"To live and let live without clamor for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine love; to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart--this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal. ~ Mary Baker Eddy
Christian Science founder Mary Morse Baker Eddy (1821-1910) was born on this day and raised on a farm near Concord, New Hampshire.
"Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it," she once said.
Eddy, suffering from personal loss and spinal illness, turned to the New Testament in 1866 for solace. She was healed. Her epiphany and subsequent book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1875) became the foundation of her spirituality.
"Christian Science explains all cause and effect as mental, not physical," she explained.
From Eddy's remarkable heart, in 1879, The First Church of Christian Scientist was established in Boston. Two years later, Eddy founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College to further teach her methods of spiritual healing.
"The prayer that reforms and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God--a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfish love," she said.
In 1908, with the motto "to injure no man, but to bless all mankind," she founded the Christian Science Monitor, an international daily newspaper.
Today there are about 2,000 branch churches worldwide, in 80 countries. Eddy once said of love, "Divine love always has met and always will meet every human need."
