Why would someone choose to serve a church faithfully and joyfully over many decades? Calvin C. Hill (1864-1943) served the Christian Science church in many ways, including holding the position of "Sunday School Superintendent of The Mother Church ... for fourteen years" and also serving "on the Finance Committee from 1902 to 1943" (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy Vol 1 Expanded Edition).
His introduction to Christian Science is related on pages 323 and 324 of that same book. He writes that his "religious training at home and in the Presbyterian church [had] prepared [him] to accept and appreciate Christian Science when it was presented to [him] in an hour of great need."
Nevertheless, when a colleague "who had been healed by reading Science and Health" (the textbook of Christian Science, written by its Discoverer Mary Baker Eddy) would speak to him about the good results he could expect from its application, "for three years [he] refused to listen to any great extent to what was said to [him] by this friend." However, after five years of disappointment with other methods of healing, Hill decided to "give [it] a trial."
After experiencing wonderful results, he longed to know more. He relocated to Boston where he found that "[t]he more [he] studied Mrs. Eddy's writings, together with the Bible, and the more [he] heard Christian Science discussed by its adherents and saw it exemplified in their daily lives, the more convinced [he] became that it was what Christ Jesus knew, taught, and proved in many wonderful works of healing" (p. 324-5).
However, he had become "prejudiced against Mrs. Eddy" (p. 325) due to having read derogatory newspaper and magazine articles about her. This changed during a meeting he attended when one of her students stated that "You can no more separate Mrs. Eddy from Science and Health than you can Moses from the Commandments, or Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount" (ibid).
Mr. Hill recounts with affection his first meeting with Mrs. Eddy in his capacity as a carpet salesman. He had brought her a little momento, which she received "as graciously as if it were a costly gift" (p. 328) and in return he received from her "one of the silver souvenir spoons which had been made available to Christian Scientists the previous December" (p. 328) and which were engraved with a special motto: "Not matter but Mind satisfieth" (ibid).
Later in his story, Calvin Hill recalls his job of finding helpers for Mrs. Eddy. He was looking for "qualities of thought [such as] love, orderliness, promptness, alertness, accuracy, truthfulness, fidelity, consecration, and humility" (p. 352). It seems obvious that Mr. Hill himself exemplified just these qualities. He had found the "pearl of great price" (Matthew 13: 46) and he gave his all for that.
Julie Swannell
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