CHAPTER XXIV
MRS. EDDY ADOPTS THE TITLE OF "MOTHER"—BEGINNING OF THE CONCORD PILGRIMAGES—MRS. EDDY HINTS AT HER POLITICAL INFLUENCE—THE BUILDING OF THE MOTHER CHURCH EXTENSION
A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of our land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.[1]
—Motto upon the cover of the Christian Science Sentinel.
After the opening of the Mother Church in Boston, Christian Science was generally recognised as an established religion. The church had now a general membership of 1,500 and a substantial house of worship; and although the very foundation and fabric of the church was a denial of the visible and material, nothing served to give it recognition and standing like this actual sign of its existence. At the World's Congress of Religions in Chicago in 1893, Septimus J. Hanna, who was then pastor of the Mother Church, read an address, composed of selections from Mrs. Eddy's books, which attracted favourable attention, and Mrs. Eddy, as the founder of the church, became
- ↑
This verse is taken from Longfellow's Filomena, which was written as a
tribute to Florence Nightingale's work in the hospital at Scutari. In St.
Thomas' hospital in London there is a statuette of Florence Nightingale in
nurse's dress, holding in her hands a night lamp such as she used in making
her rounds in Scutari. Upon this statuette, which is called The Lady with
the Lamp, is inscribed Longfellow's verse.
The cover design of the Christian Science Sentinel contains a conventionalised
figure of a woman holding a Greek lamp. Under it is inscribed the motto
quoted above.
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