Article July 6, 1957 Issue

Our Lesson-Sermon

By William R. Knox,—<i>of Boston, Massachusetts</i>

In the year 1889 one of Mary Baker Eddy's Primary class students came to Boston from her home in the Middle West to study in a Normal class with our Leader. This student in later years became our friend, and while visiting in our home she related to us her experience at that time.

After the class was finished, she had an opportunity to talk with Mrs. Eddy about a serious difficulty that had been going on for some time with one of her children. Among other things, Mrs. Eddy told her that she must have patience, and when the student said that she had had patience for more than two years, Mrs. Eddy replied: "My dear, you don't know what patience is! I have been praying for many years for a pastor for my church—one who can preach the Word and not be swayed by the wiles of the devil. I have not had my answer yet, but I shall have it!"

Not until 1895 did Mrs. Eddy have the answer to her prayer, when she ordained the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" as the pastor over the Church of Christ, Scientist. This was a most unusual procedure: to make two books the pastor over a church that would become world renowned, with branches in every quarter of the globe. But how fitting and what a blessing it has been and will continue to be throughout the centuries! And how prophetic too, for since "pastor" is also defined as "shepherd," it fulfilled her prediction of later years at the interview in which she was questioned by a newspaper reporter as to her successor when she would no longer be in our midst. She replied (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 347), "What remains to lead on the centuries and reveal my successor, is man in the image and likeness of the Father-Mother God, man the generic term for mankind."

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