Mary Baker Eddy felt very strongly—in fact, without reservation—that what was presented to mankind in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures came to her not through such ordinary channels as scholarship but through divine revelation. She at one time stated to a man who served as a proof– reader and grammatical consultant to her in the preparation of Science and Health for publication, "I do not find my authority for Christian Science in history, but in revelation." Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 318.
One dictionary explains the term revelation as "an enlightening or astonishing disclosure." Another meaning that I have always liked denotes a revealing of that which was previously unknown. In Mrs. Eddy's case, her discovery of Christian Science was indeed a revealing of what was previously unknown—the Science of primitive Christian healing. And she writes in Science and Health, "In following these leadings of scientific revelation, the Bible was my only textbook." Science and Health, p. 110. In her other writings there are many instances where Mrs. Eddy establishes the case for revelation in terms of what she discovered and then later set down in Science and Health.
With the conviction born of years of practical experience, Mrs. Eddy stated nearly three decades after her discovery: "The works I have written on Christian Science contain absolute Truth, and my necessity was to tell it; therefore I did this even as a surgeon who wounds to heal. I was a scribe under orders; and who can refrain from transcribing what God indites, and ought not that one to take the cup, drink all of it, and give thanks?" Miscellaneous Writings, p. 311.
