What is known about the By-Law “Prayer in Church”?
Mary Baker Eddy, Manual of The Mother Church, 42.
A Library patron asked us about this By-Law in the Manual of The Mother Church: “The prayers in Christian Science churches shall be offered for the congregations collectively and exclusively.”1 Could we give any background on this rule?
Similar wording first appeared as a part of an announcement titled “Church By-Law,” in the May 1899 issue of The Christian Science Journal: “All the Christian Science Churches’ prayers in church shall be offered for their congregations.”2 (Changes and additions to the Manual were often announced in the Journal during Mary Baker Eddy’s lifetime.)
Titled “Church Prayer,” the By-Law first appeared that same year in the 10th edition of the Manual. When the 29th edition appeared in 1903, “Church Prayer” became “Prayer in Church,” and the By-Law stated that “the prayers in Christian Science churches shall be offered for the congregations.” The wording remained that way until July 1908, when Eddy submitted a final revision of the By-Law to the Christian Science Board of Directors, adding the concluding phrase “collectively and exclusively.” It first appeared that way in the 73rd edition. We did not locate any specific reasons for the changes to the By-Law in our archives.
Many years before this provision appeared in the Manual, Eddy was writing about prayer in Christian Science church services. For example, on August 9, 1879—at the time of the establishment of her church in Boston—she drafted rules mentioning silent prayer for the members during Communion services.3 And in July 1889, she gave a brief order of service that included uniting “in silent prayer for all who are present.”4
We have also been asked if the “Prayer in Church” By-Law has any connection to a passage in Eddy’s dedicatory message to First Church of Christ, Scientist, Atlanta, Georgia:
The silent prayers of our churches, resounding through the dim corridors of time, go forth in waves of sound, a diapason of heart-beats, vibrating from one pulpit to another and from one heart to another, till truth and love, commingling in one righteous prayer, shall encircle and cement the human race.5
While we haven’t located a direct connection between this By-Law and Eddy’s message to the Atlanta branch church, it’s certainly interesting that they were written around the same time. She drafted the message on March 20, 1899, and the By-Law on April 15, 1899.6
- Mary Baker Eddy, Church Manual (Boston: The Christian Science Board of Directors), 42. “Prayer in Church” is Article VIII, section 5.
- “Church By-Law,” The Christian Science Journal, May 1899, 78.
- Eddy to Church of Christ, 9 August 1879, L02655.
- Eddy to the Church of Christ (Scientist), 15 July 1889, L00006; “Order of Church Service,” Journal, August 1889, 210.
- See “Dedicatory Address of Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy,” Christian Science Sentinel, 6 April 1899, 4; Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany (Boston: The Christian Science Board of Directors), 189.
- See Sentinel, “Dedicatory Address,” 6 April 1899, 4–5.