CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST FOUNDER'S BOOK TO BE DISCUSSED

It's been more than 100 years since Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, but her preachings are still popular today.

As a woman living in the 1800s, Eddy faced many hardships and trials, which strengthened her religious convictions. She was separated from her children, abandoned by her husband and faced chronic illness.

"From my very childhood I was impelled, by a hunger and thirst after divine things, -- a desire for something higher and better than matter, and apart from it -- to seek diligently for the knowledge of God as the one great and ever-present relief from human woe," Eddy once wrote.

Her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" is still a best seller today. It will be the topic of a discussion Saturday at 2 p.m. at Waldenbooks. Kerry Jenkins of Manchester will speak on Eddy's life and work, showing how "Science and Health" can be useful today.

The event is also part of Women's History Month.

Eddy, born in 1821 in New Hampshire, wrote during a time when most women were denied property rights or child custody in divorce. She has been noted for her contributions to health care, religion and journalism in a time when Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were rallying for the suffrage vote.

She married three times and was divorced from her second husband, who abandoned her. She had several bouts of illness but persevered.

Eddy's book has been called an "inspiration to women, and men, who are seeking a reliable and proven approach to practical spirituality."

As founder of the Church of Christian Science, Eddy learned that studying scripture helped her understand spiritual laws that could be applied to her life.

Eddy's Bible study emphasis came in 1866 when she was faced with a life-threatening injury from a fall on ice. She spent the next three years intensively studying the Bible so she could help heal others. By 1875 she had published the book. She founded the church four years later.

Since 1875, the book has sold more than 9 million copies. It covers such topics as prayer, atonement, marriage, science, theology and medicine. It offers a better understanding of the Christian Science practice and how to overcome social, economic and physical obstacles in life.

Eddy was born in 1821 and died in 1910.

She organized the Christian Scientist Association in 1876 and formed the church in 1879. She chartered the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in 1881 and was ordained pastor later that year. She published the first issue of The Christian Science Monitor in 1908.