Page:Miscellaneous Writings.djvu/408

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382
MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

were either a truism or a rule, my experience would contradict it and prove an exception.

No works on the subject of Christian Science existed, prior to my discovery of this Science. Before the publication of my first work on this doctrine, a few manuscripts of mine were in circulation. The discovery and founding of Christian Science has cost more than thirty years of unremitting toil and unrest; but, comparing those with the joy of knowing that the sinner and the sick are helped thereby, that time and eternity bear witness to this gift of God to the race, I am the debtor.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century I discovered the Science of Christianity, and restored the first patient healed in this age by Christian Science. I taught the first student in Christian Science Mind-healing; was author and publisher of the first books on this subject; obtained the first charter for the first Christian Science church, originated its form of government, and was its first pastor. I donated to this church the land on which in 1894 was erected the first church edifice of this denomination in Boston; obtained the first and only charter for a metaphysical medical college, was its first and only president; was editor and proprietor of the first Christian Science periodical; organized the first Christian Scientist Association, wrote its constitution and by-laws, as also the constitution and by-laws of the National Christian Science Association; and gave it The Christian Science Journal; inaugurated our denominational form of Sunday services, Sunday School, and the entire system of teaching and practising Christian Science.

In 1895 I ordained that the Bible, and “Science and