land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of
Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in His name. Christ will
give to Christianity His new name, and Christendom will be classified as
Christian Scientists.

When the doctrinal barriers between the churches are broken, and the
bonds of peace are cemented by spiritual understanding and Love, there
will be unity of spirit, and the healing power of Christ will prevail.
Then shall Zion have put on her most beautiful garments, and her waste
places budded and blossomed as the rose.




CLIPPINGS FROM NEWSPAPERS.




(_Daily Inter-Ocean_, Chicago, December 31, 1894.)

MARY BAKER EDDY.

Completion of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston.--"Our
Prayer in Stone."--Description of the Most Unique Structure in Any
City.--A Beautiful Temple and Its Furnishings--Mrs. Eddy's Work and Her
Influence.


BOSTON, MASS., December 28.--_Special Correspondence_.--The "great
awakening" of the time of Jonathan Edwards has been paralleled daring
the last decade by a wave of idealism that has swept over the country,
manifesting itself under several different aspects and under various
names, but each having the common identity of spiritual demand. This
movement, under the guise of Christian Science, and ingenuously calling
out a closer inquiry into oriental philosophy, prefigures itself to us
as one of the most potent factors in the social evolution of the last
quarter of the nineteenth century. History shows the curious fact that
the closing years of every century are years of more intense life
manifested in unrest, or in aspiration, and scholars of special
research, like Professor Max Muller, assert that the end of a cycle, as
is the latter part of the present century, is marked by peculiar
intimations of man's immortal life.

The completion of the first Christian Science church erected in Boston
strikes a keynote of definite attention. This church is in the
fashionable Back Bay between Commonwealth and Huntington avenues. It is
one of the most beautiful, and is certainly the most unique structure in
any city. The First Church of Christ, Scientist, as it is officially
called, is termed by its founders "our prayer in stone." It is located
at the intersection of Norway and Falmouth streets on a plot of
triangular ground, the design a Romanesque tower with a circular front
and an octagonal form accented by stone porticos and turreted corners.
On the front is a marble tablet with the following inscription carved in
bold relief:

The First Church of Christ, Scientist, erected
Anno Domini, 1894. A testimonial to our beloved
teacher, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and
Founder of Christian Science; author of "Science
And Health, with Key to the Scriptures;" President
of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and the
first Pastor of this denomination.


THE CHURCH EDIFICE.

The church is built of Concord granite in light gray, with trimmings of
the pink granite of New Hampshire, Mrs. Eddy's native State. The
architecture is Romanesque throughout. The tower is 120 feet in height
and 21-1/2 feet square. The entrances are of marble, with doors of
antique oak richly carved. The windows of stained glass are very rich in
pictorial effect. The lighting and cooling of the church--for cooling is
a recognized feature as well as heating--are done by electricity, and
the heat generated by two large boilers in the basement is distributed
by the four systems with motor electric power. The partitions are of
iron; the floors of marble in mosaic work, and the edifice is therefore
as literally fireproof as is conceivable. The principal features are the
auditorium, seating 1,100 people and capable of holding 1,500; the
"Mother's room," designed for the exclusive use of Mrs. Eddy; the
"directors' room," and the vestry. The girders are all of iron, the roof
is of terra cotta tiles, the galleries are in plaster relief, the window
frames are of iron, coated with plaster; the staircases are of iron,
with marble stairs of rose pink and marble approaches.

The vestibule is a fitting entrance to this magnificent temple. In the
ceiling is a sunburst with a seven-pointed star, which illuminates it.
From this are the entrances leading to the auditorium, the "Mother's
room," and the directors' room.

The auditorium is seated with pews of curly birch, upholstered in old
rose plush. The floor is in white Italian mosaic, with frieze of the old
rose, and the wainscoting repeats the same tints. The base and cap are
of pink Tennessee marble. On the walls are bracketed oxidized silver
lamps of Roman design, and there are frequent illuminated texts from the
Bible and from Mrs. Eddy's SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES
impaneled. A sunburst in the centre of the ceiling takes the place of
chandeliers. There is a disc of cut glass in decorative designs covering
144 electric lights in the form of a star, which is twenty-one inches
from point to point, the centre being of pure white light, and each ray
under prisms which reflect the rainbow tints. The galleries are richly
paneled in relief work. The organ and choir gallery is spacious and rich
beyond the power of words to depict. The platform--corresponding to the
chancel of an Episcopal church--is a mosaic work, with richly carved
seats following the sweep of its curve, with a lamp stand of the
rennaissance period on either end, bearing six richly wrought oxidized
silver lamps, eight feet in height. The great organ comes from Detroit.
It is one of vast compass, with æolian attachment, and cost $11,000. It
is the gift of a single individual--a votive offering of gratitude for
the healing of the wife of the donor.

The chime of bells includes fifteen, of fine range and perfect tone.


THE "MOTHER'S ROOM."

The "Mother's room" is approached by an entrance of Italian marble, and
over the door in large golden letters on a marble tablet, is the word
"Love." In this room the mosaic marble floor of white has a Romanesque
border and is decorated with sprays of fig leaves bearing fruit. The
room is toned in pale green with relief in old rose. The mantel is of
onyx and gold. Before the great bay window hangs an Athenian lamp over
two hundred years old, which will be kept always burning day and night.
Leading off the "Mother's room" are toilet apartments, with full length
French mirrors and every convenience.

The directors' room is very beautiful in marble approaches and rich
carving, and off this is a vault for the safe preservation of papers.

The vestry seats 800 people, and opening from it are three large class
rooms and the pastor's study.

The windows are a remarkable feature of this temple. There are no
"memorial" windows: the entire church is a Testimonial, not a
memorial--a point that the members strongly insist upon.

In the auditorium are two rose windows--one representing the heavenly
city which "cometh down from God out of Heaven," with six small windows
beneath, emblematic of the six water pots referred to in John xi:6. The
other rose window represents the raising of the daughter of Jairus.
Beneath are two small windows bearing palms of victory and others with
lamps typical of Science and Health.

Another great window tells its pictorial story of the four Marys--the
mother of Jesus, Mary anointing the head of Jesus, Mary washing the feet
of Jesus, Mary at the resurrection; and the woman spoken of in the
Apocalypse, chapter 12, God-crowned.

One more window in the auditorium represents the raising of Lazarus.

In the gallery are windows representing John on the Isle of Patmos and
others of pictorial significance. In the "Mother's room" the windows are
of still more unique interest. A large bay window composed of three
separate panels is designed to be wholly typical of the work of Mrs.
Eddy. The central panel represents her in solitude and meditation
searching the scriptures by the light of a single candle, while the Star
of Bethlehem shines down from above. Above this is a panel containing
the Christian Science seal, and other panels are decorated with
emblematic designs with the legends, "Heal the Sick," "Raise the Dead,"
"Cleanse the Lepers," and "Cast Out Demons."

The cross and the crown and the star are presented in appropriate
decorative effect. The cost of this church is $221,000, exclusive of the
land--a gift from Mrs. Eddy--which is valued at some $40,000.


THE ORDER OF SERVICE.

The order of service in the Christian Science Church does not differ
widely from that of any other sect save that its service includes the
use of Mrs. Eddy's book entitled SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE
SCRIPTURES in perhaps equal measure to its use of the Bible--The reading
is from the two alternately; the singing is from a compilation called
the "Christian Science Hymnal," but its songs are for the most part
those devotional hymns from Herbert, Faber, Robertson, Wesley, Browning,
and other recognized devotional poets, with selections from Whittier and
Lowell, as are found in the hymn books of the Unitarian churches. For
the past year or two Judge Hanna, formerly of Chicago, has filled the
office of pastor to the church in this city, which held its meetings in
Chickering hall, and later in Copley hall, in the new Grundmann Studio
building on Copley square. Preceding Judge Hanna were Rev. D.A. Easton
and Rev. L.P. Norcross, both of whom had formerly been Congregational
clergymen. The organizer and first pastor of the church here was Mrs.
Eddy herself, of whose work I shall venture to speak, a little later, in
this article.

Last Sunday I gave myself the pleasure of attending the service held in
Copley hall. The spacious apartment was thronged with a congregation
whose remarkable earnestness impressed the observer. There was no
straggling of late-comers. Before the appointed hour every seat in the
hall was filled and a large number of chairs pressed into service for
the overflowing throng. The music was spirited, and the selections from
the Bible and from SCIENCE AND HEALTH were finely read by Judge Hanna.
Then came his sermon, which dealt directly with the command of Christ to
"Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, cast out demons." In
his admirable discourse, Judge Hanna said that while all these
injunctions could, under certain conditions, be interpreted and
fulfilled literally, the special lesson was to be taken spiritually--to
cleanse the leprosy of sin, to cast out the demons of evil thought. The
discourse was able, and helpful in its suggestive interpretation.


THE CHURCH MEMBERS.

Later I was told that almost the entire congregation was composed of
persons who had either been themselves, or had seen members of their own
families, healed by Christian Science treatment; and I was further told
that once when a Boston clergyman remonstrated with Judge Hanna for
enticing a separate congregation rather than offering their strength to
unite with churches already established--I was told he replied that the
Christian Science church did not recruit itself from other churches, but
from the graveyards! The church numbers now 4,000 members, but this
estimate, as I understand, is not limited to the Boston adherents, but
includes those all over the country. The ceremonial of uniting is to
sign a brief "confession of faith," written by Mrs. Eddy, and to unite
in communion, which is not celebrated by outward symbols of bread and
wine, but by uniting in silent prayer.

The "confession of faith" includes the declaration that the Scriptures
are the guide to eternal life; that there is a Supreme Being, and his
Son, and the Holy Ghost, and that man is made in his image. It affirms
the atonement; it recognizes Jesus as the teacher and guide to
salvation; the forgiveness of sin by God, and affirms the power of truth
over error, and the need of living faith at the moment to realize the
possibilities of the divine life. The entire membership of Christian
Scientists throughout the world now exceeds 200,000 people. The church
in Boston was organized by Mrs. Eddy, and the first meeting held on
April 19, 1879. It opened with twenty-six members, and within fifteen
years it has grown to its present impressive proportions, and has now
its own magnificent church building, costing over $200,000, and entirely
paid for when its consecration service on January 6 shall be celebrated.
This is certainly a very remarkable retrospect.

Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of this denomination and discoverer of
Christian Science, as they term her work in affirming the present
application of the principles asserted by Jesus, is a most interesting
personality. At the risk of colloquialism, I am tempted to "begin at the
beginning" of my own knowledge of Mrs. Eddy, and take, as the point of
departure, my first meeting with her and the subsequent development of
some degree of familiarity with the work of her life which that meeting
inaugurated for me.


MRS. EDDY.

It was during some year in the early '80's that I became aware--from
that close contact with public feeling resulting from editorial work in
daily journalism--that the Boston atmosphere was largely thrilled and
pervaded by a new and increasing interest in the dominance of mind over
matter, and that the central figure in all this agitation was Mrs. Eddy.
To a note which I wrote her, begging the favor of an interview for press
use, she most kindly replied, naming an evening on which she would
receive me. At the hour named I rang the bell at a spacious house on
Columbus avenue, and I was hardly more than seated before Mrs. Eddy
entered the room. She impressed me as singularly graceful and winning in
bearing and manner, and with great claim to personal beauty. Her figure
was tall, slender, and as flexible in movement as that of a Delsarte
disciple; her face, framed in dark hair and lighted by luminous blue
eyes, had the transparency and rose-flush of tint so often seen in New
England, and she was magnetic, earnest, impassioned. No photographs can
do the least justice to Mrs. Eddy, as her beautiful complexion and
changeful expression cannot thus be reproduced. At once one would
perceive that she had the temperament to dominate, to lead, to control,
not by any crude self-assertion, but a spiritual animus. Of course such
a personality, with the wonderful tumult in the air that her large and
enthusiastic following excited, fascinated the imagination. What had she
originated? I mentally questioned this modern St. Catherine who was
dominating her followers like any abbess of old. She told me the story
of her life, so far as outward events may translate those inner
experiences which alone are significant.

Mary Baker was the daughter of Mark and Abigail (Ambrose) Baker, and was
born in Concord, N.H., somewhere in the early decade of 1820-'30. At the
time I met her she must have been some sixty years of age, yet she had
the coloring and the elastic bearing of a woman of thirty, and this, she
told me, was due to the principles of Christian Science. On her father's
side Mrs. Eddy came from Scotch and English ancestry, and Hannah Moore
was a relative of her grandmother. Deacon Ambrose, her maternal
grandfather, was known as a "godly man," and her mother was a religious
enthusiast, a saintly and consecrated character. One of her brothers,
Albert Baker, graduated at Dartmouth and achieved eminence as a lawyer.


MRS. EDDY AS A CHILD.

As a child Mary Baker saw visions and dreamed dreams. When eight years
of age she began, like Jeanne d'Arc, to hear "voices," and for a year
she heard her name called distinctly, and would often run to her mother
questioning if she were wanted. One night the mother related to her the
story of Samuel, and bade her, if she heard the voice again to reply as
he did: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." The call came, but the
little maid was afraid and did not reply. This caused her tears of
remorse and she prayed for forgiveness, and promised to reply if the
call came again. It came, and she answered as her mother had bidden her,
and after that it ceased.

These experiences, of which Catholic biographies are full, and which
history not unfrequently emphasizes, certainly offer food for
meditation. Theodore Parker related that when he was a lad at work in a
field one day on his father's farm at Lexington, an old man with a snowy
beard suddenly appeared at his side, and walked with him as he worked,
giving him high counsel and serious thought. All inquiry in the
neighborhood as to whence the stranger came or whither he went was
fruitless; no one else had seen him, and Mr. Parker always believed, so
a friend has told me, that his visitor was a spiritual form from another
world. It is certainly true that many and many persons, whose life has
been destined to more than ordinary achievement, have had experiences of
voices or visions in their early youth.

At an early age Miss Baker was married to Colonel Glover, of Charleston,
S.C., who lived only a year. She returned to her father's home--in
1844--and from that time until 1866 no special record is to be made.

In 1866, while living in Lynn, Mass., Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Glover) met
with a severe accident and her case was pronounced hopeless by the
physicians. There came a Sunday morning when her pastor came to bid her
good-by before proceeding to his morning service as there was no
probability that she would be alive at its close. During this time she
suddenly became aware of a divine illumination and ministration. She
requested those with her to withdraw, and reluctantly they did so,
believing her delirious. Soon, to their bewilderment and fright, she
walked into the adjoining room, "and they thought I had died, and that
it was my apparition," she said.


THE PRINCIPLE OF DIVINE HEALING.

From that hour dated her conviction of the principle of divine healing,
and that it is as true to-day as it was in the days when Jesus of
Nazareth walked the earth. "I felt that the divine spirit had wrought a
miracle," she said, in reference to this experience. "How, I could not
tell, but later I found it to be in perfect scientific accord with the
divine law." From 1866-'69, Mrs. Eddy withdrew from the world to
meditate, to pray, to search the Scriptures.

"During this time," she said, in reply to my questions, "the Bible was
my only text-book. It answered my questions as to the process by which I
was restored to health; it came to me with a new meaning, and suddenly I
apprehended the spiritual meaning of the teaching of Jesus and the
principle and the law involved in spiritual science and metaphysical
healing--in a word--Christian science."

Mrs. Eddy came to perceive that Christ's healing was not miraculous, but
was simply a natural fulfilment of divine law--a law as operative in the
world to-day as it was nineteen hundred years ago. "Divine science is
begotten of spirituality," she says, "since only the 'pure in heart' can
see God."

In writing of this experience, Mrs. Eddy has said:

I had learned that thought must be spiritualized
in order to apprehend Spirit. It must become
honest unselfish, and pure, in order to have the
least understanding of God in Divine Science. The
first must become last. Our reliance upon material
things must be transferred to a perception of and
dependence on spiritual things. For spirit to be
supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in
our affections, and we must be clad with divine
power. I had learned that mind reconstructed the
body and that nothing else could. All science is a
revelation.

Through homeopathy, too, Mrs. Eddy became convinced of the principle of
mind healing, discovering that the more attenuated the drug, the more
potent was its effects.

In 1877 Mrs. Glover married Dr. Asa Gilbert Eddy, of Londonderry,
Vermont, a physician who had come into sympathy with her own views, and
who was the first to place "Christian Scientist," on the sign at his
door. Dr. Eddy died in 1882, a year after her founding of the
"Metaphysical College" in Boston, in which he taught.

The work in the Metaphysical College lasted nine years, and it was
closed (in 1889) in the very zenith of its prosperity as Mrs. Eddy felt
it essential to the deeper foundation of her religious work to retire
from active contact with the world. To this college came hundreds and
hundreds of students, from Europe as well as this country. I was present
at the class lectures now and then by Mrs. Eddy's kind invitation, and
such earnestness of attention as was given to her morning talks by the
men and women present I never saw equalled.


MRS. EDDY'S PERSONALITY.

On the evening that I first met Mrs. Eddy by her hospitable courtesy, I
went to her peculiarly fatigued. I came away in a state of exhilaration
and energy that made me feel I could have walked any conceivable
distance. I have met Mrs. Eddy many times since then, and always with
this experience repeated.

Several years ago Mrs. Eddy removed from Columbus to Commonwealth
avenue, where, just beyond Massachusetts avenue, at the entrance to the
Back Bay Park, she bought one of the most beautiful residences in
Boston. The interior is one of the utmost taste and luxury, and the
house is now occupied by Judge and Mrs. Hanna, who are the editors of
the _Christian Science Journal_, a monthly publication, and to whose
courtesy I am much indebted for some of the data of this paper. "It is a
pleasure to give any information for _The Inter-Ocean_," remarked Mrs.
Hanna, "for it is the great daily that is so fair and so just in its
attitude toward all questions."

The increasing demands of the public on Mrs. Eddy have been, it may be,
one factor in her removal to Concord, N.H., where she has a beautiful
residence, called Pleasant View. Her health is excellent, and although
her hair is white, she retains in a great degree her energy and power;
she takes a daily walk and drives in the afternoon. She personally
attends to a vast correspondence; superintends the church in Boston, and
is engaged on further writings on Christian Science. In every sense she
is the recognized head of the Christian Science Church. At the same time
it is her most earnest aim to eliminate the element of personality from
the faith. "On this point, Mrs. Eddy feels very strongly," said a
gentleman to me on Christmas eve, as I sat in the beautiful drawing
room, where Judge and Mrs. Hanna, Miss Elsie Lincoln, the soprano for
the choir of the new church, and one or two other friends were gathered.

"Mother feels very strongly," he continued, "the danger and the
misfortune of a church depending on any one personality. It is difficult
not to centre too closely around a highly gifted personality."


THE FIRST ASSOCIATION.

The first Christian Scientist Association was organized on July 4, 1876,
by seven persons, including Mrs. Eddy. In April, 1879, the church was
founded with twenty-six members, and its charter obtained the following
June. Mrs. Eddy had preached in other parishes for five years before
being ordained in this church, which ceremony took place in 1881.

The first edition of Mrs. Eddy's book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH, was issued in
1875. During these succeeding twenty years it has been greatly revised
and enlarged, and it is now in its ninety-first edition. It consists of
fourteen chapters, whose titles are as follows: "Science, Theology,
Medicine," "Physiology," "Footsteps of Truth," "Creation," "Science of
Being," "Christian Science and Spiritualism," "Marriage," "Animal
Magnetism," "Some Objections Answered," "Prayer," "Atonement and
Eucharist," "Christian Science Practice," "Teaching Christian Science,"
"Recapitulation." Key to the Scriptures, Genesis, Apocalypse, and
Glossary.

The Christian Scientists do not accept the belief we call spiritualism.
They believe those who have passed the change of death are in so
entirely different a plane of consciousness that between the embodied
and disembodied there is no possibility of communication.

They are diametrically opposed to the philosophy of Karma and of
reincarnation, which are the tenets of theosophy. They hold with strict
fidelity to what they believe to be the literal teachings of Christ.

Yet each and all these movements, however they may differ among
themselves, are phases of idealism and manifestations of a higher
spirituality seeking expression.

It is good that each and all shall prosper, serving those who find in
one form of belief or another their best aid and guidance, and that all
meet on common ground in the great essentials of love to God and love to
man as a signal proof of the divine origin of humanity which finds no
rest until it finds the peace of the Lord in spirituality. They all
teach that one great truth that:

God's greatness flows around our incompleteness,
Round our restlessness, his rest.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

I add on the following page a little poem that I consider superbly
sweet--from my friend, Miss Whiting, the talented author of "THE WORLD
BEAUTIFUL."--M.B. EDDY.


AT THE WINDOW.

[_Written for the Traveller_.]

The sunset, burning low,
Throws o'er the Charles its flood of golden light.
Dimly, as in a dream, I watch the flow
Of waves of light.

The splendor of the sky
Repeats its glory in the river's flow;
And sculptured angels, on the gray church tower,
Gaze on the world below.

Dimly, as in a dream,
I see the hurrying throng before me pass,
But 'mid them all I only see _one_ face
Under the meadow grass.

Ah, love! I only know
How thoughts of you forever cling to me:
I wonder how the seasons come and go
Beyond the sapphire sea?

LILLIAN WHITING.

April 15, 1888.




(_Boston Herald_, January 7, 1895.)

EXTRACT.

A TEMPLE GIVEN TO GOD.--DEDICATION OF THE MOTHER CHURCH OF CHRISTIAN
SCIENCE.

Novel Method of Enabling Six Thousand Believers to Attend the
Exercises--The Service Repeated Four Times--Sermon by Rev. Mary Baker
Eddy, Founder of the Denomination--Beautiful Room Which the Children
Built.


With simple ceremonies, four times repeated, in the presence of four
different congregations, aggregating nearly 6,000 persons, the unique
and costly edifice erected in Boston at Norway and Falmouth streets as a
home for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and a testimonial to the
discoverer and founder of Christian Science, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, was
yesterday dedicated to the worship of God.

The structure came forth from the hands of the artisans with every stone
paid for--with an appeal, not for more money, but for a cessation of the
tide of contributions which continued to flow in after the full amount
needed was received. From every state in the Union and from many lands,
the love offerings of the disciples of Christian Science came to help
erect this beautiful structure, and more than 4,000 of these
contributors came to Boston from the far-off Pacific coast and the Gulf
states and all the territory that lies between, to view the new-built
temple and to listen to the message sent them by the teacher they
revere.

From all New England the members of the denomination gathered; New York
sent its hundreds, and even from the distant states came parties of 40
and 50. The large auditorium, with its capacity for holding 1,400 or
1,500 persons, was hopelessly incapable of receiving this vast throng,
to say nothing of the nearly 1,000 local believers. Hence the service
was repeated until all who wished had heard and seen; and each of the
four vast congregations filled the church to repletion.

At 7:30 a.m. the chimes in the great stone tower, which rises 126 feet
above the earth, rung out their message of "Peace on earth and good will
to men."

Old familiar hymns--"All Hail the Power of Jesus's Name," and others
such--were chimed until the hour for the dedication service had come.

At 9 a.m. the first congregation gathered. Before this service had
closed the large vestry room and the spacious lobbies and the sidewalks
around the church were all filled with a waiting multitude. At 10:30
o'clock another service began, and at noon still another. Then there was
an intermission, and at 3 p.m. the service was repeated for the last
time.

There was scarcely even a minor variation in the exercises at any one of
these services. At 10:30 a.m., however, the scene was rendered
particularly interesting by the presence of several hundred children in
the central pews. These were the little contributors to the building
fund, whose money was devoted to the "Mother's room," a superb apartment
intended for the sole use of Mrs. Eddy. These children are known in the
church as the "Busy Bees," and each of them wore a white satin badge
with a golden beehive stamped upon it, and beneath the beehive the words
"Mother's Room," in gilt letters.

The pulpit end of the auditorium was rich with the adornment of flowers.
On the wall of the choir gallery above the platform, where the organ is
to be hereafter placed, a huge seven pointed star was hung--a star of
lilies resting on palms, with a centre of white immortelles, upon which
in letters of red were the words: "Love-Children's Offering--1894."

In the choir and the steps of the platform were potted palms and ferns
and Easter lilies. The desk was wreathed with ferns and pure white roses
fastened with a broad ribbon bow. On its right was a large basket of
white carnations resting on a mat of palms, and on its left a vase
filled with beautiful pink roses.

Two combined choirs--that of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, of
New York, and the choir of the home church, numbering thirty-five
singers in all--led the singing, under the direction, respectively, of
Mr. Henry Lincoln Case, and Miss Elsie Lincoln.

Judge S.J. Hanna, editor of the _Christian Science Journal_, presided
over the exercises. On the platform with him were Messrs. Ira O. Knapp,
Joseph Armstrong, Stephen A. Chase, and William B. Johnson, who compose
the board of directors, and Mrs. Henrietta Clark Bemis, a distinguished
elocutionist, and a native of Concord, New Hampshire.

The utmost simplicity marked the exercises. After an organ voluntary,
the hymn, "Laus Deo, It Is Done," written by Mrs. Eddy for the
corner-stone laying last spring, was sung by the congregation.
Selections from the Scriptures and from SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO
THE SCRIPTURES, were read by Judge Hanna and Dr. Eddy.

A few minutes of silent prayer came next, followed by the recitation of
the Lord's prayer, with its spiritual interpretation as given in the
Christian Science text-book.

The sermon prepared for the occasion by Mrs. Eddy, which was looked
forward to as the chief feature of the dedication, was then read by Mrs.
Bemis. Mrs. Eddy remained at her home in Concord, N.H., during the day,
because, as heretofore stated in _The Herald_, it is her custom to
discourage among her followers that sort of personal worship which
religious teachers so often receive.

Before presenting the sermon, Mrs. Bemis read the following letter from
a former pastor of the church:

_Rev. Mary Baker Eddy_--Dear Teacher, Leader,
Guide: Laus Deo. It is done. At last you begin to
see the fruition of that you have worked, toiled,
prayed for. The prayer in stone is accomplished.

Across 2,000 miles of space, as mortal sense puts
it, I send my hearty congratulations. You are
fully occupied, but I thought you would willingly
pause for an instant to receive this brief message
of congratulation. Surely it marks an era in the
blessed onward work of Christian Science. It is a
most auspicious hour in your eventful career.
While we all rejoice, yet the mother in Israel,
alone of us all, comprehends its full significance.
Yours lovingly,

LANSON P. NORCROSS.




(_Boston Sunday Globe_, January 6, 1895.)

EXTRACT.

Stately Home for Believers in Gospel Healing.--A Woman of Wealth Who
Devotes All to Her Church Work.


Christian Science has shown its power over its students, as they are
called, by building a church by voluntary contribution, the first of its
kind, a church which will be dedicated to-day, with a quarter of a
million dollars expended and free of debt.

The money has flowed in from all parts of the United States and Canada
without any special appeal, and it kept coming until the custodian of
funds cried "enough" and refused to accept any further checks by mail or
otherwise. Men, women, and children lent a helping hand, some giving a
mite and some substantial sums. Sacrifices were made in many an instance
which will never be known in this world.

Christian Scientists not only say that they can effect cures of disease
and erect churches, but add that they can get their buildings finished
on time even when the feat seems impossible to mortal senses. Read the
following from a publication of the new denomination:

One of the grandest and most helpful features of
this glorious consummation is this: that one month
before the close of the year every evidence of
material sense declared that the church's completion
within the year 1894 transcended human possibility.
The predictions of workman and onlooker alike were
that it could not be completed before April or May
of 1895.

Much was the ridicule heaped upon the hopeful, trustful ones, who
declared and repeatedly asseverated to the contrary. This is indeed,
then, a scientific demonstration. It has proved, in most striking
manner, the oft-repeated declarations of our text-books, that the
evidence of the mortal senses is unreliable.

A week ago Judge Hanna withdrew from the pastorate of the church, saying
he gladly laid down his responsibilities to be succeeded by the grandest
of ministers--the Bible and "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE
SCRIPTURES." This action it appears, was the result of rules made by
Mrs. Eddy. The sermons hereafter will consist of passages read from the
two books by readers, who will be elected each year by the congregation.

A story has been abroad that Judge Hanna was so eloquent and magnetic