Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/81

Rh into months; from every quarter came important missives of inquiry and mercantile reproach; hundreds of dollars were sunk into a bottomless sea of corrections; yet not until the authoress was satisfied that her duty was wholly done, would she allow printer and binder to send forth her book to the world.” This book has now reached its four hundredth edition, each of one thousand copies.

On September 8, 1882, it was voted that the church hold its meetings of worship in the parlors of Mrs. Eddy's home, 569 Columbus Avenue, Boston. The services were held there until November, 1883, and then in the Hawthorne Rooms, at No. 3 Park Street, the seating capacity of which place was about two hundred and twenty-five. At a meeting October 22, 1883, the church voted to wait upon Mrs. Eddy, to ascertain if she would preach for the society for ten dollars a Sunday, which invitation she accepted. After establishing itself as a church in the Hawthorne Rooms, the number of attendants steadily increased. The pulpit was supplied by Mrs. Eddy, when she could give the time to preach, and by her students and by clergymen of different denominations, among whom was the Rev. A. J. Peabody, D.D., of Cambridge, Mass.

The annual report of the business committee of the church, for the year ending December 7, 1885, contains some very interesting statements, among which is this: “There was a steadily increasing interest in Christian Science among the people, even though the continuity of thought must have been very much broken by having so many different ones address them on the subject. When our pastor preached for us it was found that the