READERS of the September 10, 2006, Bible Lesson, "Substance," and the September 24, 2006, Bible Lesson, "Reality," will find these Lessons each contain five sections instead of six. This flexibility regarding the number of sections is intentional. It is the result of a deep desire to more fully demonstrate the spiritual potential and purpose of the Bible Lesson, which Mrs. Eddy deemed so vitally important both to our Church and mankind that she referred to it as "... a lesson on which the prosperity of Christian Science largely depends." Manual of The Mother Church, Art. III, Sect. 1.
Mrs. Eddy's correspondence and reported conversations concerning the Bible Lessons show she was clearly focused on their subjects and spiritual content rather than simply their form. In 1898, Mrs. Eddy gave the Bible Lesson Committee 26 subjects on which to prepare Bible Lessons. A few years later, in response to a proposal to increase the subjects to 52 (one subject for each week of the year), Mrs. Eddy energetically informed Rev. Irving C. Tomlinson, a member of the Bible Lesson Committee, "Tell the committee the original subjects were given of God—they are sufficient, and they will remain forever." Irving C. Tomlinson, Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1996), p. 185. Also, in a letter to William and Daisette McKenzie on November 4, 1905, she wrote, "Select with much study and care the correlative Scripture for the Sunday Lesson. The field needs most the lines between Christian Science and scholastic theology drawn not too tight at first—but drawn distinctly, wisely, lovingly." L13074, Mary Baker Eddy to William P. and Daisette D. S. McKenzie, The Mary Baker Eddy Collection, The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity.
Rev. Tomlinson recalled that when the Bible Lesson Committee began compiling Lessons with selections from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the first Lesson had eight sections, and the following ones had differing numbers of sections, from four to seven. He concluded, "As the work of the committee progressed, it was found that the best arrangement was to have six subtopics [sections] for each lesson, although it was not until March 1904 that six sections were uniformly adhered to." Twelve Years, p. 188. However, there is no instruction from Mrs. Eddy that the Lessons should forever be maintained in the form of six sections. In fact, one Bible Lesson each year, Thanksgiving, has four sections. Though a few people have suggested that the number of sections has Biblical significance, our Leader never did.
