THE true idea of Church is identified with no mere set of human conditions, historic or otherwise, which a later period might render obsolete or archaic. The Church of Christ, Scientist, in its purely spiritual aspects, is subject to no limitations or considerations of time, of environment, or of changing fortunes of men.
The outward manifestation of the Church of Christ, Scientist, continues to be a wonder of the age. How a woman, single-handed, alone with God, wrought to bring forth and perfect The Mother Church organization must ever remain a miracle to human sense. The spiritual unfoldment of Church precludes its ever being perverted or circumscribed by formalism of creed and ceremony. The Church of Christ, Scientist, declares and proves the universal character of its ministry, its origin, identity, and holy purpose.
"Before Abraham was, I am," constituted the answer of Christ Jesus to the query of the Jews who sought to question the nature of his identity and of his work. And the joyous assurance of stability, permanence, and ultimate triumph of his cause and the law he expounded is contained in his words, "Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." This sublime challenge to the mutabilities of time is matched by another, equal in importance, uttered by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science and the Founder and builder of its organization. With a discernment born of spiritual understanding, she writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 230), "Notwithstanding the sacrilegious moth of time, eternity awaits our Church Manual, which will maintain its rank as in the past, amid ministries aggressive and active, and will stand when those have passed to rest."
