IN "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, refers to the great gain in spiritual understanding of students working in her home, adding (p. 229): "But this should not be the incentive for going thither. Better far that Christian Scientists go to help their helper, and thus lose all selfishness, as she has lost it, and thereby help themselves and the whole world, as she has done, according to this saying of Christ Jesus: 'And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.'"
Mrs. Eddy's unselfishness was such that when she had a remarkable physical healing in 1866 from the effects of a severe injury, through the discovery of Christ Jesus' method of spiritual healing, she undertook the systematic dissemination of it to the world, naming it Christian Science. Of this work she writes in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 17), "The Discoverer of this Science could tell you of timidity, of self-distrust, of friendlessness, toil, agonies, and victories under which she needed miraculous vision to sustain her, when taking the first footsteps in this Science."
The Christian Scientist who finds Mrs. Eddy, through her Church, helping himself and humanity today, may well ask: Am I pursuing my religion for its clear benefits to me, or have I the larger motive of helping my helper in her avowed task of bringing operative Christian Science to all mankind? Do I realize that a demand no less tangible than that supplied by the personal service and love of early students rests upon me to help my helper, as today requires?
