Editorial September 14, 1992 Issue

The First Church of Christ, Scientist

The Editors

One hundred years ago this month, Mary Baker Eddy reorganized the Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, through a Deed of Trust. This established a perpetual body to be known as the Christian Science Board of Directors. As noted in the Manual of The Mother Church, they were to erect a church building, The Mother Church, and to conduct services that would "be consonant and in strict harmony with the doctrines and practice of Christian Science" as presented in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy.

After a number of years of prayer and experience, she was taking new steps to establish a church that would transcend the weaknesses inherent in human organization and reflect in the highest degree possible the spiritual structure and purpose of the divine idea, Church.^{"Church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle .} She was to follow God's leading over the succeeding years to enable her Church uniquely to promote the spiritual development of its members and so lead to the salvation of all mankind. As the respected historian Robert Peel notes, Mrs. Eddy was establishing a "church organization that would lend itself, by her reckoning, to the transformation of its members' lives rather than the mere enlistment of their loyalties."

Continuing, he writes, "The great necessity, as Mrs. Eddy saw it, was a church that would be a training ground in the science and art of living Christianity—and of communicating this same ability to others" (Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority).

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