In the year 1611, the Authorized King James Version of the Bible came from the press. Since then, the Bible has provided the spiritual and intellectual basis of thinking men and women who have accomplished the most good for the human race.
Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator of African slaves in the United States of America, was a close student of the Bible, putting into practice what he understood of its teachings, and recommending it to others for their guidance. He is reported to have said to a committee of colored men who came to present a copy to him, "It is the best gift which God has given to man."
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, very early in life was taught to love the Bible and to have faith in its promises of freedom to those who understood and obeyed the inspired Word. Almost a score of years before President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and at no small financial loss to herself, Mrs. Eddy permitted the slaves of her deceased husband to go free. In the year 1866, three years after African slavery had been abolished in the United States, while reading and prayerfully pondering a healing incident recorded in the Scriptures, she was instantaneously freed from the effects of an accident from which she was not expected to recover. Thus her faith in God and His promises advanced to a higher degree of spiritual understanding. After her discovery of Christian Science she was inspired to continue to search the Scriptures to gain further knowledge of the Science of Christianity through the understanding and application of which the works of Christ Jesus were performed.
