ⁿPARA ⌠PAR@ ` 4TEXT ` &Eddy, Mary Morse Baker1821╨1910founder of Christian ScienceBorn in Bow, New Hampshire, on July 16, 1821, Mary Baker received little formal education but read at home with the aid of her brother, a Dartmouth student. She was from childhood in poor health, subject to seizures and nervous collapse. She achieved some local note as a versifier, especially after the family╒s move in 1836 to Sanbornton Bridge (later Tilton), New Hampshire, where in 1842 she attended the town academy. She married George W. Glover in December 1843 and moved with him to South and later North Carolina, but he died in June of the following year. Mary Glover lived then in retirement with her family until 1853, at first in a state of nervous prostration but later able to teach school from time to time and to publish odd bits of verse and fiction. Her son George, born shortly after his father╒s death, was reared by foster parents. In June 1853 she married Daniel Patterson, a dentist and homeopath. Her continuing ill health, exacerbated by Patterson╒s frequent absences and their poverty, aroused her interest in spiritual healing, and in October 1862 she sought help from the notable practitioner Phineas Parkhurst Quimby of Portland, Maine. She was, she attested, cured immediately. She became a disciple devoted to spreading Quimby╒s methods and fame. He died in January 1866 and the same year, having suffered a relapse. Patterson separated from her husband (she divorced him in 1873), resumed the name Glover, and again retired from the world. Her recovery, against all odds, followed upon her taking up her Bible, and she was later to date her original discovery of Christian Science to 1866. For several years she lived in various towns while slowly clarifying her thoughts on health, religion, and reality. In 1870 she began her own career of healing and teaching. Gradually she abandoned Quimby╒s methods and from her reading of the New Testament evolved her own system, and in 1875, having established herself in Lynn, Massachusetts, she published the first of many versions of Science and Health, espousing the doctrine that Mind is the sole reality and that the infirmities of the body, like the body itself, are illusory and susceptible to cure by purely mental effort, as exemplified by her reading of Jesus╒s words in the New Testament. She gathered a group of followers, one of whom, Asa G. Eddy, she married in January 1877. The ╥Church of Christ, Scientist╙ was chartered in 1879. In 1881 the Massachusetts Metaphysical College was chartered, and it continued under her leadership for eight years. Late in 1881 the church and the college were moved to Boston. In 1883 Eddy began to publish the monthly Christian Science Journal, which enabled her to extend her influence beyond the immediate New England area. The powerful personal influence she exerted on her students made them extraordinarily effective proselytizers for the church across the country, and the number of branch churches, societies, and members grew rapidly. Science and Health was regularly revised, with a Key to the Scriptures being added in 1883; the book was in its 382nd edition at her death. In 1889 Eddy left Boston for Concord, New Hampshire, where she remained until 1908. Distance did not diminish her control over the church, however. In 1895 she founded what came to be called the ╥Mother Church╙ in Boston. The membership rolls continued to grow, and she created an effective and largely autocratic organization to oversee the affairs of the church. The bylaws and edicts promulgated by Eddy for the governance of the church and its rapidly multiplying branches were collected in the Church Manual, first issued in 1895 and much revised until 1908. In her late years her rule over the church was troubled by several instances of apostasy or simple rivalry, notably that of Augusta Stetson, who was ultimately excommunicated in 1909. In 1906 the Mother Church edifice was joined by a great ╥Extension,╙ still a Boston landmark. The Journal was joined by the weekly Christian Science Sentinel in 1898 and by the daily Christian Science Monitor in 1908. In 1908, maintaining her almost complete seclusion, she moved to Chestnut Hill, near Boston. She retained control of the church, despite declining health, until her death on December 3, 1910, in Chestnut Hill. Ästyl ` ! ¬ 5¬ ! 5¬ ? !I z 5¬ { !I 5¬ !I . !I @ !I ô 5¬ ö !I
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