Persistent Pilgrim: The Life of Mary Baker Eddy

This book provided me with a wonderful perspective on Mary Baker Eddy's healing gift and how she established it, against considerable odds, as a system, supported by a church and a publishing house, which remains available for personal study through her book, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures.

This fairly short biography of Mary Baker Eddy gives a fuller and deeper appreciation of her character than even Robert Peel's three volume work. Nenneman relates the events of her life in a way that throws real light on the way Christian Science itself informed her actions and gradually developed her perceptions. The reader may still want to turn to Peel's work for detailed analysis but this well-documented book is the very best place to start a study of this religious figure. It reminds one of Edmund Morris' Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Real feeling for the subject pervades every page.