Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/240

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LIFE OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY AND

beauty, that turns the poor and stranger from the gate, shuts the door on Christianity." "The man of sorrows was not in danger from salaries or popularity."[1]

Mrs. Glover's theory of the origin of disease was based upon Quimby's science of health. Her fundamental proposition was, like Quimby's, that mind is the only causation, and that disease, as well as all other disharmonies of man, is due to man's steadfast belief that his body contains certain properties over which his mind has no control. But, enlarging upon the Quimby theory, Mrs. Glover declared that the body itself is a mere supposition which mankind has imagined for itself and has come to believe in implicitly. Starting from her standpoint that man is an immortal, spiritual being, having a form, it is true, as he at present believes, but that form being a "sensationless body," an inanimate figure, which may live, breathe, and move, not in accordance with any laws of its own, but in response only to the will of its owner, who is Spirit, Mrs. Glover argued that this spiritual body of man cannot see, hear, feel, smell, or taste, except as Spirit desires. He can not think, or reason, or perform any of the physical or mental functions commonly attributed to man, only as Spirit wills. Spirit, in her idea, is the man. The body is the mere instrument of Spirit.

This Spirit, which governs the body and owns it, is not an individual spirit. There are not just so many bodies and an equal number of spirits to govern them. Spirit, as described,


  1. Since 1875 Mrs. Eddy's ideas of church buildings and church organisations have been considerably broadened. Her organised churches are now more than six hundred in number, and her congregations worship in costly temples, and have a very complete ecclesiastical system; and the founder of the church and the head of the entire church system is Mrs. Eddy herself.