Article September 8, 1906 Issue

AMONG THE CHURCHES

with contributions from Edward Everett Norwood

As many have read with interest the editorial "Our Campaign of Education," in the Sentinel of July 21, it may not be amiss to recount the methods of disturbing literature which are followed in our national capital.

A "Joint Literature Distribution Committee," acting under the chairmanship of the State Publication Committee, has been active for several years. The contribution from the two churches is twenty dollars per month, and much more could be advantageously used. The Committee numbers six, with chairman and treasurer-clerk, and has monthly meetings. A sub-committee, called the visiting committee, is active in looking up places where our literature may be placed, and these are found to be numerous. Each department of our Federal Government has a library and reading room, and each has been furnished with a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," subscriptions to the Sentinel and Journal, and many with "Miscellaneous Writings." The city library (generally miscalled the Carnegie) had been given fourteen copies of Science and Health up to last month, but complaint was repeatedly made by patients and seekers that they were unable to secure a copy, as they were always loaned out. The librarian recently notified us that he would be glad to have ten copies more, which were at once given; making twenty-four in all. This makes it evident that Science and Health is one of the most widely read books there.

We have a list of several hundred names of those to whom our literature may be sent. These names are preferably within a radius of two hundred miles of Washington; but we have no limits, and frequently send literature several thousand miles. When names of people are given in a city or town which has a Christian Science church, we send them one or two packages of reading-matter, and also send their names to the Reading Room or Publication Committee of the local church. These names are furnished the Committee by the members and friends in both congregations here, and every quarter the First Reader in each church in his announcements invites all to send such names to the Committee; also, members and friends who have Sentinels and Journals on hand of which they wish to dispose are requested to send them to the Committee for distribution, which is done in large numbers. A one-cent wrapper will send two copies of the Sentinel. We have also lists of names of ministers, doctors, educators, etc., to whom, from time to time, literature is sent, especially Boston papers containing marked articles by our Leader, and special numbers of our dear Sentinel, which latter costs but one dollar and sixty-five cents per hundred, postpaid. Including these papers, and the two pamphlets, "Historical Facts" and "A Critic Answered," both by Mr. Farlow, approximating ten thousand copies have been sent out during the last two years.

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