From Our Library

Recently I had the opportunity to read The Mother Church, by Joseph Armstrong.

This was a hidden gem regarding the history of the building of The Original Mother Church in 1894. Throughout its pages are deep lessons in the challenges, events, letters, and experiences they encountered. From beginning to end it makes clear that Mrs. Eddy established this Church on a spiritual foundation. Every step of the way she insisted that the students were not to rely on human effort and human thinking, but only on God’s direction and to seek to please Him in everything, no matter how mundane or how tempting to use the human will.

The greatest treasure we have is the edition printed in 1910. In Precepts 2 Carpenter refers to this edition when he writes “So she (Mary Baker Eddy) makes it very clear that she treated the church as one would a patient; that she had to take it up every day and work for it; and that it was her demonstration that brought out the results. If this had not been her thought, when she revised and approved of Joseph Armstrong’s book, The Mother Church, she would never have permitted the following statements to remain: ‘Every step up to this time had been made through demonstration of divine Science, the work of our beloved Leader. Not a point could be carried without her aid for she alone could show the way — God’s way — and make it possible to do what mortal sense declared impossible.’ When in the fall of 1937 these sentences were omitted from page 77, when a new revision was published, students had a right to protest and insist that the Board of Directors have them reinstated in the book. Thus we find a notice in the Christian Science Sentinel of October 9, 1937 that all copies be returned in order to have this done.”

The most striking difference of the varied editions is the unique set of pictures each one includes. For example, the 1908 edition includes photos taken during construction, and the 1937 edition includes colored photos of the stained-glass windows. (The book was copyrighted in 1897, 1908, 1911, 1937 and 1967.) This book gave me a deeper appreciation for what Mrs. Eddy was demonstrating for us all, showing us the necessity to please God in all activity for that which will endure.