When in 1867 Mary Baker Eddy first began to take pupils in order to teach them the Science of Christ, she taught from the Bible and she also turned these students to the Scriptures. Today, the Christian Science Quarterly Weekly Bible Lessons, whose topics she chose, fulfill a major role in helping anyone who studies them stay close to the Bible and explore its healing spiritual meaning. This series offers some brief notes on the evolution of these Lessons.
December 1894 Less than two weeks before the very first service was to be held in the Original Edifice of The Mother Church, Mrs. Eddy, increasingly unhappy with the undoubtedly earnest but unsatisfactory preaching coming from Christian Science pulpits, took a significant step toward discontinuing such preaching. She ordained the Bible and Science and Health as pastor of The Mother Church.
In a recollection of what Mrs. Eddy had said of this decision, a pupil, Daisette McKenzie, recounts: "Mrs. Eddy once told us how this appointment came about. . . . 'I withdrew from all other work, and in solitude and almost ceaseless prayer I sought and found God's will. At the end of three weeks I received the answer, and it came to me as naturally as dawns the morning light. "Why, of course, the Bible and Science and Health." ' " We Knew Mary Baker Eddy (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1979), p. 123.
