Possibly no characteristic of the great Leader of the Christian Science movement, Mary Baker Eddy, is more conspicuous than her sublime conviction that the spiritual message which she enunciated came from God and not from the human mind. Hear this humble statement, recorded in her book "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 114): "It was not myself, but the divine power of Truth and Love, infinitely above me, which dictated 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.'" Then where, one may ask, can be found the counterpart of her declaration which follows: "I have been learning the higher meaning of this book since writing it"?
In the early history of her denomination, sermons were preached by pastors, as in all orthodox churches. But this inspirational Leader, ever listening for divine Mind's direction, soon conceived the idea of an impersonal Lesson-Sermon to be read in all Christian Science churches by Readers; while the Bible and Science and Health she ordained as the only Pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist.
The Lesson-Sermons, composed of Scriptural passages and correlated statements from Science and Health, are thus protected from adulteration or misstatement through the entrance of misguided human opinion. From the Reader's desk in a Christian Science church one never hears what some mortal thinks, be his opinion accurate or inaccurate, about this Science. He hears the pure statements of Truth itself; and as Truth, like light, must always dispel its opposite, is it any wonder that again and again men and women lose a sense of sin and suffering during the reading of the Lesson-Sermon?
