When they attend a Christian Science church service for the first time, some persons express surprise over the absence of a sermon or an address. The idea of having only readings from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, seems novel and unusual to say the least. They may, however, be more surprised when they learn that the practice of reading rather than preaching is not new. Some four hundred years before Jesus, for instance, when the wall of Jerusalem was rebuilt, the grateful Israelites assembled to hear Ezra, the priest, read from the law of Moses. "And he read therein... from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law" (Neh. 8:3).
Then follows an interesting item concerning the furnishing of a pulpit or reading desk for Ezra, and next, a description of the simple service that followed. But possibly the statement which most arrests the attention of those who have the privilege of reading in a Christian Science church is this (Neh. 8:8): "So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading."
It would appear sometimes that certain persons who do not think too deeply advocate a style of reading which they term "impersonal," but which is lifeless, colorless, and well-nigh devoid of inspiration. Surely this concept of the work of the Readers in a Christian Science church finds no warrant in our Leader's writings. In the Christian Science Sentinel of December 7, 1940, the Board of Directors of The Mother Church authorized the publication of the following excerpt from a letter written by Mrs. Eddy to an official of her Church, which contains this pertinent statement: "I ask you to select the best reader you can find to read my short Message; one whose voice is ample, articulation distinct, and whose emphasis, pause, tone, is according to conversation,—to the laws of understanding his subject and making it clear to the hearer.",
