Produced by Justin Gillbank, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION BY MARY BAKER EDDY AUTHOR OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES Registered U.S. Patent Office Published by The Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy BOSTON, U.S.A. Authorized Literature of THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST in Boston, Massachusetts _Copyright, 1891, 1892_ BY MARY BAKER G. EDDY Copyright renewed 1919 and 1920 _All rights reserved_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS ANCESTRAL SHADOWS AUTOBIOGRAPHIC REMINISCENCES VOICES NOT OUR OWN EARLY STUDIES GIRLHOOD COMPOSITION THEOLOGICAL REMINISCENCE THE COUNTRY-SEAT (POEM) MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE EMERGENCE INTO LIGHT THE GREAT DISCOVERY FOUNDATION WORK MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS FIRST PUBLICATION THE PRECIOUS VOLUME RECUPERATIVE INCIDENT A TRUE MAN COLLEGE AND CHURCH "FEED MY SHEEP" (POEM) COLLEGE CLOSED GENERAL ASSOCIATIONS AND OUR MAGAZINE FAITH-CURE FOUNDATION-STONES THE GREAT REVELATION SIN, SINNER, AND ECCLESIASTICISM THE HUMAN CONCEPT PERSONALITY PLAGIARISM ADMONITION EXEMPLIFICATION WAYMARKS RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION ANCESTRAL SHADOWS My ancestors, according to the flesh, were from both Scotland and England, my great-grandfather, on my father's side, being John McNeil of Edinburgh. His wife, my great-grandmother, was Marion Moor, and her family is said to have been in some way related to Hannah More, the pious and popular English authoress of a century ago. I remember reading, in my childhood, certain manuscripts containing Scriptural sonnets, besides other verses and enigmas which my grandmother said were written by my great-grandmother. But because my great-grandmother wrote a stray sonnet and an occasional riddle, it was no sign that she inherited a spark from Hannah More, or was her relative. John and Marion Moor McNeil had a daughter, who perpetuated her mother's name. This second Marion McNeil in due time was married to an Englishman, named Joseph Baker, and so became my paternal grandmother, the Scotch and English elements thus mingling in her children. Mrs. Marion McNeil Baker was reared among the Scotch Covenanters, and had in her character that sturdy Calvinistic devotion to Protestant liberty which gave those religionists the poetic daring and pious picturesqueness which we find so graphically set forth in the pages of Sir Walter Scott and in John Wilson's sketches. Joseph Baker and his wife, Marion McNeil, came to America seeking "freedom to worship God;" though they could hardly have crossed the Atlantic more than a score of years prior to the Revolutionary period.