Did Mary Baker Eddy ever describe “a beautiful white bridge”?
Janet T. Colman, n.d. P00472. L. W. Cook.
We were recently asked about an analogy attributed to Mary Baker Eddy, involving a bridge crossing a grimy area. Is it authentic?
According to a reminiscence by Janet T. Colman (1849–1920), Eddy did indeed talk about this:
In one of our classes she [Eddy] spoke of a beautiful white bridge; underneath was all slime, mud, venomous snakes, reptiles, all that was unclean, wild beasts. She asked which path we would take, go over the white bridge or go under? We all answered that we would go over the white bridge. She smiled and said that we would go over it after we had been underneath and demonstrated over it all, the whole of mortal mind must be overcome first.1
Colman was an active member of the early Christian Science movement and worked as a Christian Science practitioner and teacher for almost 40 years. She took three Christian Science classes from Eddy: Primary class instruction in 1883; a Normal class in 1885; and an Obstetrics class in 1887.2 She was also one of the original members of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, when it was reorganized in 1892.3
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- Janet T. Colman, n.d., Reminiscence, 22.
- To learn more about Christian Science classes and the distinctions between them, see our article “From the Papers: A revised curriculum for the Massachusetts Metaphysical College.”
- A number of letters by Colman, and related to her, can be found on the Mary Baker Eddy Papers website: https://mbepapers.org/?load=mbe_persons&refid=colman_janet.