The Christian Science Hymnal: History, Heritage, Healing
Chapter 1
The evolution of Christian Science hymnody before 1892
Singing hymns has always been important to the Christian Science worship tradition. Mary Baker Eddy loved them. Her New Hampshire childhood rang to the sound of “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19), as she joined in singing God’s praises at home and in the Congregational church. Throughout her life she found comfort, inspiration, and healing in the words and music of familiar church music.1
A beginning
In 1866, while living in Swampscott, Massachusetts, Eddy had a significant healing of severe injuries as she read her Bible, which she called her discovery of Christian Science. She soon began to attract a small group of earnest students interested in learning how to heal through prayer. The spiritual seekers who became Eddy’s first students were from various denominational backgrounds,2 such as Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Unitarian. Like Eddy, many would probably have had a strong tradition of hymnody, and the uplifting and healing power of congregational singing was naturally important to them.
Photographs of portraits of Mary Baker Eddy and Asa Gilbert Eddy, n.d. 1950.0225, 1950.0224. Benjamin Morse.
Eddy published her landmark work, Science and Health, in 1875.3 She and her students briefly held public church services that year. As her students grew in number, she organized the Christian Scientist Association in 1876. The Church of Christ, (Scientist) was organized in 1879 and began to hold regular services that included hymn singing, first in the Charlestown section of Boston and later, after interim moves, in the rented Hawthorne Hall, located in the heart of the city’s commercial district. In 1881 the members asked Eddy to become pastor of their church.
She and her husband Asa Gilbert Eddy moved to Boston the following year. When he passed away just a few months later, Eddy turned to familiar hymns for comfort. “Nearer, my God, to Thee” and “I need Thee every hour” were sung at his funeral.4 Eddy would surely have found comfort in Annie Hawks’ refrain:
I need Thee, oh I need Thee,
Every hour I need thee!
Oh, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to thee!
“I need Thee every hour”
The first hymn books that Christian Scientists were known to have used in their Boston services during the 1880s were two Unitarian publications, The Social Hymn and Tune Book for the Vestry and the Home5 and Hymns for Christian Worship.6 The first title gives us some insight into the culture of the late nineteenth century, when hymn singing was not limited to Sunday worship but also played an important role in community and family gatherings. A printed order of service that included the words of the hymns was distributed to the congregation in this decade of early Christian Science services.7
Early editions of hymnals used by Christian Scientists.
Congregational singing in church services
The order of an early Christian Science service, dated February 8, 1885,8 indicates that Sunday meetings were being conducted at 3:30 p.m. in the Odd Fellows Hall at 516 Tremont Street in Boston (Hawthorne Hall had been outgrown), with the welcoming words “all are cordially invited.” It included:
- Hymn: “O Love! O Life! Our faith and sight” (Social Hymn and Tune Book)
- Scripture Reading
- Lord’s Prayer
- Hymn: “How beauteous were the marks divine” (Social Hymn and Tune Book)
- Silent Prayer
- Sermon
- Admissions to the Church
- Remarks by the Pastor
- Prayer
- Communion
- Hymn: “Call the Lord thy sure salvation” (Social Hymn and Tune Book)
- Benediction
“O Love! O Life! Our faith and sight”
“How beauteous were the marks divine”
“Call the Lord thy sure salvation”
In October 1885 the members decided to move to nearby Chickering Hall, a more spacious venue where they continued to meet for several years.9
A remarkable article appeared in the January 1886 Christian Science Journal, titled “An Outsider’s View.”10 The author, identified only by the initials P.E.E.P., helps us to see how a “typical” Christian Science service was constructed. Sunday School, consisting of both children and adults, was held in the afternoon before the church service—undoubtedly to attract those from mainstream Protestant churches, where services were held in the morning. The children sang a hymn at the beginning of the session. This was followed by the Lord’s Prayer, after which the children moved to another room for instruction and the adults broke into classes. A study of chapter two of John’s Gospel with discussion followed, with attendees expressing themselves freely. Strangers’ questions were answered. The children then rejoined the adults, and Sunday School ended with a hymn.
A larger crowd gathered for the church service, the order of which is noted as follows:
- The preacher entered during a piano solo.
- A “young lady” sang a solo.
- The congregation sang a hymn from the Unitarian Association hymnal.
- A Bible passage was read.
- Silent prayer was followed with the Lord’s Prayer, recited responsively.
- Following a second hymn, Edward A. Bailey preached the sermon, based on Jeremiah 31:31 and John 17:23.
- The service ended with a contribution and the third hymn.
The author concluded:
There was the responsive fashion of the Episcopalians; the silent prayer of the Quakers; the Swedenborgian custom of using only the Lord’s Prayer in public worship; the Moody and Sankey hymn, ‘Oh, to be Nothing:’; while the free seats made you think of a prayer meeting.11
Gospel hymns
“Oh, to be nothing,” the hymn mentioned in “An Outsider’s View,” is a clear example of a gospel hymn, a verse-and-chorus setting with simple rhythm and harmony. These songs gained favor in the United States in the early nineteenth century, as a result of the Protestant revival movement known as the Second Great Awakening. “In the work of travelling evangelists,” wrote musician and Christian Scientist William Lyman Johnson, “there arose the demand for hymns of a more catching style, which blossomed into the enormously popular ‘Gospel Hymns.’”12
Chickering Hall, Boston. P04938.
Clara E. Choate and her son, Warren, c. 1880. P00460. Warren Choate was the first Christian Science Sunday School student.
Evangelist Ira Sankey published several volumes of gospel hymns.13 Their appeal is easy to understand. Many churchgoers possessed a limited literary and musical background, and the hymns’ simplicity—with several verses followed by a refrain or chorus—spoke directly to their spiritual needs. Eddy was familiar with gospel hymns and loved their texts and tunes. In fact, she specifically requested that three such hymns be added to her church’s 1897 hymnal.14
Poem, “Hymn” by Mary Baker Eddy. A10040.
Eddy clearly possessed fondness for Georgiana Taylor’s poem and embraced, as she put it, the “insignificance of mortals.”15 However, in a February 24, 1892, letter to Emma Adaline McDonald, she arrived at a different conclusion:
“Oh to be nothing, nothing.” But this is not enough, so the heart answers, yes, But oh to be something. Something tangibly good, oh to see my affections changed, detached, and attached in the right direction, and being as it is, and no longer as it is not.16
Eddy even rewrote Taylor’s hymn, adapting its lyrics to express Christian Science:
“Oh, to be nothing”
“Oh to be something”
Gospel hymn: “Oh, to be nothing”
with words by Georgiana Taylor
Oh, to be nothing, nothing,
Only to lie at His feet,
A broken and emptied vessel,
For the Master’s use made meet.
Emptied that He might fill me,
As forth to His service I go;
Broken, that so unhindered
His life through me might flow.
Refrain:
Oh, to be nothing, nothing,
Only to lie at His feet,
A broken and emptied vessel,
For the Master’s use made meet.
Oh, to be nothing, nothing,
Only as led by His hand;
A messenger at His gateway,
Only waiting for His command;
Only an instrument ready
His praises to sound at His will,
Willing, should He not require me,
In silence to wait on Him still.
Oh, to be nothing, nothing,
Painful the humbling may be,
Yet low in the dust I’d lay me
That the world might my Savior see.
Rather be nothing, nothing,
To Him let all voices be raised:
He is the Fountain of blessing,
He only is meet to be praised.
Adaptation: “Oh to be something”
with words by Mary Baker Eddy17
Oh to be something, something
in Thee, and known as Thou art;
Patient and gentle—loving,
of broken and contrite heart.
Oh to be something, something
apart from this mortal man;
Substance and life in Spirit,
living alone in I AM.
Oh to be something, something
reflecting His likeness alway;
Never this earthly nothing,
dwelling in houses of clay.
Oh to be something, something
borne on His chariot of light,
Forever in Love abiding,
with never a starless night.
Oh to be something, something
such as our blest Master was,
Giving and waiting, blessing,
healing—and only because—
Oh to be something, something
up to the stature of Good,
Is to be nothing sinful
and something of Soul understood.
18
Several references in the Journal, as well as articles in Boston newspapers, provide more details about music in early Christian Science services. For example, at the Sunday service on February 26, 1888, a gospel hymn was sung that included the phrase “How he called little children as lambs to His fold.” Just afterward, 29 children were ushered onto the platform, where Eddy addressed and christened them, without the use of water.19
Eventually two gospel hymns were included in the first hymnal published by The Christian Science Publishing Society in 1892, and eight selections of this type subsequently appeared in the 1932 Christian Science Hymnal. Eddy knew at least 20 such songs.20
“I love to tell the story”
Articles and testimonies
This section chronicles experiences of Christian Scientists who cited hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal, in articles and testimonies published in the Christian Science magazines.
“I feel that I would not be doing justice to Christian Science…”
Nora Mason
Christian Science Sentinel, January 20, 1906
“It is with a deep sense of gratitude to God that I wish…”
Elizabeth Pickrell
Christian Science Sentinel, February 18, 1911
“Tears for humanity”
Mary Trammell
The Christian Science Journal, March 2002
“Hymns can banish grief”
Virginia Mae Rice
The Christian Science Journal, June 2002
- Irving C. Tomlinson recalled an example from late in Eddy’s life of her using hymn texts in spiritual devotions. One night as she prepared to retire, she called him to her bedside. “When I was by her side she whispered, ‘Every night I say over to myself this little verse — The Spirit’s sweet control, Freely I (we) will confess,– Fly to thine (Thine) outstretched arms of love, And there find health and rest.’” Irving C. Tomlinson, “Mary Baker Eddy: The Woman and the Revelator,” Reminiscence, 1932, 67. See the article on our website “Did Eddy regularly read a hymn at bedtime?”
- Mary Baker Eddy, Retrospection and Introspection (Boston: The Christian Science Board of Directors), 17. A detailed chronology of events surrounding Eddy’s life can be downloaded at mbelibrary.org.
- The book was later titled Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
- Delia S. Manley, n.d., Reminiscence, 11, MBEL; Christian Science Hymnal, 1898, 220, B00142.
- The Social Hymn and Tune Book for the Vestry and Home (Boston: American Unitaian Association, 1880).
- Charles S. Robinson, Songs for the Sanctuary: or Hymns and Tunes for Christian Worship (New York: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1867, 1881); Robbins, Chandler, Hymn Book for Christian Worship (Boston: Walter, Wise & Co., 1854, 1864).
- Order of Service, 8 February 1885, A10636.
- A10636.
- Church of Christ, Scientist, record book, 7 December 1885, Early Organizational Records 13, 176.
- Founded as the Journal of Christian Science in 1883 and renamed in 1886, this periodical contains articles, testimonies, announcements, and directories.
- P.E.E.P., “An Outsider’s View,” The Christian Science Journal, January 1886, 185–186.
- William Lyman Johnson, History of The Christian Science Movement, Vol 1 (Brookline, Massachusetts: Zion Research Foundation, 1926), 379–380.
- See, for example, Ira D. Sankey, Sacred Songs and Solos: Nos. 1 & 2 Combined (London: Morgan and Scott, 1882).
- Eddy to Students, 24 August 1897, L02835A. Eddy to Students, 24 August 1897, L02835B.
- Mary Baker Eddy, undated essay, A10793.
- Mary Baker Eddy to Emma Adaline McDonald, 24 February 1892. L10591 and A10040.
- Recording of “Oh to be something”: Words by Mary Baker Eddy. Music by R. George Halls, arranged by Christa Seid-Graham for The Mary Baker Eddy Library. Performed by employees of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, April 2023.
- A10040.
- “Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me,” Journal, March 1888, 632
- Kate Hammond, Longyear Museum News, 23 May 2001.