The founder of the sect was a clever woman. Well aware of the power and fascination of the mysterious, she exploited it with a profound understanding of the human heart. She mingled the realities of life with the mysteries of thought, and the sun of her revelations is always veiled by intangible clouds. From her gospel one might cull at random scores of phrases that defy human understanding. "Evil is nothing, no thing, mind or power," she says in _Science and Health_. "As manifested by mankind, it stands for a lie, nothing claiming to be something." And again--"Mortal existence has no real entity, but saith 'It is I.'" The nonsensicalness of her phraseology can find no comparison save in the inconceivable chaos of her teachings. She goes so far as to imply that the supreme effort of a woman's spirit should suffice to bring about conception. Jesus Christ having been conceived of the Holy Ghost, she suggests that man should follow this example, and renounce the lusts of the flesh. "Proportionately as human generation ceases, the unbroken links of eternal, harmonious being will be spiritually discerned"--and in another place, "When this new birth takes place, the Christian Science infant is born of the spirit, born of God, and can cause the mother no more suffering." In the explanations of the Bible given in her _Key to the Scriptures_ we are told that when we come upon the word "fire," we are to translate it as "fear," and the word "fear" as "heat"; while we must remember that Eve never put the blame for her sin upon the serpent, but, having "learnt that corporeal sense is the serpent," she was the first to confess her misdeed in having followed the dictates of the flesh instead of those of the spirit. Like all prophets and saviours, Mrs. Eddy was crucified during her lifetime. She had to engage in a continuous struggle with the envy and jealousy of those who sought to misrepresent her teachings and bring her glory to the dust. But she was far from being an ordinary woman, and even in childhood seemed to be marked out for an exceptional career. At the age of eight, like Joan of Arc, she heard mysterious voices, and her mother, who was of Scottish origin and subject to "attacks of religion," remembered the story of the Infant Samuel and encouraged her to speak with the Lord. But Mary was alarmed by the voices, and wept and trembled, instead of replying to them like a good child. About her forty-fifth year, however, being in the grip of a serious illness, she did hold converse with the Lord, who told her how she might be cured. She listened and obeyed, and was cured. This was her "great initiation." She then retired from the world, and spent several years engaged in meditation and prayer, while her study of the Bible revealed to her the key to all mysteries, human and divine.