As Christian Scientists we need a clear, practical appreciation of what our corrective mission is, what it requires of us, and how it is basic to each activity of our movement. We need to see it as our corrective mission, our movement's corrective mission. This is essential if we are to witness fulfillment of the stated purpose for which the church was first organized: "... a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing."Manual of The Mother Church, p. 17. The many and varied activities of The Mother Church and its branches worldwide are unified in the broad function of correcting misconceptions (including our own) about God and man, about reality. Overturning error, replacing it with the liberating truth, is the essence of Christian healing, redemption, and universal salvation.
At the turn of the last century attempts to discredit Christian Science and its Founder had been growing in the yellow journalism of the day, and inflammatory sermons from pulpits of various denominations were not uncommon. Mrs. Eddy's own work in behalf of the Cause she founded was expanding, and she asked help from other Christian Scientists to meet the continuing diatribes intent upon smothering the young church. See Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977), pp. 157–158 .
In 1900 Mrs. Eddy prepared a new By-Law to be included in the Church Manual. It concerned the establishment of a new committee with corrective responsibilities. "It shall be the duty of the Committee on Publication," she specified, "to correct in a Christian manner impositions on the public in regard to Christian Science, injustices done Mrs. Eddy or members of this Church by the daily press, by periodicals or circulated literature of any sort."Man., Art. XXXIII, Sect. 2. But the corrective work is never limited solely to the specific responsibilities of the Committee on Publication; it touches each member and activity of the church and requires our ongoing support and keen, prayerful insight into the nature of the challenges still confronting our Cause.
