Chapter Eighty-five

From Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Footsteps by




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Mrs. Eddy Kept Mental Atmosphere Clear Spiritually

Mrs. Eddy’s demonstration of Truth kept the mental atmosphere at Pleasant View so clear spiritually, that it became easy to unfold divine wisdom. The students found themselves capable of accomplishments in this direction that astonished them.

I recall examining myself at one time, to see how error might attempt to use me to bring something into the home that might darken the thought, and prove a deterrent to our Leader. I realized that it would not be some new claim, because the thought was too well guarded for that. It would, therefore, have to be some belief of the past that might recur, through being held in thought unconsciously. Then my years of illness produced by nervousness came to my mind, and I asked God how to meet and destroy the thought of old beliefs.

I opened the Bible at random seeking my answer, and turned to the story of Paul’s defence in Jerusalem in Acts 22. Here it describes, how he made the unscientific admission that he had once been in bondage to sin. When he finished, the people cried out against him and bound him with thongs. When the chief captain arrived, however, Paul corrected his mistake and declared that he was free born. Then they removed his bonds.

In accordance with this passage, it was unfolded to me that if a man had ever been sick or sinful, he could be sick or sinful again; but the realization that man had never sinned and was never sick, not only destroys the claim, but the possibility of any recurrence. Thus, I perceived the solution of my problem, by realizing that in every case of healing, the fact must be established that no delusion of sickness or sin ever did exist in the patient, and does not now. This argument concurs with a statement given by Mrs. Eddy, to one of the household, in connection with this point. It was as follows: “Your old beliefs are destroyed, rooted up, there is nothing of them to come back, is how I should meet it.”




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Love is the liberator.