As Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and the Leader of a great religious movement, Mary Baker Eddy encountered every conceivable form of opposing mortal belief. With the acknowledged help of divine Principle, God, she conquered false beliefs within her own consciousness, and thence they were conquered outwardly.
In her Christlike way of exposing human frailties and pointing out the remedy, Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 118): "Be of good cheer; the warfare with one's self is grand; it gives one plenty of employment, and the divine Principle worketh with you,—and obedience crowns persistent effort with everlasting victory. Every attempt of evil to harm good is futile, and ends in the fiery punishment of the evildoer." These trenchant words must have been the result of her own experience in establishing Christian Science.
In doing this important work for herself and humanity, Mrs. Eddy followed the example of Christ Jesus, the Way-shower, whose triumphant battle in the wilderness with satanic suggestions of a mortal selfhood is recorded in the fourth chapter of Matthew. Had Jesus not annihilated these insidious claims before beginning his healing mission, culminating in his victory over death and his subsequent ascension, he could not have reached the summit of unparalleled spiritual achievement.
