One of the more detailed historical statements by Mary Baker Eddy appears in her Message to The Mother Church for 1901, where she speaks of her parents' religious devotion as well as the examples of a number of clergymen who influenced her from childhood, up to her discovery of Christian Science. These men were Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists. But before she praises their lives, their convictions, and their doctrines, she briefly mentions herself: "I became early a child of the Church, an eager lover and student of vital Christianity. Why I loved Christians of the old sort was I could not help loving them." And she continues: "Full of charity and good works, busy about their Master's business, they had no time or desire to defame their fellow-men." Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 32.
Not long before writing these words, Mary Baker Eddy had experienced some unusually cruel defamation. In 1899, a lawsuit had been filed against her by Josephine Woodbury, a student of her teachings who had turned against Christian Science and, especially, against Mary Baker Eddy. The lawsuit hinged on whether an address written by Mrs. Eddy contained derogatory references to Woodbury. Since Mrs. Eddy had not mentioned her student in the speech, it was hardly surprising that the lawsuit was not successful. But for months preceding the actual courtroom proceedings, Mrs. Eddy's enemies (including Woodbury and her lawyers) found frequent and numerous opportunities to criticize and ridicule her in print. The collapse of the lawsuit in early June 1901 brought huge relief to Mrs. Eddy and to those assisting her. Almost immediately she began writing a message to be read at The Mother Church as a part of the Communion services, rescheduled because of the legal proceedings to June 23.
Mary Baker Eddy's thoughts on the ministers who influenced her were no exercise in New England nostalgia by a woman in her eighth decade. They were strong declarations of the principles that had guided her life, and, perhaps more specifically, had guided her in the two-year Woodbury ordeal. And the address is not about the lawsuit—the few paragraphs on the clergy are just a rather small part of the conclusion of a fairly lengthy message. Reading this passage, we learn that she saw being "a child of the Church" as a vital part of the Christianity she practiced. And she also spoke of the powerful moral example set by her ministers:
