Article April 19, 1924 Issue

Notices

To every loyal Christian Scientist falls a share of the responsibility for observing, so far as is humanly possible, our Leader's expressed plans and desires. To The Christian Science Board of Directors of The Mother Church are allotted the greatest responsibilities, as well as the greatest opportunities, in this regard. Upon them rests the duty of now replacing on page 21 of the Church Manual our Leader's name and title as "Pastor Emeritus," which was removed after she passed on. The Directors believe that the field will be interested in the reason for this action; and they are therefore giving a brief outline of the facts which preceded it.

In April, 1895, the then Board of Directors unanimously appointed Mrs. Eddy Pastor Emeritus "nominally; for the time and for all generations to come." On April 23 of the same year she accepted the ordination as conferred, and has since been regarded by Christian Scientists as their Pastor Emeritus. From 1895 until after she passed on in 1910 her name with the above title was always printed in the forepart of the Church Manual under the heading "Church Officers." Soon after she passed on, the Directors who were then serving discontinued the printing of her name in this list of officers in the Manual because of certain conjectures and surmises then afloat in public thought, which, they believed, might cause the retention of her name there to be misconstrued and misunderstood.

As these erroneous beliefs no longer prevail, the present Directors have for some time been considering the action taken by their predecessors in 1910, and have now decided that our Leader's name as Pastor Emeritus should be replaced on page 21 of the Manual as it appeared for so many years prior to 1910. The Directors believe that the list of church officers on page 21 should conform to Section 1 of Article I of the Manual, which distinctly and specifically names the "Pastor Emeritus" first among the church officers. There are other By-laws in the Manual which also refer to Mrs. Eddy as the Pastor Emeritus of her church.

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