● ● ● austerely beautiful products of their expert craftsmanship.71 Her reference in 1837 to an invitation to visit the Shakers suggests that it was a usual thing for the young people to do, even though she could not go on that occasion.72 In any case she may well have heard something of their beliefs.
What attracted most people’s attention were their four leading principles of virgin purity, Christian communism, confession of sin, and separation from the world. Less well-known but no less striking was their concept of God as Mother as well as Father, reconciling the maternal attribute of love with the paternal attribute of terrible and unlimited power.73 The reconciliation, however, was only verbal; there was nothing here to resolve the paradox of a loving God and a world abounding in evil. When Mrs. Eddy later presented the concept of God as Father-Mother, she related it to a concept of creation which revolutionized the meaning of both terms.74
More pertinent to her development was the conviction of God’s love that came to her through her own mother. Yet such is the complexity of human life that even her mother’s religion was overcast by her father’s theology. When Mary was about to leave home at the time of her marriage, her mother asked her to read every night a poem which began:
71 This Shaker settlement furnished the locale for Hawthorne’s story “A Canterbury Tale.” Mrs. Baker wrote Mary, “Your pocket handkerchief pedler called here & had much chat.” Abigail Ambrose Baker to Mary Baker, 5 May 1844, 1919.001.0007, LMC.
72 See p. 55. Also Addie Towns Arnold, “Reminiscences of Mrs. Addie Towns Arnold,” 17 October 1932, Reminiscence, p. 13, MBEL. This Christian Scientist [who grew up in the same region of New Hampshire as] Mrs. Eddy wrote: “She undoubtedly knew the Shakers. . . . They came to Tilton regularly all the time I lived there peddling things they had made. Everyone in Tilton knew them and was more or less acquainted with their doctrines and practices.”
73 “As Father, God is the infinite Fountain of intelligence, and the Source of all power—‘the Almighty, great and terrible in majesty.’ ” “But, as Mother, ‘God is love’ and tenderness!” F. W. Evans, Shakers: Compendium of the Origin, History, Principles, Rules and Regulations, Government, and Doctrines of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (New York: D. Appleton, 1859), pp. 105, 106. See A Brief Account of Shakers and Shakerism (Canterbury, NH: Shaker Village Mer., n.d.), p. 11, for statement of four principles. Among the many denominational hymnals which Mrs. Eddy collected in her later years is a Shaker Hymnal, copyright 1908 by the Canterbury Shakers, and with the inscription: “To Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy with sincere love and best wishes of Shaker friends.” Shaker Hymnal (East Canterbury, NH: Canterbury Shakers, 1908), B00287, MBEL.
74 See my book, Christian Science: Its Encounter with American Culture (New York: Henry Holt, 1958), p. 91; also “The Motherhood of God,” The Christian Science Journal, December 1962, pp. 617–620.