Editorials

Recent investigations by geneticists have produced an intriguing theory: that the ancestry of modern humans can be scientifically traced back to one specific woman. With a touch of irony, the geneticists have decided to give her a rather well-known name.

Once in a while you may see the phrase unexpectedly in a news-magazine, when the writer is desperate for a way to make his prose more lively. But probably for many people animal magnetism remains a topic from another century.

A recent series in The Christian Science Monitor, "Christian Healing Today," Monitor, December 22-24, 29, 30, 1987. highlighted the reawakening of an interest in Christian healing among churches of many denominations and pointed out the challenges they face in finding a way to be faithful to Christ Jesus' command to heal the sick.

In 1893 the membership of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, received a call for the Church's first annual meeting to be held in October. Later, in the Manual of The Mother Church, a By-Law was amended to specify a Monday date in June, which has been kept each year since 1908.

A winter's walk along Walden Pond where Henry David Thoreau once beat a determined retreat from civilization always offers food for thought. The most obvious observation is that his retreat wasn't all that far from civilization, and that fact is even more evident today.

At a Wednesday testimony meeting a while ago I was thinking just how much Mrs. Eddy counted on individual members to contribute to the success of the Christian Science movement.

A friend of mine was brought up on the shore of Lake Como in Italy. Her family's house was right at the edge of the water, and of course she learned to swim at an early age.

The majority of readers of this editorial would probably say they are not reading a translation of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures; they are reading the original English in which it was written. But there is a "translation" of the Christian Science textbook that isn't on any list of languages.

A Christian Scientist tells of an experience he had when swimming. He was caught in a seining net and drawn underwater.

A few years ago I happened to be in Greece at Easter time. The family I was with wanted me to experience the full joy of the Easter celebration, so they took me up to a high place overlooking the city of Athens.