One of the grandest and most helpful features of this glorious consummation is this:  that one month before the close of the year every evidence of material sense declared that the church’s completion within the year 1894 transcended human possibility.  The predictions of workman and onlooker alike were that it could not be completed before April or May of 1895.

Much was the ridicule heaped upon the hopeful, trustful ones, who declared and repeatedly asseverated to the contrary.  This is indeed, then, a scientific demonstration.  It has proved, in most striking manner, the oft-repeated declarations of our text-books, that the evidence of the mortal senses is unreliable.

A week ago Judge Hanna withdrew from the pastorate of the church, saying he gladly laid down his responsibilities to be succeeded by the grandest of ministers—­the Bible and “SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES.”  This action it appears, was the result of rules made by Mrs. Eddy.  The sermons hereafter will consist of passages read from the two books by readers, who will be elected each year by the congregation.

A story has been abroad that Judge Hanna was so eloquent and magnetic that he was attracting listeners who came to hear him preach rather than in search of the truth as taught.  Consequently the new rules were formulated.

But at Christian Science headquarters this is denied; Mrs. Eddy says the words of the judge speak to the point, and that no such inference is to be drawn therefrom.

In Mrs. Eddy’s personal reminiscences, which are published under the title of “Retrospection and Introspection,” much is told of herself in detail that can only be touched upon in this brief sketch.

Aristocratic to the backbone, Mrs. Eddy takes delight in going back to the ancestral tree and in tracing those branches which are identified with good and great names both in Scotland and England.

Her family came to this country not long before the Revolution.  Among the many souvenirs that Mrs. Eddy remembers as belonging to her grandparents was a heavy sword, encased in a brass scabbard, upon which had been inscribed the name of the kinsman upon whom the sword had been bestowed by Sir William Wallace of mighty Scottish fame.

Mrs. Eddy applied herself, like other girls, to her studies, though perhaps with an unusual zest, delighting in philosophy, logic, and moral science, as well as looking into the ancient languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

Her last marriage was in the spring of 1877, when, at Lynn, Mass., she became the wife of Asa Gilbert Eddy.  He was the first organizer of a Christian Science Sunday-School, of which he was the superintendent, and later he attracted the attention of many clergymen of other denominations by his able lectures upon scriptural topics.  He died in 1882.

Mrs. Eddy is known to her circle of pupils and admirers as the editor and publisher of the first official organ of this sect.  It was called the Journal of Christian Science, and has had great circulation with the members of this fast-increasing faith.