Did Mary Baker Eddy write it? “One Point of View — The New Woman”
The book Pulpit and Press is a compilation of newspaper accounts about the growth of the Christian Science movement. Proofread by Mary Baker Eddy, it was first published in April 1895.1
Our research staff frequently receives questions about one particular article in Pulpit and Press. Titled “One Point of View — The New Woman,” it is found on pages 81 to 84 in the section “Clippings from Newspapers.”
Was Eddy the author of this piece?
We have learned that “The New Woman” first appeared as an editorial with no byline, in the February 1895 issue of The New Century. Published in Boston, this was a monthly magazine of the Lyceum League of America.2 An 1895 listing reveals the League was formed “for the purpose of training young men in the duties of citizenship.”3
Walter LeNoir Church, editor of The New Century, wrote this piece. Church also held several positions in the Boston branch of the Lyceum League of America, and this was the first editorial published in his role as editor. According to Church, he had a chance encounter with his longtime friend Judge Septimus Hanna sometime after February 1895. Hanna was then serving as the editor of The Christian Science Journal. Church gave Hanna a copy of the February 1895 Century, and Hanna showed Church’s editorial to Eddy, noting her reaction: “She was delightfully surprised, and exclaimed– ‘Why, I could sign that article without the change of a word.’” Eddy then asked that the editorial be republished in the Journal.4
“The New Woman” was reprinted in the Journal in April 1895, shortly before Pulpit and Press was issued.5 Church indicates in his reminiscence that his editorial did not refer either to Christian Science or to Eddy.6
Church’s reminiscences reveal that, while he was friendly to Christian Science and at times read Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, he never became an adherent of the faith.7 While the two never met in person, he did correspond with Eddy on several occasions. Church also authored an article for the Christian Science periodicals titled “The Lamp,” which was published in the August 1895 Journal.8
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- See, for example, Mary Baker Eddy’s edits to a draft of her dedicatory sermon, intended for publication in Pulpit and Press, dated 6 January 1895, A11500.
- “Trade Items,” The American Stationer, 17 January 1895, 106, https://books.google.com/books?id=0VJYAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
- The Tribune Almanac and Political Register for 1895, eds. Edward McPherson and Henry E. Rhoades (New York: The Tribune Association, 1895), 212, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951002271748g&seq=7
- Walter LeNoir Church, 29 August 1927, Reminiscence, 2–4.
- “The New Woman,” The Christian Science Journal, April 1895, 28–30.
- Walter LeNoir Church, 19 April 1930, Reminiscence, 1.
- Church, 29 August 1927, Reminiscence, 1, 3.
- Church, 29 August 1927, Reminiscence, 5.