Manual of the Mother Church

Manual of the Mother Church

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Title: Manual of the Mother Church The First Church of Christ
Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts
Author: Mary Baker Eddy
Release Date: March 23, 2006 [EBook #18039]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MANUAL
OF THE MOTHER CHURCH ***

Eighty-Ninth edition
Manual of The Mother Church
The First Church of Christ
Scientist
In Boston, Massachusetts

BY
MARY BAKER EDDY
Discoverer and founder of Christian Science And author of Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures
PUBLISHED BY THE TRUSTEES UNDER THE WILL OF MARY
BAKER G. EDDY
BOSTON, U.S.A.
Authorized literature of The first Church of Christ, Scientist In Boston,
Massachusetts
COPYRIGHT, 1895 By CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BOARD OF
DIRECTORS Copyright renewed, 1923
COPYRIGHT 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1901 By JAMES A.
NEAL and THOMAS W. HATTEN Copyright renewed, 1923, 1925,
1926, 1927, 1929
COPYRIGHT, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1908 By MARY BAKER G. EDDY
Copyright renewed, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER IN "MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS"
By Mary Baker Eddy
The Rules and By-laws in the Manual of The First Church of Christ,
Scientist, Boston, originated not in solemn conclave as in ancient
Sanhedrim. They were not arbitrary opinions nor dictatorial demands,
such as one person might impose on another. They were impelled by a
power not one's own, were written at different dates, and as the
occasion required. They sprang from necessity, the logic of

events,--from the immediate demand for them as a help that must be
supplied to maintain the dignity and defense of our Cause; hence their
simple, scientific basis, and detail so requisite to demonstrate genuine
Christian Science, and which will do for the race what absolute
doctrines destined for future generations might not accomplish.

TENETS
of The Mother Church
The First Church of Christ, Scientist
_To be signed by those uniting with The First Church of Christ,
Scientist, in Boston, Mass._
1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our
sufficient guide to eternal Life.
2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We
acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter;
and man in God's image and likeness.
3. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin
and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the
belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.
4. We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine,
efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus
the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ,
through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet
in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.
5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection
served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul,
Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.
6. And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in

us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have
them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.
MARY BAKER EDDY

HISTORICAL SKETCH
In the spring of 1879, a little band of earnest seekers after Truth went
into deliberations over forming a church without creeds, to be called
the "CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST." They were members of
evangelical churches, and students of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy in
Christian Science, and were known as "Christian Scientists."
At a meeting of the Christian Scientist Association, April 12, 1879, on
motion of Mrs. Eddy, it was voted,--To organize a church designed to
commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should
reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing.
Mrs. Eddy was appointed on the committee to draft the Tenets of the
Mother Church--the chief corner stone whereof is, that Christian
Science, as taught and demonstrated by our Master, casts out error,
heals the sick, and restores the lost Israel: for "the stone which the
builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner."
The charter for the Church was obtained June, 1879,[1] and the same
month the members, twenty-six in number, extended a call to Mary
Baker Eddy to become their pastor. She accepted the call, and was
ordained A. D. 1881. Although walking through deep waters, the little
Church went steadily on, increasing in numbers, and