After years of struggling, Mrs. Eddy arrived at a point where success and wealth marked her. She was fifty years old before she really grasped her objective; sixty, before the thought struck her that the most effective way to secure her aim was by organizing a church; seventy, before she reached her greatest triumph, viz., the re-organization and control of the Mother Church in Boston. Her system of church government was not thought out as a whole, but was largely the accretion of by-law on by-law, intended to keep the whole organization within her own individual grasp.
"To attain the end she desired, it was necessary to keep fifty or sixty thousand people working as if the Church were the first object of their lives; to encourage hundreds to adopt church-work as their profession and make it their only chance of worldly success; and yet to hold all this devotion and energy in subservience to Mrs. Eddy herself, and to prevent any one of her healers from attaining any marked personal prominence and from acquiring a personal following" (M., p. 461).
To attain this end Mrs. Eddy did not scruple as to the means employed. That she imposed her will so effectively is tribute enough to her commanding personality. At first the pastors of her branch churches were allowed to preach and expound the tenets of Christian Science. But this was open to considerable danger if a pastor was especially able and influential. So in the Journal of April, 1895, Mrs. Eddy announced there were to be no more sermons, that each church should have instead a First and a Second Reader, who should read without comment from the Bible and Science and Health. The Bible was put first and Science and Health second, but Mrs. Eddy soon reversed this. Mrs. Eddy herself arranged what had to be read. A Reader must not be a Leader in the Church, and Mrs. Eddy might remove a Reader at will. When Science and Health is read, the Reader must distinctly announce its full title and give the author's name
In 1902, to still further safeguard her position, she decreed that the Reader's office should be limited to three years. In 1907 teachers and healers were forbidden to use rooms in the churches, in the reading-rooms or in rooms connected therewith.
As teaching was easier than healing, and the tendency would be to have few healers and many teachers, Mrs. Eddy cut down the teacher's fees to $50 per student, and restricted the number of scholars to thirty per year. From 1903 to 1906 all teaching was suspended under the by-law—"Healing better than teaching."
Mrs. Eddy brought into existence a Board of Directors, but she did all the directing. Any director could be dismissed at her request, and none appointed without her permission.
The President of the Church was elected for a term of one year by the directors, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval. The First and Second Readers were elected every third year by the directors, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval. The Clerk and Treasurer of the Church were elected once a year by the directors, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval. Lectures might be given to branch churches only by lecturers appointed by Mrs. Eddy, through the directors, and the lecture must pass her censorship. After a lecture the audience might not linger behind for social intercourse, but were at once to "depart in quiet thought."
The Publication Committee, the Christian Science Publishing Society, the Board of Lectureship, the Board of Missionaries, and the Board of Education, were all under Mrs. Eddy's personal control.
Her followers were forbidden to read anything on religious topics but Christian Science literature, and that was limited to her own writings and what she permitted in the Journal. Many more details might be given, but we refrain from wearying the reader.
Well might it be said: "The result of Mrs. Eddy's planning and training and pruning is that she has built up the largest and most powerful organization ever founded by any woman in America. Probably no woman so handicapped-so limited in intellect, so uncertain in conduct, so tortured by hatred and hampered by petty animosities-has ever risen from a state of helplessness and dependence to a position of such power and authority" (M., p. 480).
In June, 1907, there were probably about 60,000 Christian Scientists in the world, 43,876 being members of the Mother Church, Boston, among them many members of branch churches. There were 3,515 Christian Science "healers" authorized to practice by Mrs. Eddy.
The auditorium of the Mother Church, Boston, is capable of seating 5000 hearers. The walls are decorated with texts signed, "Jesus Christ" and "Mary Baker G. Eddy," and these names stand side by side.