Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/110

 522 Popular Bibles conduct they testify that there is no need for their volume. The spirit the Bible inculcates meets human needs wherever there are human souls. To reveal a special Bible for each people in the world would seem to deny the tmity of human experience and the universality of human brotherhood. With Christians, in spite of the same Bible divided into sects agreeing about the essentials, differing only in details of doubt- ful exegesis or of organization, to see the Latter Day Saints — a half million strong— both using a new Book they claim to be revealed besides the Bible, and in a democratic age evolving a hierarchy projected by a special revelation, harking back to ancient times, in no sense born of modem experience in Church or State, diverts attention from the common interest of Christendom, makes co-operation difficult with those who think no special Bible needed for the western world, and tends to postpone the coming of that day when world peace will be secured by "one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity." II. Science and Health As the Book of Mormon describes the hegira of an adven- turous folk moving by successive stages from the East to the Salt Lake Valley, so Science and Health marks the pilgrimage of a group of seekers after health and truth from an idealism, at first indeterminate and amorphous, up to a unique religious- ness challenging modern medicine, and that odium theologicum which is largely responsible for the multiplication of denomina- tions dividing Christendom, at a time when in union only is there strength. The founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, was born at Bow, New Hampshire, a hundred years ago, when the news was coming overseas that Napoleon was dead at last in his island prison house. Always a New Englander, never widely travelled, Mrs. Eddy spent her early years in an environment surcharged with interest in the mystical. Clairvoyance, spiritualism, mesmerism, transcendentalism, kaleidoscopic alike ia brilliant colouring and rapid changes, were the talk of cross- roads and farm-house on many a New England granite hill and in many a river valley.