Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition

Bates, Ernest Sutherland and John V. Dittemore. Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932.

Prior to the publication of this book, Dittemore had been appointed as head of the Publication Committee (Christian Science Committee on Publication) in New York in 1908; financed and published Sibyl Wilbur’s biography of Eddy in 1909; and served as a member of the Christian Science Board of Directors. He was voted out of office in 1919, and on leaving, he purloined historic documents later used for this book. Dittemore describes the motives behind his bitter campaign against the Church: “A few years after Mrs. Eddy’s decease, however, the newer element sought to dissuade me from my purpose as facts unfolded relating to matters in her history certain to interfere with what had become the unacknowledged but none the less actual determination to create a legendary Mrs. Eddy. Not, however, until the discovery in 1928 of Mrs. Eddy’s wholesale plagiarisms and the later attempt by the Christian Science Church to boycott Charles Scribner’s Sons for bringing out the Dakin biography of Mrs. Eddy was my desire energized into action” (iv). According to Beasley, Dittemore’s abusive campaign against the Church originated in reaction to the struggle between the Christian Science Publishing Society Board of Trustees and Christian Science Board of Directors (Beasley, Continuing Spirit, 152). Dittemore’s letter of apology to the Church written five years after the publication of this book is reproduced in Beasley’s book (376).

See also annotations:

Mary Baker Eddy: A Life Size Portrait by Lyman P. Powell

Mary Baker Eddy: Years of Trial, Vol. 2 of 3 by Robert Peel

This reference is written by an ‘independent’ Christian Scientist and is included in the bibliography because of its historical value. For further explanation, click here.