Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/24

16 to be a genius. Her moral character too has stood very well the fierce fires of criticism, though there are some things in her history and some qualities in her disposition that are not flattering. These matters, however, weigh nothing as concerns the question before us in this discussion, namely, the original source of the principles of Christian Science.

Mrs. Eddy's claim expressed in her own language is as follows. She says: “It was in Massachusetts in February, 1866, and after the death of the magnetic doctor, Mr. P. P. Quimby, whom Spiritualists would associate therewith, but who was in no wise connected with this event, that I discovered the Science of divine Metaphysical Healing, which I afterwards named Christian Science. The discovery came to pass in this way. During twenty years prior to my discovery I had been trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause; and in the latter part of 1866 I gained the scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon.” Continuing to explain she says: "“I then withdrew from society about three years, — to ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind, that should take the things of God and show them to the creature and reveal the great curative Principle, — Deity.”