Democracy is most evident in that branch Church of Christ, Scientist, in which the least personal leadership and the greatest membership interest are shown. When members love the church with such devotion that they constitute themselves a committee to handle metaphysically every problem which arises, democracy functions. It is preserved when more experienced students withhold personal opinion and encourage even the beginner to seek direction from God, who is man's Mind. The ever-increasing awareness that divine Mind directs, supports, and governs every right activity annuls the belief that intelligence, wisdom, and perspicacity are the possessions of a few.
It is recorded by those who knew Mary Baker Eddy that she constantly turned her students to divine Mind for guidance. Her inspired writings show Mind's ability to manifest itself to meet any human need.
As we voluntarily come under the self-corrective Rules of the Manual of The Mother Church, which Mrs. Eddy wrote under divine directing, and through which divine law is reaching humanity, we are a law unto ourselves. One of these By-Laws reads in part (Art. XXIII, Sect. 10): "In Christian Science each branch church shall be distinctly democratic in its government, and no individual, and no other church shall interfere with its affairs."
