Public Figure, Private Life

Under Attack

Throughout the history of Mary Baker Eddy’s leadership of the Christian Science movement, she was repeatedly the target for attack. Adversaries in the pulpit, the legal bar, the medical fraternity, and the press, attempted to tear her down, seeking to discredit her teachings by discrediting her. A number of times she was falsely reported to be ill, incompetent, dying, or dead.

The hostility and ill will directed at her sometimes took a toll on her health. At such times some members of the household were assigned to pray for her. The effectiveness of their prayers and her own metaphysical work is attested by a remark she made in her eighty-first year: “True I am battle stained, but still I live and give orders that are blessed and foil the enemy.”*

Read more about Critics, Adversaries, and Dissidents

* MBE to William B. Johnson, 1902, A. L&M 26-3329 Mary Baker Eddy Collection, Mary Baker Eddy Library