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. 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.

The Christian Scientists do not accept the belief we call spiritualism. They believe those who have passed the change of death are in so entirely different a plane of consciousness that between the embodied and disembodied there is no possibility of communication.

They are diametrically opposed to the philosophy of Karma and of reincarnation, which are the tenets of theosophy. They hold with strict fidelity to what they believe to be the literal teachings of Christ.

Yet each and all these movements, however they may differ among themselves, are phases of idealism and manifestations of a higher spirituality seeking expression.

It is good that each and all shall prosper, serving those who find in one form of belief or another their best aid and guidance, and that all meet on common ground in the great essentials of love to God and love to man as a signal proof of the divine origin of humanity which finds no rest until it finds the peace of the Lord in spirituality. They all teach that one great truth that:

  God's greatness flows around our incompleteness,
  Round our restlessness, his rest.
                       ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

I add on the following page a little poem that I consider superbly sweet—from my friend, Miss Whiting, the talented author of "THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL."—M.B. EDDY.

AT THE WINDOW.

[Written for the Traveller.]

  The sunset, burning low,
    Throws o'er the Charles its flood of golden light.
  Dimly, as in a dream, I watch the flow
    Of waves of light.

  The splendor of the sky
    Repeats its glory in the river's flow;
  And sculptured angels, on the gray church tower,
    Gaze on the world below.

  Dimly, as in a dream,
    I see the hurrying throng before me pass,
  But 'mid them all I only see one face
    Under the meadow grass.

  Ah, love! I only know
    How thoughts of you forever cling to me:
  I wonder how the seasons come and go
    Beyond the sapphire sea?

LILLIAN WHITING.

April 15, 1888.

(Boston Herald, January 7, 1895.)

EXTRACT.

A TEMPLE GIVEN TO GOD.—DEDICATION OF THE MOTHER CHURCH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

Novel Method of Enabling Six Thousand Believers to Attend the
Exercises—The Service Repeated Four Times—Sermon by Rev. Mary Baker
Eddy, Founder of the Denomination—Beautiful Room Which the Children
Built.

With simple ceremonies, four times repeated, in the presence of four different congregations, aggregating nearly 6,000 persons, the unique and costly edifice erected in Boston at Norway and Falmouth streets as a home for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and a testimonial to the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, was yesterday dedicated to the worship of God.

The structure came forth from the hands of the artisans with every stone paid for—with an appeal, not for more money, but for a cessation of the tide of contributions which continued to flow in after the full amount needed was received. From every state in the Union and from many lands, the love offerings of the disciples of Christian Science came to help erect this beautiful structure, and more than 4,000 of these contributors came to Boston from the far-off Pacific coast and the Gulf states and all the territory that lies between, to view the new-built temple and to listen to the message sent them by the teacher they revere.

From all New England the members of the denomination gathered; New York sent its hundreds, and even from the distant states came parties of 40 and 50. The large auditorium, with its capacity for holding 1,400 or 1,500 persons, was hopelessly incapable of receiving this vast throng, to say nothing of the nearly 1,000 local believers. Hence the service was repeated until all who wished had heard and seen; and each of the four vast congregations filled the church to repletion.

At 7:30 a.m. the chimes in the great stone tower, which rises 126 feet above the earth, rung out their message of "Peace on earth and good will to men."

Old familiar hymns—"All Hail the Power of Jesus's Name," and others such—were chimed until the hour for the dedication service had come.

At 9 a.m. the first congregation gathered. Before this service had closed the large vestry room and the spacious lobbies and the sidewalks around the church were all filled with a waiting multitude. At 10:30 o'clock another service began, and at noon still another. Then there was an intermission, and at 3 p.m. the service was repeated for the last time.

There was scarcely even a minor variation in the exercises at any one of these services. At 10:30 a.m., however, the scene was rendered particularly interesting by the presence of several hundred children in the central pews. These were the little contributors to the building fund, whose money was devoted to the "Mother's room," a superb apartment intended for the sole use of Mrs. Eddy. These children are known in the church as the "Busy Bees," and each of them wore a white satin badge with a golden beehive stamped upon it, and beneath the beehive the words "Mother's Room," in gilt letters.

The pulpit end of the auditorium was rich with the adornment of flowers. On the wall of the choir gallery above the platform, where the organ is to be hereafter placed, a huge seven pointed star was hung—a star of lilies resting on palms, with a centre of white immortelles, upon which in letters of red were the words: "Love-Children's Offering—1894."

In the choir and the steps of the platform were potted palms and ferns and Easter lilies. The desk was wreathed with ferns and pure white roses fastened with a broad ribbon bow. On its right was a large basket of white carnations resting on a mat of palms, and on its left a vase filled with beautiful pink roses.

Two combined choirs—that of the