IT IS VERY LIKELY that the first thing Mary Baker Eddy ever heard read to her, from her earliest days, even as an infant, was the Holy Bible. It was a constant presence in her home. She grew up in a Puritan household where Bible study was a daily occurrence and Bible readings accompanied every morning, midday, and evening meal. When Mary was a child, Mary’s grandmother, Maryann Baker, even used the Scriptures to teach her how to read.

The Holy Bible became Mary’s daily companion as she grew into adulthood. And it wasn’t duty that made it so; rather, it was love for the Bible’s message about God’s omnipotent love and care for man and its lessons about how to trust Him understandingly and practically.

The first half of Mrs. Eddy’s life was filled with constant trials and tribulations. Chronic ill health plagued her and often left her bedridden for long periods of time. While she was investigating practically every known healing method of her day, the Bible was her rock upon which she leaned when those methods failed to produce a permanent cure.

And it wasn’t just illness that she had to cope with. George Glover, her first husband, passed away a little more than six months after their marriage. Grief-stricken, she returned to her father’s house in New Hampshire in an advanced state of pregnancy. The experience of giving birth to her son, George, further weakened her poor health and confined her to bed for several months. Her devotion to and reliance on the Bible during this period can be seen in a poem she wrote, which was published two years later. It was titled “The Bible” and began this way:

Word of God! What condescension,
Infinite with finite mind,
To commune, sublime conception
Canst thou fathom love divine?

Oracle of God-like wonder,
Frame-work of His mighty plan,
Chart and compass for the wanderer,
Safe obeying thy command.

(Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Amplified Edition, Boston, The Christian Science Publishing Society, 2009, p. 46)

Three years after that, her mother, Abigail, whom she felt closest to of all her family, passed on. And then two years later, George was taken from her by her family and given into the care of a friend because they felt her health was too fragile and she too weak to care for him. On the day he was parted from her, she wrote in a notebook she kept:

Go, little voyager, o’er life’s rough sea—

Born in a tempest! Choose thy pilot God.

The Bible, let thy chart forever be—

Anchor and helm its promises afford. . . .

(Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery, Boston, The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1966, p. 98)

Mary’s dominant thought in remarrying “was to get back my child” (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 20). After the marriage, however, Daniel Patterson, although he had promised that he would make a home for George with her, refused, using the excuse that she was too weak and sickly. However, he did agree to move to North Groton, New Hampshire, to be near where her son was living. But a year later, the family caring for George moved to Minnesota, taking him with them. This had a devastating effect on Mary, and for most of the next six years she was a bedridden invalid. During this period, her husband was often away because of his work as an itinerant dentist. Literally alone in the wilderness, Mary was left for weeks on end in the secluded woodlands of New Hampshire with only a blind girl, who served as a housekeeper, for company. It’s certainly understandable, considering all this, that Mary leaned ever more heavily on her Bible for courage, guidance, and comfort. She dived into its depths, daily studying it hour after hour, and “as early as 1862 she began to write down and give to friends the results of her Scriptural study, for the Bible was her sole teacher; …” (Science and Health, p. viii). And four years later, when she turned to the Bible in a time of crisis, she had a healing that changed her life and the landscape of Christianity forever.

It was a bitterly cold evening the first of February 1866 when Mary was walking with friends to a temperance meeting in Lynn, Massachusetts. She slipped and fell on an ice-covered street with such force as to injure herself severely. A local newspaper described her condition as critical, and the attendant doctor diagnosed internal injuries and did not hold out much hope for her survival, let alone her recovery. And as always seemed to be the case, her husband was away on a trip when she needed him most.

Her pastor visited her on the third morning after the accident, and she asked if he could return that afternoon. He said he would, but he didn’t expect her to live that long. After he left, Mary told those attending her that she needed to be alone. She turned in prayer to her Bible, to Jesus’ healing of the man with the withered hand in the third chapter of Mark. She has written, “As we read, the change passed over us; the limbs that were immovable, cold, and without feeling, warmed; the internal agony ceased, our strength came instantaneously, and we rose from our bed and stood upon our feet, well” (Science and Health, third edition, p. 156).

When her pastor returned that afternoon, he was astonished, and the doctor was sent for. He, too, was incredulous and told her this was impossible. His disbelief struck at her and she felt weakened, no longer able to stand. After the doctor left, she again turned to her Bible, this time to Matthew 9 , where she came across Jesus’ healing of the man confined to his bed with palsy. “As I read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after was in better health than I had before enjoyed. That short experience included a glimpse of the great fact that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of existence” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 24).

And with that discovery—that divine revelation—came the divine impulsion to understand how to make it practical. She wrote, “For three years after my discovery, I sought the solution of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the Scriptures and read little else, kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to discovering a positive rule” (Science and Health, p. 109). And she goes on, “In following these leadings of scientific revelation, the Bible was my only textbook. The Scriptures were illumined; reason and revelation were reconciled, and afterwards the truth of Christian Science was demonstrated” (Science and Health, p. 110).

A case could certainly be made that Mrs. Eddy’s Church is one of the most thoroughly Bible-based religions today. Its first tenet is “As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life” (Science and Health, p. 497). Mrs. Eddy ordained the Bible and her textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, to be the dual and impersonal pastor of her Church. She provided for weekly Bible Lessons to be studied daily, which are also the centerpiece of every Sunday service. She stipulated that Scriptural texts in this Lesson shall be drawn from the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In addition to the Bible Lesson, every Sunday service begins with reading a Scriptural selection of verses and ends with the reading of First John 3:1–3  and a scriptural benediction. The Wednesday evening testimony meetings of her Church also begin with Bible readings, along with correlative passages from her textbook.

To become a member of Mrs. Eddy’s church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, applicants must agree that the Bible, together with Science and Health and Mrs. Eddy’s other works, will be their only textbooks for self-instruction in Christian Science and for teaching and practicing healing. She also stated in the Manual of her church that members shall believe in only one Christ, “even that Christ whereof the Scripture beareth testimony” (Manual, p. 42). Regarding pupils of teachers of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy made it a rule that they are to be guided only by the Bible and her textbook and not by the personal views of their teacher (see Manual, p. 84). Also, in the Christian Science Sunday School, Mrs. Eddy said that children are to be taught the Scriptures (see Manual, p. 62).

And so it’s clear that the Holy Bible was the rock upon which Mary Baker Eddy stood. It was her constant companion throughout her life: her teacher, counselor, comforter, and healer. It was her only textbook in learning Christian Science. In answer to a journalist’s question, “On what is Christian Science based?” Mrs. Eddy replied that she laid its foundation on the Ten Commandments, the 91st Psalm, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and St. John’s Revelation (see Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, pp. 203–204). She understood the Scriptures to be the chart and compass for all mankind, individually and collectively. And she knew that we are safe when we learn its lessons and obey its commands.