From the Papers: Youth in early Christian Science

Working with documents in the Mary Baker Eddy Papers, our team encounters letters from all kinds of people. The subject of children comes up in a variety of ways, especially because many of those writing to Mary Baker Eddy were parents. Mothers, in particular, wrote of making childcare arrangements in order to attend classes with her, as well as in dealing with the particular needs of their children.¹ In other letters, parents were happy to share how their children were benefiting from an understanding of Christian Science.² These letters reveal that Eddy’s teachings were effectively reaching all ages.

Some parents were sharing Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures with their children, especially through the weekly Christian Science Bible Lessons. The Lessons were first introduced in January 1890 and went through various changes over the following decade, before becoming standardized around 26 subjects studied by Christian Scientists and used in church services. Clearly, the Lessons were proving valuable; and this approach was so fruitful that in several letters parents conveyed how a child or children were independently studying Science and Health along with the Bible.

Here is just one example. In 1910, Florence Clerihew Boyd wrote this to Eddy:

I began reading the weekly lesson to the children when the oldest (twins) were two years old – they are now nearly eight – and as soon as they could I let them find the places – when they had learned to read let them do their own reading. They can now find any citation in the Bible or Science and Health.

Referring to healings as “demonstrations,” she added:

They have also learned to make their own demonstrations (even when two or three years old) and to refer all kinds of problems to Principle and they frequently solve their own problems unaided and voice the Truth to others.³

Besides the Bible Lesson, many letters also referenced the Christian Science Sunday School, first introduced in 1885, as being a guide for children. It wasn’t until 10 years later that the Sunday School became exclusively for children. Writing in 1901, Anna B. White Baker shared a story with Eddy about a little boy named Walter, eight years old. Though not Christian Scientists, his parents allowed him to attend a Sunday School, but then took him out and sent him back to his former church. Baker wrote about this:

Misfortunes came, and when his mother was grieving one day, he said ‘if you had let me stay in the Christian Science Sunday School Mamma – I would have had learned so much Truth that I could have kept this all away from us[.]’⁴

Walter’s parents did allow him to return to the Sunday School. Later his mother had an accident in which the doctors were unable to help her. According to Baker, he “crept around quietly to her bedside and put his hands upon her head, and quietly stroking her face, declared aloud, all the Truth he knew about God’s Allness — Her suffering Ceased.” She concluded by saying that, “her little boy healed her[.]”⁵

Boyd also shared with Eddy how, in her Sunday School class of nine- and ten-year-olds, she had “given them opportunity to tell in the class what demonstrations [healings] they have individually made in the week, demonstrative of the lesson, feeling that they should realize that demonstration is one of the great differences between a Christian Science Sunday School and any other.”

She continued:

I have been impressed with the fact that when in seeming distress it is the first impulse of the children to run to Science and Health and the Bible. Frequently in telling how they made a demonstration they will say “I ran and got Science and Health or the Bible and read awhile and that helped me to remember the Truth and then the pain was all gone”. To me this is beautiful.⁶

Going for “the Book” was a common topic in letters to Eddy, illustrating the faith of young people. Parents seemed to be in awe of how their children were able to practice Christian Science and heal so easily and naturally.

Letters such as these would likely have been helpful to Eddy in confirming that the structures put into place for her church, including the Bible Lessons and Sunday School, were meeting a need, showing that children and adults alike could effectively understand Christian Science teachings. Baker ended her letter with an allusion to the book of Isaiah, which says that “a little child shall lead them” (11:6). “With the faith of this little child,” she wrote, “we will all love each other & so loving will stand.”⁷

Please note: Quoted references in our From the Papers article series reflect the original documents. For this reason they may include spelling mistakes and edits made by the authors. In instances where a mark or edit is not easily represented in quoted text, a deletion or insertion may be made silently.