Article April 25, 1936 Issue

Item of Interest

Reorganizing The Mother Church

The excerpt printed at the head of the editorials in this issue of the Sentinel comes from a letter written by Mrs. Eddy on July 28, 1892, to the then Clerk of The Mother Church, who also was a member of its Board of Directors. This letter was prepared when its author was working assiduously to reorganize The Mother Church in the best possible way. By divine inspiration this way came to her thought. From time to time she had advised this student, the Clerk of her Church, of the steps revealed to her as right ones to effect the Church's reorganization, and in this letter she reminded him that "the whole proceeding be strictly legal."

Under Mrs. Eddy's instruction and, she says in her article in The Christian Science Journal for October, 1892 (p. 275), "guided by the divine Love," the two New Hampshire attorneys whom she engaged found a law in the public statutes of Massachusetts which exactly suited her purpose. That statute is printed on page 130 of the Church Manual, in connection with the Deed of Trust which, under this statute, Mrs. Eddy executed on September 1, 1892. It is the Deed of Trust by which she created The Christian Science Board of Directors and conveyed to them in trust the land on which to build the edifice of The Mother Church. In their work of reorganization and building, the Directors had the comfort of the benediction set forth in this excerpt from Mrs. Eddy's letter.

Following this accomplishment, when Mrs. Eddy wrote the Historical Sketch for publication in the Church Manual, she thus epitomized the great purpose and design which had initiated and accomplished this rebuilding of the outward organization of this Church that had had its inception years before at Lynn, Massachusetts, in the search on the part of "a little band of earnest seekers after Truth" (Church Manual, p. 17): "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., is designed to be built on the Rock, Christ; even the understanding and demonstration of divine Truth, Life, and Love, healing and saving the world from sin and death; thus to reflect in some degree the Church Universal and Triumphant" (ibid., p. 19).

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