COLLECTANEA
of Items by and about
MARY BAKER EDDY
The following is copied from a notebook kept by
MARY BAKER EDDY
in her own handwriting
February 18, 1890
Mrs. Eddy wrote notes on the Scriptures in 1868 in an attic with only a skylight, for lack of means with which to rent better quarters.
She wrote Science and Health, 1875.
Sunday Evening, June 15, 1890
In order to destroy fear in others, first destroy your own fear. This may be done in two ways. By looking through it, and by gaining the divine or spiritual consciousness. This also may be accomplished in two ways, either by watching, working, and praying or by suffering.
We cannot gain spiritual understanding except through the footsteps of faith. First faith, then understanding.
"Our faith should lengthen its borders and strengthen its base by resting on Spirit instead of matter." S & H.
February 9, 1892
The manifestations of the workings of A.M. on a person has three stages.
1st. Stupidity, idiocy, or frenzy, suffering or exhilaration, unconscious of the error he says or does.
2nd. When told of it, will deny having said or done the wrong and argue in defense of it.
3rd. Will declare that there is no A.M.
January 4, 1891
Christ is the Mind of Christ, not the character.
I can see his way from "take the sword," "I came to bring a sword," to the time he said, "put up the sword," the entire pathway and can see that it is the only way in Christian Science.
November 27, 1897
My present sense of heaven is to have some person that would understand me one bit.
Extracts from a letter written June 10, 1890, from 62 N. State St., Concord, N.H., to Mrs. Lathrop:
. . . Love, Love alone will found, upbuild, and establish forever both the Christian Scientist and our Cause.
Envy, jealousy, or rivalry will kill the spirit of this Science in the person who possesses it and will thwart the establishment of it in this age. Oh, why is not this realized by everyone who has the Cause at heart and who has labored faithfully in some directions for its advancement?
. . . A dozen Churches of C.S. in the big city of N.Y. that were harmonious and truly Christian in word and deed, would tend to promote the growth and prosperity of each other. Every Church and Pastor of our denomination would be greatly supported by this unity. The Principle of our demonstration as Christian Scientists is unity, and our demonstrations depend on united minds and their at-one-ment with the One Mind.
February 1, 1903
When I met with an accident in 1866, I at first took Dr. Cushing’s medicine and it did me no good; then I quit taking it. After I read Jesus’ method of healing referred to in the Gospel, and it raised me from my bed, I took no more of Dr. C.’s medicine, and when he again called I showed to him the powders he gave me lying in the drawer of the table that stood beside my bed, and others saw them there.
M.A.M. extinguishes all that is humane in human nature and utterly obscures to mortal view whatever is Divine.
July 1897. I wrote to Mr. Kimball that an address was proper, but not a sermon, when dedicating a church.
When traveling from the northern to the southern hemisphere, the Pole Star and Dipper are lost sight of; we see the Southern Cross.
The Hindu Vedas and Mohammedan Koran are what the Bible is to Christians.
Dr. Abbott regards God as an intellectual energy. I hold God to be a spiritual Energy.
Scripture Interpretations. "You shall say to yonder mountain, be removed into the sea and it shall be done." Shall say to a belief satisfied, be dissolved and it shall be done.
Opened to this Sept. 6, 1898: For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? St. Paul.
France’s Pasteur was a greater man than its Napoleon.
March 14th, 1897. I requested the students of Christian Science stop their teaching C.S. for one year from that date.
Next message to my church is to be CHOICE and OBEDIENCE.
Ideology, the Science of Mind. Worcester’s dictionary.
Christian Science Rules. Watch, bear testimony, demonstrate.
Take notice, Healing, Revelation 21:1 to 7.
Dickey left Jan. 14; returned in 2 weeks.
My home on Beacon St., Brookline, cost $207,061.36.
Clipping from The Daily Patriot, Monday, December 2, 1907, re: Decoration as Officer d’Academy conferred on Mrs. Eddy by the French government. "The first woman thus honored."
In my library is a book entitled Geneological and Family History of the State of New Hampshire. It contains a sketch of the Baker Family, Mrs. Eddy’s portrait on its first page.
Franz von Lenback, the German artist who painted my portrait in . . . .
March 12, 1904, I gave as a present to Calvin A. Frye, 5,000 dollars (five thousand dollars) Mary B. G. Eddy.
Mrs. Sibyl O’Brien, of the Boston Herald sought me to contribute to a symposium in this paper. February 9, 1905.
No. 172 is the number of the key to my safety box that contains my valuable papers. This key I must hand to anyone that opens my box. Mary B. Eddy.
The key to my safety box in Concord, that is marked 172, opens the box that contains my WILL and private papers. I must sign an order for anyone to open it for me, except Mr. Frye.
One thousand dollars was paid by the church for making Mrs. M. B. G. Eddy a member of The Association for International Conciliation, its highest plane of American Fondateur.
Healing
Ask Lucy Allen of Lynn about the awful cripple that I healed on street by saying to him, "God loves you," and he rose from the sidewalk, went into Mr. Allen’s and told Lucy about it. The man in Chelsea, Mass., that Mrs. Slade knew that I healed.
March 13, 1907. I signed 25 bonds in about ten minutes and without using glasses.
In less than three centuries the Christianity of Christ had been legally proclaimed the religion of State of the Byzantine or eastern division of the Roman Empire (News Letter).
This gave an impulse to politicians to join the church and Christianity was stamped out, spirituality was lost, and a material religion attempted to be grafted into the tree of Life.
On September 1, 1899, when Judge H. and Mrs. H
. came here to see me and with all that I had endured, I fell on the sofa in the hall "fainting under the cross," and when able to barely get into the library, not a word of sympathy was expressed; yet they must have heard my groans. But Mrs. H. said, "Mr. Stephen Chase said that you told him to have Dr. J. B. Foster excommunicated from The Mother Church," and said, "did you not Mrs. Eddy?" trying to make me say it when she knew Mr. Chase never said that.
July 9, 1899
The following Scripture came to me as if spoken in my ears when I was at prayer and anxious to know if what I had said July 6, 1899 — to my students that I had called together — was just and deserved, "Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth" etc., Isaiah 29. ver. 13., and our Master’s words — "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." Matt. 15:8. These were the words that came to me; and I looked up the Prophet’s sayings also in connection with that saying of Jesus. M. B. Eddy.
December 13, 1899, I returned the balance of $572.45 on the collection taken by The Mother Church for purchasing an organ and presenting it to me for the C.S. Hall that I have had made in Concord, requesting the church to receive it from me as a contribution toward a Church Fund for indigent members.
Science and Health
The house burned where this book lay on the table and the covers burned off, but not one word in it was disfigured or gone when the book was saved. This occurred in Lowell, Mass., April 15, 1891, at 12:45 P.M. on that day. (C. S. Journal, Vol. IX, p.257.)
175 Poplar St., Roslindale, Mass.
June 18, 1891
Mr. J. B. Harrington:
I address you as my student because you study the little Book that our Heavenly Father has written through me for you and for all mankind.
Your teacher was an interesting student of mine in the classroom, and is doing what she can out of it, I have no doubt.
You may not learn through language my feelings when I took that sacred Book rescued by the Divine hand from devouring flames, and through it saw the meaning of this rescue in the type before me.
I have received presents from my beloved students that I prize beyond all things that I ever before possessed. But dear friend, your gift to me of my last revised SCIENCE AND HEALTH saved from the fire that consumed all around it, but kindled not on its sacred pages, is a gift dearer to me than aught else this earth contains.
Just before the Book arrived, one of my noblest and best students gave me a large diamond cross, eleven diamonds sparkling on its significant form. They said to me when presenting it: "The cross is illumined." Prophetic words! This Book, my book of books, taken by the finger of God out of elements of matter that would have destroyed it, illumines my life, its struggles, its victories.
I cannot thank you, for pen or tongue cannot express my thanks. But my heart speaks to you. Oh! do you hear it saying, Heavenly Father reward his life, give him victory over sense and self and crown him with what the world cannot give and thieves cannot break through and steal.
With my love to Mrs. Merriman,
I am very truly yours in Christ,
Mary B. G. Eddy
(See C. S. Journal, Vol. IX, p. 257)
Lord Kelvin, the greatest living scientist now that Melmboltz has passed away, declared in his address before the British Association: "There is nothing in material science that reaches the origin of anything at all."
The household must have light and less than four decades ago men periled their lives to harpoon whales for whale oil and made tallow candles dipped at home. But one day somebody noticed a scum of iridescence upon the pools of a swamp and, lo! kerosene had trickled into the world from the very heart of Mother Earth, as if to give the poor man’s home a moonlight.
Jerome was fought for translating the Latin Vulgate; Wyclif and Tyndall for their translation into the English Language; Luther for his German translation.
Literary Biblical fads are, to my thinking, taking out much of the beauty and spirituality of the Scriptures. Eddy
A period of transition is this: Christian Science has already made theology more ethical and more humane.
James M. Whitton says, "The old and finished theology of the 16th and 17th centuries will no more re-establish itself than the old Ptolemaic astronomy." He then writes in 1897 much that is written in the textbook of C. S. Thus he writes, "The truly human Jesus has been recovered. The divine Christ, from being merely a make weight in a scheme of divine government, fancied to be like that of earthly rulers, has been rediscovered as permanently indwelling in the life of both God and man."
This is a description only of my meaning in the term that I use for the Christ — namely, the spiritual idea.
Signs Following
When translating Scripture, I took courage by reading the context that corresponded with my interpretation.
When writing S. & H., I was told nobody could understand that book, etc. I replied I have been healing the sick today with what I have written, and 30 years afterwards the sick are being healed when reading these very pages that I was writing that day.
Opposition from my students and others, rather than help, attended all my early labors.
I had rather have a Thomas than a Peter for a student of C. S. He doubted till convinced. I learned my way by doubting till convinced of the Truth.
"The strong soil in human nature is selfish apathy. The wayside soil is a transient, laughing, vain, loving-ease character that never can be relied [on] in time of need. The sunstruck mind is one that resists the light if this light demands the relinquishment of all that tends to darken life, dim conscience, and demand other gods. The good soil is the active honest heart. Where this exists, there is energy, fidelity, success and reward gained by the individual, not a gift of God, but the wages of uprightness and hard work, struggle and victory." From article entitled "Soldier, Seed, and Soil."
The Christian Science Monitor was first issued November 25 (1908), and one hundred and sixty thousand copies were sold on the first day it came out. The Publishing House was unable to fill all the orders. God is our ever-present help. When I first proposed to the Christian Scientists to have this newspaper and gave it its name, I had not much encouragement from them that it would be a success.
Send me something to eat that I relish. November 1, 1910.
Took the lease of the house at 569 Columbus Ave. April 25, 1882. Rent $83.33.
Natural science (so-called) calculus shows a fourth dimension which no one understands. First is the line, next the plane, third space. The first, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, yea, All is Spirit.
Three C. S. steps: (1) Not to be idolaters. (2) Not to fear something besides God. (3) Not to fear God.
Normal Class Subjects
1. Infinity — Mind, Spirit, Soul, Good, Life, Truth, Love, Prayer.
2. Finity — personality, evil, reversing Good.
3. Sin — serpent, lie, liar, sickness, disease, death.
4. Christian Science — a square to material sense, but to spiritual sense a sphere. The square is composed of 4 sides viz., God, Christ, Bible, Christianity. The sphere of C. S. is without limits; it is one and all, and all because one. Prayer, Watching, the Way. (Four lessons each of one hour. Tuition $200.)
Church of Christ, Scientist chartered Aug. 23, 1879. The same month, Mrs. Eddy was called to the pastorate. Sept. 14th, she declined accepting the call. Oct. 16th, at a church meeting at Dorcas Rawson’s, 44 Chestnut St., Lynn, it was unanimously voted that Mrs. Eddy and Mr. Eddy merited the thanks of this society for their devoted labors in the cause of Truth. At a meeting Dec. 1, 1879 held at 133 West Newton, Boston, Mrs. Eddy accepted the second call to take the pastorate and commenced preaching to this church that she had organized before she went away to prepare her revised edition of Science and Health. She had such tasks imposed on her that she had to go away to do this work, and was employed the three hottest months of summer, when most of the church members were away to rest, to get this work ready. Then came back and saw the dead condition of the church and commenced preaching to them at Hawthorne rooms at $5.00 per week. She had lectured to them the year before, 8 months, without taking even the contribution or a cent to pay her fare every Sunday from Lynn to Boston, and during this time doubled the church membership and got a great interest aroused in Boston.
July 7, 1874. Paid for copyright.
1872. Commenced writing the Science of Life in February, 1872.
1875, October 30th. Science and Health printed.
Dissolution of Co-partnership between Mrs. Glover [Eddy] and her student, Richard Kennedy, was published May 11th, 1872.
September 16, 1874. Sent my manuscript to the printer to commence work. The work is entitled The Science of Life.
The material senses conflict with the spiritual sense, alias there is war between the flesh and Spirit or evil and good.
Rules for overcoming animal magnetism:
1. See what it is trying to do
2. Know that it cannot do it
3. See that it is not done.
To accomplish this:
1. Be patient
2. Be meek
3. Be vigilant
4. Be sober
5. Be loving
September 17,1907. Let my church buy the house and rent it to me.
September 24, 1907. Terrific clouds all over the sky changed instantaneously by me, and a gentle rain and rainbow appeared.
Book just found entitled The Time of the End. As early as 1571 a Doctor of Divinity advanced the idea that the reappearing of Christ would occur in 1866.
Mrs. Batchelder of Boston, Mass., painted one full-sized portrait of me as I stood in my pulpit in The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist. She graduated in Florence, Italy.
S. & H. page 442, lines on sleep. [Written Feb., 1908.]
It is as necessary that I should remain at home for the central stillness of C.S. work as for the hub of a wheel not to move in the radius of its rim.
Footsteps of C. S.
1. A great light Matt.4:16
2. Repentance Matt.4:17
3. Obedience Matt:5:17
4. Purity Matt.5:28
5. Less Talk Matt.5:37
6. Perfection; resist not evil; love your enemies;
return good for evil, etc., etc., etc. Matt.5:48, 39-44.
Degrees in C.S.
Mr. Norcross in index of S.& H., wrote, "Spirits that go out do not return to the body." In correcting this Mr. Frye wrote, "Spirits do not go out nor return to the body." I corrected both thus, "Spirit neither enters nor returns to the body or matter." (M. B. G. Eddy)
December 19, 1880
Commenced services at the Hawthorne rooms. The salary proposed was ten dollars by Mrs. Choate, but they said they would wait to see how much was collected of arrears before settling on the amount. I said I should not state my salary but leave it to them to say how much it should be, but that I should not take more than five dollars per week, and could not agree for one year as duty might call me away.
Facsimile of Mary Baker Eddy's Handriting
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The following are the contents of a notebook kept by
MRS. MARIA NEWCOMB
during the two years she served as maid
in the home of Mary Baker Eddy
If the heart stays young, old age can never become anything but ennobled thereby. Years do not make one grow old if one grows in grace. Decay does not belong to matter so much as to mind. Now, I believe that if we kept our mind fixed on God, Life, Truth and Love, He will advance us our years to a higher understanding, and change our hope into faith, and our faith into spiritual understanding, and our words into works, and our ultimate faith into the fruition of entering into the Kingdom.
Concord — Thoughts. December 30, 1891
I think it has been my great aspiration, that the wave of error calling itself death, should not pass over me.
I see this morning that this aspiration, this thought of itself, is an error, in that it builds up the belief that there is something to fight, something to overcome, and thus it fosters fear. What if this wave does seem to engulf me, the opposite fact that it does not is the Truth, and by this seeming I am not changed, not harmed, for nothing can ever have any power to affect us.
This view removes fear, and removes the aspiration, and shows me that by this means I am doing more towards conquering, more to keep off the wave. We need not take up arms against a shadow when it is clear to us that it is a shadow. I Cor. 15:55.
February 27, 1892
The law of mortal mind that says our work, whatever it may be, will not amount to anything, must be broken. Know first that no such law can interfere with Truth.
Second, that there is no such law. All law is divine, and this law of mortal mind is only the inverted image of the law of God. Reverse it, and you will find the divine law that thoughts of Truth must have an effect. Isaiah 55:10,11.
March 31, 1892. Near 12 P.M.
Our work is not to change God’s work, for that is finished and perfect. Neither is it to make error nothing, for it is that already; but to stand (apparently) in the midst of it, unmoved, knowing its nothingness. Isaiah 43:2.
April 6, 1892
No mortal thought put in action by any mesmerist, or combined force of mesmerists, or anyone whom they should employ, has any power to affect.
There is no M.A.M. "The Lord He is God and there is none beside Him."
May 11, 1892
Meet every false claim with the absolute Truth, nothing short of that will answer. John 8:32.
May 21, 1892
Mortal mind at its best only reflects the immortal and perfect Mind even as the moon reflects the sun. So mortal mind (at best) shines with a borrowed light. For it to know this great fact and have a determination to reflect Good, is to turn away from itself as substance and intelligence, and thereby harmony is seen in reflection. "For this mortal shall have put on immortality," etc. Ezekiel chap. 16.
June 6, 1892
A "Judas" is necessary (as a type) to uncover evil. Evil must be uncovered in order to bring out, or prove Truth. Mrs. E.
Matt. 18:7. Luke 17:1. John 9:3. Romans 9:17.
An Audible Treatment. June 18, 1892
I would bring you near to God for in Him is salvation, salvation from every ill. Sickness is an ill.
God is omnipotent, all-powerful, omnipresent, everywhere present, omniscient, all-knowing. Make them see every point.
God is perfect Mind. Nothing but Mind can know all, have all power, and be everywhere present.
Sin, sickness and death are not in this perfect Mind which is God. The universal law is that the greater must control the lesser. Then perfection must rule over imperfection.
Prove to them the fact that the body is controlled by Mind.
Show the utter powerlessness of the body as matter.
Prove it to them by illustrations that they can lay hold of. Use smiles, tears, a blush, action of the body in coming or going to different localities. Show them that the eyes have no power to weep, the face no power to smile, the arm no power to lift itself, the limbs no power to walk. Prove by inaction during sleep and death. Then show the condition of the body in sickness, paralysis and death to be its response to the fear which is produced in consequence of the ignorance of the fact that mind governs instead of the body. Show them that this discordant action is unconscious to them until they are awakened to it.
Bring to bear the fact that death has many times come by fright. Use page 45 top and 378 Science and Health. Read chapter on medicine.
Body and mind are one in action, or the visible manifestation of an invisible power. The I and body one. The I must be changed in order to change the body.
Let them see that the perfect Mind which is without these discordant conditions, fear, ignorance, etc. must govern.
Make them see all this, and in proportion as you see it, can you make them see it. Isa. 10:15.
July 10, 1892
To the senses, a pain is present. Now, this pain is a condition of (mortal) mind, which we call mesmerism, a condition which would say, I am something.
We know that the true, or real condition of Mind, which is perfection, freedom from all pain, is ever-present.
The intermediate condition of mind is one which has the knowledge that the false, or condition of pain, has no power to hold or perpetuate itself, because of the ever-presence of the true condition which only needs be recognized. To recognize it, is to call upon God for help.
"And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." Isaiah 65:24.
August 1, 1892
See all false claims as conditions of (mortal) mind entirely distinct from the person.
Handle each one as it appears to your thought.
Watch your own thought that you be not tripped and used as a channel to prevent the good work you are trying to do.
This is most important, as the subtlety of evil is to prevent Truth from appearing.
Another subtlety is the claim that to "handle the serpent" will not do any good. Look well to this. II Cor. 10:5. Heb. 4:12.
August 6, 1892
The intermediate condition referred to in note of July 10 is the "Jesus thought." This is the mediator between God (perfect Mind) and man (mortal mind,) or the "link between the human and divine." This condition recognizes all evil as evil, and as nothing, and destroys it by so doing, and by seeing the opposite Good at the same time. Evil would crucify this condition but cannot.
Give the "Jesus thought" its rightful place and know that it cannot be moved, then success must follow. It will do its work without fail.
"For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet." I Cor. 15:25.
Taunton, August 17, 1892
Ignorance is the one great error, and this is only another name for the unconscious mind. When this is removed harmony, or the conscious Mind, governs.
When teaching music or mathematics, we remove the ignorance on the subject. When healing a patient, we are correcting the errors causing the disturbance even as we solve a problem for a child bringing out the right results. We should be able if necessary to heal without teaching, even as we would solve the problem before explaining how it was done.
But mortal mind claims power to rise up and rebel against being corrected; but let the understanding prevail that it has no power so to do, then that ignorance, which alone gave it power to rise in rebellion, is removed. Ps. 92:7. Isa. 54:17.
See nothing but conditions of mind.
All is Mind.
September 1892
Mortal thought, awakened, is startled at its own shadow.
While it slumbered, the shadow was unperceived. It must needs learn the nothingness of itself and its shadow; then the fear which in its ignorance was unconscious, and became conscious at the awakening, will pass away, for mortal mind will see that it need not be afraid of itself. II Thess. 2:8.
October 16, 1892
Sometimes I seem to hear the voice of the Father like this — My child, there is nothing in mortal mind to fear, not even the educated thought that knows what it is doing. But these different claims must needs remain until thou art not afraid. They are here only for thee to learn that they cannot harm. When that is learned, their mission is accomplished and away they go. Ex. 4:4.
October 25, 1892
The way to learn their powerlessness is through the constant recognition of God’s power to dislodge them.
November 22, 1892
When a discord is present, remember that when Love is pushing upon the sense, evil is aggravated and is forced from unconsciousness to conscious thought. Be not afraid at such times. Darkness should be seen as the forerunner of great light. Then we may rejoice at such times, instead of being filled with fear.
Zech. 14:6,7.
January 22, 1893
The condition that sees another condition as one that is "bound of Satan," and bows before it, or fears it, and thereby gives it power, is the most dangerous of the two and needs more to be looked after and rebuked. All conditions have their individuality (or claim to) and stand distinctively apart from every other condition, and yet there are links connecting them with each other.
This copied from slips. June 27, 1892
1. Ever keep the fact of the allness of God and the nothingness of error before us, then begin at home and root up every sin or belief of A. M.; destroy them with the Truth of Being; let us learn first to show piety at home. Then we are fitted to heal or apply the Truth to error, which disappears as Truth appears. Harmony of belief (the body) will appear before the understanding of Truth comes to the individual whom we are healing — one of the signs of Truth.
"Error is a coward before Truth."
2. May Jesus Christ’s baptism of the Holy Spirit cleanse you from sin, sickness, and death.
3. How to handle M.A.M: Love is all-powerful. Love is omnipotent. Love is All. Thy kingdom has come. Thy will is done on earth as it is in heaven, and earth is heaven.
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The following is copied from a notebook that was given to MISS CAROLINE FOSS by Mrs. Eddy when she was acting as her maid. In addition to the following, it contains six pages of miscellaneous notes in Mrs. Eddy’s handwriting, and five pages in Miss Foss’ handwriting under the title, Daily duties for maid. These latter items begin in this way: 6-6:30. Set hot water pitcher on washstand. Tumbler of water on bureau. Move china cup and silver from table to bureau, etc., etc.
The following metaphysical points are in Miss Foss’ handwriting: Written and copied summer of 1906: Points to establish. It helps you when you help others; you cannot be made to hurt another and nobody can hurt you; and you cannot harm yourself, for there is no sin, disease nor death. When you help others, it helps yourself. When you heal or help one belief of disease, it helps and heals all the others. You are not hypnotists, but you are Scientists. No relapse. No reversal. God, good, divine Love is the only Mind, etc. No loss of hearing or of sight. No sleeplessness.
A Lesson at Pleasant View
"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38, 39. When we are better, we are not made worse. When we help others, it does not hurt us. The good we do, does us good. God is Life. God is never death. We can no more lose Life than we can lose God.
Lies’ Laws
If you do anything right once, the next time you will do it wrong. If you improve in health or in spiritual understanding, it will cease, and you will lose it and forget and grow worse. All the wrong beliefs are real to you, and you cannot make them seem unreal. Laws of Good believed and adhered to will obliviate the lies. Realize this.
A Lesson at Pleasant View. June 1906
No fear. Love. No arsenic nor any other poison. Telling the truth destroys error; it does not make it seem real nor hurt anybody. We know the truth and it has made us free . . . everyone in this house. We can and do help our Leader, and nothing can hinder us. She does help herself. God is her ever-present help. We are better every day and hour . . . healthier, higher, holier . . . better for the approaching dedication. Good governs this hour and us. Evil is not power nor presence. There is no evil, no hatred, envy nor revenge. It is all Love, Love, Love, health, harmony, immortality. No death and no disease. All is Love.
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Contents of a notebook kept by
CALVIN A. FRYE
The only power there is in mesmerism is what we allow it to have.
I am so thankful that God makes me just what He would have me.
Truth reflects itself, and what the Principle does its idea also does. So error tries to accomplish a certain result and its idea does the same thing! One mortal mind cannot touch another. Their thoughts meet each other part way. One never comes up to the other; that is but the belief.
All fear is formed in unconscious mind. The hidden enemy is our only enemy.
When we fail to reach the error through the silent argument, we should speak out and command; and by so doing, we increase our power, reaching conscious and unconscious thought; and the more formidable the error, the higher we should rise in asserting our power over it.
The bigger the error, the greater its nothingness. There shall be no more sea.
The whole rule, February 25, 1883. "I am trying to rouse them with God and they are trying either to flatten them all out, or rouse them through the devil."
Mary B. G. Eddy.
Have no will opposed to God; meekness is not weakness; it is "not my will but Thine be done," throwing ourselves into God’s power.
You are one-third nearer heaven, than you were last August. They cannot make you believe you are not.
February 15th
You should not treat a lymphatic temperament as you would a nervous temperament. What it would take to move the former, would overdo with the latter.
The anatomy of metaphysics is first to place dislocation, and secondly to set the bones of thought that are broken and cause them to be healed.
The basis of error is ignorance, superstition and fear, and they bring sin, sickness and death.
Those who are on the battlefield must guard themselves as well as meet the enemy; the enemy will aim at the head or heart (God is the head, E[ddy] the heart); and we must guard those points that we do not disregard her warnings nor think that she is mistaken. (They say you’ll have an easier time and God seems nearer to you, while yet they are saying she doesn’t understand you; she’s wrong; don’t follow her.)
Program
1st. Turn back.
2nd. Join the enemy, and so get an armistice.
3rd. Press on and meet it now, for we have it to meet sometime, and the sooner commenced, the sooner we get through.
The way to spring the trap and get a confession is to ask a question in such a way that they will have no chance for retrospect before answering, and they will be off guard and cannot hide the truth.
Stir them; make them either laugh or cry; move them from their foundation; make some impression on them, if not silently then audibly.
January 1, 1897
No unconscious mind; it is all conscious and I govern my thoughts. No poison can get in here. One God, one power only, and it is good, not evil.
January 6, 1897
No thoughts of poison nor hate coming here. She can sleep nights, and can help herself.
January 9, 1897
A lying argument has no power. What we reject cannot be forced into our thought. No involuntary contraction of the muscles of pupil of eye, nor of the eyelids; no lessening of the eye.
January 26, 1897
K. can’t (make) W. believe that I made her father blind or that she can heal him by retaliating on me. Truth reverses every argument of error and brings out just the opposite results.
February 7, 1897
She doesn’t feel Martha’s belief of eyes or any other of her beliefs, nor Sh. (Shannon?), nor mine. She doesn’t feel the readers of her books, nor any other mortal beliefs. The belief in fear, sin and disease is destroyed and cannot return again. My long continued treatment of her has not materialized her thought, nor made disease real, nor prevented her from being well. She can help herself. No mental condition can cause suffering any more than a material. Neither fear nor malice can produce stoppage or bring back old beliefs.
February 21, 1897
I told Mrs. Eddy this morning that I did not take her up last eve at bedtime for she did not seem to need it; but I took her up at 6 this morning instead. She said, "That accounts for the struggle I had then this morning. Since that hour it has seemed impossible for me to stop contemplating the sins of those in this house." She then said, "Now if you don’t take up my case at bedtime, don’t you take it up until I tell you to."
February 28, 1897
No fear of mortal mind; it has no power over us. We have full confidence in divine Mind, for it is All; there is none other.
March 29, 1897
Blood is thought, and your blood is pure thought, a health-giving, life-giving thought, and nothing impure can enter into that thought; it is perfectly pure. You are not in body. You are not governed by matter; there is no matter; but you are governed by and govern with divine Mind.
You are perfectly well, and you know it and are not afraid. You do know the truth, and you don’t know error, nor see, nor hear it, nor can you be governed by it. There is no reality to it. You hear divine Mind, the voice of Truth, Life, Love, and there is no other mind to hear. No rheumatism, no sore joints, no inflamed or weak eyes, no old age; but the meridian of Being.
You don’t need to be told these truths by any person for God has told it to you abundantly, and you hear the divine voice and are strong and perfectly well.
I can know the right thing to do and do it and not have to repeat it. I can know the right place in the roads.I don’t forget; there is no sensuality nor effects of it.
April 3, 1897
She doesn’t suffer from W. nor from her machinations in the West (Fitzg.) nor from K.
August 3, 1897
"Ways that are Vain," hold on, persist for good.
1. Stupefaction, overcome.
2. Action, promised success.
3. Demoralization.
August 10, 1897
Pray God to take away my testimony of the lying senses, and increase my faith and spiritual sense.
August 18, 1897
The Bible says the kingdom of heaven is already within you. Also that flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Then there can be no blood poison, etc. We must look where we would walk.
Make supplication to God daily that you may be delivered from all beliefs of sin or of sickness, and after doing this then turn to and demand of yourself to realize their unreality, and recognize your power over the temptation to yield to any such an illusion.
December 12, 1897
A lying argument has just the opposite effect. The wrath of man shall praise Him, and we rise because of it, i.e., by overcoming it. Mrs. Eddy.
The Three Footsteps
1st. Matter over matter, i.e., the body has power to change itself and become diseased.
2nd. Mortal mind over mortal mind, where all is mind and there is no matter, bringing in a harmonious belief, holding the body as an image of mind and making that harmonious.
3rd. Immortal Mind over mortal mind, having but one intelligence, one Mind, one God, and we His image and likeness, and as Principle eternal.
The departure from God was through the Adam [dream], which in its first statement was an intelligence separate from God; but naked, unconscious of it, i.e., holding its body unconsciously (the body did not speak); then placing intelligence in matter until the body appears to talk so much through material sense that we are almost unconscious of any voice.
Our way back to God is by retracing our footsteps, to put the body under subjection. First have a harmonious body or belief, through our conscious dominion over it, and when the last trump shall sound, to acknowledge God as the only intelligence, the All-in-all, Principle, we the idea.
In instantaneous healing, the phenomenon flashes out at once, perfect.
Malpractice commenced first by making sick; then by calling back the old beliefs; and third by the belief in poison.
The way to gain the ear of an audience is to follow their thought a little way and then gradually lead them into your way.
Serpents were used in olden times as the symbol of wisdom, but have been turned to the symbol of fear; we turn it to a staff by the benefit we get from the experience we derive from the trial.
If we have no sin, we need have no fear nor suffering.
Vegetable and mineral poisons are the duplicate of the animal poisons. Animal poison is the perversion of the love of mortals which is the counterfeit of Love as God.
Sensualism — living in the material sense, eating, drinking, etc. — is an open door through which mesmerism comes in to affect us. As we cease to live in the material sense, we do shut the door upon it.
Sensuality is the basis of the belief of life, substance and intelligence in matter. The first statement of error is finity; second, intelligence in matter; third, pleasure in matter.
There is danger of making a reality of our patients’ beliefs by over-anxiety in arguing against them.
The Scientists should make error unreal to themselves that they may make it unreal to others; and sometimes can do more for others by going by themselves and meditating on spiritual realities.
Life on this mortal plane is but a dream, illustrated by sleep which at one time is a belief of oblivion (for Mind never slumbers nor sleeps); at another time a belief of leaving the body and being in another place, yet holding life in two bodies.
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The following is copied from slips
in Mrs. Eddy’s handwriting
in the possession of
GILBERT C. CARPENTER.
It was Mrs. Eddy’s custom to write the line of thought she wanted the mental workers to take up in the home and have Calvin Frye take such slips to each worker. The following slips were the ones Mr. Carpenter received in this way during the years 1905-1906.
Better for Mrs. Eddy’s teaching. Truth heals; it cannot hurt; it cannot be reversed in its effect. Love governs all.
No arsenical nor mercurial rheumatism or neuralgia. No effect of arsenic on the nerves, stomach or liver. No relapse or return of these beliefs. It does him good to work for me. This with all else that God gives, use in your argument.
1. Better for her teaching and help, etc.
2. No relapse, etc.
3. No reversal of Truth, etc.
These three points are in Mrs. Eddy’s handwriting.
Below in Mr. Carpenter’s handwriting is:
No pain; no night (fear or doubt); all is joy and peace.
No arsenical or mercurial rheumatism or neuralgia.
No Catholic prayers to harm us for the wrath of man shall praise him.
Take it in your watch no pain, no nerves, no neuralgia, no fear.
Include this in all your prayers. Eddy. All the individuals in this house can and do help themselves by prayer. God helps them. His promise is fulfilled: "Seek and ye shall find." "Because he has put his trust in Me, therefore have I delivered him."
In your watch include this always. When a good point in health or progress is reached, it cannot be lost and the case made worse; but it does remain and no relapse can occur.
No fear. No sleeplessness. No suffering from mortal mind turned on us, for there is no mortal mind. No suffering from the World article. One Mind, etc.
No fear. No poison, arsenic, etc. No suffering caused here by readers of S. & H. No evil minds. No feeling the beliefs of patients. No relapse, no reversal of truth. There is but one Mind, God, good. Evil is not mind, it has no power.
We can help ourselves and help others, we do. We are not self-mesmerized. God, good, alone controls us. We feel no mind but His; there is no other mind to feel. God gives all the thoughts we have, governs all we do and say and think.
(In Calvin Frye’s handwriting) 1. God loves all of us in this house. 2. God governs us. 3. All things are working together for our good.
(In Mr. Carpenter’s handwriting) There is no fear to prevent us from seeing the results of our labor. It is as easy to help ourselves as others, for we have a clearer understanding of God that destroys fear. We have the Mind of God. Because there is no atrophy in the Mind of God, there is none in our Mind; and as God’s Mind is All and made all, there is no atrophy.
We are joined by God, divine Science, to Himself, His power and love. And what God hath joined no man can put asunder. Our work does good. We have not the ability or power to do harm. There is no law that can give anyone the power to do harm. God’s law is the only law, and that does good, not harm, and can give man only the power to do good, not defeat, but victory. We cannot get away from God. If I ascend up into heaven behold thou art there. Everybody loves us and everybody reflects love.
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The following items were preserved by
ADAM H. DICKEY
1908-1910
Mr. Dickey wrote down the following after leaving Mrs. Eddy’s room.
Never fear a lie. Declare against it with the conviction of its nothingness. Throw your whole weight into the right scale — this is the way to destroy evil. Never weigh against yourselves by admitting a lie.
Never rant over what should be killed and put out of sight. We should never kill a serpent or a tiger; they must have their day and kill themselves — then they are dead; but nothing dies till it believes it is dead — then it rots.
Put self out of the way. Which one of these (faith, hope, love) do we lack most? Answer: love. Yes; we all lack love most, and when we have love, we have all the rest. Now don’t forget that!
When our Leader was called to the meeting in Chicago, she thought that they were to speak and take entire charge of the meeting. She did not learn that she was to speak until the last moment. She was so "outdone" that she did not know what to do. She had made no preparation, but she let God speak and that is how Science and the Senses was given. She made the remark, "If I did not give it to them! It was a caution!" She then referred to "The Mother’s Evening Prayer;" and said it was enough to melt a heart of stone.
We must strive — I had to do it — so must you. This human is the very element of error and must be overcome in all points. Someone said to her, "It isn’t difficult to destroy mesmerism when we see it hasn’t any power." She answered, "If God is All, there is nothing to destroy. There is nothing but God and what God creates. I have to go back to the book [Science and Health] and so must you."
We must struggle with mesmerism. To keep watch — is to watch, our thought perfectly poised. Words without desire is not prayer. Prayer must have no selfishness in it.
(To Alfred Farlow) Shall I do wrong for taking your eggs by not paying for them? Or shall you do right by accepting what is just?
You must not let the mesmerism of mortal mind make you think you can’t keep your watch.
She said on March 30, 1908 or 1909, "Now the season of storms is coming on. The enemy — mesmerists — claim they can do what they want to the weather — as they claim they can do as they will with sickness. You all know you can control a headache or a belief of dyspepsia, and you are not afraid of it.
Sickness is a belief of mortal mind. Now what is a storm? Is it not a false claim of material law? Is there any such thing as material law? Then if bad weather or lightning is an erroneous concept of mortal law, can’t you break it up? Now I want you to prepare yourselves to do this. I remember once when we were having a terrific storm and the lightning was around the house like chains, the students were with me, and I declared to them that there was no surplus electricity, and in a few minutes the whole storm disappeared. Now you know there are no thunderstorms in divine Mind. No lightning in heaven — so prepare yourselves to break up these violent storms. There is no need for them.
She was talking to us one day and someone asked her if she would read from the Bible and give a lesson from it. She said that she hadn’t intended to read that day. She, however, did open the Bible and she opened to a passage with many proper names. She said, "There, I said no and no it is. Go."
You will only learn to avoid the pitfalls by what you suffer. We learn that these pitfalls are no part of the road.
First we must see the error, then repent, and then forsake it. You will have to continue with sin until you have overcome it. Then you will have another form of evil to meet — the envy and jealousy of mortal mind. That is where your Leader stands.
1908 or 1909. You can lift me out of a claim by lifting yourselves. It is error to keep your thought on me. You would heal me just as you would heal any patient by knowing and realizing the nothingness of the claim. When you have destroyed your own thought of it, you have healed the patient. You don’t have to do something to your treatment to help it along, or make it go somewhere. Treatment is knowing. All you have to do is to know you do not have to suffer and you do not. If I could know I didn’t have to suffer for the sins of others, I would be well instantly. Paul died, and why? Because he was always talking crucifixion. We should attenuate mortal mind.
Now can’t you all get out of addition? You do not have to stay in addition all the time. If you have the same principle, it is just as easy and in fact easier to multiply than it is to add. You must rise out of the addition of Christian Science and let God, divine Mind, multiply through you.
All claims are a result of a law of reversal by R.C.
Do not let the material things hinder our progress in Science; it is a trick of the devil to keep us chasing after matter. You cannot serve God and mammon.
When you are a good healer, you are all you can be. Do you understand that?
What is a good dinner or a good meal? Good devil. What is a good night’s sleep? Good evil. What is a nice new dress? Good evil. What is a sense of health in matter? Good evil. Which is nearer God, — a human sense of health or of sickness? What is it that brings us into a realization of true being? Spiritual understanding. Then how do I (Mrs. Eddy) heal? By knowing the omnipotent, ever-present, eternal and infinite Mind is All — and therefore there is no inaction, over-action, diseased action or reaction. Spiritual understanding — a knowledge of God — makes perfect.
Science and Health p. 442. Important. Enemy at work on this.
Mrs. Sargent said she (Mrs. Eddy) told her (Mrs. Sargent) to say the following every night: "Malicious hypnotism cannot operate in my thought when I am asleep and manifest itself the next day as sin, disease and death."
Sleeplessness is an argument.
When do we need to look at disease? When our faith in God is not sufficient to destroy it instantly with the command of Truth. We only need the argument against disease to strengthen ourselves. When we can heal by knowing All is Mind, we do not need to know anything about disease.
Two men were fighting; one was choking the other, she said, and asked us, "Which one would you work for?" She then said, the one that was doing the choking. She explained that malicious animal magnetism was the cause, and in destroying that you freed the victim.
Someone in room was speaking, "Instead of speaking of joints, I should have said, locomotion and action are perfect." Mrs. Eddy said, "Yes, in declaring the perfection of all things begin with God, not with matter. You do not arrive at perfection by thinking of material organism. Begin with Mind and keep your thought away from all things material."
Luke 22. She said she could talk all day on this. The Passover.
DREAMS. (This was written on September 20, 1909 but at Mrs. Eddy’s request, it was not published.) Is mortal life a dream? Yes! Then you admit the necessity of dreams so long as you entertain the belief of mortal life. Suppose you reverse this statement, and begin your logic logically, so that one wrong statement will not include another one, and you must abandon the first to avoid the last. Admitting that mortal life is a dream is admitting that it is something, when the fact remains that it is nothing, since there is no mortal life. God, Truth, is the only Life, and a dream is not Truth. The dream and the dreamer are one, even the supposition that nothing is something. Eschew that statement of life unscientific — state it scientifically and commence your solution of the problem called life on fact and not fable. Then you begin with Truth, not error; with God, not man; with Principle, not idea; and solve Life as having no beginning and no ending, the eternal now and forever.
The mistakes of a false sense of life, sensation, and intelligence cease, and you are in and of an eternal Principle that has neither beginning nor end; and all that is to the contrary, is a fable and not the fact of existence, of God, or of man.
Our teacher said, "There is no evil, but you are in the sense of evil and your problem is to work out of it." From Mrs. Sargent.
Evil arguments and mental suggestions cannot frighten, swerve, deter, or keep me from doing the work that is mine to do to-day.
God, good, Spirit, is ever-present and man is His image and likeness. Mother says, "This is a rule that will solve every problem."
I pray asking. When I want anything, I ask God for it and He gives it to me. Now only this morning I asked God for rain. I said, I do not want a tempest, or thunder and lightning, but a good powerful rain to refresh the earth, and here it is, you see.
Mrs. Eddy said to Janette Weller, "They are telling you because there is but one Mind that you have not any mind. You know that you cannot lose the divine Mind or any of its faculties." At this time, she told me to work on poison and hatred from revenge.
You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometime fight it out or perish, and if this be so, why not do it now and where you stand.
No subtlety or sophistry of evil can blind or paralyze my human capacity to apprehend and love good.
"Denial at best only brings us a human peace," Mrs. Eddy said, but she said a true treatment is "the divine ever-presence of infinite perfection."
Life is God. This treatment is the power and activity of divine Mind; it cannot be found, it cannot be reversed, or return void; it does accomplish that for which it is sent.
God bless my enemies; make them Thy friends; give them to know the joy and peace of Love.
Hypnotism cannot touch the minds of the world or use it to stir up one element of discord. It is not in the focal distance of God and, therefore, is not, for God is infinite.
Given to the workers for the Next Friends’ Suit (or Woodbury Suit?). They cannot be swayed by malicious hypnotism. They are governed and guided by the one Mind and say and do according to the divine government and guidance. God governs it; justice, Truth and Love govern it; and nothing else can or does affect it in the least.
Every lying argument of hypnotism, theosophy, and esoteric magic directed to me is reversed in its effects on me and can only bless me and do me good; for the reverse of these arguments does me good, and everything shall work together for good to them that love God, and this shall not be reversed.
If you heal yourself of self-justification, you will lift yourself into the kingdom of heaven.
Everything that comes to me today brings me a blessing. There is no mortal mind to see me today, or know me today, or think it can, through any of its so-called laws of malpractice, rob me of all good or hinder me from being conscious here and now of my birthright which is dominion.
Rise if the past detains you,
Her sunshine and storms forget;
No claims so unworthy will hold you
As those of vain regret.
Sad or bright she is lifeless ever;
Cast her phantom arms away,
Nor look back but to learn the lesson
Of a nobler strife today.
There is no aggravation of human belief asserting itself mesmerically. The right idea, once gained, enables us to stand unmoved and unshaken — the offspring of Mind, the son of Mind, of God.
INDEPENDENCE (unpublished)
A man has no right to do wrong. His right is to do and think right. Independence consists in his liberty and right to do right. The misconstruction of the word independence is the offspring of malicious animal magnetism. Beware of defending your right to do wrong, and be strong to defend yourself against the right to do evil. Man’s right is his power and privilege to act independently of evil suggestions or motives, and he has neither right nor liberty to do wrong. Neither divine law nor human law recognizes the right of man to sin, to steal, to commit adultery, to murder; and to do these things no more means independence than no means yes, or good means evil. So long as he exercises this mistaken sense of right, he will wrong himself and others, heap up wrath against the day of wrath, and bring upon himself punishment according to his deeds. (S.& H. 23:5)
Mary Baker Eddy
For one look at error take ten looks at Truth, the ideal Christ, and stop explaining error, or we will never get rid of it; it clings to one as long as he excuses it or explains it. See C. S. Journal Vol V, p.512, The Rev. Dr. A. J. Gordon.
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