“When others hate, oppose, ignore…”
Recently our research team was asked about the background of a verse that was evidently of significance to Mary Baker Eddy: “When others hate, oppose, ignore, Help me dear Lord to love them more.”
We found information on this statement in the reminiscences of Christian Science practitioner and teacher M. Ethel Whitcomb. She studied Christian Science with Flavia S. Knapp, who was a pupil in Eddy’s Primary classes of December 1884 and September 1885.1
Whitcomb recalled seeing this poem while visiting Eddy’s home in Concord, New Hampshire. In 1925 she told this to an audience gathered in The Mother Church in Boston:
Many years ago I was in Concord, New Hampshire, with several Christian Scientists. Hearing that we were there, our Leader [Eddy] sent word that we might go through her house while she was driving. In her sleeping room, I noticed a verse written on a slip of paper pinned on the wall by her bed. “Would it be right to read this verse?” I inquired, knowing that it was something precious to our Leader. I was assured that it would. Simple words I found, but so rich, so profound they have been written on my heart ever since. “When others hate, oppose, ignore, help me, dear Lord, to love them more.” I could not go farther.2
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- Whitcomb was listed in The Christian Science Journal as a practitioner in the Boston area from 1897 until 1932. She also advertised as a Christian Science teacher from 1905 until 1932.
- M. Ethel Whitcomb, “Remarks made at a Meeting in the interests of the Periodicals, held in The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, October 15, 1925,” 1925, Reminiscence, 2.