Mary Baker Eddy discovered the Science of divine metaphysics in 1866. The following year she established the first purely metaphysical system of healing since the first century. In 1881, she chartered, in Boston, the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. She closed the college in 1889.
To the question, "How happened you to establish a college to instruct in metaphysics, when other institutions find little interest in such a dry and abstract subject?" Mrs. Eddy answered (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 38): "Metaphysics, as taught by me at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, is far from dry and abstract. It is a Science that has the animus of Truth. Its practical application to benefit the race, heal the sick, enlighten and reform the sinner, makes divine metaphysics needful, indispensable."
Like Christ Jesus, Mrs. Eddy was led by divine revelation into the realm which is above and beyond the physical and in which moral and spiritual values are supreme. This metaphysical realm had been partially glimpsed during the ages by others who looked for something higher than could be found in a physical sense of existence and who shared what they were able to perceive —although as "through a glass, darkly" (I Cor. 13:12).
