L. T. (Luther Tracy) Townsend (1838-1922) was born in Orono, Maine, and died in Boston, Massachusetts. He was an ordained Methodist minister and professor of theology at Boston University. As a young man he attended New Hampshire Conference Seminary (known today as the Tilton School in Tilton, New Hampshire), before entering Dartmouth College as part of the class of 1859. He graduated from Andover Theological Seminary in 1862 and was ordained in 1864. He began teaching exegetical theology at Boston University in 1868 and over the next twenty-five years he would teach the various branches of theology at the school. From November 1884 until February 1885 he published a series of eight articles called "Prayer and Healing" in the Zion's Herald newspaper. Some of the articles were critical of Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science. Eddy's response to Townsend was published in the April 1885 issue of The Christian Science Journal and was later republished in Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896 (pages 132-134).

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