CHRISTIAN SCIENCE READING ROOM REDCLIFFE
"And the books were opened" Revelation 20:12
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Tuesday, 21 April 2026
Beauty everywhere
Sunday, 19 April 2026
My breakfast read
I am very much enjoying reading the Irving Tomlinson’s Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy.
I find it works for me to leave the book on the dining table where it has become my breakfast read.
I’ll share two passages that
have provoked my thought.
On page 77, Tomlinson recounts
that he and his sister were to take up the roles of First and Second Reader In
Concord, New Hampshire. When Tomlinson asked Mrs Eddy’s advice about making adequate
provision for both home and work, Mrs Eddy’s reply indicates that she recognised
that keeping house was a full time occupation for a woman. If she would do the role
of healer and Reader well, then that would require all her care and effort, and
she couldn’t be expected to keep house as well. “All one’s time is none
too much for this and also that of the Readership.” What kindness to his
sister!
And what perception of the
obligations and commitment involved in doing our work the best we can in any
sphere. It requires all our care. This gives an idea of the passage in Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures where Mrs Eddy writes: “The devotion
of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible” (SH
199:21–22).
This tells me that we need to
be wholly committed to God’s work, whatever that may be; that we cannot spread
our fire and hope to succeed. It also reflects kindness and insight into the
demands placed on women at that time, and of not wanting to overburden Mary Tomlinson.
Very touching.
The second passage is on page 89, and this is a big one that we all must confront. Mrs Eddy asked: “What was it that made Jesus the Messiah?” Her answer was that he “loved righteousness and hated iniquity” (Hebrews 1:9).
She then proceeded to explain that the true Christian must not
close his eyes to wrong-doing. He must be willing to uncover the evil in
himself and others; to take steps to unmask the wrong-doer and bring the
evil-doing to an end. We are not to draw back from our duty of exposing error
and thus causing it to be destroyed.
Mrs Eddy said she herself
found this so hard. She said she would rather - as we all would - “dwell on
love alone and get away from error…”. But she said that would not do; it would
allow error to increase.
My favourite sentence here is
“We are to do right and leave the consequences to God.”
Thursday, 16 April 2026
She asked that the lessons be prepared at once.
This week I was alerted to a webinar produced by The Mother
Church for Reading Room librarians and workers. The topic (on christianscience.com)
is “The Bible Lessons and the ‘prosperity of Christian Science.’”
I especially appreciated hearing from a lady in California
who had shared the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson with a young woman
whose family had found themselves homeless. The young woman took an
interest in what she had been given to read and soon started coming to church.
Her family recently found a home.
There are many references to the Christian Science Bible
Lessons in our periodicals. You might start your research in jsh-online.com by
typing “Lesson sermon” in the search bar. Among the many articles there is one
from The Christian Science Journal of May 1899. It was written by Irving
Tomlinson, who served on the Bible Lesson Committee for many years from its
inception. Here’s an excerpt:
The
Maker of the Christian Science sermons is God, for He "made all that was
made." Humanly speaking, God's agents do His work. As Christ Jesus said,
"My Father worketh hitherto and I work." The subjects for these
sermons, as is quite well known, were furnished by our Leader. These subjects
cover the essentials of Christianity. As has been observed, they follow the
order she was wont to employ in teaching her classes. ...
Irving Tomlinson gives further background in his book Twelve
Years with Mary Baker Eddy (amplified edition) on p. 187. Here
he points out that once Mrs. Eddy was sure of God's direction, she
permitted no delay in carrying it out:
Not only the verbal form
of the subjects of the Christian Science Bible Lessons, but their order in the
Christian Science Quarterly is entirely Mrs. Eddy's arrangement. …
When in the summer of
1898 Mrs. Eddy sent down the topics for the new lessons, she asked that the
lessons be prepared at once. This meant the immediate arrangement of twenty-six
lessons—there being only a week's time in which to plan for the first lesson of
July 3, 1898…
With the entire Bible
from which to select and six hundred pages of Science and Health open to
the Bible Lesson Committee, I found, as a member of this committee, that there
was opportunity for endless variety. …
A more recent contributor to the periodicals (Michael
Mooslin, “Me, we, and them”, Christian Science Sentinel 3 March 2025) wrote:
Mrs. Eddy explained that
we don’t attend church to worship God but to express Him. “We study these
lessons six days,” she continued, “then we go to Church to express God for the
world—to give the world a treatment” (William Curtis Coffman, Memoirs
of a Christian Scientist, 1955, p. 3).
I love that “the Bible and the Christian Science textbook
are our only preachers” (Explanatory Note read prior to the Lesson-Sermon at
each Christian Science church service).
Julie Swannell
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