What is our duty to our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy? It is a continuous obligation on the part of all the members of her church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. We must remind ourselves of this if we would obey Article VIII, Section 6, of the Church Manual, which requires of each member that he "defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind." Furthermore, the By-Law reads, "By his works he shall be judged,— and justified or condemned." Mrs. Eddy's humility is amply testified to by those who knew her personally, as well as by many a passage in her writings. That she made a duty of this kind a daily necessity evidences that the By-Law could have resulted only from deep prayer and self-denial on her part.
We may well ask what Mrs. Eddy conceived to be the daily duty to her of the members of her church. No one besides herself could answer this adequately, but what it implies is unfolded to each individual in proportion to his love for her and his loyalty to her teaching, as found in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and her other writings.
May we not, however, assume a primary duty to our Leader to be the healing of the sinning and the sick through Christian Science? For on the success of this work must stand the whole movement which she founded. All her sacrifices, and even her inspiration, would go for naught were there to be no healing, for it is the proof of the truth of her discovery. Had Christ Jesus kept to himself the truth which he understood, there would have been no Christianity established. It was his works which attested the divinity of the Christ which he revealed; and he commanded his disciples and all others who understood him to go into the world and heal. He said, "These signs shall follow them that believe; . . . they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." It was this practical testimony to the healing power of the Christ, Truth, that he sought, even as Mrs. Eddy specifies that it is by his healing works that the Christian Scientist is to be adjudged. Mrs. Eddy knew that such proof of healing alone would substantiate the regenerative influence of Christian Science, and point the way of the Christ for all mankind. This obligation, therefore, does not end with one prayer, but continues through every hour.
