Church of Christ, Scientist.—This organization was founded by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. As early as 1862 she had written and given to friends some of the conclusions she had made as a result of her study of the Scriptures. In 1867 she began her first school of Christian Science mind healing at Lynn, Mass. Three years later she copyrighted her first work on Christian Science and in 1875 she published her Science and Health with key to the Scriptures. In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy gives the principles and rules whereby the sick may he healed and the sinner saved. She teaches the necessity of a practical Christianity reviving the apostolic healing which Jesus enjoined.

The first Church of Christ, Scientist, was organized by 26 students of Mrs. Eddy and was incorporated in 1879. Two years later Mrs. Eddy became the pastor of the First Church of Christ. In 1892 a reorganization of the Boston church was effected under the name of First Church of Christ, Scientist. The central organization of the church is the mother church in Boston. Branch churches have been established throughout the United States and in some foreign countries, having their own rules and by-laws and managing their own affairs. There are also Christian Science societies not yet organized. There are no pastors in the sense in which that term is used in other religious bodies, the sermon lesson taking the place of the clerical address usually delivered by the minister. The sermon lesson, which forms the principal part of the service, is prepared by a committee connected with the mother church in Boston and is read in every church by two readers, who read alternately. The first reader from Science and Health, the second from the Bible.

In 1890 there were 15 organizations in Kansas with a total membership of 424. During the next sixteen years many new organizations were established, and in 1906, this church reported 31 societies, with a membership of 1,131.