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Retrospection and Introspection: The Gospel According to Mary Baker Eddy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Stephen J. Stein
Stephen J. Stein
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Extract

In 1891 Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) opened her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, with a romanticized account of her family tree entitled “Ancestral Shadows.” Little more than one hundred pages later she closed her presentation with a confident prediction that in future centuries the “Tree of Life” would “blossom” under the influence of “Divine Science,” benefiting all the nations. Between these extremities of genealogy and eschatology she grouped a potpourri of reflections— personal, historical, literary, and theological —which defy easy categorization and lack apparent organization. To this day her selfportrait remains a puzzle, a resource often ignored by those struggling to understand this “remarkable” woman. This essay is an attempt to unlock the enigma of Retrospection and Introspection by examining the content and the structure of the text itself, thereby shedding light on Mary Baker Eddy's self-conception as the discoverer and founder of Christian Science.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , January 1982 , pp. 97 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1982

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References

1 Retrospection and Introspection (Boston: Nixon, 1891) 7, 119.Google Scholar A new edition of 95 pp. (Boston: Stewart, 1892) was issued a year later. Both were reprinted numerous times over the next twenty-five years. Eventually the second edition became the fixed text and is available from The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. Except as above, the second edition is cited throughout this essay. For convenience of reference below, chapter numbers 1–30 have been assigned following the second edition. Two earlier publications by Eddy contain some similar materials: Historical Sketch of Metaphysical Healing (Boston, 1885)Google Scholar, and Historical Sketch of Christian Science Mind-Healing (Boston, 1888 and 1890).Google Scholar

2 The characterization of Eddy is Sydney Ahlstrom's, E. in his insightful essay on her in Notable American Women 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary (James, Edward T. et al., eds.; 3 vols.; Cambridge, MA, 1971) 1. 556.Google Scholar

3 Mary Baker Eddy (3 vols.; New York, 1966–1977) 2. 381–82 n.Google Scholar

4 The decade of the 1880s witnessed notable defections from the ranks of Eddy's close followers and also several controversial lawsuits. In 1889 she moved to Concord, New Hampshire, where she became increasingly removed from the daily administration of the church and isolated from the public. See Peel, Mary Baker Eddy, 2. 251ff.

5 Retrospection and Introspection, 21–22. From this point on, inclusive references to the text of the second edition are given at the end of each paragraph.

6 Ibid., 22. The gospel pattern is perhaps the only literary form peculiar to Christianity.

7 Here and elsewhere biblical references or allusions in Eddy's text are identified in parentheses. Multiple references are sometimes possible, but only one location is cited.

8 Retrospection and Introspection, 1–7.

9 Ibid., 8–9.

10 Ibid., 10, 13.

11 Ibid., 13. See Peel, Mary Baker Eddy, 1. 50ff.

12 Retrospection and Introspection, 11–15, 17–18.

13 Ibid., 19–22.

14 Ibid., 23.

15 Ibid., 24–26.

16 Ibid., 27–29.

17 Ibid., 30–32.

18 Ibid., 33–34.

19 Ibid., 40–41.

20 Ibid., 35–36.

21 Ibid., 37–39.

22 Ibid., 42–46.

23 Ibid., 47–53.

24 Ibid., 54–55.

25 Ibid., 56–62.

26 Ibid., 63–66.

27 Ibid., 67–70.

28 Ibid., 70.

29 Ibid., 70–74.

30 Ibid., 75–77.

31 Ibid., 78–85.

32 Ibid., 86–92.

33 Ibid., 93–95.

34 For a description of the controversy concerning Eddy, see Gottschalk, Stephen, The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life (Berkeley, CA, 1973) 159–74.Google Scholar

35 Although Eddy employed James Henry Wiggin, a former Unitarian minister, as an editorial assistant from 1885–91, she was still responsible for the nature and substance of her writings during those years. “The evidence of her books and letters shows that Wiggin ‘toned up’ her sense of style, but affected her basic thinking not at all,” (Peel, Mary Baker Eddy, 2. 189). Peel discusses Eddy's relationship with Wiggin on pp. 186–91. The possibility of conscious use of the gospel pattern is given credibility by several citations contained in Peel's biography. E.g., he cites Julia Bartlett's description of one occasion in 1881: “Mrs. Eddy read the 17th chapter of John, and her parting remarks to us on the event of her leaving the city and her admonitions in regard to the care of the Church and the Cause sank deeply in our hearts” (2. 100). In 1882 after a triumphal reception in Boston, Eddy wrote, “This was my entry into Jerusalem. Will it be followed with another cross?” (2. 110).

36 Robert Peel's volumes contain an abundance of materials documenting the biblical dimension in Eddy's life. In 1891 in the 50th edition of Science and Health she wrote: “For three years I sought, day and night, the solution of this problem of Mind-healing; searched the Scriptures, and read nothing else; kept aloof from society, and devoted my time and energies to discovering a positive rule” (Mary Baker Eddy, 2. 290). Peel notes elsewhere that Eddy always “found her chief inspiration in the Bible” (2. 299).

37 Representative pieces of apologetic literature include such volumes as Wilbur, Sibyl, The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (New York, 1907Google Scholar); Powell, Lyman P., Mary Baker Eddy: A Life Size Portrait (New York, 1930)Google Scholar; and Beasley, Norman, Mary Baker Eddy (New York, 1963).Google Scholar

38 Representative pieces of literature critical of Eddy include such volumes as Milmine, Georgine, The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science (New York, 1909)Google Scholar; Dakin, Edwin Franden, Mrs. Eddy: The Biography of a Virginal Mind (New York, 1929)Google Scholar; and Bates, Ernest Sutherland and Dittemore, John V., Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition (New York, 1932).Google Scholar Samuel Clemens's diatribe against Eddy featured her biblical interests. See Christian Science (New York, 1907).Google ScholarParker, Gail Thain offers a biting psychological critique of Eddy in Mind Cure in New England: From the Civil War to World War I (Hanover, NH, 1973) 109–129.Google Scholar

39 Gottschalk offers an excellent theological analysis of Christian Science which takes seriously the community's claims and tries to understand them on their own terms (Emergence, 46–97).

40 The conflicts and rivalries within Christian Science in the decade before the publication of the autobiography are discussed in Gottschalk, Emergence, 89–138, and in Peel, Mary Baker Eddy, vol. 2.

41 Pascal, Roy, Design and Truth in Autobiography (Cambridge, MA, 1960), 9.Google Scholar