Environment is a subject that causes concern to many people and in many ways. The feeling about an environment, however, may not be that of unhappiness. Perhaps more often it is a belief that if one's situation were different one could do better work, accomplish more, and in every way be more successful.
It is true that Jesus absented himself from the people many times and went apart for a time of prayer, but even when he was in an environment that was not wholly desirable, he was able to lift his thought to mountaintops of spiritual inspiration and communion with God. He had proved that he could be in an environment and yet not be a part of it. And so it was with Mrs. Eddy in the early days of her discovery of Christian Science. She was able to keep her thought above her surroundings and apart from them.
When one visits the modest house at Swampscott where Mrs. Eddy was living when, after her immediate recovery from the effects of an injury caused by an accident, she was led to the discovery of the Science that enabled her to heal herself and others, one cannot but marvel at the grandeur and magnificence of the thought of this spiritually-minded woman, who reached such supreme spiritual heights. When visiting other places where Mrs. Eddy resided during the early days of her discovery of Christian Science, notably the small, low-ceilinged. and very unpretentious room at Lynn where she completed Science and Health, one feels a respect and a profound reverence for the one who so loved the world that to share that which she knew would bring salvation to it was the sole motivation of her life. Our Leader writes in Science and Health (p. 455), "God selects for the highest service one who has grown into such a fitness for it as renders any abuse of the mission an impossibility." And the positions of Christ Jesus and of Mary Baker Eddy are unique.
