Is life simply organized matter?
Is church merely organized religion?
Can inspiration really be institutionalized?
Do fixed rules make sense in a world convulsed by change?
Such questions as these are hardly to be avoided in the late twentieth century. Top-heavy with material organization, society makes labored efforts to adjust to the onrushing future, while individuals struggle to rescue from corporate pressures some measure of spontaneity, privacy, and freedom to be themselves. Even the student of Christian Science is likely to ask himself on occasion, "Can't I go off in a corner and be a Christian Scientist all by myself ... or, possibly, with a few choice friends?"
All these questions were faced in one way or another by Mary Baker Eddy in the years following her discovery of the Science of Christianity.
