During Mrs. Eddy's first widowhood (1844 53) she developed her fluency of expression and her earning capacity by writing occasional verses and by contributing articles for periodi cals on topics of public interest. Her ability of this kind was recognized by an offer of $3,000 a year (a large salary at that time) to become associate editor of the Odd Fellows Magazine, then edited by the Rev. Richard Rust, and by the inclusion of two poems from her pen in an anthology of poems and essays by New Hamp shire authors which was published first at Man chester in 1850 and again at Boston in 1856. During the same period, Mrs. Eddy served as substitute teacher in the Tilton Academy and experimented with a school for children some what like the modern kindergarten. The period between Mrs. Eddy's second marriage and her discovery of Christian Science (1853-66) was one of following the fortunes of an inconstant or faithless husband and enduring the com biriecb'difficulties of desertion and ill health.
The course of events that led to her covery of Christian Science was described by Mr4. Eddy as follows: °During twenty years prior to my discovery I had been trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause; and in the latter part of 1866 I gained the scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon. My immediate recovery from the effects of an injury caused by an accident, an injury that neither medicine nor surgery could reach, was the falling apple that led me to the discovery how to be well myself, and how to make others so" ((Retro spection and p. 24). The acci dent here spoken of occurred in the evening of 1 Feb. 1866, as Mrs. Eddy was returning from a Good Templars meeting in Lynn, Mass., to her home in the suburb of Swamscott. The contemporaneous account of it furnished by the Lynn Reporter said that she fell on the ice, was taken in an insensible condition to a near-by residence, where she was examined by a physi cian and cared for during the night; that the doctor found her injuries to be internal and of a serious nature, and that she was removed to her home the following afternoon in a critical condition.
Mrs. Eddy has described her recovery from this injury as follows: "On the third day there after I called for my Bible, and opened it at Matthew ix, 2. As I read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after was in better health than I had before enjoyed. That short experience included a glimpse of the great fact that I have ever since tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of existence" ('Miscellaneous Writings,' n. 24). This in cident was the occasion for beginning years of profound study of the Scriptures. Of this search and research she has said: °I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason and demonstration. The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually and apparently through divine power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: us a child is born, . . . and his name shall be called
Wonderful' ° and Health,' p. 109).
The next events of major importance in the life of Mrs. Eddy were the writing and the printing of the textbook of Christian Science, 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.' After writing a statement of her discovery and finding no publisher for it, she became her own publisher and brought out the first edition of 1,000 copies (at Boston in 1875). Copies of this edition now sell at many times their original price, then they were difficult to sell at all, and were not always welcome as gifts. Yet the uncompromising idealism and absolute spirituality of the book demanded and gained attention. A. Bronson Alcott was the first to give Mrs. Eddy a corn forting assurance for the future of her book, and Wendell Phillips said: "Had I young blood in my veins, I would help that woman." At the outset, it was Mrs. Eddy's expecta tion, and for years her hope, that the existing churches would welcome her interpretation of Christianity, proved as it was by the restoration of Christian healing. A considerable number of ministers did accept her offer to this profes sion of free admission to her classes, and some of them invited her to speak in their pulpits. In course of time, however, it became evident to Mrs. Eddy that a distinct church was neces sary to preserve Christian Science intact, for the benefit of that and future generations. Ac cordingly, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, was organized at Boston. in 1879. Four years later another step was taken when Mrs. Eddy founded the first of the Christian Science periodicals, The Christian Science. Journal. During the ensuing years, the teaching of eight classes of students annually, weekly preaching to eager congregations, editing the monthly organ of her church, and heading all the activi ties of the expanding Christian Science move ment, made her life one of the most eventful in the annals of men. And though Mrs. Eddy, in, her later years, trained others to relieve her of some detail and duty and to become the directors of Christian Science affairs, she con tinued to be the active leader of the movement she instituted until her decease (at Newton. Mass., 3 Dec. 1910). It was characteristic of Mrs. Eddy that she devised the hulk and residue of her estate to be used °for the purpose of more effectually promoting and extending the religion of Christian Science as taught by me.* Her principal writings are 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures) (1875) ;