Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/225

Rh Harmony; and Harmony, in Quimby's philosophy, was Heaven. He also presented the theory of the dual nature of Christ. Jesus, he said, was the human man; Christ, the man of God.

In making out her theological system, Mrs. Glover took in these modest ideas of Quimby, borrowed something from the Shaker sect (see Appendix C) and the "revelations" of Andrew Jackson Davis (see Appendix B), and introduced new and quite original ideas of her own. She made argument futile at the outset by claiming for her religion the advantage of direct inspiration and revelation. "The Bible," she wrote, "has been our only text-book. . . . The Scriptures have both a literal and spiritual import, but the latter was the especial interpretation we received, and that taught us the science of Life outside of personal sense." "We can not doubt the inspiration that opened to us the spiritual sense of the Bible."

Mrs. Glover described the process by which she arrived at the true meaning of the Bible: "The only method of reaching the Science of the Scripture, hence, the Truth of the Bible, is to rise to its spiritual interpretation, then compare its sayings, and gain its general tenor, which enables us to reach the ascending scale of being through demonstration; as did prophet and apostle." By pursuing this method she came, inevitably, to some curious conclusions concerning the beginning of the world and the origin of man. Parts of the Bible she accepted literally, other parts were declared to be allegorical, and some of its statements she rejected altogether as mistakes of the