Editorial June 17, 1911 Issue

COOPERATIVE WORK

Archibald McLellan

In last week's issue of the Sentinel we published a list of the members of the board of lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, together with their addresses, and attention is called above to certain instructions which have been sent out by the board for the information of the branch church officers who have in charge the arrangements for the lectures to be given by their respective churches.

Attention is specially directed to these instructions, because their purpose is to secure the hearty and intelligent cooperation of all the churches in making the lecture work a success, so that even greater results shall be obtained than in the past. The interest shown by the public in these lectures has been very great, and during the lecture year just closing about seven hundred thousand persons have heard the message of Christian Science delivered in this way. When we consider, however, that even this great number who have listened to the word of Truth represents only about one in every hundred and thirty-five of the population of the United States, to say nothing of Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, and the other countries in which lectures have been delivered, it is easily seen that there remains much more to be done before the work of this board will have accomplished what our Leader in establishing it intended it should do, in correcting the misconceptions and absolute ignorance of Christian Science which yet largely prevail.

The importance of the work of the lecturers lies in the fact that they are telling the truth about Christian Science to those who wish to know the truth, without undue regard to whether or not these people shall become Christian Scientists; and it is because of this unselfish attitude that their labors have done so much for our cause and for humanity. With the efforts of the lecturers intelligently and vigorously supported by the churches along the lines recommended in the instructions sent out, we have no doubt that considerably more than a million people will listen to the lectures during the coming year. The practice of the churches in the larger cities, of giving a greater number of lectures each year than the minimum prescribed by the Manual, is greatly to be commended, and when to this is added a liberal free distribution of our literature, the total good which results from the lecture work can scarcely be estimated. It is a field of endeavor wherein cooperation finds its most effective use in bringing to public attention the "good news" of Christian Science.

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