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.[C]
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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