When thirty-three-year-old William McKenzie first met the seventy-three-year-old Leader of Christian Science on Christmas Day 1894, he said that then and there he became her man, "like a clansman giving allegiance." McKenzie letter to Lyman Powell, August 19, 1932, Archives and Library of The Mother Church.
This vivid word picture of a young man's faithful devotion to Mrs. Eddy and to her religious mission—so ardently expressed by him almost forty years after that December meeting— also paints a portrait of the man himself. It has the highlights of his Scottish integrity, his Christian idealism, his poetic eloquence.
As the first son and the grandson of Scottish Presbyterian ministers, Canadian-born William McKenzie was consecrated by his parents to the ministry. His search for a satisfying understanding of God began early. "At fourteen," he recalled, "I had many a wakeful night over the puzzle of the atonement & the horror that 'hell' suggested." McKenzie letter to Septimus J. Hanna, September 22, 1894, Archives.
Struggling over such doctrinal points even after he began a four-year pastorate, and suffering from a nervous breakdown, the Reverend Mr. McKenzie reached a point where all that he could accept was the Scriptural teaching that God is Love. Restored to health, he returned to his parish. Daisette D. S. McKenzie reminiscences, pp. 16-17, Archives.
Soon afterward, thanks to the efforts of Miss Daisette Stocking (whom he later married), he caught the true meaning of Christian Science. Once he dedicated himself to Science, he acted quickly, withdrawing from the Presbyterian Church in September 1894 because, he declared, "the King's business required haste." McKenzie letter to Hanna, September 21, 1894, Archives.
With equal speed, and to the amazement of some longtime Scientists, Mrs. Eddy made Mr. McKenzie a First Member of The Mother Church the next month, even before she had met him. Why she would do so can perhaps be seen in a letter she wrote to him a few days before: "Your poem in our Journal is like the song of the redeemed, and the smiles and tears of the new-born for the milk of the Word. It touched my heart of hearts." Mrs. Eddy letter to McKenzie, October 2, 1894, Archives (L04847). See Journal, Vol. 12, October 1894, p. 297. (Over the next five decades William McKenzie would touch many hearts with his numerous poems, including the seven that are in the current Christian Science Hymnal.)
Yet even a gentle Christian poet must undergo the rigors of Christian discipleship. "As a minister," Mr. McKenzie wrote to Mrs. Eddy, "I had passed for a good man but when Science touched the moral self 'sin revived and I died.'" McKenzie letter to Mrs. Eddy, January 9, 1897, Archives.
This good Christian, learning what it takes to be a consistent Christian Scientist, had written: "...the willpower I once gloried in dies, & my proud heart is softened, till I become as a little child, desiring not to lead but to be led." McKenzie letter to Hanna, September 22, 1894, Archives. During the Woodbury court case against Mrs. Eddy, climaxing in 1901, his desire "to be led" was sorely tested; but in the end it saw him safely through. How well he succeeded in fighting the Christian warfare with himself can be seen in his many accomplishments for the Cause of Christian Science.
By the turn of the century, and at Mrs. Eddy's direction, Mr. McKenzie was serving simultaneously as a member of the Bible Lesson Committee, as an original Trustee of the Publishing Society, as a lecturer, and also as First Reader of First Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In addition, of course, he was a Christian Science practitioner and teacher (having been taught by Mrs. Eddy in her last class in 1898).
Mrs. Eddy called on Mr. McKenzie's literary skills in the arrangement of various editions of her Manual of The Mother Church. She also entrusted him, along with Edward Kimball, with proofreading her revision of Science and Health in 1901. (In that same year Mr. McKenzie became a naturalized citizen of the United States.)
Clearly the indefatigable Leader of Christian Science expected her followers to be equally tireless in living what she taught: "The song of Christian Science is, 'Work—work—work— watch and pray.'" Message to The Mother Church for 1900, p. 2.
In 1917 Mr. McKenzie left the Board of Trustees to become Editor of the Journal, Sentinel, and Herald, serving until he resigned at the time of the litigation between the Directors and Trustees. In 1922, after the Directors' victory, Mr. McKenzie became a Trustee again. Ten years later he was elected a Director of The Mother Church.
At the time of the litigation he testified in court to the spirit that motivated his lifelong loyalty to his Leader: "I served her as a son might all the years that she was with us." Quoted in Proceedings in Equity, 1919-1921 (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society), p. 552.
