Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/235

Rh of Christ without a physical father was, in Mrs. Glover's idea, an advance toward the science of being, which dispenses not only with the physical father, but the physical mother as well, and declares that man is born of Spirit only. In support of her argument, Mrs. Glover referred to the fact that some of the lower forms of animal life propagate their kind by self-division, and she said: "the butterfly, bee, etc., propagating their species without the male element . . . corroborates science, proving plainly that the origin of the universe and man depends not on material conditions." Self-division and parthenogenesis are, apparently, held to be less material methods of reproduction, and less in accordance with natural law, than methods in which the "male element" is employed.

The idea that "God is the only author of man" came first, Mrs. Glover said, to the mother of Christ, and she demonstrated it, producing the child Jesus. "The illumination of spiritual sense had put to silence personal sense with Mary, thus mastering material law, and establishing through demonstration that God is the father of man," she wrote. Also: "The belief that life originates with the sexes is strongest in the most material natures; whereas the understanding of the spiritual origin of man cometh only to the pure in heart. . . . Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious God-being in creative Wisdom."

But the virgin mother, we are told, "proved the great Truth that God is the only origin of man," only "in part." If she had proved it completely she would have had to dispense with herself as mother; and in that case Jesus would have been a perfect demonstration of Mrs. Glover's "science of being." Being born, however, of an actual and visible mother, Jesus