Outstanding in Christian metaphysics is the forever fact that God, the all-knowing, all-wise, eternal Father, supplies every need and answers every righteous prayer. Scarcely can this be said with greater significance than in reference to the answer to Mrs. Eddy's prayer for the right concept of a pastor for her growing church. In her Message to the Annual Meeting of The Mother Church in 1896, she refers to the accomplishments that had been brought about in the preceding few years: "the rapid transit from halls to churches, from unsettled questions to permanence, from danger to escape, from fragmentary discourses to one eternal sermon; yea, from darkness to daylight, in physics and metaphysics" (Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 125, 126).
This "one eternal sermon" came into active being in 1895, shortly after the dedication of the original edifice of The Mother Church when the new pastor—the Bible and Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy— was announced. However, there was still much to be spiritually discerned and acted upon by our Leader before the Christian Science Quarterly, presenting the Bible Lessons, appeared in its present form.
The first mention of Bible Lessons was in The Christian Science Journal for June, 1888, and two months later the first Bible Lesson appeared therein with the subject "The Infant Jesus." From then on, similar lessons were prepared and based on the subjects used in the International Sunday School Series, a movement which had started in the eighteenth century in England and which spread rapidly and is still operating.
