The letter came from a small town in central Michigan. "I am the only [Christian] Scientist in Le Roy, as yet," Florence Williams wrote to the Journal in 1891, "but the good seed has been sown, and where the people once scoffed at this 'silly new idea,' they are becoming interested, and many have been healed, and some are asking about it. One dear old lady and I study the Bible Lessons every Tuesday afternoon. She came to call, and as we talked, she told me of her sickness of years' standing; and was healed during our talk, so that she has never felt a touch of the old trouble since."
Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, p. 432.
Florence Williams and her friend were spending their Tuesday afternoons delving into two books: the Holy Bible and Mary Baker Eddy's definitive explanation of her Bible-based discovery, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. The Bible Lessons were first published in the Journal, beginning in August 1888.
Those two women were also meeting weekly with their "pastor," although at the time the letter was written, Mrs. Eddy had not yet taken the remarkable step that broke with centuries of Christian Church tradition. By 1895, though, Mrs. Eddy had turned away from personal preachers in the movement's churches—a few had been ministers in their former churches, others had no formal training—and ordained the Bible and Science and Health as pastor of The Mother Church and its branch churches. This pastor, she explained, would "continue to preach for this Church and the world."
Manual of The Mother Church, p. 58.
