MARY BAKER EDDY'S Lessons of The Seventh Day MARY BAKER EDDY'S LESSONS OF THE SEVENTH DAY (Chapters I - IV) COMPILED BY RICHARD OAKES Being a Seventh-Day Call for Individual Recognition and Demonstration of the Complete Six Days of Creation lllustrated in the Founding of Christian Science and The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston Chapters V & VI, giving all of Mrs. Eddy's messages and instructions through her periodicals (1895-l91O)--in excess of those in Miscellaneous Writings and Miscellany--are now printed separately as "Mary Baker Eddy's Published Writings, Vols.I & II" Prepared for and Using Documentation in CHRISTIAN SCIENCE RESEARCH LmRARY (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FOUNDATION, Cambridge, Eng.) @ Copyright 1989 by Richard Oakes ISBN: 0950728640 Abbreviations: COP Committee on Publication CSA Christian Science Association CSJ Christian Science Journal CSPS Christian Science Publishing Society CSS Christian Science Sentinel S&H Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy DCC Divinity Course & General Collectanea EOF Essays & Other Footprints Six Days Mary Baker Eddy's Six Days of Revelation M.A.M., m.a.m. Malicious Animal Magnetism Standard Abbreviations are used for Mrs. Eddy's Other Works, as listed in their Concordance INTRODUCTION In the Genesis allegory, the Seventh Day followed the creation of "man in our image" and it was a period of rest­ in-action, fulfIllment, satisfaction, and eternity. In the forerunner of this book, entitled Mary Baker Eddy's Six Days of Revelation, it was found convenient to choose 1894 as the sixth-day climax of a revelation of Christian Science. Yet just as the Genesis "man" was not a material masculine body claiming to be the image of God, so Mrs. Eddy's 1894 unfoldment of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston" was not a material structure. It is "whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle" just as "man" is whatever reflects the perfection of Mind whether called or miscalled animate or inanimate. In this spiritual sense man and church are synonymous, and individual representations are imperfect unless it be­ comes clear that these have no value outside the aspect of the one universal Truth they express. What then is the seventh-day fulfillment of this Church which blesses the race as the one and only institution, wherever and however acknowledged? It is the unbounded structure, the City Foursquare, of which Mrs. Eddy speaks in her chapter on The Apocalypse. In this way the Lesson Sermon in her Church does extend from Genesis to Revela­ tion as required in Art.xIV, Sect.2, of the Church Manual. The city has four sides and consequently is governed by and fulfills the Fourness of God. This fourness governs every set of four concepts that can ever be used to illustrate the activity of Life, Truth, and Love, even in the untranslated human sense of them. It is noteworthy that in pure mathe­ matics if the letter P, for example, is used to denote a set of four persons (properly called "elements" of the set) and the letter Q is used to denote a set of four objects or concepts (again properly called "elements"), then P is said to be "equal to" Q. That is because both sets are governed by the one and the same *foumess of mathematics. In this spiritual sense, all sets of four are "equal", including the set of four developments already noted which Mrs. Eddy introduced in­ to her exegesis pertaining to the Seventh Day: rest-in-action, fulfillment, satisfaction, eternity. Yet both mathematics and Science recognize individual­ ity and order in the myriad examples of FOUR, even while these examples have no inherent creative ability to depan from the unlimited function and attributes of FOUR. In examining the seventh-day lessons of a period begin­ ning 1895 and closing at the end of 1910, this book finds it helpful to concentrate on four areas in which Mrs. Eddy left instruction, pointers, or advice for those who have glimpsed the idea of the universal Church as exemplified by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, and who thus are called on to see beyond all sense of limited personality or material structure. The chosen areas are healing, preaching, publishing, and teaching, emphasizing four ways in which Mrs. Eddy calls for man to supply the Revelator's legacy of universal Church or the spiritual City Foursquare. Since Mrs. Eddy equates the four sides of the City with the four cardinal points of the compass (and since the latter are "equal to" geometric quad­ rants which as a rule have a panicular mathematical order) the elements will be taken in the order; publishing, teaching, preaching, and healing, to correspond with the Word, Christ, Christianity, and divine Science for the purpose on hand, although any other correlation if scientifically adhered to *The use of a word like foumess is not confined to meta­ physicians. For example a book by mathematics professor Georges Ifrah, recently translated from the French by Lowell Bair and entitled "From One to Zero", explains how man fIrst began to notice that sets of three elements (such as three sheep, three stones, three stars) all had a mysterious "some­ thing" in common--a something for which the translator sim­ ply uses the word "threeness." ii would just as absolutely be governed by the Fourness of God's Reality. PuBUSHlNG covers the impact of Science and Health up to its 1910 text as the world's scientific textbook; the creation of the Deed of Trust establishing The Christian Science Publishing Society; the founding of The Christian Science Monitor as the world's example of correct presenta­ tion and assessment of news; the Christianl y scientific treatment of the world's problems up to the establishment of peace; and in fact all universal application of Truth. It corresponds with the "casting out of demons" in Jesus' four­ fold charge to his followers (Matt. x:8). It is noteworthy that Mrs. Eddy's final pronouncements to Christian Scientists were made through the world's press (before being copied in most cases into C.S. publications), and that she devoted her afternoon "rest" period to ranging "from the interior of Africa to the uttermost parts of the earth" (My.147:28) in mentally spreading (publishing) the helpful good news. TEACHlNG covers individualized instruction on how to ac­ complish the most valuable publishing of the good news. It guides the student to the textbook and quietly reassures the awed leamer on the "awful unreality of evil" or malicious mind, and the realization that no teaching is pure unless it includes the understanding that while God may appear as "a teacher," no personal teacher is any nearer God than is any other personal belief. Teaching incorporates Jesus' demand to heal the sick. PREACHlNG is the identification of the published word with its Source and involves the often slow and labored process by which a churchgoer may learn that there is no personal preacher beside the Person or Preacher who is God; also that there are no "outsiders" to be brought into church, but wonderful partnership to be found already in the society which is church. It corresponds with the command to cleanse the lepers, and our narrative will review inter alia the church iii confrontations associated with Josephine Woodbury and Augusta Stetson. HEAUNG in the Seventh Day spreads far beyond the notion of turning sick bodies into well bodies. Rather is it the seeing of all consciousness as whole (healed) and unique. This healing is the recognition of consciousness as the one Soul, governed by the one Mind or Principle. It is the automatic elimination of the belief in another mind, in a mortal (deathly) mind or animal magnetism which finds life where it is not and pretends at other times there is no life where there can be only Life. In reality, consciousness has its Life as All-in-all. The ultimate healing corresponds with Jesus' command to raise the dead, and celebrates the perpetual resurrection and ascension and descent (second coming) of the God-idea which is the Revelator. Chapter N includes the lessons of the "Next Friends Suit", brought against Mrs. Eddy in the name of a natural son, in order to release the mortal, darkened concept of Leader from material birth and personal death into its unborn and unending place in the line of light. While some standardization of spelling and punctuation has been used in the following pages, Mrs. Eddy's text, including her emphasis; has been preserved as actually as possible. Brackets are added to show where context or amplification has been necessary in or surrounding such text. Parentheses are as included in the text itself, whether Mrs. Eddy's or other writers', or they simply indicate words found in such text. iv CONTENTS Page INTRODUCfION i I. PUBLISHING 1 "The Lord Gave the Word" 2 Some Statements by Mrs. Eddy 5 The Deed of Trust 7 Correspondence with Trustees 12 Supervision vs. Initiative 14 Lesson for Sacrament Sunday 16 Attention to Copyright 18 Payments, Resignations, Appointments 19 Promotion to Healing 22 Death of Publisher Allison V. Stewart 23 Scope of Trustees' Duties 25 Sifting of Practitioners 28 Lesson-Sermon Committee 29 McLellan Replaces Hanna as Editor 31 Badly-Bound Sentinels 33 Mrs. Eddy's Attention to Form 34 Involvement with Reading Room 37 Involvement with Lesson-Sermon Committee 39 Mrs. Eddy's Watchful Eye on Editorship 42 Changes and True Guidance 48 Historical Facts 49 Directions and Admonitions 51 Watching vs. Watching Out 54 Editor's Rights 55 Advice on Testimonials 57 Introducing the Monitor 58 Publications by Others 61 "The Church in the Wilderness" 64 An "Editorial Too Soon" and the Second Coming 69 Der Herold and Foreign Translations 76 Final Copyright of Textbook 83 The Christian Science Monitor 86 The Line of Light 87 v II.