preachers should never preach again; that there were to be no more
preachers; that each church should have instead a First and a Second
Reader, and that the Sunday sermon was to consist of extracts from
the Bible and from "Science and Health," read aloud to the
congregation. In the beginning the First Reader read from the Bible
and the Second Reader from Mrs. Eddy's book. But this she soon
changed. The First Reader now reads from "Science and Health" and the
Second reads those passages of the Bible which Mrs. Eddy says are
correlative. This service, Mrs. Eddy declares, was "authorized by
Christ."[5]

When Mrs. Eddy issued this injunction, every Christian Science
preacher stepped down from his pulpit and closed his lips. There was
not an island of the sea in which he could lift up his voice and
sermonize; Mrs. Eddy's command covered "this" planet. Not one voice
was raised in protest. Whatever the pastors felt, they obeyed. Many of
them kissed the rod. L. P. Norcross, one of the deposed pastors, wrote
humbly in the August _Journal_:

"Did any one expect such a revelation, such a new departure
would be given? No, not in the way it came.... A former
pastor of the Mother Church once remarked that the day would
dawn when the current methods of preaching and worship would
disappear, but he could not discern how.... Such disclosures
are too high for us to perceive. _To One alone did the
message come._"


_The "Reader" Restricted_