Two centuries after Mary Baker Eddy’s birth in a modest New Hampshire farmhouse in 1821, her character and place in the history of religion appear less obscured by stereotype and myth. Outgrown through modern ecumenism, deep-rooted religious bias is less likely to pass for genuine comparative religious study. For Christian Scientists and readers of all faiths and backgrounds, the republication of Robert Peel’s biographical trilogy by the Christian Science Publishing Society offers a timely occasion to reconsider this singular spiritual pioneer, to use her phrase, in her “true life and light.”⁷

Thomas Johnsen
Watertown, Massachusetts