THE early history of this church has quite an interesting feature. Christian Science had come to a foreign country with a foreign language, but the healing power of the new interpretation of the gospel of Love prepared the way and proved that Truth knows only one country and one language. A faithful little band of American, English, and German workers began in the year 1898 to hold regular Sunday services and Wednesday testimony meetings, and in September, 1900, they were enabled to organize as "First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berlin, Germany," with a membership of eleven.
Services were held at first in the home of one of the members, but despite the seeming handicaps of a new teaching and (to a majority of the group) of an unfamiliar tongue, the growing congregation soon made it necessary to move into a little hall of the Lyceum. With this publicity came misrepresentations and persecutions, and the church was forced to quit the hall and go back to a private house. For a time the listeners were fewer; but the truth could not be suppressed, and again the wrath of men became an instrument to the praise of God, since attacks from newspapers only served to call the attention of the public to Christian Science.
Step by step the way had to be won, prejudices cast down, and the difficulty of the different languages to be overcome, as a few German pamphlets were the only literature for those who did not understand English. But the revered Leader of the great cause, Mrs. Eddy, with loving foresight provided for their needs, and in the year 1903 Der Herold der Christian Science, the monthly German periodical, appeared. This was indeed an event of importance, and was hailed with joy. In the fall of 1905 the church had its first annual lecture, and this gave fresh impetus to the work.
