MARY BAKER EDDY LETTER

Letter Number Six, November 1, 1997

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea [no more material organization].... And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things [the Adam dream with material organization] are passed away."

WILL "A NEW FLOOD DROWN THE CHRIST IDEA?"

Bringing to birth, bringing to light, the "new heaven" and "new earth" is what the Second Coming of the Christ is destined to do. Mary Baker Eddy's writings have fulfilled Jesus' promise and prophecy of the "Comforter" that would come and explain all that Jesus had taught, all that had made possible his overcoming of death and his ascension.

We would today be enjoying this "new heaven and new earth" had not a great wave of ecclesiastical domination washed over the Christian Science movement when Mary Baker Eddy was no longer at the helm, and honest, earnest Christian Scientists-the Biblical "remnant"-were made to feel like little fish swimming in a tank of sharks.

But Mrs. Eddy foresaw this would happen, when she wrote, "What if the old dragon (the drag-on of material organization-scholastic theology) should send forth a new flood to drown the Christ idea?" (S&H 570:18)-and she provided us the remedy.

CHURCH MANUAL SECOND ONLY TO SCIENCE AND HEALTH

Mrs. Eddy planned brilliantly for the future of the Christian Science movement. She wrote the Manual to prevent, for all eternity, Christian Scientists becoming prisoners of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. Through her TEN DEEDS of TRUST she made the Church Manual a legal instrument, which will eventually do away with material church organization, and the "sinking of divine Principle in personality."

In a talk given on October 15, 1931 at Fifteenth Church of Christ, Scientist, New York City, Mrs. Frances Thurber Seal told of Mrs. Eddy confiding in her concerning the finishing touches she was putting on the Church Manual and how it was the most important work of her life since finishing Science and Health because it included the provisions for the termination of the government of the Mother Church.

Mrs. Eddy told Mrs. Seal that after more than thirty years of demonstration and constant study of her revelation, as a final culminating step she had shut herself away from the world and spent months in silent communion with God in order to bring forth this conception of church government. She said the Church Manual (with its estoppels) was equally necessary to what was in Science and Health. It was the completion of the government of the Mother Church. Mrs. Seal said, "I can still see the look of far away vision as Mrs. Eddy said, 'When it is completed it will be the most perfect form of government the world has ever seen.' Then after a long pause, she continued, 'And the world will not be able to see it for a long time to come.'"

The world was not ready for the great truth she had discovered and demonstrated. Jesus' prophecy to St. John on the Isle of Patmos, of dire things to come, had first to be fulfilled, for as Jesus said, scriptural prophecy cannot be broken.

What are the dire things? In Revelation 12:12 Jesus prophesied: "the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a short time," and in Revelation chapters 13-21 Jesus prophesied the plagues which we talked about in the "Mary Baker Eddy Letter" No. 4.

These plagues result from the disobedience to the Manual's estoppel clauses, the most important of which is found on page 26, Sect. 5, Directors, which TERMINATED the five-member Board. Of this disobedience Mrs. Eddy writes: "An unjust, unmerciful, and oppressive priesthood must perish, for false prophets in the PRESENT as in the past stumble onward to their doom; while their tabernacles crumble with dry rot. "Taking the livery of heaven to cover iniquity is the most fearful sin mortals can commit" (Mis. 19:18). "Who is telling mankind of the foe in ambush?"-who is EXPOSING "evil's hidden mental ways of accomplishing iniquity?" "Designate those as unfaithful stewards who have seen the danger and yet have given no warning" (see S&H 571). Grave danger faces America today, but we must remember, "God is not mocked," and "the word of the Lord endureth forever."

In My. 230:1, she tells us plainly: "Notwithstanding the sacrilegious moth of time, eternity awaits our Church Manual, which will maintain its rank as in the past, amid ministries aggressive and active, and will stand when those have passed to rest."

Mrs. Eddy's Manual By-Laws, if they had been obeyed, would have precluded the role of the prophesied "beast" [material organization] in Rev. 13:1 that rose "up out of the sea having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns [symbols of the great illusive power of ecclesiasticism and authoritarianism], and upon his heads the name of blasphemy" (Rev. 13:1). This prophecy was fulfilled when the Manual's estoppels were disobeyed and the five Manual-terminated Directors assumed control. But, here again, we ask, so "what if the old dragon should send forth a new flood to drown the Christ idea?" Can it drown the truth?

Humanity has endured great suffering, as the "plagues descended" following this disobedience to the Manual estoppels-suffering that will not cease until Mary Baker Eddy's Manual is obeyed. But students loyal to their Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, are leading the charge to compel obedience to the Manual estoppels and this obedience will result in "wiping away all tears" and bring about: "the former things are passed away." Those who are homesick for heaven know there has never been "a more solemn and imperious call than God makes to us all, right here, for fervent devotion and absolute consecration to the greatest and holiest of all causes. The hour is come. The great battle of Armageddon is upon us. The powers of evil are leagued together in secret conspiracy against the Lord and against His Christ....Their feeling and purpose are deadly, and they have sworn enmity against the lives of our standard bearers" (Mis. 177:1).

Mrs. Eddy foresaw that Jesus' revelation to St. John, Chapters 13-20 could not be avoided, and that it would come about through the actions of her own students. At her passing, it was only a few who made the final decision to DISOBEY the Manual -but they were the most trusted, in the highest echelon of power.

There is evidence that Mrs. Eddy had become aware of many of their intended transgressions, including: (1) their planned disobedience to those Manual By-Laws which terminated all centralized control, thus breaching each of her 13 Deeds of Trust; (2) their plan to make changes in the Manual which would nullify her God-dictated plan for the individual's total freedom under God; (3) their plan to authorize only what was in agreement with their policy; (4) their plan to remove her picture and signature from Science and Health; (5) their plan to rob the world of a wide distribution of her writings through legalized suppression via copyright control; (6) and their plan to eventually entirely separate her, the revelator, from her writings.

Later, a few others would glimpse what was happening. Writing in the 1920s, Virgil O. Strickler, a prominent Christian Scientist who at first strongly supported every action of the Christian Science Board of Directors, changed his allegiance and admitted: "For two years or more some of us have had a growing conviction that a spirit of domination existed in the Board of Directors, and that they were seeking to acquire an autocratic control over the Christian Science organization and its property that was entirely at variance with the expressed wishes of Mrs. Eddy. The conviction has been strengthened by successive acts of the Directors, until today there can no longer be the slightest doubt that they are seeking, by every means at their command, to acquire for themselves a domination over the Christian Science movement that is almost unbelievable, and that they intend, unless restrained, to attempt to deprive all members of the right to serve in the organization who are not entirely obedient to their personal will." Thus did evil quickly tie "its wagonload of offal to the divine chariots,-or seek so to do,-that its vileness may be christened purity, and its darkness get consolation from borrowed scintillations" (Un. 17:9). (See If Mary Baker Eddy's Manual Were Obeyed p. 36).

Mrs. Eddy knew the "perils" of material church organization. The current efforts to get people thinking that material organization with its authoritarianism is any part of Christian Science, is the very opposite of all Mrs. Eddy taught. She wrote: "There was never a religion or philosophy lost to the centuries except by sinking its divine Principle in personality" (My. 117:22). Christian Science silences forever orthodox religiosity, the drag-on of old theology, the ecclesiasticism that "pours wormwood into the water-the disturbed human mind-to drown the strong swimmer struggling for the shore [Truth]" (My. 126:3).

The "sinking of divine Principle in personality" is exactly what happened when Mrs. Eddy's Manual estoppels were disobeyed after she left the human scene. Mrs. Eddy knew this evil must be exposed. The bastions of deceit and "spiritual wickedness in high places" must be demolished. Exposing evil will destroy it. (See pp. xxiii & xxiv, If Mary Baker Eddy's Manual Were Obeyed, for how hatred of iniquity brought reform.)

Mrs. Eddy asked us to "take up those transgressors in our midst who would undo the work of their Leader...Waken to the need of this hour [and know] that those who would set aside the Manual of the Mother Church with its just By-Laws, see the sinfulness of their ways" (DCC p, 53).

The uncovering and correcting of evil and error can only bless all mankind. Mrs. Eddy counseled us, "Never shut your eyes to m.a.m. while you hold in sense a material body-for that will talk to you from within and without as long as you have this material body, and are unaware that it is Spirit."

But she knew, and we must always remember, that people are won not so much by being blamed as by being encompassed in love. Mrs. Eddy treated her enemies with a forbearance unparalleled. She turned all humanity from flesh to Spirit, from matter to Mind, to the demonstration of divine Love. She knew that "as an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good."

How little we know of the effort Mrs. Eddy had to make to keep the students awake to the subtlety of malicious animal magnetism. For years she laid herself on the altar for us, to serve Christ. She drank his cup for the salvation of the human race. Her daily work for the world caused Christian Science to prosper during her stay with us, and its momentum carried on for nearly forty years after her departure.

As dedicated students read our Leader's writings they feel the courage, the love, the dedication that held Mrs. Eddy so steadfastly to fulfilling the scriptural prophecy concerning her mission-that held her so faithfully in spite of ridicule, hatred, and the cruel persecution of every nature, heaped on her as she trod the thorny path, wearing a crown of thorns, never looking back, "but forward and upward, pressing on joyfully, momently, to the endless glory of the strife."

A MOMENT OF THANKS

Before we continue with this "Letter's" subject I want to again express my profound gratitude for the many kind responses to these "Mary Baker Eddy Letters," and especially for the deep love and heartfelt gratitude for Mary Baker Eddy that shone through every letter received. Respondents rejoiced in the certainty that Mrs. Eddy's writings in the Second Coming of the Christ will endure and spiritually educate mankind until all have realized their oneness with God, infinite good-Truth and Love.

Just as five hundred years ago the printing press forwarded the teaching of Christ Jesus, so today a whirlwind of changes is furthering the great revelation that Mary Baker Eddy brought with the Second Coming of the Christ, the "Comforter" promised by Jesus.

Today's miraculous changes are shattering everything you and I "know," and reshaping our world in ways that are sometimes unimaginable. Something big is happening. It is the beginning of the end of the world we have known, and the beginning of the world Jesus knew, and that Mary Baker Eddy also knew and demonstrated in the Second Coming of the Christ, as she fulfilled Jesus' promise and prophecy of the "Comforter" that would come and explain how Jesus overcame death and rose in the ascension.

In the human, as this decade expires, we see these changes everywhere: in the mind-boggling growth of the Internet, the landing on Mars, new medical breakthroughs, and many more miraculous changes as we enter the twenty-first century; and the clocks all seem to run faster, faster, toward a more holy existence. (See my free booklet, Mary Baker Eddy, Leader Forever, for more vital information on this subject. Also here on the Web.) Let's hope that spirituality will shift to hyperspeed as the teaching of Mary Baker Eddy's divine discovery takes to the Web.

"THOU GOD-CROWNED PATIENT CENTURY"

In a poem Mrs. Eddy wrote, "Thou God-crowned patient century thine hour has come." With little more than two years left of this "God-crowned patient century"-the new millennium being just around the corner-we have much teaching and learning to do in order that all mankind may know what they already are, and have always been.

In the human, "Be yourself" is about the worst teaching or advice you can give to most people; so this letter will not be full of advice. After all, advice is that which the wise don't need, and the fools won't heed. We all know how difficult it is to take advice from people when they need it more than we do. The trouble with giving advice is that people want to repay you. So the best advice is: say nothing often.

Nevertheless, this "Mary Baker Eddy Letter," number 6, is going to say much, even though I and others have said it often before.

The central point of all my books has been to restore Mary Baker Eddy to her rightful status in world consciousness.

Why?

Because, as she wrote Edward Kimball in 1893, "For the world to understand me in my true light, and life, would do more for our Cause than aught else could. This I learn from the fact that the enemy tries harder to hide these two things from the world than to win any other points. Also Jesus' life and character in their first appearing were treated in like manner...." The revelator and the revelation cannot be separated.

Because understanding her and her God-appointed mission is so important, she also wrote Judge Hanna a similar letter, stressing that "the united plan of the evildoers is to cause the beginners either in lecturing or teaching or in our periodicals to keep Mrs. Eddy as she is [what God knows of her and revealed to Christ Jesus] out of sight." Notice here who and what it is that she says will "cause the beginners....to keep Mrs. Eddy as she is, out of sight;" it is often the teachers, lecturers, and writers for the Christian Science periodicals.

"Keeping the truth of her character before the public will help the students, and do more than all else for the Cause. Christianity in its purity was lost by defaming and killing its defenders. Do not let this period repeat this mistake" (DCC 109 & 111-112).

A dear friend wrote a book chronicling much of Mary Baker Eddy's marvelous healing work. Many who have read it have reported having experienced healings themselves. Yet, when this young man asked to advertise this inspiring book in the Christian Science Monitor, he received a reply refusing to permit him an advertisement, for a book that honors our Leader!

Did Mrs. Eddy know, when she made the plea quoted above, that it would be her own students in the highest eschelon that would hide the truth of her character and do endless harm to the Christian Science movement? Being familiar with Jesus' Revelation to St. John (Rev. 13 to 21) did she know the mistake would be repeated, as we see it enacted today?

"Keeping the truth of her character before the public, and helping the world to understand her in her true light and life," stands as the Mary Baker Eddy Institute's Holy Grail.

The true Christian Scientist is dedicated to opening the eyes of mankind to the message of the "Comforter" that Jesus promised to send. What is this "Comforter"? It is the Second Coming of the Christ, which reveals to us the Mind that was Mind to Christ Jesus. Once we awaken from the Adam dream and realize our true Mind is the same Mind that was Mind to Christ Jesus, and is Love, we will be able to do even greater works than Jesus did, as he said we would.

We have learned that "the kingdom of God is within" our consciousness, though latent. This is why Mrs. Eddy could assure us, "Know then that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of your heritage and trespass on Love" (Pul. 3:7). She once said to a student, "You have too feeble a sense of your own power."

GRATITUDE TO MRS. EDDY ESSENTIAL

The enemies of Christian Science try to convince the faithful that giving Mary Baker Eddy the love and gratitude due her is "deifying her," is "worshipping her personality." Yet does any Christian Scientist feel that giving Jesus the gratitude due him is deifying or worshipping his personality? On the contrary, our Leader said we owe him "endless homage."

Why didn't Mrs. Eddy come out boldly and say she was fulfilling Isaiah's chapter 54, in which Isaiah prophesied the woman's coming? She did say this privately, and even commended a proposed lead article on Isaiah 54 that was to appear in the Christian Science Journal in 1898. (See p. 49-58 of "You will have to learn to love me more." It is available from us.) Why didn't she publicly and boldly state she was the woman who fulfilled Jesus' prophecy-Revelation 10 and 12-given to St. John on the Isle of Patmos?

The answer is, it was too early to boldly proclaim publicly who she really was, and she was too wise to fall into that trap.

Mrs. Eddy never allowed any reference to her place in Bible prophecy to be made unwisely to the general public. She taught, "A lack of wisdom betrays Truth into the hands of evil as effectually as does a subtle conspirator" (My. 128:23). In the seething sea of hatred and envy that surrounded Mary Baker Eddy, the dire results of proclaiming herself as the womanhood counterpart to the manhood of Jesus would have been incalculable then, if debated in public, as would still be so today. But the risk of losing her teachings by failing to acknowledge her true significance is far more devastating.

In order to kindle all minds with a gleam of gratitude, Mary Baker Eddy's teaching must be understood. In the wake of this understanding the wonderful healing power experienced by Christian Scientists up through the 1940's would be restored. That which is buried in the depths of the unseen must bring a resurrection among us and "leap into living love."

WHY MUST WE REPEAT?

Most of the following discussion is set forth in my books on the Manual. Why must it be repeated?

Because the enemy have "sowed tares among the wheat," or as Mrs. Eddy once said, "have impregnated the wheat with rottenness as well as emptyness." Those who usurped power at Mary Baker Eddy's farewell have treacherously taken many steps to hide from us the spiritual facts that would set us free. Therefore most Christian Scientists are unaware of the divine facts. We are like the little boy who went with his parents to dine at the home of an elderly gentleman. After watching the old man bow his head and speak in a soft voice, the boy asked his mother, "What did Mr. Bryan say to his plate?"

Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health, "it is our ignorance of God" that enslaves us. To overcome this "ignorance" we must read and re-read what the Second Coming of the Christ, the "Comforter" promised by Jesus, has set forth in her spiritually profound writings.

We READ what Mary Baker Eddy has written, but do we really LISTEN to the divine Word? Newcomers to a certain neighborhood were advised, "The little old lady from church doesn't repeat gossip-so you better listen the first time."

We are twice blessed; we have God's (infinite good's) written Word instead of gossip, and if we don't "listen the first time" to the divine Word we can go back a thousand times, if necessary, to learn the truth about ourselves.

THE MANUAL'S ESTOPPELS ARE GOD'S LAW

It is time that dedicated Christian Scientists-those who love and want to obey their Leader, Mary Baker Eddy-begin putting the heat on the ecclesiastical hierarchy that disobeyed the Manual By-Law that TERMINATED them. Let's review the facts.

THE 10th MANUAL CARRIES A DOUBLE ESTOPPEL. In 1899, when Mrs. Eddy first began giving the four-member Board of Directors more and more power, the tenth Manual, issued at that time, carried a double estoppel clause, as follows:

"Directors. Sect. 4, The Christian Science Board of Directors of this Church, shall not fill a vacancy occurring on that Board, except the candidate is approved by the Pastor Emeritus....This By-Law can neither be amended nor annulled except by consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the Pastor Emeritus." In the 28th Manual it required "the written consent of Mrs. Eddy."

In 1903 Mrs. Eddy added a fifth Director; and the Manual continued to carry the same double restrictive clause. This, Mrs. Eddy insisted, is "God's Law."

TEN DEEDS OF TRUST WITH THEIR "FURTHER TRUSTS" MAKE THE MANUAL A LEGAL INSTRUMENT

Mrs. Eddy wrote the Board of Directors on March 9, 1903, instructing them to include in the "further trusts" (in the legal clauses) the following all-important stipulation:

"This property is conveyed on the further trusts that no new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled by the grantees unless the written consent of Mary Baker G. Eddy, the author of the textbook, SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, be given therefore."

Not lost on the Directors was the legal backing given in this way by this trust. This specific stipulation can also be found on the final page of the Manual. (See page 105.) The deeding of land in this way made the Manual a legal instrument.

We now need to find the strategy that is incumbent upon us for lifting these ten sacred instruments into the light of day for their proper resolution and destiny, freeing our Leader's discovery of this precious Science from the domination of ecclesiasticism and self-interest.

It is important to remember that the Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, was Mrs. Eddy's church, as she wrote Joseph Armstrong on March 22, 1903: "The question will be, is, asked: whose church is it? We cannot say it is Mr. Hering's or the Board of Directors' church, for it surely is not. It was my church in the beginning, as much as Mrs. Stetson's church is hers...."

The term "Mother Church" appears at times in the Manual, but it is not used in the legal deeds of trust, except in the final deed which then reads: "...The First Church of Christ, Scientist, known and designated as 'Mary Baker Eddy's Church, The Mother Church, or The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass.'" It thereby covers the designation of the church given on pages 102-103 of the Manual.

MRS. EDDY CLOSED EVERY LOOPHOLE

Mrs. Eddy closed every loophole so that no Board of Directors, if they obeyed the Manual, could ever assume power and dictate to individual Christian Scientists. In her final deed she stipulated: "....Nothing in this deed...shall ever be construed as a waiver or as permitting a modification of any degree of any of the trusts and conditions...."I do further declare that nothing herein contained shall ever be construed as a waiver or as permitting a modification in any degree of the further trusts set forth in deed...dated March 19, 1903." This statement pre-empts the possibility of using human law to waive the Manual estoppel clauses.

Again, Mrs. Eddy's wording was such that the Manual would be considered and "acknowledged as law by law."

The temporary five-member Board understood the import of the estoppel that terminated them, and they resisted it vigorously, repeatedly approaching Mrs. Eddy to change this By-Law. But each time, she confirmed that "God had dictated that By-Law, and it remained for the church to obey it." She said, "I have no right or desire to change what God directed me to do." After the temporary five-member Board got nowhere with their pleas to Mrs. Eddy to change the Manual By-Law that would topple them (p. 26, "Directors), the Board's attorneys advised: "Wait 'til the old lady dies. She can't rule from the grave."

But the estoppels are "God's Law," and they will prevail because Mrs. Eddy's Ten Deeds of Trust make the Manual a legal instrument.

EVEN NEWSMEN KNEW MANUAL TERMINATED THE FIVE-MEMBER BOARD

At Mrs. Eddy's passing, all of the nationally-known newspapers, and thousands of others, editorialized in eulogy of Mrs. Eddy, in tones that referred to Mrs. Eddy as "the Leader of the most remarkable religious movement the world has ever witnessed," or as "the head and front of one of the greatest religious movements known to man."

It is evident that the editors of the most important newspapers knew that the Church Manual made it impossible for the five-member Christian Science Board of Directors to continue in office. The editorials and reports of these newspapers, for several days after Mary Baker Eddy's leaving, all show that both the Board of Directors and the news reporters were fully aware of the Manual's estoppel clauses and that Mrs. Eddy's estoppels TERMINATED the five-member Board of Directors.

Many of the nonpartisan editorials lauded Mrs. Eddy's wisdom in "providing for the Movement to continue to surge forward on its own momentum through its thousands of branch churches, without her personal leadership, and without any central control."

THE FIVE MEMBER BOARD'S DISOBEDIENCE

Did the Board of Directors obey Mrs. Eddy's Manual estoppels at her passing?

No, they did not.

They turned to material law which told them that "the old lady cannot rule from the grave." McLellan, who was chairman of the Board of Directors, had first told the press that "long, earnest deliberations were needed," but he then immediately announced to the press that they, the five-member Board, were Mrs. Eddy's successor.

Then they immediately issued the Manual they had REWRITTEN months before to give themselves control over Christian Scientists and branch Churches, and dishonestly, shamefully passed their 89th edition Manual off as Mrs. Eddy's last Manual.

The rewriting of the Manual and the seizing of control was just the beginning. After the five-member Board of Directors disobeyed Mrs. Eddy's Manual estoppels, the entire planet was saturated with the Biblically-prophesied "plagues."

Some people see the 1911 introduction of the IRS tax system as the first plague; then we had the Balkan wars, the first World war, the 1929 Crash, World War II, the Korean war, the Vietnam war; then the plagues of alcoholism, drugs, runaway population, plagues of pornography, plagues of unchecked crime; and to this day, the Wall Street Journal in nearly every issue mentions "wars and rumors of wars" going on in the world.

WHAT WOULD MRS. EDDY SAY?

What would Mrs. Eddy have said of the Manual-terminated disobedient Board of Directors if she had come back after December 3, 1910? She might have observed, "There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem; and the ox and the ass understood more of the first Christmas than the high priests in Jerusalem, and it is the same here today."

In Mis. (119:27) Mrs. Eddy asks, "Would you consent that others should tear up your landmarks, manipulate your students, nullify or reverse your rules, countermand your orders, steal your possessions, and escape the penalty therefore? No! 'Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' The professors of Christian Science must take off their shoes at our altars; they must unclasp the material sense of things at the very threshold of Christian Science: they must obey implicitly each and every injunction of the divine Principle of life's long problem, or repeat their work in tears..." They must obey the estoppels in the Manual! Remember, it is easier to preach ten sermons than to live one.

The Manual By-Laws, obeyed, dismantle all central organization and bureaucratic control over Christian Science students and over the Christian Science movement. In Science and Health, page 495:25, Mrs. Eddy asks: "How can I progress most rapidly in the understanding of Christian Science?" She answers by telling us to "study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the spirit." That is, lean on the sustaining infinite, not on an ecclesiastical hierarchy calling themselves a Board of Directors, who would dictate what you can and cannot read, or what you can or cannot do to spread Christian Science and Science and Health.

THE GREAT LITIGATION

While ecclesiastical despotism began with the Board of Directors' disobedience to the Manual estoppel that terminated them, perhaps the watershed was the Great Litigation of 1919-1922. By subjugating the once autonomous Publishing Company to control and censorship by the Board of Directors, it robbed the field of literature that would explain, teach, and forward the field's understanding of the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy's writings, the Second Coming of the Christ, the "Comforter" promised and prophesied by Jesus.

One result of the litigation was the strengthening of the Committee on Publication. This had a stifling effect, not only on the unfolding of Christian Science thought, but also on the meaningful exposure of the world at large to the words "Christian Science."

During the final years of Mrs. Eddy's time with us, the newspapers were friendly toward Christian Science and eagerly sought and published news items concerning its advancement. But after the ecclesiastical hierarchy took control and things began to go wrong, waning interest by the newspapers set in. Why? Because every word they published about the Christian Science Movement was pounced upon by the C.O.P. who asked the newspapers for space for clarification.

WE ALL NEED TO HEAR IT AGAIN

Genuine Christian Scientists know that Mary Baker Eddy's history is a holy one. What she wrote is just as sacred and holy as anything found in the Scriptures.

Mrs. Eddy, touching Adam Dickey's arm, said, "Adam, this is Spirit." She was beholding "in Science the perfect man," just as Jesus had nearly 2000 years earlier when he did his healing work. "Adam" did not understand Mrs. Eddy's instruction. Like most of us he was mesmerized, hypnotized, by the physical senses. Mrs. Eddy knew that we must all awake to see ourselves as one with God, having the Mind of God, infinite good, that expresses itself not as matter, but as "the image of Love"-the image of the Mind (your real Mind) that forms it. When we awaken from the Adam dream that we all now seem so sound asleep in, we will see ourselves as infinite Love, our real Mind, sees us, and not as flesh and blood.

In Truth we really already ARE divine beings. In reality we have the Mind of God. We lack nothing. We exist at the standpoint of present perfection. "Our material, mortal history is but a record of dreams, not of man's real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being" (Ret. 21:13) (My free booklet, Mary Baker Eddy, Leader Forever, expands on this.)

But because we are so deeply immersed in the Adam dream, so hypnotized and mesmerized by the five physical senses, we must keep telling this truth about ourselves times without number, so that all mankind will believe and understand it, and begin to "study thoroughly the letter."

I know a good sermon should have a good beginning and a good ending, and they should be as close together as possible. As Mark Twain reminds us, "Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes." A good sermon would be, "The Lord created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. On the eighth day He started answering complaints."

But it's so easy to misinterpret a message. A florist's new assistant took a telephone order from a customer. "The ribbon must be white" said the woman on the phone, "with gold letters reading 'Rest in peace' on both sides. And if you can squeeze it in, 'We Shall Meet in Heaven.'"

When the floral tribute reached the home of the deceased, the inscription read: "Rest in peace on both sides! If you can squeeze in we shall meet in heaven!"

This subject is too crucial to let something like that happen. So, at the risk of more complaints, let's review.

MAKING THE MANUAL A LEGAL INSTRUMENT

God led Mrs. Eddy to make the Manual a legal instrument that would forever terminate, prevent, and preclude material church organization. Mrs. Eddy had bought the parcels of land needed for the Extension. The ANSWER for ending material organization, she knew, lay in how she would deed this property to the FOUR Directors to whom ten years previously she had deeded land for the original Mother Church.

There were thirteen deeds, ten of which had restrictive clauses. Of these ten, the first nine were nearly identical in wording, containing the last By-Law in the Manual, namely, Amendment of By-Laws (p. 105): "No new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled, without the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of our textbook, Science and Health." (In the deed Mrs. Eddy substituted only "the" textbook, instead of "our" textbook, since she had a premonition that the Manual would some day be adjudicated in the courts of our land, where Science and Health might not be the textbook of the lawyers taking part.)

As stated above, the tenth deed additionally held a non-modification, non-waiver clause. It seals everlastingly her plan for the human race. It absolutely sets in concrete for time and eternity that no one can in any way alter, modify, waive or effect a change in any of the Manual's By-Law estoppel clauses that do away with all material organization and all control over Christian Scientists by a Boston ecclesiastical hierarchy. The estoppel clauses legally control the Church Manual.

Whether the Board of Directors were aware of it or not, their acceptance of this deeded land legally bound them to obey the estoppel clauses in the Manual. Again, why? Because the "further trusts" in the real estate deeds interlocked with the last estoppel in the Manual, which reads, as already quoted: "No new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled without the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of our textbook, Science and Health."

This stipulation legally bound the Directors then in office, and their successors, to obey the Manual as Mrs. Eddy wrote it. Among other By-Laws, it bound them to obey the plainly stated By-Law on page 26, Sect. 5, which states unequivocally that the five-member Board which transacted the business of The Mother Church (which was Mrs. Eddy's Church) could not fill a vacancy on that Board without Mrs. Eddy's approval.

Mrs. Eddy's Manual, as she left it, TERMINATED the material Mother Church. No officer to run "The Mother Church" could be elected without Mrs. Eddy's consent. No function of the organizational Mother Church could continue without Mrs. Eddy's consent, approval, or her signature in her own handwriting.

The only self-perpetuating Board was the Board of four Directors shown in the deed of 1892, and they had control only over the church property of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass.

MOTHER CHURCH ENDS

At the June annual meeting, six months after Mrs. Eddy passed on, the organizational Mother Church ended, since no office of the Mother Church could be filled without Mrs. Eddy's consent and approval, given in her own handwriting. (See Manual p. 25-26).

What had been called the Mother Church now properly assumed its legal title, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, under its four member Board which had control only over this Boston church. This building thus became, not the central headquarters for a church hierarchy, but the home of something more like a special branch church, and it is well to remember that "it is the congregation which shall worship in said church [that] shall be styled, "The First Church of Christ, Scientist" (Man. p. 132:4). The true Mother Church, freed from any human organization, now became something each Christian Scientist carries in his heart, the Church Universal and Triumphant. Church is defined in the Glossary as "the structure of Truth and Love" so it can go on forever.

TERMINATION OF BRANCH CHURCHES

Termination of the Mother Church was also Mrs. Eddy's way of gradually ending the formation of branch churches. The Manual does not terminate Christian Science Societies, where Love is the sole bond of union; Societies can go on as long as required. But Mrs. Eddy gracefully ended Branch churches in the following way: To form a branch church, four members had to be members of the Mother Church, and the Readers in a branch church had to be members of the Mother Church.

You could join the Mother Church when you were twelve. There was no Mother Church after June, 1910. So if someone joined the Mother church in 1910 (at the age of 12), he could today participate in forming a Branch Church, or be a Reader, but you can see he would now be 95 or so. This means that to be in harmony with the Manual, no new Branch Church is likely to be formed today.

THE TEN DEEDS HOLD THE KEY

We see now why these TEN DEEDS OF TRUST are bigger than big; in the flow of history they are more than news; they are a defining moment. Historical change usually results from a process, not an event; however, every now and then there is an event that speeds the process along; and certainly Mary Baker Eddy's ten deeds of trust was such an event. They are destined to usher in the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Unfortunately it has taken most of the century to see it. Most Christian Scientists have ridden the slow train of history. Only a few have seen, as Mrs. Eddy had seen with grim predictability, the lethal outcome of material church organization.

The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, has no legitimate control over any other church. Is it any wonder, then, that disaster followed when the terminated five-member Board of Directors disobeyed Mary Baker Eddy's Manual By-Law that terminated them, and assumed control of every branch church in the world?

Dubbing themselves "The Highest Ecclesiastical Court in The Land," the hierarchy proceeded with great "spiritual" haughtiness to issue "royal" edicts. But all the darkness in the world cannot overcome the light shed by a single candle. We are grateful for the champions of liberty who have fed and are continuing to feed the flame of spiritual light, who dare to put their faith in her who brought the Second Coming of the Christ and fulfilled Jesus' prophecy of the "Comforter."

The fact that Mary Baker Eddy's Manual terminated the five member Board of Directors of the Mother Church when she was no longer here has to be repeated ad infinitum because the Christian Science field has been so thoroughly impregnated with the false notion that the Board of Directors was Mrs. Eddy's successor. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Each of us makes ourself Mrs. Eddy's successor in proportion to our "understanding and demonstration of divine, Truth, Life, and Love."

You can no more organize the Science of being than you can organize the sunlight. "God, infinite good, is ALL." Eventually each one has to learn that his own real Mind is God, infinite good-his own Mind is Truth and Love.

Humanity is today at an historic turning point. "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." Will it be the nightmare of belief in a material sense of things with its plagues and tears? Or, will it be the sweet heaven bestowed sense of the "omnipresence of present perfection?" For,

Though the cause of evil prosper,

Yet 'tis Truth alone is strong;

Though her portion be the scaffold,

And upon the throne be wrong,

Yet that scaffold sways the future,

And behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow

Keeping watch above His own.

James Russell Lowell

To be put on our email mail list please email us at:
healing@MBEInstitute.org

Put in the body of your email the word "SUBSCRIBE."

  To the Library

Site maintained by Wave of the Future

©Mary Baker Eddy Institute
All rights reserved