Article December 22, 1898 Issue

MISCELLANY

A meeting of the members of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, residing on the West Side, was held in the Christian Science Dispensary rooms in the Inter Ocean Building. The object of the gathering was the organization of a Third Church of Christ, Scientist, for the West Side. This step is made necessary by the crowded condition of the Christian Science Temple at Drexel Boulevard and Fortieth Street, which is wholly inadequate for the accommodation of its regular Sabbath audiences.

About two months ago one hundred to four hundred of the persons attending services in that auditorium—the largest of any non-Catholic church in the city—were compelled to stand through the morning worship, and many attendants were regularly turned away. To relieve this condition the Second Church of Christ, Scientist, was organized and secured the rental of the Jewish Synagogue at LaSalle Avenue and Goethe Street, on the North Side. It was thought that the withdrawal from the First Church of that portion of its congregation living on the North Side would sufficiently reduce the attendance at the temple in Drexel Boulevard to permit all the members of its congregation to obtain seats. Last Sunday morning, however, found about one hundred persons obliged to stand during the entire services. In consequence of this condition the organization of a Christian Science Church for the West Side was ordered. The number of new members received into the First Church last Sabbath lacked less than a score of being equal to the number previously given letters for the purpose of establishing the Second Church. The commodious house of worship occupied by the latter at LaSalle Avenue and Goethe Street is now well filled at its Sunday morning services.

The organization of the Second and Third Churches of Christ, Scientist, has not been the result of any division of policy, but is simply an expansion made necessary by the overcrowded condition of the First Church, which seats more than fifteen hundred persons.—Post, Chicago.

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