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COURSE IN DIVINITY AND GENERAL COLLECTANEA OF ITEMS BY AND ABOUT MARY BAKER EDDY DISCOVERER AND FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND AUTHOR OF ITS TEXTBOOK SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES NOTES ON MARY BAKER EDDY’S COURSE IN DIVINITY RECORDED BY LIDA FITZPATRICK, C.S.D., AND OTHERS WATCHES, PRAYERS, ARGUMENTS GIVEN TO STUDENTS BY MARY BAKER EDDY ITEMS FROM GILBERT CARPENTER’S COLLECTANEA NOT ALREADY INCLUDED IN THE ABOVE INSTRUCTION IN METAPHYSICS FROM MARY BAKER EDDY RECORDED BY DR. ALFRED E. BAKER, M.D., C.S.D. TOGETHER WITH SOME NOTES ON METAPHYSICAL WORK PUBLISHED BY THE COMPILER @ Copyright 1958, 1964 by Richard F. Oakes PRINTED IN SOUTH AFRICA BY THE RUSTICA PRESS, PTY., LTD., WYNBERG, CAPE. FOREWORD Readers of the pages which follow may find it interesting to look at the Church Manual of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, by Mary Baker Eddy – to pages (67-9) where she specifies the arrangements for the call of workers to her home. It is indicated that some of them would be taught ‘the course in Divinity’ and would be required to pay for their instruction in the event of their leaving her before the term of service was completed. Several of the students in her home took notes of what was referred to as the Divinity Course, and they and many others kept notes of other unrelated items of instruction given in the home, together with the text of specific work they were required to do, or of ‘watches’ they were required to keep. It is the aim of this compilation to preserve as much of this as possible. Students’ notes have for a long time had an unverified circulation among Christian Scientists; and it was in the hope of preserving at least one version of the Divinity Course in the form in which it was taken down by the original hearer that Gilbert Carpenter Jr. privately printed the Lida Fitzpatrick notes in 1933 and entrusted two copies to the Congressional Library in Washington. This version, probably the fullest and most authentic obtained, was granted a copyright in 1933 in the name of one claiming ownership, but the copyright expired unrenewed. In 1950 Mr. Carpenter further gathered together a miscellaneous collection of Watches, Prayers, Arguments given by Mrs. Eddy either verbally or in writing to members of her household. Some of these were given direct to his father while the latter served Mrs. Eddy as assistant secretary in 1905-6; in the case of others the original recipient is often not known. Adam Dickey, in his Memoirs of Mary Baker Eddy, gives some interesting details which show the extensive part which the ‘watches’ played in the household. He writes: ‘The most interesting work in connection with our Leader’s home was that done by the mental workers, who were there because of their experience in the field as practitioners and of their ability to handle the claims of evil as they presented themselves. This work was done under the direct super- vision of our Leader, and through her secretary she informed the other workers just what phases of error she felt should be given special attention. Her secretary, at her request, prepared what was iii denominated a “watch.” This consisted of typewritten sheets of paper containing in numerical order the names or description of the phases of error that Mrs. Eddy wished them to handle.’ Among those who were closely associated with Mrs. Eddy and who kept notes was Dr. Alfred E. Baker, M.D., C.S.D., particularly during his residence in Concord between the years 1898 and 1902. It was he who was chosen to be teacher of the course in Obstetrics when the Board of Education was called into being in 1898 under the auspices of the previously closed Massachusetts Metaphysical College. As such he was a very frequent visitor to Mrs. Eddy’s home, Pleasant View. The notes he took at this time he treasured to such an extent that he hired a professional copyist to print them into two notebooks specially bound in soft leather. The ink used was a water- proof variety and the paper a special India stock. The first book contained the notes for the Obstetrics course, prepared under Mrs. Eddy’s supervision; the second contained items of instruction in metaphysics and notes on metaphysical work done while in association with Mrs. Eddy. Since this second book covers much the same ground as the Carpenter compilation of Watches, Prayers, Arguments, it has been decided to include all the relevant material at the end of this volume. Evidently it is not confined to items given to himself, for the reader will find extracts from a letter written by Mrs. Eddy to a student in 1885 and other passages passed to him through other students. Where he duplicates items included in the Carpenter compilation, these have been omitted from one or the other, according to which version was the fuller or where the item seemed better placed. Mr. Gilbert Carpenter Sr. records an interesting story regarding the origin of one of the items in the Baker notes. ‘As was Mrs. Eddy’s custom,’ he writes, ‘she kept a pad and pencil near her bed. What she called Instruction was written in bed in the wee small hours of the morning. After it was completed she directed Calvin Frye to hitch up the horse, drive to Christian Science Hall and deliver what she had written to Dr. Baker, with the statement that Mrs. Eddy wanted him to have it immediately. Dr. Baker said that Mr. Frye called him from his bed to give it to him. He also stated that he knows of no instruction by Mrs. Eddy that is exactly like it. He considered it a masterpiece.’ This Instruction presumably refers to the item given here on page 269. The compiler of this volume records his great appreciation of the energy and devotion with which Gilbert Carpenter Jr. collected and edited not only Watches, Prayers, Arguments and the Divinity Course, but also the earlier Collectanea of Items by and about Mary Baker iv Eddy. In particular I add my gratitude for his assistance and encouragement enabling me to reproduce the available material in this way. A full account of our association appears in the fore- word to Essays and Other Footprints. During my last visit to Mr. Carpenter I went through Collectanea with him item by item, so that I could classify and rearrange the work as now found in this volume. Although no longer printed as a separate book, ‘Collectanea, Revised Edition’ can be found here in its entirety, its three chapters being renumbered VI, VII, VIII for the purpose of inclusion in a book to which it really belongs. The exceptions are Items A and D of the original Chapter I, which have been dovetailed with the similar items of the present volume’s Chapters IV and V. In making the arrangements I was also guided by consideration of the possible universal application of what was presented. Some statements which relate to specific persons and events seem to need a great deal of context before they can begin to meet the above test and these are not included here. Context or date is included where possible, but since this is an exception rather than the rule, much has been left in these pages which is but a string of isolated comments. Their value, and the wisdom of sensing the correct context, are matters left to the reader. It might well be borne in mind that a student can hear and record only what he or she is capable of hearing (under- standing). Hence the value of ‘translation’ into the ‘original language, which is Mind.’ Whatever the Revelator of Christian Science may have said or written on the subject is of vital importance, whereas a human estimate of Mrs. Eddy’s personality is spiritually worthless. In view of the oft-repeated warnings and instructions given by Mrs. Eddy, it is obvious, for example, that where persons were mentioned in the ‘watches’ it was their function or job that was involved, never a personality. The ‘watcher’ is such cases was called upon to ‘watch’ for the correct functioning of the various phases of Mind-activity, realizing that one Mind governs, whether the occasion was called the articles written by a Journal editor, or a Christian Science lecture, or a dish prepared by a cook, or one’s duty to the Discoverer of Christian Science. Indeed, Mrs. Eddy’s instructions were specific on the point of personality, even when she mentioned individuals and individual conditions. Once in a call to a trusted student to help an official she made it plain that the former was not dealing with a person ‘out there,’ but with his own ability to see what Mind was expressing to him in a certain situation; for she added succinctly: ‘It is only God Himself that you are communing with, and your answer comes from divine Love who saith, “Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find.”’ v In his foreword to the Carpenter edition of Watches, Prayers, Arguments, Gilbert Carpenter Jr. quotes a letter which Mrs. Eddy once wrote to one of the Board of Directors on the subject of per- sonality. She said: ‘Naming persons in prayer is the fight between beasts. Overcoming . evil and lies with good and Truth in your prayers is Christian Science.’ And in a letter dated December 5, 1906, she wrote: ‘Please remove your thoughts utterly away from me.

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