Like most life experiences, it formed her lifelong, diligent research for a remedy from almost constant suffering. She wrote that she had suffered from chronic indigestion as a child and, hoping to cure it, had embarked on a diet of nothing but water, bread, and vegetables, at one point consumed just once a day: "Thus we passed most of our early years, as many can attest, in hunger, pain, weakness, and starvation." Įddy experienced near invalidism as a child and most of her life until her discovery of Christian Science. Eddy described her problems with food in the first edition of Science and Health (1875). Gillian Gill wrote in 1998 that Eddy was often sick as a child and appears to have suffered from an eating disorder, but reports may have been exaggerated concerning hysterical fits. On such an occasion Lyman Durgin, the Baker's teen-age chore boy, who adored Mary, would be packed off on a horse for the village doctor . This was when life took on the look of a nightmare, overburdened nerves gave way, and she would end in a state of unconsciousness that would sometimes last for hours and send the family into a panic. Robert Peel, one of Eddy's biographers, worked for the Christian Science church and wrote in 1966: Those who knew the family described her as suddenly falling to the floor, writhing and screaming, or silent and apparently unconscious, sometimes for hours. Eddy experienced periods of sudden illness, perhaps in an effort to control her father's attitude toward her. Dittemore wrote in 1932, relying on the Cather and Milmine history of Eddy (but see below), that Baker sought to break Eddy's will with harsh punishment, although her mother often intervened in contrast to Mark Baker, Eddy's mother was described as devout, quiet, light-hearted, and kind. Health Įddy and her father reportedly had a volatile relationship. Every day began with lengthy prayer and continued with hard work. Life was nevertheless spartan and repetitive. The Baker children inherited their father's temper, according to McClure's they also inherited his good looks, and Eddy became known as the village beauty. Eddy responded that Baker had been a "strong believer in States' rights, but slavery he regarded as a great sin." He developed a reputation locally for being disputatious one neighbor described him as " tiger for a temper and always in a row." McClure's described him as a supporter of slavery and alleged that he had been pleased to hear about Abraham Lincoln's death. According to Eddy, her father had been a justice of the peace at one point and a chaplain of the New Hampshire State Militia. Eddy responded that this was untrue and that her father had been an avid reader.
#Mt auburn cemetery mary baker eddy series#
McClure's magazine published a series of articles in 1907 that were highly critical of Eddy, stating that Baker's home library had consisted of the Bible. Mark Baker was a strongly religious man from a Protestant Congregationalist background, a firm believer in the final judgment and eternal damnation, according to Eddy. Eddy was the youngest of the Bakers' six children: boys Samuel Dow (1808), Albert (1810), and George Sullivan (1812), followed by girls Abigail Barnard (1816), Martha Smith (1819), and Mary Morse (1821). Įddy was born Mary Morse Baker in a farmhouse in Bow, New Hampshire, to farmer Mark Baker (d. 1865) and his wife Abigail Barnard Baker, née Ambrose (d. 1849). The church is sometimes informally known as the Christian Science church.Įddy was named one of the "100 Most Significant Americans of All Time" in 2014 by Smithsonian Magazine, and her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures was ranked as one of the "75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World" by the Women's National Book Association. Members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist consider Eddy the "discoverer" of Christian Science, and adherents are therefore known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science. She wrote numerous books and articles, the most notable of which was Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which had sold over nine million copies as of 2001.
She also founded The Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning secular newspaper, in 1908, and three religious magazines: the Christian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal, and The Herald of Christian Science.
Mary Baker Eddy (J– December 3, 1910) was an American religious leader and author who founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, in New England in 1879.
0 kommentar(er)
