Clerk rhymes with work, and William Johnson was one hard-working, tenderly caring Clerk of The Mother Church, who served as one of Mary Baker Eddy's most trusted colleagues for 20 years. His son, William Lyman Johnson, recalled that his parents had been pew holders in the Dorchester Street Methodist church in Boston, but his father was searching for "some curative power that would heal not only a distressing rupture, but one that would eliminate the dregs of diseases," From the reminiscences of William Lyman Johnson, The Mary Baker Eddy Collection, The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity. which he'd acquired during the United States Civil War (1861–65). An employee in a medical supply store recommended Christian Science. Johnson fully regained his health through prayer, and went on to study healing with Mrs. Eddy.
The many hundreds, probably thousands, of letters that Johnson wrote in reply to members' and branch church congregations' questions stand as a model of brevity and clarity. In a typical response to a member's request—in this case, that The Mother church send a Christian Science practitioner to start a healing practice in her city—Johnson wrote in 1906, "I find that there are many among your number who are members of The Mother Church, and at least two, besides yourself, who have taken class instruction. Does it not seem to you that those who have been instructed in Christian Science should devote their time and energies to healing and reforming, and thus serve the public there as you suggest in your letter? Surely there is need of your doing this work, and I trust you will enter into it and encourage the others to do the same." William B. Johnson letter book, Folder 8, Series BD0024, No. 281 .
Johnson's responses on organizing a church were not form letters but delivered a consistent message. To someone in California, he wrote: "... if there are Christian Scientists in Porterville who are practitioners and are healing the sick and reforming the sinner, and who are capable of conducting services in accordance with the requirement of the by-laws of the Mother Church, and who understand sufficiently how to protect the same from the efforts of malice to hinder its progress, the simple method of organizing would be to elect as few officers and adopt as few by-laws or rules as will enable the Society to conduct its business in an orderly manner." Ibid., No. 89 .
