When first told that Christian Science was the same method Christ Jesus used to heal the sick, an ailing mother with three small children shot back: "What did you say? Repeat that again." Fifty years later Annie Macmillan Knott still recalled that memorable moment. Lucia C. Warren memorandum, September 20, 1932, p. 2, Archives and Library of The Mother Church. See We Knew Mary Baker Eddy (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1979), p. 70.
The truth of what she heard was soon put to an extreme test. Her one-and-a-half-year-old son accidentally drank some carbolic acid. Two physicians predicted fatal results. In this crisis, Mrs. Knott turned to neighboring Christian Scientists for prayerful treatment. The next day, to her astonishment and joy, she found her son eating an apple—despite the medical view expressed earlier that, should he live, the boy would not be able to swallow food or liquids normally. "No words," Mrs. Knott wrote, "could ever tell my feelings, but I remembered and repeated to myself our Master's words, 'And if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them' (Mark 16:18)." Annie M. Knott reminiscences, I, pp. 3-4, Archives. See Journal, Vol. 18, February 1901, p. 681.
Annie Knott's lifelong desire to minister to the sick by becoming a doctor now found a new means of fulfillment. Instead of pursuing medical and homeopathic studies, Mrs. Knott took up the practice of Christ-healing, as presented in Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. Within days of her son's recovery she was healing others.
In 1885 she moved to Detroit, Michigan, from Chicago where for the next eighteen years she pioneered in establishing Christian Science in that city. Her first years were quietly productive, but in 1888 she took what she later declared was her "first great forward step." After being taught by Mrs. Eddy a second time, Mrs. Knott was told by her teacher to begin conducting public Sunday services. Small in physical stature, she was hesitant because she was greatly afraid of appearing in public. In her characteristically laconic and vivid style, she admitted that the thought had occurred to her, "The first time you tried that, you would probably be carried out on a shutter before the service was over." Mrs. Knott letter to Miss Helen F. Erskine, January 16, 1925, Archives.
As things turned out, less than ten years after public services were started, First Church of Christ, Scientist, Detroit, was dedicated, while Annie M. Knott was serving as its First Reader.
That same year Mrs. Knott was appointed to the newly formed Christian Science Board of Lectureship. At first she received few invitations, the general assumption being that the public preferred to hear a man rather than a woman. In effect, she said, she was like a "briefless barrister." When Mrs. Eddy heard that, she firmly declared, "You must rise to the altitude of true womanhood...." Quoted in We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, p. 82. Her words had a galvanizing effect on the new lecturer. Soon requests started pouring in.
In 1903 Annie Knott began thirty years of service in Boston, first as an Assistant, or Associate, Editor of The Christian Science Journal, the Christian Science Sentinel, and The Herald of Christian Science and then as the first woman Director of The Mother Church. Both keenly intuitive and analytical, Mrs. Knott did her editorial work with attention to detail, unflagging zeal, and good cheer. According to a fellow Editor, "she acted as a veritable watch dog over all material which was sent to the periodicals...." "Mrs. Annie M. Knott" by William D. McCrackan, p.1, Archives.
Her watchfulness no doubt was sharpened after Mrs. Eddy once rebuked her and others for allowing a metaphysical error to appear in the periodicals. See We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 84-85. Grateful for the lesson, Mrs. Knott promised her Leader: "I will study Science and Health as never before...." Mrs. Knott letter to Mrs. Eddy, October 3,1905, Archives.
This same dedication characterized her study of the Bible. From her Scottish Presbyterian upbringing sprang a deep love of the Scriptures. By age eight, she had memorized whole chapters of the Bible, never to be forgotten. Quite fittingly, when Mrs. Eddy selected Mrs. Knott to be a member of the Bible Lesson Committee, in addition to being an Editor, she said, "... I deem you well adapted to it." Mrs. Eddy letter to Mrs. Knott, April 9, 1904, Archives (L04752).
Election to the Board of Directors in 1919 was not a time for the fainthearted. Within twenty-four hours of her becoming a Director, the sheriff served Mrs. Knott with a summons to testify in litigation between the Directors and the Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society. During this crucial time, climaxing in affirmation of Mrs. Eddy's plan of government, as set forth in the Manual of The Mother Church, Mrs. Knott, along with her stalwart colleagues, braved the storm.
Writing to a friend in 1932, Mrs. Knott declared: "I agree with you, dear, as to the great importance of the healing work. We cannot exaggerate that, but there is one other thing to be considered and that is,—holding the movement together through the storm and tempest of human experience at this period." Mrs. Knott letter to Mrs. Alice Cheney Smith, April 26, 1932, Archives.
As much as human language can, these few words tell us of the spirit behind the accomplishments in this remarkable worker's sixty-year service to the Cause of Christian Science. ...
