Did Eddy say it? “No one could enter a Christian Science church… without being healed”

We are sometimes asked about the authenticity of a statement attributed to The Mary Baker Eddy Library’s namesake. It appeared in “Healing the Multitudes,” a Christian Science Sentinel article published in July 1916. There the author, Florence Clerihew Boyd, recalled this:

Mrs. Eddy once said to a student that she longed for the day to come when no one could enter a Christian Science church, no matter how sick or how sorrowing that one might be, without being healed, and that this day can come only when every member of the church studies and demonstrates the truth contained in the Lesson-Sermon, and takes with him to the service the consciousness thus prepared.¹

Unfortunately, we do not know who or what Boyd’s source was for this account. Additionally, our researchers have not found any record of communication from Eddy to Boyd in our collections.

While we do not know the identity of the “student” Boyd mentioned in this article, we do know that her Christian Science teacher, Nemi Robertson, took Primary class instruction from Eddy in 1889. She also studied in Eddy’s Normal class of November 1898. It is therefore possible that Boyd heard this account from Robertson.²