Oaks become acorns mighty forests twigs?
Shall reason bold the law of God assail
In that the beam-filled eye can e’er avail
Itself of good in undisputed right
And change its darkness to meridean light84
In a college paper ironically entitled “The Heresy of Reason,” Albert Baker had asked rhetorically whether one must be considered a “heretick” because one relied on reason as a guide to truth. His answer has relevance to his sister’s later thinking:
The Being whom we adore, and a knowledge of whom we would fain attain, combining in himself all that is holy and perfect, the nearer we approach him and the more intimate our acquaintance, the purer will be our love and the stronger our attachment. . . . But how shall we obtain this knowledge? By the aid of reason. What! exclaims the zealot, subject the inscrutable ways of Providence, the Infinite God, to blind, erring, deceitful reason? . . . But, we would ask, will that steady and bright torch, which of old guided its followers to the very throne of virtue fail him who lights it for religion and in an eternal cause? . . . “God,” says Plato, “is truth. . . .” If truth exists it can be separated from error. . . . If . . . there exists throughout nature an invariable and uniform consistency, is Nature’s great Author inconsistency? And if his essence be truth, and truth be attainable by reason, will not reason in her slow but unerring progress attain to a knowledge of it? What? exclaims the zealot, attempt to pattern infinity? . . . But while we would concede the infinitude of the Divine Mind, we would maintain the ability in man of an infinite increase of knowledge; and though he can never reach perfection, he may forever approximate.85
84 [Mary Baker Eddy, “Shade and Sunshine,” poem, n.d., A10032, p. 5, MBEL. Cf. Mary Baker, “The Invalid,” poem, A09001, p. 5, MBEL.] Mary Baker used her notebook for both original poems and poems copied from other authors. Usually it is perfectly clear which was which, but in a few cases there is a little doubt. These particular lines come from her long poem “Shade and Sunshine,” part of which may conceivably be a pastiche of admired passages from other poets.
85 [Albert Baker, “The Heresy of Reason,” c. 1834, 1920.015.0022, LMC.]