After the dedication of the Extension to the little Mother Church in June of 1906, Mrs. Eddy, in the last Manual of that same year, made her first provision for the Church in the event of reliquishing her leadership, and it pertained only to the branches. She enjoined “each branch church . . . [to] continue [not form] its present form of government in consonance [in sound with] The Mother Church Manual.” (Art.23, Sec.6, p.72).

Two years later, in 1908, nearly three years before Mrs. Eddy left us in person, at the end of 1910, she added to the Manual, in regard to the creation, or formation, of new branch churches, the requirement that each branch formation must consist of twelve prospective members and one practitioner whose card was in the then Christian Science Journal. (Art.23, Sec.7, p.72). Each branch church was then required to have four Mother Church members.
It is therefor probable that Mrs. Eddy regarded this By-Law (Art.23) applicable to the branches only until the relinquishement of her leadership through her passing, in as much as she used the word “continue” and not “multiply,” in her only provision for the branches after her passing. Thus she left the remaining “half a time” of Motherhood-prophecy to the providence of God’s plan, not knowing, exactly, when that “time” would end.

In 1891, during the interim when no church organization existed in Boston, Mrs. Eddy had said that, “ . . . this Church may find it wisdom to organize a second time for the completion of its history. This however is left to the providence of God.” (Ret. 58, 4th edition, 1891).

At the same time, when there was no church organization existing in Boston, and on the same page, Mrs. Eddy said, “Adding to its ranks and influence, this spiritually organized Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, still goes on,” when only the progressive revisions of Science and Health, which were being published in Boston as the truly “spiritually organized” Church of the Word, fulfilling the prophecies of Jesus in the Revelation of Saint John concerning the “little book” and its progressive accomplishments for the branches of all the Field.

This was in consonance with Mrs. Eddy’s constantly eliminative organic changes, such as the elimination of personal preaching, three years after the second organization was formed; the elimination of marriage and funeral ceremonies in the church; the elimination of any more than one communion service a year; the elimination of the governance and exclusive voting powers of the First Members of the Church; the elimination of the "Department of Obstetrics” in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College; the actual closing of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College at the height of its prosperity; the abolishment of communion between the branches and the Mother Church; and so on, in her constant changes in the Manual-form of government in the Mother Church up to and including 1910, the year of her passing — for spiritual progress adds to, but never subtracts from, true Church: “the structure of Truth and Love . . .” (S&H p.583).

Mrs. Eddy’s leadership during the “half a time” interval between the assumption of the title of “Leader” in 1903 and 1910 was largely, if not wholly, through her written Word in Science and Health and in her Manual, but she never acknowledged that this was her exclusive process until after the final textual change was added to Science and Health in 1909, in the statement now reading, “The truth of being is perennial, and error is unreal and obsolete” (S&H 265:20) at the same time that she added, “Christian Science teaches only that which is spiritual and divine, not human” (S&H 99:14), before she publicly declared the reliquishment (conveyance) of her personal leadership to the written Word, when she said, “. . . I hereby publicly declare that I am not personally involved in the affairs of the church in any other way than through my written and published rules.” (Sentinal, October 16, 1909) (My. 359:8).

Mrs. Eddy made no special requirements or limitations for the formation of Christian Science Societies.