IN January, 1895, at the dedication of the first edifice of The Mother Church, the following statement by our revered Leader was given out in the sermon prepared by her: "I have ordained the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,' as pastor of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston,— so long as this church is satisfied with this pastor" (Pulpit and Press, p. 7). Very soon thereafter the branch churches were privileged in having the same impersonal pastor.
It is hardly necessary to explain that Mrs. Eddy's purpose in every step called for, was to bring about as quickly as possible the reinstatement of "primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (Manual, p. 17), and each step away from material means and methods was taken in reliance upon divine guidance. The human tendency has ever been to cling to the old, especially where it had any promise of good, and nowhere is this tendency so marked as in the case of religion. For this reason it required great courage on the part of our Leader and her faithful followers to forsake the beaten path of personal preaching, and to rely wholly upon the truth as presented in the Bible and Science and Health, substantiated, as it always must be, by what Paul names "demonstration of the Spirit and of power."
That period was the beginning of a new spiritual era in which the fitting preparation for divine service was to come with a more intimate and demonstrable acquaintance with the Word of God. Here it should be said that in spite of much misapprehension as to Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy has always touched with reverent hands whatever is sacred to others in Christian doctrine. In preparing the twenty-six subjects which comprise the entire course of Sermons of the Christian Science church, no vital truth was overlooked, and the advancing footsteps of humanity toward the Christ-ideal, as indicated in both the Old and the New Testament, are intended to show us how the kingdom of God is to be reached. These twenty-six subjects are repeated twice in each year, and besides them there is a Thanksgiving Lesson. The first of the subjects is "God," and following the Lesson on "Sacrament," which is second in the series, there are six which present the thought of God as Life, Truth, Love, Spirit, Soul, Mind. Christ Jesus declared that to know God is life eternal, and therefore the student of Christian Science bends all his energies to the lofty task of understanding God by means of the spiritual sense of the Scriptures, as illumined through the inspired teachings of Science and Health.
