In her Church Manual, Mary Baker Eddy has given the members of her Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, the following By-Law, entitled "Alertness to Duty" (Art. VIII, Sect. 6): "It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to 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. By his works he shall be judged,—and justified or condemned." The degree in which we, as members of The Mother Church, observe and obey this By-Law, determines our release from the tyranny of material beliefs and our demonstration of man's dominion as the son of God.
The spiritual significance of the ByLaw in its application to our Leader reaches beyond a formal acknowledgment that Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, and Leader of the Christian Science movement, and that she will have no personal successor. It is true that this acknowledgment is not only important, but essential to understand our Leader's place in the movement, in preserving intact the Church she founded, and in keeping her teachings from being adulterated. But it is only the first step. The student must advance, through the spiritual discernment, application, and proof of her teachings, to recognize them as God-revealed—the prophesied Comforter, "the Spirit of truth," which the Master promised the Father would give to abide with us forever. (See John 14:16, 17.)
Mrs. Eddy did not wish, on the contrary she unqualifiedly forbade, all personal adulation. The Discoverer of the Science of good knew that attachment to a sense of limited personal good antagonizes worship of God as infinite good and fosters personal contagion. Repeatedly she warned her followers against this mental malady, which too easily besets mankind.
