In her Message to The Mother Church for 1901, Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 31), "Among the list of blessings infinite I count these dear: Devout orthodox parents; my early culture in the Congregational Church; the daily Bible reading and family prayer; my cradle hymn and the Lord's Prayer, repeated at night; my early association with distinguished Christian clergymen, who held fast to whatever is good, used faithfully God's Word, and yielded up graciously what He took away."
Authentic biographies of our Leader's life show that in her early childhood her thinking had definite spiritual proclivities. She early loved the church, but even in her youth she did not hesitate to differ from it, as in her refusal to accept the doctrinal point of predestination—some to be saved and others damned. Perhaps this was the beginning of her independent thinking, wherein she progressed out of the theories and doctrines of false theology into a new and more vital sense of Christianity. She has said (Message for 1902, p. 2), "I never left the Church, either in heart or in doctrine; I but began where the Church left off." Much that she gained in those early years remained to be a foundation from which to advance spiritually.
It would be impossible in a short article to cover the points which Mrs. Eddy left behind as she progressed in spiritual understanding. Nor would it be possible to present the fundamentally different ideas embraced as she gained diviner conceptions of Principle and the truth of God's creation unfolded to her inspired thought. For the purpose of this article let us consider just one aspect of this advancing thought as given in the teaching of Christian Science.
