Boston, Sunday, 3 P. M., 1896.
Dear Jane:—I went this morning to Mrs. Eddy's Church. I scarcely know where to begin to tell you about it. The service consisted of singing, responsive reading from the Bible lesson-text, then reading from two reading desks on the same platform, one reader being a man and the other reader on his right hand being a woman. The man read selections from the Bible, the woman read from Science and Health (Mrs. Eddy's book). As I had heard it all before, at first I did not feel interested, but after I had been there about a quarter of an hour, all the load of existence seemed to roll off me, and a peace that I had not known for a long time seemed to take the place of my worry and anxiety.
There was no sermon, lecture, or exhortation of any kind. Just a large church full of people thinking harmony instead of discord. The church was full, the people were in no way peculiar looking except for a certain quiet purity about their faces,—they did not look like followers of an ism. What surprised me was to see fully as many men as women. Ella B——and her husband were exactly the class of people most largely represented.
