MRS. EDDY'S discovery of Christian Science sprang from experiences that extended through many years. Yet her marvelous recovery from an injury in February, 1866, was so important in this regard that she could and did assign her discovery to this event and the unfoldments that followed it during the same year. See "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" 107:1; "Miscellaneous Writings" 24:7-18; "Retrospection and Introspection" 24:1-21. As she has written on page 24 of "Miscellaneous Writings," "That short experience included a glimpse of the great fact that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of existence." She has also explained on page 26 of "Retrospection and Introspection," "The miracles recorded in the Bible, which had before seemed to me supernatural, grew divinely natural and apprehensible."
From the summer of 1864 until 1882, except for intervals, Mrs. Eddy lived in Lynn or Swampscott, which are adjoining places. At different times during these years, she was Mrs. Patterson, Mrs. Glover, or Mrs. Eddy, because she divorced her second husband (Dr. Patterson), resumed her former name (Mrs. Glover), and in after years married Mr. Eddy. In February, 1866, she lived in Swampscott at what is now 23 Paradise Road; she was injured by falling on an icy street near the corner of Oxford and Market Streets in Lynn. This occurred on Thursday, February 1. Her healing occurred at her home on the following Sunday. Many of her friends and acquaintances knew or heard that she had recovered in a marvelous way, and that she attributed this result to divine aid or prayer. They could confirm her account of her healing, and their doing this helped her to get a hearing for Christian Science.
Two witnesses have furnished further proofs in recent years. The following statement is from a milkman who had customers in Swampscott in 1866. As correctly spelled, the name of the house owner mentioned in the statement was Armenius C. Newhall.
