Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial

Peel, Robert. Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial. Vol. 2 of 3. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.

Volume two of Peel’s trilogy covers Mary Baker Eddy’s expanding years of 1877 to 1891, her “crucial period of trial and error” (vii) as she fights for the very survival of her nascent movement. It is her time for organizing her church, clarifying her revolutionary interpretation of the Bible, and teaching pupils who would carry the message of Christian Science beyond New England to a wider world. Peel records her deep personal faith, the struggles of letting go of family ties, the relentless opposition from disaffected students, and her spiritual integrity and radical idealism as she puts into practice what she taught. Throughout these stormy middle years, Peel elucidates each period of testing as a prelude to a new advance (302). Scholars researching the social, intellectual and religious climate of late 19^th-century America with its changing roles for women will find Eddy a spiritual leader making exacting demands, moving beyond the Victorian boundaries of her culture, and engaging the existential questions of her age. As the book jacket states, Eddy’s story “presents the biography of an idea no less than of a woman.”

ISBN-10: 0030867002
ISBN-13 (Softcover): 978-0875101170
ISBN-13 (Hardcover): 978-0030867002

See also annotations:

Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery by Robert Peel (Volume 1 of 3)

Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority by Robert Peel (Volume 3 of 3)