Mary Baker Eddy

The Discoverer, Founder, and Leader of Christian Science, and author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

MARY BAKER EDDY by William Baxter Closson © Longyear Museum

Born in Bow, New Hampshire, in 1821, Mary Baker Eddy was the youngest of the six children of Abigail and Mark Baker. From childhood, she suffered from poor health, although she attended local schools when well enough. In 1843, at the age of 22, she married George Washington Glover. She was widowed in less than a year, and her health worsened after the birth of her son.

In 1853, hoping to provide a home for her son, she married Dr. Daniel Patterson, a dentist. The marriage proved unhappy, and the couple separated after 13 years, when Daniel deserted her. Seven years later, she sought and obtained a divorce on the grounds of his adultery.

During the 1840s and 1850s, she explored various systems of healing, including homeopathy, hydropathy, and mesmerism, to find health. Throughout this time, however, she found strength, solace, and hope in the Bible, which was her constant companion.

Her search culminated when, on February 1, 1866, she sustained serious internal injuries after a fall on an icy sidewalk. She remained unconscious through that night, and the physician called to treat her held out little hope for her recovery. Her condition worsening, on February 4, she asked for her Bible, and while reading an account of one of Jesus' healings, found herself suddenly well in a moment of profound spiritual insight.

She felt that behind this healing lay spiritual laws, and she began a renewed study of the Bible to learn how she had been healed. By the end of 1866, she had gained the certainty that "all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon" (Retrospection and Introspection, by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 24). By early 1867, she began to teach others the science of Christian healing, which she named Christian Science.

In 1875 she published the first edition of Science and Health, a complete statement of Christian Science.

In 1877 she married Asa Gilbert Eddy who proved a strong support to her during the formative years of establishing Christian Science. His death in 1882 was a severe blow to her, but she continued to teach, preach, and lecture on Christian Science.

She founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, in 1879, to "… reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (Manual of The Mother Church, by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 17). Through her own prolific practice of Christian Science healing, she rejected the notion that the human mind was a healing agent. Instead, she maintained that healing came through the divine Mind, God. Central to such healing, she held, was regeneration and spiritual growth. "Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science," she writes in Rudimental Divine Science, adding, "The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin…" (p. 2).

By 1900, newspapers and magazines were seeking her views on every conceivable topic, but she resisted public efforts to extol her personality, and tirelessly turned her followers away from reliance on her to reliance on God.

From 1880 to 1910, she wrote scores of articles on Christian Science; founded monthly and weekly periodicals and, in 1908, at the age of 87, established an award-wining international daily newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor.

On December 3, 1910, she passed on at the age of 89. As part of her legacy to the world, the practice of Christian healing has received renewed interest and attention. There are Churches of Christ, Scientist, in over 70 countries today.