Thanksgiving Service of The Mother Church

William B. Johnson

Thanksgiving Day found The Mother Church crowded to the doors with a grateful throng of worshipers, and the entire service was characterized by great earnestness and joy.

The order of service was as follows:—

Hymn 150; reading of the Governor's Proclamation, and the Scripture Lesson, Isaiah, 35, followed by silent prayer, and the Lord's Prayer with its spiritual interpretation; Mrs. Eddy's hymn, "Shepherd, show me how to go," was then sung as a solo, and the Lesson-Sermon followed. After the singing of our Leader's hymn, "O'er waiting harpstrings of the mind," the First Reader, Professor Hering, said,—

"Opportunity will now be given for members of the church to offer testimonies appropriate to this occasion. As Christian Scientists we certainly have reasons for being especially grateful for what God's goodness has brought to us in ways hitherto unknown and unbelieved, and on this national day of thanksgiving it is very fitting that our service should include verbal expressions of thanks from the recipients of the Divine bounty, coming to us through the spiritual consciousness, self-immolation, and untiring labors of the one whom we are privileged to call Leader.

"As a church body, we find great cause for gratitude in the new auditorium rising in strength, dignity, and beauty before our eyes; for evidences of growth and progress on every hand; for the increasing sense of man's at-one-ment with God; and for the loving care and unceasing vigilance of our beloved Leader,—continually guiding us nearer to divine Truth and Love.

"As individuals we rejoice in health, happiness, harmony, and spiritual understanding, which are visibly replacing the fear and discord of former days, and these surely are sufficient reasons for our being especially grateful to-day."

A large number of earnest and impressive testimonies of healing were given, concerning which the Boston Globe has said,—

"The testimonies were uniformly expressions of gratitude for a clearer and more satisfying understanding of the Scriptures, a new and more practical religion, and consequently a higher degree of contentment and happiness."

The following telegram expressing appreciative regard and loving remembrance was then read, and by unanimous vote sent to our Leader,—

Boston, Mass., November 24, 1904. To the Reverend Mary Baker G. Eddy.

Pleasant View, Concord, N. H.

Beloved Teacher and Leader:—In glad response to the proclamation of our President and of the Governor of the Commonwealth, we are met in The Mother Church to offer heartfelt praise and thanksgiving for the unnumbered blessings which have crowned the passing year.

With our fellow-countrymen we have great reason for gratitude that peace reigns within our borders, and that the condemnation of war, and all the conditions which are wont to precipitate war, is finding more general and more emphatic avowal among all peoples, and we recognize the significant fact that the assertive growth of these nobler ideals has been coincident with the years of your ever-expanding ministry to mankind.

With deep thanksgiving we recall the unmeasured good which has ever shamed humanity's selfishness and fear, and which now fills our every garner, but our sense of indebtedness to our heavenly Father mounts highest, when we remember the spiritual blessings He has bestowed upon mankind through the channels of your faith and "righteous endeavor." In Christian Science we recognize the embodiment of all that is good, beautiful, and true; that its sacred teaching is healing every human ill, and that in all the world it is proving the power of God unto salvation. We rejoice to witness before men that in the measure of our apprehension of this teaching, and of our conformity thereto, we have found escape from sickness and from sin, and are entering into the glorious freedom of "the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." We are devoutly thankful for the success of the Cause which is so dear to your heart,—that in so many lands the truth which Jesus taught and demonstrated is being savingly revealed to those who are ready to part with error. We are especially thankful for the completion, this year, of the beautiful church presented by you to your home city, and for the quickening thought of your address, upon the occasion of its dedication.

In the contemplation of these richer benefactions, we are led to exclaim, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift;" and when we think of the loving patience, unswerving devotion, and self-forgetting constancy of your Christian ministry, as the Founder and Leader of this great healing and spiritualizing movement, we begin to realize something of what it all means to the world to-day and to the generations to come. We therefore bring to you that return of grateful affection and sincere regard which we know will find its fullest expression in unfeigned love for one another, and in honoring Christ and our profession by that daily life which you have outlined and illustrated for us as "meek, merciful, just, and pure."

William B. Johnson, Clerk.

The service closed with the singing of Hymn No. 71, the reading of the scientific statement of being, and the benediction.

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Thanksgiving Day Service at Concord, N. H.

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