Last month we began this series with an article about the foundations of the Bible Lessons in the Christian Science Quarterly. This month we’ll look at how the Quarterly has adapted to meet an ever-expanding range of needs.
The Science of the Christ is universal, and when one witnesses the healing activity of this Science, it naturally leads to a desire to understand it better, to study and practice it, and to share it. So it’s no wonder Christian Science spread to an increasingly diverse population after its discovery.
By the end of the 19th century, interest in Christian Science was growing not only in the United Kingdom, but in Germany, as a result of the significant healing work of Christian Scientists there. Among those healed were many non-English speakers who could not understand or study Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy—proof that language is no barrier to the healing touch of the Christ. Not surprisingly, this healing led to an interest in studying Christian Science and holding church services in German. And so, in 1904, the citations for the Bible Lessons (taken from the Luther Bible—a German Bible translation—and from Science and Health, not yet translated from English to German) were published in Der Christian Science Herold, which Mary Baker Eddy had founded the year before. When Science and Health was officially translated into German in 1912, it became possible to study the entire lesson in German. The Bible Lesson citations were included in the Herold until 1915, at which point they came in an insert with each issue.
