SOURCE: "Mary Baker Eddy: A Sesquicentennial Acknowledgement," in Contemporary Review, Vol. 220, No. 1277, June, 1972, pp. 294-300.

In the following essay, Olds discusses Eddy's life and religious beliefs.

Today, most moderns view the real world as the world of sense experience. In this world there is flesh which we enjoy both seeing and touching. In this world there is also war, poverty, sickness, suffering and death. Because the world of the five senses has such a strong hold on us, many are driven to doubt the existence of a Supreme Being and the possibilities of immortality. Many feel that they have been cast into a world they did not create, and so they must make the best of a bad situation.

Yet in this crazy mixed-up world which we both love and hate there is a small religious group which claims to hear the sound of a different drummer. In...