallen man, Christian Science starts from the allness of God, and it was this more metaphysical view of Christian doctrine that offended the literal-minded clergy. The sixteen short pieces that comprise No and Yes must surely rank among the very finest Mrs Eddy ever wrote on the spiritual actuality of Christian teaching. They turn thought from the outer to the inner, from blind faith to spiritual understanding, from creed and doctrine to the living experience that actually reforms and transforms the self. They insist that Christianity must be Science in order that God may be understood - and understood not as person but as the divine Principle of the Science of Mind-healing. Equally Science, if it is not to be mere academic philosophy, must be thoroughly Christian in order to redeem and spiritualize and regenerate humanity. The great danger, otherwise, is that the students may voice the grand truths of Science and think that by merely saying them they have attained to them. Yes, the truths are true; but No, they are not valid unless one is being them. Hence No and Yes points out that philosophy is "inadequate to grasp the Principle of Christian Science, or to demonstrate it ... Revelation must subdue the sophistry of intellect, and spiritualize consciousness with the dictum and the demonstration of Truth and Love" (p. II). In short, just as the MARRIAGE chapter is about the wedding of womanhood and manhood, No and Yes is about the wedding of revelation and reason. This need to unite the two is nothing new in Christian history; indeed, the theme and the very name of the book echo a famous incident from seven hundred years earlier. "The need to reconcile faith and reason was increasingly felt and brought into sharp focus in the dramatic confrontation of two of the most celebrated personalities of the day: the scholar, Peter Abelard (l079-1142) and the mystic St Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153). Abelard ... was the outstanding intellect of his day, an undaunted searcher after the truth, remarkably independent of Patristic tradition. In his greatest work, Sic et Non (Yes and No), he examined a large number of crucial theological questions and exposed apparently conflicting answers from the Scriptures, the Church Fathers and the Church councils. This subjection of faith to the scrutiny of reason was intolerable to St Bernard, who was outspoken in his denunciation of Abelard, 'this man who is content to see nothing in a glass darkly, but must behold all face to face.' ". The book No and Yes vigorously advocates that we see all "face to face," keeping in wedlock the 'marriage partners,' - that is all those complementary pairs such as reason and intuition, understanding and demonstration, the human and the divine. And just as the MARRIAGE chapter makes its strong plea for the rights of woman, so No and Yes argues the same case. Mrs Eddy is always conscious of her place as a reformer in the field of society as well as of religion: "This is woman's hour, with all its sweet amenities and its moral and religious reforms" (p.45). 'Man' and 'woman,' as the MARRIAGE chapter tells us, gradually become translated into the spiritual qualities of manhood and womanhood, which derive from Truth and Love. The reference to them here has an interesting bearing on No and Yes itself, for the book used to contain another article, "Animal Magnetism." Like many such early pieces it was a fearless and aggressive exposure of the sin of mental malpractice; it contained a paragraph about the great red dragon standing ready to devour the child of the woman. The article was removed during the revision of 1891 (the year that marks the turning point in the mission when the manhood phase yields to that of womanhood). There can be no doubt that it was deleted because the fighting 'masculine' tone was no longer appropriate for the advancing idea. As "this is woman's hour," woman is represented not by Michael who fights the holy wars but by the Gabriel of Love's presence. From first to last, No and Yes enables the deeper spiritual meaning of the Scriptures to unfold from within the student. Progressively the limited concept yields in favour of the everpresent reality. And, as with the chapter MARRIAGE, the book concludes on the note of evolving out of the mortal concept altogether. "Let the Word have free course and be glorified. The people clamor to leave cradle and swaddling-clothes. The spiritual status is urging its highest demands on mortals, and material history is drawing to a close. Truth cannot be stereotyped; it unfoldeth forever" (p. 45). Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings 'You will find me in my books' “To be a Christian Scientist involves being changed; it demands an inner transformation, a renovation of the self, in order to become a transparency for the divine. This vital work is done by spiritualization of consciousness, but it is done in the area of life and of relationships, and it is on this area of experience that the Other Writings concentrate. Mrs Eddy herself considered these writings 'essential to preparing Christian Scientists for the full understanding of Science and Health'” (Orcutt 78). "The spiritual beauty and practicality of these inspired books have made them beloved to generations of Christian Scientists, yet strangely few students today, a century later, know much about their origin, or regard them in their wholeness. Yet this is critical to appreciating the value of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy’s flagship which is the Textbook of Christian Science. Understanding this framework is necessary in order to approach the ever-unfoldment that takes place when a serious study of Christian Science is undertaken. With this background information the student can read intelligently each piece in its setting, The message of the writings is enormously enhanced once he understands their occasion. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

The first three books, for all their assurance, have an air of invitation, of "come, let us reason together;" they sound like an advocate pleading her case and persuading the hearer by convincing argument. By contrast the fourth is a blunt and uncontentious statement of the scientific facts. If the first three trace the challenging impact of God's Word upon human consciousness, the fourth describes the uncompromising Science of that Word itself. A faint indication is given in the headings that run through the book: in the text they are thirteen questions, while on the Contents page they are not questions but simply factual statements that rise above argument. Published in November 1887 as "Rudiments and Rules of Divine Science," it belongs to that period of 1886--1888 when Mrs Eddy produced a prodigious amount of work in a very short time. No and Yes, Rudimental Divine Science, and Unity of Good all appeared within about six months of each other, reminiscent of Mozart writing three of his greatest symphonies in less than a year. This sort of output is the transparent, spontaneous operation of Principle which characterized that period. The book was enlarged and renamed in 1891, and further addi tions were made later still. In 1887 the field of mind-healing was plagued with individuals who wanted to be personal healers of other persons but who neglected the spiritual and moral imperatives that flow from the divine basis of Mind-healing. Thus the Journal for November 1887 advertizes the new book by Mrs Eddy "in which she answers many questions in regard to the Science of Christian healing." The very title declares that the healing art of Christian Science rests on the impersonal basis of an absolute Science. The book begins by defining Christian Science "as the law of God , the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony." We notice at once the standpoint of Science - that of God in self-operation, without personal agency - a standpoint sustained throughout the book. Next, the Principle of Christian Science is defined through seven synonymous terms, which transcend the human sense of Deity. Consequently the third section can now explain that "in Christian Science we learn that God is definitely individual, and not a person" (p. 2). And here we come across the only place in all Mrs Eddy's books where she quotes the dictionary's revealing derivation of the word person: "The Latin verb personaTe is compounded of the prefix per (through) and sonare (to sound)" (p. 1). There is hardly a more important point in Christian Science than this expose of person. N either God nor man is personal. God, Spirit, can only be expressed by His likeness. Spirit does not 'sound through' matter; God does not operate through the medium of material persons. Spirit operates as spirituality, as spiritual power, and it operates directly, not through anything or anyone. This theme is, of course, identical with that of the fourth chapter of the textbook CHRISTIAN SCIENCE VERSUS SPIRITUALISM, which likewise handles the primitive dualism of two substances, spirituality and materiality. The material belief is that Spirit works through mediums - called persons if they are alive and called spirits if they are dead. The communion of man reflecting Spirit is Christian Science, while the belief of any communication between spirits and men is spiritualism. The grand truth presented in that fourth chapter is that Science reveals reality as the working of spiritual facts alone, with no admixture of Spirit and material persons. This sense of spiritual purity, of being based on the facts of Science alone, is precisely the message of Rudimental Divine Science. Its central concern is the methodology of Christian Science. "How should I undertake to demonstrate Christian Science in healing the sick?" is the big question, and the answer is, "Heal through Truth and Love; there is no other healer" (p. 8). "To heal, in Christian Science, is to base your practice on immortal Mind, the divine Principle of man's being" (p. 9). The healer, then, is not a medium, not a personal instrument; it is the idea that does the work: "The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought, without a direct effort, an audible or even a mental argument, has oftentimes healed inveterate diseases" (p. 9). Here is unmistakable confirmation that in this fourth book we have the Word of God self-operative in its Science. The healer is to be a pure reflection of Spirit: "You must learn to acknowledge God in all His ways" (p. 10); "above all, he keeps unbroken the Ten Commandments, and practises Christ's Sermon on the Mount" (p. 12). Then comes the vital sentence which epitomizes the entire book: "if the healer realizes the truth, it will free his patient" (p. 13). This has to be the method - the rudiment of divine Science - which is worlds away from the semi-psychological analysis that passes for much of Christian Science practice. It puts the onus not on the patient but squarely on the practitioner, who has to be a pure witness for Spirit and not a medium. "Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science." Its "emphatic purpose ... is the healing of sin" (p. 2), and it is abundantly clear from the context that the "sin" is material and personal sense. When that is healed, the pristine glories of a Godcreated, God-controlled universe reassert themselves. Thus healing is not mind-healing practised by one human person upon another but is "Mind-healing;" more than that, it is "the Science of Mind-healing." But furthermore, because it has spiritual and moral force, it is "Christian Science Mind-healing" (see 6:22, 4:10,6:26). The book concludes with, "Is there more than one school of scientific healing'" (p. 16), several years before the same question appears in Science and Health. The answer in part is, "in reality there is, and can be, but one school of the Science of Mind-healing. Any departure from Science is an irreparable loss of Science," and blinds "the people to the true character of Christian Science - its moral power, and its divine efficacy to heal" (p. 17). These then are the first four books. All four name God and define Him through synonymous terms. They teach us to learn from God what God is, and so find God's power to heal (The People's Jdea of God); how to attain a mind in harmony with God - a mind imbued with Truth in order to heal the sick (Christian Healing); how to let the scientific meaning of Christian truth come forth subjectively and change and heal us (No and Yes); and what are the self-demonstrating facts of divine Science, so that we may heal through Truth and Love rather than through a practitioner (Rudimental Divine Science). The standpoint of this last bookthat there is nothing real but God - leads thought into the next group, where the problem of evil can now be handled from the Christly throne of grace. Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings 'You will find me in my books' “To be a Christian Scientist involves being changed; it demands an inner transformation, a renovation of the self, in order to become a transparency for the divine. This vital work is done by spiritualization of consciousness, but it is done in the area of life and of relationships, and it is on this area of experience that the Other Writings concentrate. Mrs Eddy herself considered these writings 'essential to preparing Christian Scientists for the full understanding of Science and Health'” (Orcutt 78). "The spiritual beauty and practicality of these inspired books have made them beloved to generations of Christian Scientists, yet strangely few students today, a century later, know much about their origin, or regard them in their wholeness. Yet this is critical to appreciating the value of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy’s flagship which is the Textbook of Christian Science. Understanding this framework is necessary in order to approach the ever-unfoldment that takes place when a serious study of Christian Science is undertaken. With this background information the student can read intelligently each piece in its setting, The message of the writings is enormously enhanced once he understands their occasion. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

The genius of Christian Science is that it not only reveals and interprets the infinite All of good, but that it also unmasks the pretence of evil. To explain what God is must involve the explanation of what God is not. The problem of evil barnes the theologian and the philosopher, for in the face of God's infinite goodness and allness, how can evil even seem to be? Theology ends up by making God somehow responsible for evil, while philosophy elegantly shows evil to be a mistake, a reversal of truth, and yet leaves it as a kind of actuality. Christian Science approaches evil not as an intellectual teaser but as an unreal proposition to be disproved; it shifts the grounds from theorizing to demonstration. Christian Science never admits the actuality of evil; it does not start with a problem and then try to heal it, but it proves the allness of God by disproving the claim of evil. Inevitably, after the first four books on the mighty reality of God, the fifth must take up this challenge. It cannot merely say that God knows no such thing as sin: it must show how Christian Science actually makes nothing of sin. The parallel with the textbook's fifth chapter, ANIMAL MAGNETISM UNMASKED, is self-evident throughout, as that chapter shows how the Christ-consciousness strips bare the seeming reality and power of evil. This marvellous book, so full of sublime passages, was published in March 1888. It comes right in the middle of the period (April 1887- January 1889) when the Journal carried a "Department of Animal Magnetism," and one can feel from the majestic character of the book how Mrs Eddy was able shortly to close that "Department." Unity of Good introduces the Christ power disposing of the anti-Christ. The Journal said of it, "this little book is at last ready for the public. Next to Science and Health, it is the most important work she has written." Originally entitled "Unity of Good and Unreality of Evil," it was revised and renamed in 1891, so bringing the title into line with its central theme - that good and evil "are not two but one, for evil is naught, and good only is reality" (p. 21). The age-old claim that comes welling up from the abyss is that evil is as real as good. "The Pharisees fought Jesus on this issue. It furnished the battleground of the past, as it does of the present. The fight was an effort to enthrone evil. Jesus assumed the burden of disproof by destroying sin, sickness, and death" (p. 46). We notice that the key is not simply denial, but disproof Unity oj Good is Mrs Eddy's purest statement of monism, in which absolute good precludes the very existence of evil; any reality it seems to have is but illusion. Yet the book is not content merely to make sweeping statements: it goes right up to the problem of evil, removes its disguise, and beholds only the face of God. Like a shadow which is invisible from the standpoint of the light and exists only if we stand outside the light-source, so evil can seem to have being only from a standpoint outside God. (Almost by definition, evil is the belief that there can be anywhere outside God.) "God is All-in-all; and you can never be outside of His oneness" (p. 24). The purpose of Unity oj Good therefore is to provide the God-standpoint; it looks out from the divine, "from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" Uas. 1). To do this the book - as it were - reports God speaking in the first person, and the pages are full of God saying, "I am All," "I am infinite good," HI am ever-conscious Life," and so on. Here is the standpoint which alone handles animal magnetism. "Dwelling in light, 1 can see only the brightness of My own glory" (p. 18). Unity oj Good is the only writing other than Science and Health where we find "the Ego," for in it we see God as the veritable 1 AM unmasking the bogus ego of a mind apart from God: "The Ego is God Himself, the infinite Soul" (p. 48), and so "this abortive ego, this fable of error, is laid bare in Christian Science" (p. 44). The book comprises fifteen sections. The first one, CAUTION IN THE TRUTH, advises that the key question, Does God know sin? is best answered by demonstration. The author then recounts a telling example from 1883: "When 1 have most clearly seen and most sensibly felt that the infinite recognizes no disease, this has not separated me from God, but has so bound me to Him as to enable me instantaneously to heal a cancer which had eaten its way to the jugular vein" (p. 7). The jugular vein is located in the neck, which connects head with body. The God-head and the God-body (God and man) are connected in unity - he unity of God and good; they are not divorced by a supposed cancer of original sin. To work from the perfection of the God-head will give us a proper sense of body. Perhaps this is why the same section refers (p. 5) to the "Life-problem," alias the challenge of maintaining our primal unity. Tackling the one "Life-problem" is the way to resolve life's manifold problems, which are always to do with disunity. (Interestingly, the only other place that "Life-problem" can be found is in the Preface to Science and Health, where it heralds the purpose of that book.) Demonstration is the most convincing answer, and so it leads on to the next section: "What is the cardinal point of the difference in my metaphysical system? This: that by knowing the unreality of disease, sin, and death, you demonstrate the allness of God. This difference wholly separates my system from all others" (p. 9). Thus the sections flow on in their orderly structure, lifting the reader on eagle's wings to adopt the divine viewpoint that knows nothing but its own perfection. "Hourly, in Christian Science, man thus weds himself with God, or rather he ratifies a union predestined from all eternity" (p. 17). Such a union is not an abstract notion but is consciousness; accordingly, of all the shorter Other Writings this one has by far the most references to 'conscious' and 'consciousness.' A typical one is, "All consciousness is Mind; and Mind is God - an infinite, and not a finite consciousness. This consciousness is reflected in individual consciousness, or man, whose source is infinite Mind" (p. 24). Even more pointed is the logical consequence: this realization "honors conscious human individuality by showing God as its source" (p.25). No more authoritative statement could be given to correct the opinion that 'the human' is worthless, or to explain just what is meant by "the human and divine coincidence." Unity of Good is the best example we have of how to take a divine view of the human, and not confuse it with the physical or personal. The book freely uses the word 'human' in its usual material sense of being finite and mortal, yet again and again it startles us - as here on page 25 - with quite a different meaning. A cloud looked at from below seems black, while the same cloud viewed from above is white. The grand purpose of Unity of Good is to enable us to adopt the standpoint of the Christconsciousness - and thus to handle animal magnetism that argues for a mortal consciousness. As a result we can experience the real human as divinity in expression. Developing the thought of true human individuality, it continues in the section CREDO, "Do you believe in God? I believe more in Him than do most Christians, for I have no faith in any other thing or being ... He is my individuality and my Life. Because He lives, I live ... The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it to be sinless" (p. 48). CREDO goes on to answer "What say you of woman?" in a purely metaphysical way, as a statement of oneness: "This Science of God and man is the Holy Ghost, which reveals and sustains the unbroken and eternal harmony of both God and the universe ... Hence the need that human consciousness should become divine, in the coincidence of God and man... This is.. . Christ's immortal sense of Truth, which presents ... man and woman" (p. 52). Thus sin, if admitted as a reality, would destroy "the at-one-ment, or oneness with God - a unity which sin recognizes as its most potent and deadly enemy" (p. 54). The book therefore revises the traditional view of Christ Jesus and his meaning for humanity. In THE SAVIOUR'S MISSION Mrs Eddy writes, "J esus came to rescue men from these very ill usions to which he seemed to conform: from ... the illusion which calls sickness real, and man an invalid, needing a physician; the illusion that death is as real as Life. From such thoughts ... Christ Jesus came to save men, through ever-present and eternal good" (p. 59). Confirmation that Mrs Eddy was well aware of the correlation of UnifY of Good (the fifth book) and ANIMAL MAGNETISM UNMASKED (the textbook's fifth chapter) is shown by her Bible Lesson on p. 137 of Essays and Other Footprints. Interpreting chapter 20 of Revelation, she writes: "Verses 1 and 2. Science and Health is the angel sent down from heaven. Malicious Animal Magnetism is the bottomless pit, and Science and Health gives us the key to it ... it reduces sin, sickness, and death to a 'unit of nothingness.' Verse 3. UnifY of Good is the seal that was put upon the devil and Satan, for its teachings make it impossible for him to longer deceive the nations." A 'unit of nothingness' is to be explained by the unit of something ness, and to this end the textbook describes the seven days of creation as the "numerals of infinity," the actualities which dissolve the thousand-year periods of time and mortality. In this manner Unity of Good sets God's seal on the great truth that God is All and evil is naught. Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings 'You will find me in my books' “To be a Christian Scientist involves being changed; it demands an inner transformation, a renovation of the self, in order to become a transparency for the divine. This vital work is done by spiritualization of consciousness, but it is done in the area of life and of relationships, and it is on this area of experience that the Other Writings concentrate. Mrs Eddy herself considered these writings 'essential to preparing Christian Scientists for the full understanding of Science and Health'” (Orcutt 78). "The spiritual beauty and practicality of these inspired books have made them beloved to generations of Christian Scientists, yet strangely few students today, a century later, know much about their origin, or regard them in their wholeness. Yet this is critical to appreciating the value of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy’s flagship which is the Textbook of Christian Science. Understanding this framework is necessary in order to approach the ever-unfoldment that takes place when a serious study of Christian Science is undertaken. With this background information the student can read intelligently each piece in its setting, The message of the writings is enormously enhanced once he understands their occasion. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

The sixth book, Retrospection and introspection, is full of surprises. It appears on the surface to be simply an autobiography and an account of the development of the Christian Science idea, but it has a much deeper intent. Its scientific purpose seems to be nothing less than the translation of human experience onto divine foundations. Consequently it contains some of the most inspiring and profound explanations of Science to be found in all the writings. First the factual information: more than any other book, it derives its special character from its place in the evolution. Published in December 1891, it is the only one to appear in the three-year interim between the dissolution of the old organization in 1889 and the formation of the new in 1892, and so it looks both backwards and forwards. The year 1891 introduces the fifth period, a tone of new life signalled by the great fiftieth edition of Science and Health which brings the descent of the city foursquare, and launches the chapter SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, MEDICINE with its twofold translation. Retrospection and Introspection reflects these distinctive features. Parts of this sixth book had already appeared in 1885 as the pamphlet "Historical Sketch of Metaphysical Healing," which was revised the following year and reissued as "Historical Sketch of Christian Science Mind-healing." But even this reworked statement on the 'how' of Christian Science healing was modified yet again when it came to be incorporated into the new book in 1891. Retrospection and Introspection is a very different book from those earlier pamphlets, in that its major theme is the new one of organization, disorganization and reorganization. By this date the central church and College have been closed, and Christian Science is moving forward on a spiritual momentum alone. Appropriately the much-quoted phrase, the "spiritually organized church," occurs here in this book alone (p. 44), (where it refers not to today's Boston church but to the unorganized phase of 1889-1892 as well as to the period from 1892-1910 when the new church is planted on non-legal, non-material grounds.) The key to Retrospection and Introspection therefore lies in what that phrase means. How is it possible to have the experience of church - or of body, or of life - materially disorganized yet "spiritually organized"? The answer becomes apparent when we see the precise correlation of this book with the parallel period in the Bible story. Even as the Gospels are the biography of the Founder of Christianity, Retrospection and Introspection is the autobiography of the Founder of Christian Science. They each appear at the same point in the respective developments, for the Gospels open the Bible's fifth thousand years, and Retrospection and Introspection comes at the beginning of the fifth, or Life, period in the Christian Science evolution. "Organization and time have nothing to do with Life" (S&H 249); hence Jesus' mission is to demonstrate that life is abundant and unlimited when it is founded on Life. Through the crucifixion and resurrection he establishes that life is not organic nor subject to material laws of limitation. In the same way Retrospection and Introspection recounts the discovery and the first organization, and then tells of its dissolution, which opens the way for the forthcoming second organization on a non-material basis. "Whom do men say that I am?" must yield to the Christconsciousness - "Whom say ye that I am?" so that humanity is understood not as mortality but as the Son of the living God. The quotation reveals not only the heart of the Gospel but also the message of Retrospection and Introspection. The book falls naturally into two similar halves: the first part traces the personal story of preparation, discovery, and the founding of the material organization. The second part examines what that discovery really means, and recounts the disorganization. The 'Retrospection' part looks back to what seem to have been material events, and the 'Introspection' half interprets what has really been happening according to Science - an exercise every Scientist has to copy. Thus she shows that the disorganization was a way of declaring what the discovery really was - the power of the non-organic Christ-idea. Writing of the dissolution of the first church Mrs Eddy says, "Despite the prosperity of my church, it was learned that material organization has its value and peril, and that organization is requisite only in the earliest periods in Christian history. After this material form of cohesion and fellowship has accomplished its end, continued organization retards spiritual growth, and should be laid off - even as the corporeal organization deemed requisite in the first stages of mortal existence is finally laid off' (p. 45). We should be reassured that, despite these forthright statements about non-organization, Mrs Eddy is also careful to explain that she is showing forth a general metaphysical principle and is not requiring a wholesale dismantling of the Christian Science organization. "I see clearly that students in Christian Science should, at present, continue to organize churches, schools, and associations for the furtherance and unfolding of Truth, and that my necessity is not necessarily theirs; but it was the Father's opportunity for furnishing a new rule of order in divine Science" (p. 50). She leaves the door open for future reorganization on a different basis, for in the 1891 editions of Retrospection and Introspection there appears this passage (a paragraph between lines 4 and 5 of page 45 of our present edition): "After this experience and the Divine purpose is fulfilled in these changing scenes, this Church may find it wisdom to organize a second time for the completion of its history ... " When the church was re-formed in 1892, that passage naturally was removed. The two phases of organization and disorganization show up well in the curiously symmetrical arrangement of the Contents. There are thirty sections, pivoting on the fifteenth; this middle one, RECUPERATIVE INCIDENT, recounts a demonstration of unlaboured childbirth, and so serves to explain the central theme - how Mrs Eddy had to heal herself of the belief that she personally had conceived and birthed Christian Science. The equivalence of many of the other sections in the two halves is very noticeable: the first one, ANCESTRAL SHADOWS (the past according to the flesh), is balanced by the last, WAYMARKS, in which the way forward is to be "no longer ... a wanderer ... but concentrated and immovably fixed in Principle" (p. 93). THEOLOGICAL REMINISCENCE (her youthful rejection of the doctrine of predestination) is complemented by SIN, SINNER, AND ECCLESIASTICISM (in which spiritual religion resolves man-made dogma). MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE (where "the human history needs to be revised") is lifted to a higher order in THE HUMAN CONCEPT (wherein "man is the offspring of Spirit"). TilE GREAT DISCOVERY has its counterpart in THE GREAT REVELATION: in the first one we read, "I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body ... How it was done, the spiritual Science of Mind must reveal. It was a mystery to me then" (p. 28). How it was done is explained in the second, THE GREAT REVELATION, which is full of "Christian Science reveals," "Science defines," "Science declares," and so on (see pp. 59-62). A last example is FOUNDATION WORK reflected by FOUNDATION-STONES: the ground must first be excavated before the solid foundation can be laid. FOUNDATION WORK asks "why Christian Science was revealed to me as one intelligence, analyzing, uncovering, and annihilating the false testimony of the physical senses" (p. 30). It answers that "the first spontaneous motion of Truth and Love, acting through Christian Science on my roused consciousness, banished at once and forever the fundamental error of faith in things material; for this trust is the unseen sin, the unknown foe" (p. 31). As though looking into the now-excavated trench she adds, "into mortal mind's material obliquity I gazed, and stood abashed." Then in FOUNDATION-STONES we read that the unbreakable concrete reality is absolute oneness, for Being is indivisible: "Whatever diverges from the one divine Mind, or God - or divides Mind into minds, Spirit into spirits, Soul into souls, and Being into beings - is a misstatement of the unerring divine Principle of Science" (p. 56). Thus throughout the book the human retrospection is being paired with the spiritual introspection, teaching us the necessity of translating every detail of experience. The reader who is familiar with Science and Health cannot fail to notice the extraordinary parallel of this sixth book with the textbook's sixth chapter, SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, MEDICINE. They have the same 'tone' and deal with the same subject-matter. Both describe the author's preparation and her discovery of the Christ Science; both ask whence came the heavenly conviction, and both reply that it was revelation; both explain the 'how' of Christian Science, showing that it works by translation. Above all, the chapter SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, MEDICINE contains the actual text of the twofold Scientific Translation, which we have observed in operation throughout Retrospection and Introspection. The textbook chapter then elaborates the way the translation works. It reveals that "in their spiritual significance, Science, Theology, and Medicine are means of divine thought" (S&H 118), which leaven and replace the "three modes of mortal thought" by reinterpreting them spiritually. Thus both chapter and book show that the function of the Christ Science is to resolve the entire material and organic sense of existence by transposing it back onto spiritual foundations. While the chapter sets out the Principle, the book vividly illustrates the idea in life-experience. Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings 'You will find me in my books' “To be a Christian Scientist involves being changed; it demands an inner transformation, a renovation of the self, in order to become a transparency for the divine. This vital work is done by spiritualization of consciousness, but it is done in the area of life and of relationships, and it is on this area of experience that the Other Writings concentrate. Mrs Eddy herself considered these writings 'essential to preparing Christian Scientists for the full understanding of Science and Health'” (Orcutt 78). "The spiritual beauty and practicality of these inspired books have made them beloved to generations of Christian Scientists, yet strangely few students today, a century later, know much about their origin, or regard them in their wholeness. Yet this is critical to appreciating the value of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy’s flagship which is the Textbook of Christian Science. Understanding this framework is necessary in order to approach the ever-unfoldment that takes place when a serious study of Christian Science is undertaken. With this background information the student can read intelligently each piece in its setting, The message of the writings is enormously enhanced once he understands their occasion. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

After the 'how' comes the actual doing of it by the student. In the flow of the textbook's chapters PHYSIOLOGY is the next one. SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, MEDICINE has set out translation as the divine means for resolving the mistaken material sense, and now immediately PHYSIOLOGY shows the divine sense of body actually translating the corporeal, physiological sense of body. To the mortal view body seems to be the working of physical organs, but the Christ-consciousness translates that appearance and shows body to be spiritual functions under the control of God. Material sense believes that body is mortal, and is either male or female, the product of other males and females; PHYSIOLOGY awakens us to understand that body is immortal, the outcome of Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love, and that we are the body of the living God. Precisely the same relationship obtains here between the previous book, Retrospection and Introspection, and the seventh one, Christ and Christmas. The former has explained how the human picture must be revised, and now the latter comes as a working model of actually re-seeing our world. What are we looking at? Who are we seeing? The seeming world of bodies and personalities is being translated. Christ and Christmas consists of a poem of fifteen verses based on a Glossary of Scriptural texts, all of which testify that man's origin, life and destiny are not in mortality but in God, and that understanding this fact heals the human condition. The poem itself celebrates this divine healing, first as it was demonstrated by Jesus, and then as reintroduced by Christian Science: "As in blest Palestina's hour, So in our age, 'Tis the same hand unfolds His power, And writes the page" (p. 39). The feature of the book that hits the eye first, however, is not the poem but the eleven plates which illustrate it. They depict the two phases of the Christ-healing, first in the manhood and then in the womanhood of God. The manhood aspect is portrayed as the traditional Jesus, while the womanhood aspect appears as a female figure representing Christian Science. It is easy to see why many people took the female figure to be Mrs Eddy, and were either offended or enraptured. True, Christ's second appearing came through a woman, yet the corporeal personality of Mary Baker Eddy is no more the Christ than was the physical person of Jesus. The pioneering manhood quality is fulfilled and complemented by the universal embrace of womanhood; the key purpose of the book is to overcome the belief that these qualities belong to a sex or a person. The seventh book, then, is unique on account of its pictures and yet it is not first and foremost a picture-book. Mrs Eddy herself describes it as "An Illustrated Poem" (Mis. 371), and so it is the poem which is primary. The pictures simply describe the outward effect of the spiritual ideas of the poem - give it a 'body,' so to speak, by which the ideas are illustrated. The lesson to be perceived at the outset, therefore, is that in the work of Christian Science we do not start from the picture before the eyes but from the inward reality. Reading from the outward appearance, be it a picture or a corporeal body, will always lead to confusion, whereas reading from the spiritual idea (the text), will illuminate and transform the appearance. The distinction is the same as the two phases of the Scientific Translation: reading from the pictures is like trying to reason unaided from the second translation, while reading from the poem and its Glossary is like working from the standpoint of the first translation. It is this "Scientific Translation of Immortal Mind" that alone can look behind the veil of a picture on a page (or a material person) and bring out the deeper meaning. In Christ and Christmas Mrs Eddy expressed this idea in her poem, and - very courageously - attempted to portray it in pictures, to make the idea visible. She had planned to have the new book published in good time for the World's Parliament of Religions in September 1893 where, it will be remembered, her address was on the theme of womanhood. In the event the book was not ready until December, when two editions were issued. But its reception, by her students as well as by the public, showed such lack of spiritual comprehension, and such intense personalization of its symbolic figures, that in January 1894 she withdrew it until thought had advanced somewhat. In the February Journal she wrote that "to impersonalize scientifically the material sense of existence - rather than cling to personality - is the lesson of to-day" (Mis. 310). She also explained that "the illustrations in 'Christ and Christmas' ... refer not to personality, but present the type and shadow of Truth's appearing in the womanhood as well as in the manhood of God, our divine Father and Mother" (Mis. 33). Before the book could be safely reintroduced some spiritual reeducation had to take place, and it was provided by changes made a little later in the textbook. In 1897 man and woman were defined in the MARRIAGE chapter for the first time as "elements" and "native qualities," in place of "individualities" and "man and woman;" and "sex elements" became "mental elements" (S&H 57 in our present edition). This incorporeal view of manhood and womanhood resolved much of the misunderstanding and opposition, and made it possible for her to re-issue the book in December of 1897. Some of the pictures were modified, and altogether it went through nine editions. In Miscellaneous Writings there are three illuminating articles that refer to the mission of Christ and Christmas and the adventures it went through: CHRIST AND CHRISTMAS Gan. 1894; Mis. 371); DEIFICATION OF PERSONALITY (Feb. 1894; Mis. 308); and part of Question and Answer no. 2 (Feb. 1894; Mis. 32: 31-11). In addition an interesting account of his work on the plates of the book is to be found in Recollections of Mary Baker Eddy by the artist, James F. Gilman, who describes the transformation of his consciousness while he collaborated with Mrs Eddy. He also records that the related article ANGELS on Mis. 306 was written by Mrs Eddy as a letter to a student. In her article CHRIST AND CHRISTMAS she sets out the mission of the book, and in it repeatedly links Science and art. She says that it "voices Christian Science through song and object-lesson." "The art of Christian Science, with true hue and character of the living God, is akin to its Science." Above the storms of passion and prejudice "Christian Science and its art will rise triumphant." What is this 'art,' beyond the painting of pictures? She answers: "The truest art of Christian Science is to be a Christian Scientist." Art, says the dictionary, is the skilful producing of something beautiful by making, working, or arranging; and surely its essential purpose is to give visible form to an invisible idea. As Science is assimilated and embodied it becomes exemplified in the art of healing, and is seen in changed lives. Of course God is not seen by material sense, yet "the nature of God must be seen in man" (01 5). Theory will not illustrate Christian Science, but life will. Thus - to return to the twin translation - the Science of the first translation alters the evidence before the senses in the second, and the art of Christian Science is for man to cooperate with this divine power. The crucial point is that, had it not been for the illustrations, Christ and Christmas would hardly have been controversial at all. Yet knowing the kind of reaction the pictures would arouse, Mrs Eddy had to publish them; their very existence, one might say, was a spiritual necessity as an exercise in seeing. Life must be seen in life; Love must be visible in love; the Christ must have its manifestation inJesus. People do not object to this 'incarnation' so long as it is two thousand years ago; but the suggestion that someone in our midst today is also an instrument for the Christ may be thought outrageous - or lead to personal idolization. Who was Jesus? Who is Mary Baker Eddy? Who are we? In 1893 the right answer to these questions forms the foundation of the newly-formed church, for unless the students can look at persons and see not personality but the God-idea, they are still mentally in the old organization. So to consider the book itself, which to some is a mystery and to others almost a Bible. The fifteen verses are reasonably straightforward, but the eleven illustrations lend themselves to many interpretations. This is because words have their own clear meaning, which must be the same for all of us (this is the characteristic of language), whereas the ways in which we see pictures and people are very diverse. Seeing is a highly subjective facuity, reflecting our own state of consciousness, be it dark or illumined. For this reason Christ and Christmas is not an end in itself but is a wonderful aid, a lesson in looking, in reasoning not from matter but from the Word of God, and seeing the Christ power actually changing the world. Over the years many earnest students have brought to the study of Christ and Christmas great spiritual insight and scientific analysis, and various structures have been put forward for its interpretation. Possibly they are all true in their own way; no doubt it does present the counterfact to astrology; no doubt it is laid out according to 'the seven' and 'the four.' The student will see in Christ and Christmas what he takes to it - which is more or less what the PHYSIOLOGY chapter says about body. In the end one comes to see the meaning best expressed in the key verse quoted from Revelation: "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And I will give him the MORNING STAR. - Christ Jesus." The message is overcoming mortal sense through Christ power. The first verse and picture virtually say to us, If you try to read from matter or from bodily appearances, all is cloudy, dark, chaotic. But if you reason out from the seven-pointed star, you will see on those same clouds the semblance of the virgin and child (the star of Bethlehem) , and possibly the head of another Mary (representing "the star of Boston" Mis. 320). The light of the star is "To rouse the living, wake the dead And point the Way." Then the last picture entitled THE WAY, depicts the three degrees of the second translation: a large black cross; a flowery, bird-decked illuminated cross, and a heavenly crown. The verses are the Christ message, and the illustrations are its progressive effect illuminating, translating, healing and reinterpreting the whole human picture. They become more and more meaningful in the degree that we follow the guiding star of being and overcome corporeal sense. Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings 'You will find me in my books' “To be a Christian Scientist involves being changed; it demands an inner transformation, a renovation of the self, in order to become a transparency for the divine. This vital work is done by spiritualization of consciousness, but it is done in the area of life and of relationships, and it is on this area of experience that the Other Writings concentrate. Mrs Eddy herself considered these writings 'essential to preparing Christian Scientists for the full understanding of Science and Health'” (Orcutt 78). "The spiritual beauty and practicality of these inspired books have made them beloved to generations of Christian Scientists, yet strangely few students today, a century later, know much about their origin, or regard them in their wholeness. Yet this is critical to appreciating the value of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy’s flagship which is the Textbook of Christian Science. Understanding this framework is necessary in order to approach the ever-unfoldment that takes place when a serious study of Christian Science is undertaken. With this background information the student can read intelligently each piece in its setting, The message of the writings is enormously enhanced once he understands their occasion. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

The eighth book, PulPit and Press, published in April 1895, celebrates the dedication in January of the newly-built edifice of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. (This is the original Mother Church building.) As the title suggests, the book is in two halves: the first contains Mrs Eddy's Dedicatory Sermon; the second is a selection of twenty-four newspaper clippings that record the achievement with awe and friendliness. The tone of the book is that of the church universal and triumphant, no longer the church militant (p. 3). In its early years, when Christian Science had seemed to the establishment to be a very eccentric and even dangerous phenomenon, it had been assailed by the pulpit and by the press. Now however, twenty years later and with thousands of healed people and Christianized lives speaking for it, it has its own pulpit, and the nation's newspapers are very willing to pay tribute not only to its spectacular growth but also to the spiritual character of Mrs Eddy. A pulpit is primarily for voicing the Christ standpoint; the printing press, in an ideal sense, exists to record the redeeming effect of that Truth on human consciousness. Thus pulpit and press together should function as the twin translations, the pulpit teaching how to come forth from divine perfection and the press registering humanity gradually reaching perfection in practice. This theme of coming forth from and returning to the divine source is also, of course, the message of the eighth chapter in Science and Health FOOTSTEPS OF TRUTH, which likewise unfolds in two main parts. First it traces the footsteps leading out from Truth - the sole foundation from which Christian perfection can be won. Then it traces the indispensable "human footsteps leading to perfection," "the way to health and holiness." The great need is that "the human self must be evangelized" (Christianized), but tbe even greater need is to understand that this has to be done from Truth; such "purity" is "the corner-stone of all spiritual building" (S&H 241, 254). The Preface to PulPit and Press echoes this point, hinging on the connection between the impetus of Truth and the world's response. "This volume contains scintillations from press and pulpit - utterances which epitomize the story of the birth of Christian Science, in 1866, and its progress during the ensuing thirty years. Three quarters of a century hence, when the children of to-day are the elders of the twentieth century, it will be interesting to have not only a record of the inclination given their own thoughts in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but also a registry of the rise of the mercury in the glass of the world's opinion. "It will then be instructive to turn backward the telescope of that advanced age, with its lenses of more spiritual mentality, indicating the gain of intellectual momentum, on the early footsteps of Christian Science. .. to con the facts surrounding the cradle of this grand verity .... " Why "three quarters of a century"? Seventy-five years is approximately a human life-time. Three quarters of a century backward takes one to 1820, the year before Mary Baker was born. Three quarters of a century hence takes us to 1970, by which date a huge advance has been made: 'the telescope' has been used to discover the Science and system that is within the textbook. This has made it possible to "con the facts surrounding the cradle" of Christian Science. But we should not congratulate ourselves prematurely on having made spiritual progress. Any rise in the world's opinion will surely depend not so much on the technology (essential though it is for our understanding) as on the lives and achievements of today's Scientists. Proceeding then to the 'Pulpit' part of the book: it comprises four distinct sections, reflecting the four 'sides' of the heavenly city which the new church represents. First is Mrs Eddy's Sermon read at the dedication, spelling out the premise of divine oneness; second, the readings from the textbook, all taken from THE APOCALYPSE chapter and referring to the power of Christ; third, three pastoral hymns that all refer to God's leading; and fourth, a NOTE by Mrs Eddy on the theme of unity - amongst Christian Scientists, as well as between them and other churches. When the first church organization, formed in 1879, is dissolved in 1889, it is not lost sight of: its principle of self-dissolution is built in to the second. So in 1892 it is reconstituted on a divine basis. What it means is that we have to dissolve the belief that society, or church, or world, is composed oflots of human persons, if we are to experience it anew as the divine One in infinite expression. The two organizations stand for two quite different approaches to the concept of unity. The first church was an attempt to get diverse people to work together in harmony, an attempt which comes unstuck; the second represented everyone coming forth together in harmony from the divine One, as diversity in unity. The section called NOTE was not part of the service of dedication but was written by Mrs Eddy for the first edition of Pulpit and Press. In it she includes the startling sentence, "From first to last The Mother Church seemed type and shadow of the warfare between the flesh and Spirit" (p. 20). "Seemed," in the past tense, is surprising when the new church phase has scarcely begun. Actually the term "Mother Church" first appears in 1889, before the dissolution of the first organization, and it seems that in the sentence quoted it applies to the whole period of disorganization when Mrs Eddy is seeking the divine way of establishing a church centre that error could not control - hence "the warfare." By 1895 this ideal "Mother Church" is in operation, with all the reins safely in her (in Principle's) hands. In the new membership it is not personalities jockeying for position so much as spiritual individuality emanating from the divine. The factor that has made this transition possible is the advent of the fiftieth edition of Science and Health, which has defined the terms for God as synonymous. It is this principle of synonymity that introduces a totally new kind of unity in the human also, for when we recognize one another as synonyms for the one man, there can no longer be rivalry, power-seeking, and the arrogance of thinking that 'only I am right.' Pulpit and Press expresses the new attitude in the most beautiful way: "The real house in which 'we live, and move, and have our being' is Spirit, God ... our true temple is no human fabrication, but the superstructure of Truth, reared on the foundation of Love, and pinnaded in Life ... Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love" (pp. 2, 3). Man is not a separate personal 'I:' "Is not a man metaphysically and mathematically numher one, a unit, and therefore whole number, governed and protected by his divine Principle, God? You have simply to preserve a scientific, positive sense of unity with your divine source, and daily demonstrate this ... A dewdrop reflects the sun. Each of Christ's little ones reflects the infinite One, and therefore ... 'one on God's side is a majority' " (p. 4). Each one one with the One - that is the key to unity, and the heart of Pulpit and Press. It is unity according to the first translation, where Principle and its idea is one. The Scientist now proves his unity with the One by being one with what is Christlike in everyone else. The church is made up of Christ's One infinitely reflected. Hence the section called NOTE is filled with this outward unity - unity according to the second translation, impelled by the first. "Christian Scientists ... inevitably love one another with that love wherewith Christ loveth us; a love ... that loves only because it is Love" (p. 21). If we are united, there is promise of our uniting with other Christian churches: "Our unity with churches of other denominations must rest on the spirit of Christ calling us together" (p. 21). Finally this unity extends out and embraces the world, as is reflected faintly in the kindly and perceptive articles from the newspapers. As noticed, Pulpit and Press contains an unusual number of predictions, or prophecies (pp. vii,S, 8, 10,22,84,85). In fact, the Journal announced it as "A sermon, hymns and prophecy" (CS] April 1895). This is because it appears just when the second church organization puts into operation the new 'out from' stand pont. The prediction on p. 22 contains an important qualification: "If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to Truth, I predict that in the twentieth century every Christian church in our land ... will approximate the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in his name. Christ will give to Christianity his new name, and Christendom will be classified as Christian Scientists." Hence the Sermon is addressed to the church of "the new-born of Spirit" (p. 10). It must be for the same reason, surely, that PulPit and Press is packed with references to children, babes and little ones. "Ah, children, you are the bulwarks of freedom, the cement of society, the hope of our race!" (p. 9). When reborn of Spirit, humanity is the child of God; each of Christ's little ones reflects the whole of the divine One and so they reflect one another. A new sense of creation is about to be experienced. Being the eighth book in the sequence, Pulpit and Press strikes the octave. In the musical scale the octave is at once the goal of the first seven notes and the start of a new series. This sense of achievement, of having reached the centre, of working from the summit, metaphysically speaking is 'the woman.' It is not a female but a state of consciousness of the kingdom of heaven already with us. Pulpit and Press marks this new awareness by the emphatic references to the woman in the Apocalypse (pp. 12-15), and even more particularly by the Press articles on "The New Woman" (pp. 79-84). It seems that at intervals throughout the nineteenth century there had been an active 'Woman's Movement,' but it had been somewhat feminist, and worked for the social and political rights of women. Around 1890, however, a new note can be discerned in the literature, a realization that the spiritual element in man can properly be regarded as woman. "She realizes that all the harmonies of the universe are in herself' (p. 81; see also Journal Vol. XIII 1894-1895, pp. 28, 144,419). The 'Press' part of the book reflects this 'woman' viewpoint in another way also, for tucked away amongst the clippings are two messages by Mrs Eddy that are given directly to the world and only indirectly to the Scientists. In the first, writing to the New York Herald, she repudiates the suggestion that she personally is the second Christ, for "whoever in any age expresses most of the spirit of Truth and Love ... has most of the spirit of Christ" (p. 75). In the second, reported in the Concord Evening Monitor, she declines to become pastor but accepts the honour of Pastor Emeritus (see pp. 85-87). The sense is that the spiritual idea is generic, universal and impersonal. Pulpit and Press brings us to the end of the second group of four books, with their strong message of how the Christ standpoint resolves the seeming power of error. First there is Unity of Good, teaching the Christ-consciousness - the absolute allness of good and the absolute nothingness of evil; Retrospection and introspection then shows how this Christ-consciousness operates - through a process of translating the organic sense of life. Christ and Christmas illustrates this translation actually at work, redeeming man from the male and female of mortality; finally Pulpit and Press reaffirms that by preserving a scientific sense of unity with the divine source, each of Christ's little ones reflects the infinite One. Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings 'You will find me in my books' “To be a Christian Scientist involves being changed; it demands an inner transformation, a renovation of the self, in order to become a transparency for the divine. This vital work is done by spiritualization of consciousness, but it is done in the area of life and of relationships, and it is on this area of experience that the Other Writings concentrate. Mrs Eddy herself considered these writings 'essential to preparing Christian Scientists for the full understanding of Science and Health'” (Orcutt 78). "The spiritual beauty and practicality of these inspired books have made them beloved to generations of Christian Scientists, yet strangely few students today, a century later, know much about their origin, or regard them in their wholeness. Yet this is critical to appreciating the value of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy’s flagship which is the Textbook of Christian Science. Understanding this framework is necessary in order to approach the ever-unfoldment that takes place when a serious study of Christian Science is undertaken. With this background information the student can read intelligently each piece in its setting, The message of the writings is enormously enhanced once he understands their occasion. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

We come now to the vital ninth book, the Christian Science Church Manual. On the surface, the Manual is a code of laws for regulating the affairs of the church. Metaphysically however it represents the framework for demonstrating right relationship without personal control or interference. Thus in the sequence of the sixteen books it introduces a new dimension - that of the collective. While virtually nothing hitherto has been published about Mrs Eddy's other fifteen books, by contrast volumes have been written and spoken on the subject of the Manual' - mostly on whether its provisions have been disobeyed since 1910. The first church organization ofl879-1889 had no manual, nor even a building of its own. It was strictly the local Boston church, operating under congregational control. For its internal government it had simple by-laws, which included an early form of the six Tenets that we have today. Mrs Eddy dissolved this church in 1889 when it had become clear that the movement might otherwise destroy itself by rivalry and dissension. So she wrote, "I admonish this Church after ten years of sad experience in material bonds, to cast them off and cast her net on the spiritual side of Christianity - to drop all material rules whereby to regulate Christ, Christianity, and adopt alone the golden rule for unification, progress, and a better example as the Mother Church" (RO 323). When they disorganized, the membership continued to assemble for worship informally without the bonds of organization and "in the bond only of Love" (CS] Feb. 1890), and there was "a great revival of mutual love, prosperity, and spiritual power" (Ret. 44). At the end of three years, divine wisdom unearthed the State law that would enable Mrs Eddy to re-form a second time without putting the church back under human or legal control. By the end of 1892 a new First Church of Christ, Scientist, was in being, but this time the membership had no say in its organization or running. It was a theocratic church, and not an organization incorporated under human law. Individual Scientists from near and far, who felt that they could wholeheartedly accede to this government by divine Principle and could subscribe to the Tenets and teaching of Science and Health, applied for membership. As yet there was no Manual, only a list of seven procedural rules (see RO 443). Nevertheless, with so many unregenerate rebels from the old church now trying to get in, and with even loyal students being sometimes mistaken, it became imperative to set out a code of conduct. Accordingly in September 1895 the first edition of the Manual appeared. At first it was brief and consisted mostly of articles regulating the actual working of the church. In the first edition the Directors were permitted a certain amount of freedom to act without seeking Mrs Eddy's approval, and the government of the church was vested in the First Members, who also screened applicants for membership. The growing list of First Members was printed in the first ten editions of the Manual. Included in the list were the twelve students whom Mrs Eddy had selected as the initial core of members, and beside the name of each of these twelve was a star, for they typified the twelve stars in generic man's crown (see S&H 562: 11-21). They stand for the whole human race working out the problem of being, progressively demonstrating that the body of man is not material or organic. In this compound idea, or body of Christ, all are members one of another. Because each one is totally governed by God he is spiritually self-governed within himself, and therefore in his relationships with others. But of course it does not work out like that in human experience without some guidance and direction. The Manual represents the framework of divine law reduced to moral law. It is "uniquely adapted to form the budding thought and hedge it about with divine Love" (p. 104). Putting it another way, the same law of God which is a law of enablement and freedom for the obedient is a rod of restriction and discipline for the disobedient. The DISCIPLINE section, which was only five pages long at first, had grown to fifteen by the 88th edition in 1910- the last edition to be published in Mrs Eddy's lifetime. Humanly speaking, she must have been saddened to discover that it was necessary to spell out these behavioural laws, "which I said in my heart would never be needed - namely, laws oflimitation for a Christian Scientist" (My 229). "The Rules and By-laws in the Manual ... were not ... dictatorial demands, such as one person might impose on another. They were impelled by a power not one's own" (Mis. 148; and see Coil. 23 and 185). With this avowal by Mrs Eddy as to the real Author of the By-laws, we are now in a position to understand the much-discussed 'estoppel clauses.' Because the Manual stands for the Principle of right relationships, the clauses in it are not personal but are Principle's devices for preventing the control of one Scientist by another. Consequently by about 1903 the Manual incorporates twenty-nine vital clauses which require Mrs Eddy's approval or consent - sometimes "in her own handwriting." These 'stoppers' are principally in By-laws that deal with the reappointment and the functions of church officers, including the Directors, and the Trustees of the Publishing Society. * None at all are found in the long section on Discipline, for God-governed individual behaviour is an ongoing requirement. The estoppels make it very clear that Mrs Eddy did not delegate authority to any body of human beings to carryon the government or the running of her Mother Church. For example, when the fifth Director was appointed, a new estoppel was written in, requiring that his successor in office be approved by the Pastor Emeritus. Such a By-law must have been hard for the uncomprehending to stomach. Accordingly, immediately following its appearing, Mrs Eddy wrote in MENTAL DIGESTION (My 230), "Of this I am sure, that each Rule and By-law in this Manual will increase the spirituality of him who obeys it, invigorate his capacity to heal the sick, to comfort such as mourn, and to awaken the sinner." At the same time, because the Manual is "for the Mother Church only" (p. 104), it puts no restrictions on Christian Science branch churches and societies. This point is reinforced by the word 'By-law,' for a by-law is specifically a law or ordinance dealing with matters of local or internal regulation only, and not to be imposed on others outside one's jurisdiction. In contrast with the limits set to The Mother Church, the Manual specifically frees the branches from outside control. Under "Local Self-government" (p. 70) we read, "The Mother Church... shall assume no general official control of other churches." And under "No Interference" (p. 73), "In Christian Science each branch church shall be distinctly democratic in its government, and no individual, and no other church shall interfere with its affairs." From about 1903 onwards until 1910 the church officials made repeated attempts either directly or through lawyers to get Mrs Eddy to alter these estoppel clauses in favour of the Directors. But because God was the Author of the By-laws, she was not at liberty to change them. On the contrary, she made them even more binding: "No new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled, without the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy" (p. 105). Judge Clifford P. Smith, in Permanenry of The Mother Church and Its Manual, quotes her as saying in this context, "I have no right or desire to change what God has directed me to do, and it remains for the church to obey it" (p. 8). But once it became clear to her that on her passing the Directors would override the Manual and take personal control of the entire movement, Mrs Eddy sought her lawyer's opinion on what the legal position would then be. Mr Elder assured her that human law would support such annulment of the By-laws! So much for human law. Mrs Eddy assented to this situation, content that her followers would not then try to do the right thing for the wrong reason. She had stated the principle in the Manual, and left it for Scientists to wake up to their heritage. One cannot legislate for spiritual freedom. Undoubtedly she foresaw that in God's own time Christian Science in its Science and system would provide the means for universal spiritual self-government, and release Christian Science from its seventy years' captivity to material organization. Once again the church would have "to be rescued from the grasp oflegal power, and ... be put back into the arms of Love, if we would not be found fighting against God" (Mis. 140). When we turn to the Manual as a book, we notice that in Mrs Eddy's time it - alone of her works - never carried the cross and crown emblem embossed on the cover. (It first appeared there in 1916.) Perhaps the reason is that the book itself is a "Suffer it to be so now." In the Christian Scientist's experience the cross would seem to reflect the Manual disobeyed, while the crown would be its provisions obeyed, and the student a law to himself. In order to obey the Manual literally, one needs to understand it spiritually - to discern its underlying scientific ideas. Only then does the prophecy, "eternity awaits our Church Manual" (My 230), become realistic. That dimension of eternity is upon us now - in the 1 980s - for within the last few years a remarkable spiritual discovery has been made that translates its contents from rules and regulations into timeless ideas of Science. The discovery is set out in a small but dynamic book by W. Gordon Brown, Science and Health and the Church Manual, where he explains the significance of the latter's structure. The Manual's Table of Contents shows that the By-laws are given in precisely sixteen main headings. When examined spiritually, and going beneath the surface appearance of church regulations, these sixteen are found to "relate in essence with the spiritual realities of being taught in the first sixteen chapters of the textbook." This correlation must be more than mere chance, for the parallels are so close, so illuminating, and so liberating in their effect. Instead of having to regard the Manual as a somewhat dusty code of rules, it becomes alive with the same fundamental themes of Christianly scientific being that we find in the textbook and the Other Writings. So we are brought quite naturally to observe this ninth book's correspondence with the ninth chapter of Science and Health, CREATION. Throughout that chapter runs the theme, "As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression" (S&H 255). It is concerned with the expansion of consciousness, with the idea that creation is infinite, boundless, non-organic. Here is the same message as the Manual, which also is designed to enable the student to evolve beyond "laws of limitation for a Christian Scientist." Perceived personally, and as interpreted by human law, the Manual is synonymous with the limitations of organized religion; perceived as Mrs Eddy left it, it stands for the liberty of self-government under Principle, and the realization that church is not bounded or compressed within narrow limits. Another strong point in the CREATION chapter is, "As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible" (S&H 264). The Manual too gives visible expression to the invisible system whereby God governs His own universe including man. In the next book, Miscellaneous Writings, we see these absolute laws of God made practical and visible in ethics. Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings 'You will find me in my books' “To be a Christian Scientist involves being changed; it demands an inner transformation, a renovation of the self, in order to become a transparency for the divine. This vital work is done by spiritualization of consciousness, but it is done in the area of life and of relationships, and it is on this area of experience that the Other Writings concentrate. Mrs Eddy herself considered these writings 'essential to preparing Christian Scientists for the full understanding of Science and Health'” (Orcutt 78). "The spiritual beauty and practicality of these inspired books have made them beloved to generations of Christian Scientists, yet strangely few students today, a century later, know much about their origin, or regard them in their wholeness. Yet this is critical to appreciating the value of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy’s flagship which is the Textbook of Christian Science. Understanding this framework is necessary in order to approach the ever-unfoldment that takes place when a serious study of Christian Science is undertaken. With this background information the student can read intelligently each piece in its setting, The message of the writings is enormously enhanced once he understands their occasion. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

Next to the textbook, Miscellaneous Writings is the best known and most loved of all Mrs Eddy's books, and deservedly so. Into it she poured a mother's tireless love and practical wisdom as she sought to educate the Christian Science students and raise them from childhood to maturity. But it is far more than a collection of documents relating to events in the past, for life's lessons are valid eternally. The book has the grand purpose of redeeming the human from the mortal, and of planting life on the basis of demonstration. Thus it emphasizes "practical, operative Christian Science" (p. 207), and how to be in practice what we already are in the divine Science of our being. By 1896 the newly formed church was functioning within the safeguards of its Manual. Mrs Eddy had declared "My work for The Mother Church is done;" she had withdrawn as person and become Pastor Emeritus. In February 1896 she had written, "The hour has struck for Christian Scientists to do their own work; ... to demonstrate self-knowledge and self-government" (Mis. 317). With all the unmistakable teaching of their textbook to inspire and guide them, could the students now demonstrate true church? It seems that they had yet to learn how to embody that teaching in human character and life. So during 1896 Mrs Eddy gathered together almost all the articles and letters which she had published in the Journal over the past fourteen years, edited out the personal references, "tried to remove the pioneer signs and ensigns of war" (p. xii), and published the volume inJanuary 1897 as Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896. Its period spans all the previous nine books, and the story it covers is familiar to the reader from Chapter III of this volume, where many of the articles have been examined. For this reason we shall not go into its details again but will seek to identify the book's overall character. Because it takes in the years of organization, disorganization, and reorganization, and because its articles interpret these three phases in their spiritual meaning, Miscellaneous Writings clearly stands for the reconstructed individual. The scope of the book is immediately seen in its dedication, where every single word conveys its purpose: "To loyal Christian Scientists in this and every land I lovingly dedicate these practical teachings indispensable to the culture and achievements which constitute the success of a student and demonstrate the ethics of Christian Science." The teachings must be cultured from within, so that one achieves spiritual mastery over the human self. "The ethics of Christian Science" implies the human character being brought into accord with the divine, and means that the Christ-Mind has to be found to be one's own mind. The word 'ethics' appears only twice in the textbook (though in exceedingly important passages), while it occurs twenty-three times in the Other Writings as a leading characteristic. Science and its ethics are as inseparable as Principle and idea. The textbook explains, "The teacher must make clear to students the Science of healing, especially its ethics - that all is Mind, and that the Scientist must conform to God's requirements" (S&H 444). While Science and Health tends to emphasize the Science, Miscellaneous Writings accentuates the ethics that flow from it as a Science of life. Ethics, in turn, become morals when practised, for ethics relate to the principles of right conduct while morals refer more to the practice. So we have the absolute laws of Science, such as Life, Truth, and Love, which provide "a scientific system of ethics" (S&H 464) in the form oflife, truth and love; then the living oflife, truth and love comprise our morals; yet it is Science all the way through. For example, Science might be likened to the giant high-voltage power lines, ethics to the transformer that adapts the current to domestic use, and morals to the lamps and cookers that light and feed the family; yet it is all one and the same electric energy. When Miscellaneous Writings was published Mrs Eddy suspended all class teaching for a year. "Our Leader said that this book would be a teacher next to Science and Health, as people would understand it better and more quickly at first than Science and Health" (Clara Shannon, Golden Memories). Perhaps it does seem easier, although it is very demanding, for it requires us to handle animal magnetism not in the abstract but in the area of life and relationships. Of course we are not actually concerned with human behaviour as such but with demonstrating life's indivisibility from Life. We truly understand the realities of Science only as we experience them - as we let them resolve and translate the human sense of life. For instance, a car may have power steering but it will not operate until we turn the wheel, be it ever so little. Miscellaneous Writings corresponds to the tenth chapter of Science and Health, SCIENCE OF BEING, which also deals with the Science of being the truths we talk about. For example, "It is the spiritualization of thought and Christianization of daily life ... which really attest the divine origin and operation of Christian Science"(S&H 272). There are only two references in Science and Health to 'daily life' and both of them, appropriately, are in SCIENCE OF BEING where the theme is the effectiveness of the one Mind to change the material sense of being through the details of human life. It is this practical Christianity which is also the continuous theme of Miscellaneous Writings. On page vii Mrs Eddy prints some verses which it seems she wrote in 1896 specifically for the book, and which contain two vital clues to its purpose. "If worlds were formed by matter, And mankind from the dust; Till time shall end more timely, There's nothing here to trust . .. My world has sprung from Spirit, In everlasting day; Whereof, I've more to glory) Wherefor, have much to pay." According to Chris tian Science the world and man are not of the earth, earthy. They did not begin in dust and thence evolve upwards towards a spiritual destiny. "My world has sprung from Spirit," and from this platform "evolution" is but the dissolving of the material veils in consciousness, so that mankind progressively comes to understand that it too has sprung from Spirit. The second element, which is of such importance in Miscellaneous Writings, is time - "Till time shall end more timely." Time must be faced and resolved if we are not to be left with a discarded past and a future never attained. This surely explains why the material in the book is not placed chronologically but is deliberately rearranged in a time-free order. Chapter I, for instance, contains material from 1883 and 1890; Chapter II is from 1896; Chapter III ranges from 1883 to 1892, and so on. It is very worthwhile to try to understand what Mrs Eddy has done in this handling of time, for the records show that she spent many days rearranging the material for Miscellaneous Writings. God requires of us that which is past, and this means translating past events into spiritual ideas. Once we identify them as the workings of .\find, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth and Love, all so-called history becomes contemporaneous and the past is redeemed. Thus the periods of the Christian Science story - or of the Bible - are seen to be synonymous views of the same fundamental idea. Here is a marvellously healing way of regarding 'history;' nothing that God has done can become past and obsolete; all that He will yet unfold to us is actually present now. Hence this tenth step is literally the Science of being. In compiling Miscellaneous Writings Mrs Eddy arranges in a systematic manner the items she needs for teaching the spiritual idea. The result is like the lessons of daily life which, to human sense, appear haphazard and to have no programme. Letters, events, precepts, home, business, church work, achievements - all seem to be mixed together in the experiences of a day. Yet could we stand back and view life more metaphysically we might see - as Mrs Eddy does here - an ordered spiritual pattern. By gathering the articles into a structure of twelve chapters she is repeating the lessons of Science and Health, for the tones of these chapters resemble those of the first twelve chapters of the textbook from PRAYER to CHRISTIA" SCIE:

In a thousand different ways Miscellaneous Writings brings home the message that "God is All, in all" (Mis. 26). All there is to our lives, our bodies, our relationships, is some activity of God. The divine All enters into the minutiae of all because we can never be outside of His allness. Does this mean, then, that God is in material things, or that in God's allness evil exists along with good? Clearly not, according to Christian Science, yet taking some of Mrs Eddy's words out of context might lead to such a misunderstanding, depending on how one approaches this 'all.' From the standpoint of Spirit one can say, "God is All," and that is Christian Science. But if from the standpoint of the material senses one were to say, "all is God," that would be pantheism. When the Boston Herald in 1898 carried criticism of her use of the term 'pantheism' she sent the Editor "a correction" regarding it: "God, Spirit, is All-in-all, therefore there is no matter." To settle the issue conclusively Mrs Eddy composed her annual Communion Message to The Mother Church in 1898 on the subject, "Not Pantheism, but Christian Science." It was the first of these Communion Messages to be printed as a little book, no doubt because of the need to give it wide publicity. The argument runs like this: traditional theistic Christianity has a personal God as one thing and a material man as another thing; it claims that God, Spirit, is the infinite good and then allows evil to be another power. Through these inconsistencies it virtually has more than one God, more than one mind. Therefore it is old theology, rather than Christian Science, which is pantheistic. Christian Science, on the contrary, is true monotheism; this infinite Spirit means one spiritual creation, one substance, one law, and no reality in anything else. Furthermore because it is scientific Christianity it demonstrates this proposition through its ability to heal and save. This prosaic summary may show the logic of the book, but to be moved by its inspiration and force one needs Mrs Eddy's own words.
See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

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Mrs Eddy wrote seven of these special Messages to The Mother Church for the occasion of their Communion Service. (Mis. 120, My 121, Pan, My 124, Mess. 1900, Mess. 1901, Mess. 1902.) Instead of giving the students the symbols of bread and wine which are partaken in the ordinary Christian sacrament, in these Communion Messages she is feeding them with the actual Christ-substance that makes up the healthy church body. When Paul is writing his similar epistles to the young church of his day he frequently refers in his messages to "the edification of the church;" for instance, 'the edifying of the body of Christ," or making "increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph. 4). The word has no connection with eating nor, originally, does it mean merely pleasing moral instruction. The literal sense is building up, as in 'edifice.' In these Messages, then, Mrs Eddy is building up the Christian and scientific consciousness that constitutes the Christian Scientist. Although this twelfth book contains some powerful statements, it may appear - on the surface at least - not to carry quite the same spiritual force as the previous eleven; that is, it brings no dramatic new teaching on the nature of God, no fresh revelation of the absolute facts of Science. But we would be very mistaken if we thought it lightweight. The function of the earlier eleven books has been to explain the allness of God and the illusory nature of evil and disease; step by step they equip us to prove in practice the truth of these two points. We have observed just the same spiritual sequence flowing through the chapters of Science and Health. Now with the objections answered (textbook chapter II), the way is open for the successful practice of Christian Science (textbook chapter 12). "Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practised" (S&H 174). And the key to its practice lies not in some extra piece of scientific instruction but in maintaining the Christ-consciousness - which alone does the healing work. What is required is an attitude of abiding, of steadfastness, for as we live our way through the eleven steps we are in the twelfth, the circuit is completed, and the power flows. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

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The Message for 1901 is a substantial little book, and not only for the reason that its thirty-five pages make it by far the longest of these Messages to The Mother Church. In contrast to the previous books it seems to stand back from the details of individual life, to survey the theory and practice of Christian Science, and to teach the underlying scientific essence of all that has gone before. In the order of divine wisdom, experience comes before teaching, for one must first have had some life-experience before it can be spiritually interpreted (see S&H 322:26-32). People customarily think of life as a series of personal and material experiences, whereas Science explains that life actually is the experience of God. Thus while the first twelve books represent the experience of working out the "Life-problem," this thirteenth marks a momentous change as consciousness now moves beyond the boundary of individual achievement and the Scientist finds himself to be the unlimited workings of Principle's own idea. This point of transcending human personality and finding that God is the only Person or doer is the theme both of Message 1901 and of the thirteenth chapter of Science and Health, TEACHING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. What is happening in Mrs Eddy's founding work to explain this change of key? Message 1901 is the first book to be published in the twentieth century, and she welcomes the new century with the poem of that name, bringing its message of heaven here and thus a new earth. Then throughout 1901 she is working on the last structural revision of Science and Health. The rearranged chapters will be in 'matrix' form, so that as the student lives his way through the book he will be born anew as a real Scientist, and the concept of being a mortal person will be replaced. (No wonder the textbook's thirteenth chapter contains the passage on obstetrics!) Accordingly in September 1901 the course on physical obstetrics at the College is discontinued. Again 1901 is when Mrs Eddy announces to the world that her successor is to be not a person but generic man. All these features help to explain why in her own copy of the book she identified Message 1901 as "infinite personality" (Coil. 260). See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

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The Message for 1902 is couched in beautiful language, and has a very direct appeal. It was the last of the long Communion addresses, as they were replaced thereafter by a specially prepared Lesson-Sermon. This one is unique, however, on account of its full name; the double title distinguishes it from all the previous Messages, which were addressed to The Mother Church only. The reason for it, as was explained in Chapter III, is that the addition of a fifth Director in 1902 now makes it possible for The Mother Church with its function of external control to give way to the self-governing Branch. If the Pastor Emeritus does not give her approval to the fifth Director's successor (Man. 26) the church can no longer legally remain The Mother Church, although it will continue to be The First Church. Thus 1902 marks the point when church can be liberated from being an ecclesiastical material organization and can be released into its spiritual phase. "The bonds of organization of the Church were thrown away, so thal" its members might assemble themselves together ... in the bond only of Love" (CS] Feb. 1890); although this quotation refers to the dissolving of the first organization it remains the model for the resolving of the second. Very appropriately Message 1902 is emphatically on the theme of Love interpreting itself through love. It has a strongly-marked fourfold structure: THE OLD AND THE NEW COMMANDMENT, GOD AS LOVE, LOVE ONE ANOTHER, and GODLIKENESS. These four sections reflect the four 'sides' of the city, which brings to earth (love) a foretaste of heaven (Love). They are surely the four 'directors' or cardinal points (see S&H 575-577) by which the individual Christian Scientist can chart his way, find his divine orientation, relate Christianly with others, and be at one with God. Once again the Other Writings reveal their inspired relationship to one another, for this clearly-defined fourfold aspect of Message 1902 expands the sevenfold "numeration table" found in Message 1901, and now shows it at work. While the 'seven' reveal what God is, the 'four' explain how He operates, so that Message 1902 could be described as the calculus of Love. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

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Each of these Other Writings calls for a whole chapter to itself, and Poems more so than most because of the essentially metaphysical nature of poetry and its relation to Science. Ifwe look into this aspect first it will illuminate Mrs Eddy's poems and the force of the fifteenth book. The word 'poem' is from the Greek poiein, to make, to arrange or construct. The poet makes sense out of experience, by revealing its meaning. By making us see the meaning he recreates with the creator. Poetry is creative in that it discloses a significance we had not seen, and reunites us with the great springs of being. "Poetry is itself a thing of God; / He made His prophets poets" says P.]. Bailey in "Festus." Elizabeth Barrett Browning says, "God is Himself the best Poet, / And the Real is His song." Professor Erich Heller provides deep insight into the subject of poetry and meaning: "Poetry always means more than itself. Its meaning is the vindication of the worth and value of the world, of life and of human experience. At heart all poetry is praise and celebration .... Whatever it does, it cannot but confirm the existence of a meaningful world - even when it denounces its meaninglessness. Poetry means order, even with the indictment of chaos; it means hope, even with the outcry of despair. It is concerned with the true stature of things." (The Hazard of Modern Poetry. ) Poetry, like spiritual sense, is heart-knowledge first before the head gives it words. It appeals to our innate conviction that there is symmetry and order in the depths of reality, and this feeling therefore expresses itself in words which reflect that order in metre and rhyme. The more strongly felt an idea, the more rhythmical becomes our way of voicing it. Poetry deals not so much in words as in images, and the images of good poetry are universals. That is, the poet extracts ideas from some particular experience and shows them to be universal in their significance. He links the infinitesimal to the infinite. Our hearts respond to the poem because in some strange way we already know what the poet is saying; both he and we have our origin in the same creative Mind, and so also does his archetypal image, which we recognize. One of the chief functions of poetry, then, is reduction to essence. The inspired prophet-poets who wrote the creation story in Genesis, for example, took the vast range of ideas and values of human life and reduced them to the seven days of creation (which in the original Hebrew are written in verse). And so it is that the fifteenth book, Poems, has its parallel in the fifteenth chapter of Science and Health, GENESIS. As we know, much poetry is about cheated hopes and the sadness of mortal life and yet it can celebrate order and meaning behind it; likewise the chapter GENESIS contrasts the sad chronicle of Adam and fallen man with the eternal harmony of God's unfallen creation. In fact the chapter speaks of "the poverty of mortal existence," and of "richly recompensing human want and woe with spiritual gain" (S&H 501). This contrast is the overall message of Poems. In common with many young people Mary Baker loved to put her thoughts and feelings into poetry, and she records that all through her life she seemed able to express her deeper feelings better in verse than in prose. Her early verses frequently have a religious note of aspiration and hope as they "soar above matter, to fasten on God" (p. 64). Even in those poems about loss and human loneliness her thought is not mere sentimentality: shining through them are many gleams of God's reality and presence. In her nature poems, for instance, she always looks "up through nature unto nature's God" (p. v). She might write, "Touched by the finger of decay I Is every earthly love;" and yet she could add that "When mingling with the universe" she would find compensation (p. 58). This is because, as the GENESIS chapter points out, the mortal sense of God's universe is not actually a different universe from the spiritual one, and the real keeps shining through the mist. Everything rests on the correct sense of the origin of life. The feeling in the poems is that unless man had come from the divine he would not be hungering for it. Broadly speaking the poems published in the book (which arc only a selection from all that she wrote) fall into two parts - those written before her discovery and those written after. First are the early ones, some of them "written in girlhood," and ranging from melancholy, and pleasure in nature, to hymns of patriotism; this group includes her years of lonely struggle up to about 1870. Then from 1871 onwards they are characterized by a strong new tone of spiritual authority, when capitalized terms for God begin to appear plentifully in the lines. When we are ignorant of the spiritual origin of our world we see through a glass, darkly, but once Science has revealed that origin we sing a different kind of song. What makes this fifteenth book unique is that it covers her entire writing lifetime. From first to last her mission has been to establish the spiritual origin of man and the fact that he never fell from his unity with God. Consequently when the volume was published in September 1910 it came out in 'bridal' form - in a gold design on white cloth, with pink roses on the front; 'bridal' because "far heaven is nigh!" (p. 22). The cross and crown emblem had to be on the back, for indeed the general tone of the collected poems is the cross now crowned; the cross of facing up to and laying off the fragile mortal sense oflife and love has yielded to the overwhelming reality of Life and Love. Thus the fight is over and "Our eagle, like the dove, / Returns to bless a bridal/Betokened from above" (p. 10). As the GENESIS chapter puts it, "Divine Science rolls back the clouds of error with the light of Truth, and lifts the curtain on man as never born and as never dying, but as coexistent with his creator" (S&H 557). In the book the forty-eight poems are not arranged in their order of composition; presumably they form a spiritual structure as they stand. But the dates of composition are listed in Appendix C to this volume, so that each poem may be understood in its setting; then they serve as way marks for the stages of her life-work. To comment on a few (in their chronological order): "Alphabet and Bayonet" although written in girlhood prophetically declares, "Science the mighty source" (p. 60). "Old Man of the Mountain" (pre 1850) is taken as a symbol of the power of creation with its "Let there be light" (p. 1). "The Liberty Bells" (p. 71), celebrating Congress passing the act in 1865 prohibiting slavery throughout the Union, is a foretaste of the great mission of Christian Science to abolish mental slavery to material laws (see S&H 224-227). Consequently her declaration that "the Union now is one" (p. 78) is an echo of the human and divine coincidence. In January 1866 she bids goodbye to the old year and asks, "Will the young year dawn with wisdom's light ... ? (p.27) - and indeed it does, momentously. Within a month, wisdom's light has dawned as the great discovery. There follow the poems of 1866--1868 which reflect the years of wandering and of gradual consolidation of this discovery: "Give us this day our daily fopd / In knowing what Thou art!" (p. 28). What Thou art is then identified in 1871 as "Truth, the Life, the Principle of man" (p. 70). Soon she is able to purchase the first home of her own, and celebrates it in "Woman's Rights" (p. 21). Then, writing from this new home-summit and immediately after the first edition of Science and Health is published, she composes the confident "Hymn of Christian Science," now known as the "Communion Hymn" (p. 75): "Saw ye my Saviour? Heard ye the glad sound? / Felt ye the power of the Word?" In August 1882 "The Oak on the Mountain's Summit" serves as "A lesson grave, of life, that teacheth me / To love the Hebrew figure of a tree" (p. 20), for Christian Science is replacing the tree of knowledge with the tree of Life. In 1883 her path is not an easy one and she needs the reassurance of "Christ My Refuge" (p. 12): "And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea / I sec Christ walk." This poem, begun as far back as 1868, is many years in reaching its final form; characteristically the word "wait," in the line "I kiss the cross, and wait to know / A world more bright," is not altered to "wake" until 1910. Only one word, but a world of difference, that illustrates the trend of the entire book. While waiting and acting as pastor of the church in 1887, she prays to the great Shepherd, "Shepherd, show me how to go ... How to feed Thy sheep" (p. 14). There is now a gap of six years before the next one, "Mother's Evening Prayer" (p. 4). The new church is established, and Mrs Eddy's personal mothering is being withdrawn in favour of "Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!" At that time there are factions within the church, and so it is the members who are being urged to pray, "Brood o'er us with Thy shelt'ring wing, / 'Neath which our spirits blend" (p.6). True church, or human society, is the 'uncapitalized' ideas kept wedded to their capitalized source, as is shown in the lines "Fed by Thy love divine we live, / For Love alone is Life." From this wedlock of Principle and idea we can learn to be reborn, as in "Christmas Morn" (p. 29) - learn to regard man as "Thou God-idea, Life-encrowned," of which the human concept is but a shadow. Thus if faithful we would arrive at the last poem in the book, "Satisfied" (p. 79). On a personal level we know that "It matters not what be thy lot, / So Love doth guide;" and in the wider generic sense it means that "The centuries break, the earth-bound wake." Does it not also mean that the millennium would then no longer be merely a poetic image, but would be man's actual experience? The constant idea that reverberates through the poems is that the unity of God and man is not a beautiful dream, but is ever-present solid reality. The final book, Miscellarry, takes up this theme of unity and extends it out into the world. Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings 'You will find me in my books' “To be a Christian Scientist involves being changed; it demands an inner transformation, a renovation of the self, in order to become a transparency for the divine. This vital work is done by spiritualization of consciousness, but it is done in the area of life and of relationships, and it is on this area of experience that the Other Writings concentrate. Mrs Eddy herself considered these writings 'essential to preparing Christian Scientists for the full understanding of Science and Health'” (Orcutt 78). "The spiritual beauty and practicality of these inspired books have made them beloved to generations of Christian Scientists, yet strangely few students today, a century later, know much about their origin, or regard them in their wholeness. Yet this is critical to appreciating the value of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy’s flagship which is the Textbook of Christian Science. Understanding this framework is necessary in order to approach the ever-unfoldment that takes place when a serious study of Christian Science is undertaken. With this background information the student can read intelligently each piece in its setting, The message of the writings is enormously enhanced once he understands their occasion. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)

With the sixteenth book we arrive at the goal of all our journey; at least, to human sense it seems that we 'have arrived.' Putting it more scientifically, we have been there forever, and the fifteen books represent the successive removal of the veils. With the last veil gone, we can both see and be what was true all the time. Our destination is likewise our starting-point - the absolute unity of divine Principle and its idea. The message of each of the earlier books has been a variation on this theme. The way the sixteenth book explains it is not in some new profound and abstract statement but via its application to every plane of thought and experience. Ever since Mrs Eddy gathered up her articles from the first fourteen years of the Journal (1883-1896) and published them in Miscellaneous Writings, she has been collecting together similar material from the next fourteen years (1897-1910), and it is published three years after her passing, in November 1913, as The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany. We notice that "The Mother Church" does not feature in the title, even though there are many references to it within the book. This is surely because, according to Mrs Eddy's intention, the external mother aspect of the church has by now dissolved. Thus we glimpse the importance of the book being published posthumously, for it takes the idea of Christian Science out of material organization, beyond her personal presence, and out into the twentieth century as the ideal of a new world. While Miscellaneous Writings covers the erection of the original Mother Church building. Miscellany deals with its Extension - in both a literal and a figurative sense. "The modest edifice of The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, began with the cross; its excelsior extension is the crown. The room of your Leader remains in the beginning of this edifice. .. Its crowning ultimate rises to a mental monument, a superstructure high above the work of men's hands" (p. 6). The book is thus in two halves. The first, called "The First Church of Christ, Scientist," chronicles the physical building of the Extension - its inception, construction and dedication; the second half, called "Miscellany," takes the idea of extension and broadens it out metaphysically so that we see Christian Science permeating and constituting the world. Continuing the quotation, Mrs Eddy deliberately describes this "mental monument" as "giving to the material a spiritual significance. " Looking at the first half of the book, we observe that it is in four distinct parts: the Foreword, the Dedicatory Message "Choose Ye," the account of how the Extension came into being, and finally the world's astonished and respectful reaction. The Foreword first appeared as a letter in the Sentinel (April 1906) entitled "Lest We Forget." It was dictated by Mrs Eddy but signed by her associate secretary Lewis E. Strang - a device often employed by her when she wished not to be personally involved. The import of this Foreword, which we should not forget, is that the seed of the extension of Christian Science into the world is in Science and Health, and does not originate in the world's systems of thought. Metaphysically speaking, Christian Science is the world, and the world in 1906 is already beginning to acknowledge it. An astounding example is found in the editorial opinion quoted from the Denver (Col.) News (p. 89): "The dedication of the new Mother Church of the Christian Scientists in Boston is not a matter of interest to that city alone, but to the nation; not to the nation alone, but to the world; not to this time alone, but to history. The growth of this form of religious faith ... is, in some respects, the greatest religious phenomenon of all history ... The world is enormously richer for this reincarnation of the old, old gospel." The message of dedication of the Extension is a masterpiece of straight speaking. It sets before the student an open choice as to whether he is being a Christian Scientist or not. He can choose whether to be disabled (in belief) by accepting the thrall of sin -I ust, dishonesty, pride of place; or he can accept reality and comply with Truth, and thus "enter in through the gates into the city" in practice (p. 3). "Choose ye!" In view of what extension symbolizes, perhaps the key sentence is, "Christian Science is not a dweller apart in royal solitude ... nor a transcendentalism that heals only the sick" (p. 3). Because of "God giving all and man having all that God gives" (p. 5), immediately following the dedication the editions of Science and Health were no longer numbered and, after 1906, no fresh copyright was secured for it, because Christian Science is given to the world. The reference to entering through the gates into the city at once links this sixteenth book with the sixteenth chapter of Science and Health, THE APOCALYPSE, the chieffeature of which is the four-sided city. The chapter speaks of the angel with the little open book, of the woman clothed with the sun who brings forth the man child, of the war in heaven when the great red dragon is cast out, as well as the city itself; yet however much the symbols may vary, the central idea remains the same. Man dwells in God, as the activity of God; divine Principle is omni-active as its own spiritual idea. All the chapters of the textbook, in their individual ways, have been referring to this fundamental unity, bringing consciousness to the point where it not only enters the city but is the city. Man is the divine infinite calculus. For this reason THE APOCALYPSE chapter is itself made up of precisely sixteen sections, and is found to be a microcosm of the textbook. In a similar manner the book The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany is also a spiritual summation of the other fifteen. In THE APOCALYPSE the city is described twice, suggesting two different ways of viewing its meaning. First, as "our city," it is "the city foursquare" (S&H 575), with four sides, so that it would be represented on paper thus: D Then, as "the city of our God," it "has no boundary nor limit, but its four cardinal points" are the Word, the Christ, Christianity, Christian Science. Graphically it would be drawn like this: + "Its gates open .. both within and without" (S&H 577). These two conceptions of the same city give a good explanation of the two halves of the book Miscellany, for in the first half the extension is like a holy city that one must strive to come into (as we have seen), while in the second half extension radiates outwards as the truth of the whole world. Before coming to this "Miscellany" half, it will be interesting to know what was the authorization for the publication of the book. The answer given in the Report of the Committee on General Welfare, 1920, is: "On August 21st, 1909, Mrs Eddy sealed up the package of prepared articles and wrote on the wrapper: 'Nobody shall open this or read its contents during my lifetime without my written consent.' In March, 1913, The Christian Science Board of Directors turned the package of manuscript over to the publisher of Mrs Eddy's writings, with instructions to prepare for publication a volume to be entitled 'The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.' At the same time 'Ways that are Vain,' and additional articles by Mrs Eddy which had appeared in the periodicals subsequent to August 21st, 1909, were included." Amongst the added material, all listed in Appendix B, is the precious "Christian Science is absolute" item in INSTRUCTION BY MRS EDDY (p.241). From Mrs Eddy's wording we cannot conclude that she positively did not wish the pieces published after August 1909 to be included eventually; but it is a different matter when we come to WAYS THAT ARE VAIN (p. 210). As was noted in Chapter III, she had declined the opportunity to include it, had she so wished, either in Miscellaneous Writings in 1896 or in the package for Miscellany in 1909. In its place she had included WHAT OUR LEADER SAYS (p. 210), which is virtually her last word on the subject of dealing with evil. These observations lead us to the important point that her work as Revelator was twofold: it had to include both the revelation of Truth and the uncovering of error, for she must explain what reality is not as well as what it is. From the beginning the statements of the reality of God and man never changed in substance, but the method of dealing with evil did change radically. It seems that the nature of Truth came to her directly from God, whereas the nature of animal magnetism she had to discover for herself. While the facts of God had declared themselves systematically, the handling of the problem of evil evolved only slowly and from personal experience. This explains why the treatment of mental malpractice underwent such enormous changes, from fighting it head-on in the beginning to reducing it scientifically to its native nothingness in the end. One is reminded that THE APOCALYPSE chapter itself is largely concerned with the overcoming of the dragon, and while Michael (Truth) "fights the holy wars," to Gabriel (who is "the ever-presence of ministering Love") there is never any contest (see S&H 566:25--13). We return now to the consideration of the second half of the book, the part specifically called "Miscellany." There is a mass of material hereletters, items of instruction, counsel, tributes, articles for the press, and so on. It is neatly grouped now into twenty chapters according to subjects, and chronologically arranged within their chapters. Many of these articles we have already discussed as they arose in the historical survey. Although they appear to cover many different topics, in general they have one overall theme- the details of life seen within the context of Christian Science. Their wide diversity comes down to three main groupings - items relating to branch churches, those relating to The Mother Church, and those connected with the world, suggesting the individual and the collective being at one in the universal. But these three "cardinal points" are all equal aspects of the one city where all are citizens and directly under the one King. The fourth point, according to the textbook, is that Science interprets and coordinates the activity and relationships of the whole. What does this mean in practical terms? It means that the final book takes one up to the absolute unity of Principle and idea but does not leave one marooned in metaphysical abstractions. It brings the vision down to embrace, to permeate and to transform everything in life. "Christian Science healing is 'the Spirit and the bride,' - the Word and the wedding of this Word to all human thought and action," as this sixteenth book itself says (p. 153). When all the details oflife are thus transformed by Spirit, we "behold once again the power of divine Life and Love to heal and reinstate man in God's own image and likeness." The citation should be familiar, for we have met it before - in the very first of the books. It is The People's Idea of God which lays it down from the beginning that the basis of operation is "the final unity between man and God." From that premise and no other, the reinstatement is wrought out in life-practice, for the unity has never been interru pted and remains forever the reality. Thus the las t of the books circles back to the first, showing that the work is a satisfying cycle, as we continually come forth from and return to our divine source. Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings 'You will find me in my books' “To be a Christian Scientist involves being changed; it demands an inner transformation, a renovation of the self, in order to become a transparency for the divine. This vital work is done by spiritualization of consciousness, but it is done in the area of life and of relationships, and it is on this area of experience that the Other Writings concentrate. Mrs Eddy herself considered these writings 'essential to preparing Christian Scientists for the full understanding of Science and Health'” (Orcutt 78). "The spiritual beauty and practicality of these inspired books have made them beloved to generations of Christian Scientists, yet strangely few students today, a century later, know much about their origin, or regard them in their wholeness. Yet this is critical to appreciating the value of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy’s flagship which is the Textbook of Christian Science. Understanding this framework is necessary in order to approach the ever-unfoldment that takes place when a serious study of Christian Science is undertaken. With this background information the student can read intelligently each piece in its setting, The message of the writings is enormously enhanced once he understands their occasion. See Mary Baker Eddy's Other Writings by John L. Morgan (1984)