"The Church, more than any other institution, at present is the cement of society, and it should be the bulwark of civil and religious liberty." So writes Mary Baker Eddy on pages 144 and 145 of "Miscellaneous Writings." A dictionary defines the word "cement," in one sense, as "bond of union; that which unites firmly, as persons in friendship." And surely in the world today there is no one thing which humanity needs more than "that which unites firmly" in the bonds of understanding and good will.
The Greek word "ecclesia," which is translated "church" in the New Testament, is derived from a verb meaning "to call out." Originally the word referred to any group of persons who had been called together by duly constituted authority. The early Christian church retained this idea of being called together by constitutional authority, but felt such authority to be divine, not human. The spiritual authority which these called-out ones acknowledged was a demonstrable understanding of the truth of God and His Christ. Wherever this understanding prevailed in the thoughts and lives of men, there was the Church. In his epistles St. Paul refers to the few believers whose lives had been transfigured by the coming to their consciousness of the healing Christ, as "the church." And today it is still true that "Church" is expressed wherever the Christ, which Mrs. Eddy defines in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 583) as "the divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error," is accepted and made practical.
It was his spiritual perception of the Christ which Jesus commended in Peter; and he declared, "Upon this rock I will build my church."
