“To our Beloved Teacher, the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, from her affectionate Students, the Christian Science Board of Directors.”  On the under side of the cover are the facsimile signatures of the directors, Ira O. Knapp, William B. Johnson, Joseph Armstrong, and Stephen A. Chase, with the date, “1895.”  The beautiful souvenir is encased in an elegant plush box.

Accompanying the stone testimonial was the following address from the board of directors: 

BOSTON, March 20, 1895.

To the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, our beloved teacher and leader: 

We are happy to announce to you the completion of The First Church of
Christ, Scientist, in Boston.

In behalf of your loving students and all contributors wherever they may be, we hereby present this church to you as a testimonial of love and gratitude for your labors and loving sacrifice, as the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, and the author of its text-book, “SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY To THE SCRIPTURES.”

We therefore respectfully extend to you the invitation to become the permanent pastor of this church, in connection with the Bible, and the Book alluded to above, which you have already ordained as our pastor.  And we most cordially invite you to be present and take charge of any services that may be held therein.  We especially desire you to be present on the twenty-fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, to accept this offering, with our humble benediction.

Lovingly yours,

IRA O. KNAPP, WILLIAM B. JOHNSON, JOSEPH ARMSTRONG, STEPHEN A. CHASE, The Christian Science Board of Directors.

REV.  MRS. EDDY’S REPLY.

BELOVED DIRECTORS AND BRETHREN:—­

For your costly offering, and kind call to the pastorate of “The First Church of Christ, Scientist,” in Boston—­accept my profound thanks.  But permit me, respectfully, to decline their acceptance, while I fully appreciate your kind intentions.-If it will comfort you in the least, make me your Pastor Emeritus, nominally.  Through my book, your text-book, I already speak to you each Sunday.  You ask too much when asking me to accept your grand Church edifice.  I have more of earth now, than I desire, and less of heaven; so pardon my refusal of that as a material offering.  More effectual than the forum are our states of mind, to bless mankind.  This wish stops not with my pen—­God give you grace.  As our Church’s tall tower detains the sun, so, may luminous lines from your lives, linger, a legacy to our race.

MARY BAKER EDDY.

March 25, 1895.

From Canada to New Orleans, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, the author has received leading newspapers with uniformly kind and interesting articles on the dedication of the Mother church.  They were, however, too voluminous for these pages.  Those were copied, and she could append only a few of the names of other prominent newspapers whose articles were reluctantly omitted.