Article October 10, 1925 Issue

Mrs. Eddy early saw the necessity for rules and By-laws...

Ralph W. Still, Committee on Publication for the State of Texas—Fort Worth

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Mrs. Eddy early saw the necessity for rules and By-laws to govern her organization and guard it against the errors the primitive Christian church suffered from the disloyal, hostile, and apostate; and this spiritual intuition led her to provide these rules and By-laws in the Manual of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, thereby insuring the continuity of her church and the purity of Christian Science. She wrote and copyrighted all the By-laws in her Manual; and not only is this Manual accepted as binding and final by loyal students of Christian Science, but it has been held legally and ecclesiastically valid by the highest judicial court of Massachusetts, this far-reaching decision having been rendered about eleven years after Mrs. Eddy passed from our midst. So the sufficiency of the Manual of The Mother Church is not an open question.

That Mrs. Eddy understood that her Manual would survive all attacks is proved by her own writings, one succinct statement from "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 230) being ample to substantiate this. She wrote: "Notwithstanding the sacrilegious moth of time, eternity awaits our Church Manual, which will maintain its rank as in the past, amid ministries aggressive and active, and will stand when those have passed to rest." These Bylaws were provided not only for church government, but also for the spiritual instruction of individual Christian Scientists, as witness Mrs. Eddy's further words from the article above quoted: "Of this I am sure, that each Rule and By-law in this Manual will increase the spirituality of him who obeys it, invigorate his capacity to heal the sick, to comfort such as mourn, and to awaken the sinner," proving the entire Manual to be indispensable, and effective for all time. Attempts to create the impression that spiritualism has been ingrafted into the Christian Science movement are futile; and the efforts to cause misunderstanding as to the attitude of Christian Scientists toward Mrs. Eddy, as their Leader, are equally ineffective. History has bestowed the title "Lawgiver" on Moses, and Christendom designates Christ Jesus as "Master," these recognitions not being regarded as "superstitious," but as appropriate. Similarly, there is nothing strange in Christian Scientists' referring to Mrs. Eddy as their "Leader," even though she is no longer with them in the flesh.

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October 10, 1925
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