All trusts fall under the jurisdiction of Courts of Equity; rather than Courts of Law. Equity allows the broadest discretion of the judge in his interpretation of the intent of the creator of the trust.

In reviewing the Decision of the Court, it was not clearly presented to the Court that the election of officers named in the suit required Mrs. Eddy’s approval; and that the Directors had no inherent power, within themselves, to act, since their agency powers ceased to exist with her passing. The only power that they ever had, as executives, was to execute Mrs. Eddy expressed will.

The Court made no distinction between the self-perpetuating power of the Board of four Directors without the approval of Mrs. Eddy, under its financial Deed of Trust of September 1, 1892, before the church was formed; and the Board of five Directors that was not self-perpetuating without Mrs. Eddy’s approval and consent, under the ecclesiastical By-Laws of the church Manual.

Surely Mrs. Eddy made this distinction of “self-perpetuation” for a definite purpose — that of abolishing the Board of Directors, as a church functionary, with the passing of The Mother Church (its ecclesiastical church functions never having extended beyond The Mother Church); while permitting the Board of Trustees of the Congregation that is styled The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, to continue until the fulfillment of its trust, under its financial Deed of Trust of September 1, 1892, given before the church was formed.

Did not the Supreme Court amend the Manual, when it revitalized the Board of five Directors as a church functionary, after it had ceased to exist at the demise of the first Director subsequent to Mrs. Eddy’s passing, under the provisions of the Manual which required Mrs. Eddy’s approval of the election of a Director to fill a vacancy on that Board?

Did not the revitalization of the Board of Directors under the Manual, to function without Mrs. Eddy’s approval, revitalized all of the functions of The Mother Church, contrary to the Manual’s provisions which had demanded that they cease to exist, when her approval was unobtainable after her passing?

Thus, in effect, have not all the By-Laws of the Mother Church been thereby amended and/or annulled?

And, is it not surprising that the Court which had access to the entire Manual, as an exhibit filed for its information as did this Court, should have taken only the slightest congnizance of Mrs. Eddy’s fundamental demands throughout the entire range of the Manual, that the Board of Directors could not perform any vital Church functions without her approval, particularly as applicable to the election of Editors of the periodicals, Lecturers, General Committee on Publication, Teachers, First and Second Readers, President, Clerk, and Treasurer of The Mother Church?

From this it would appear that the Mass. Supreme Court did not presume to decide this case upon the basis of law, or even upon the actual literal wording of the trusts, but solely upon its own interpretation of Mrs. Eddy’s intent, in what it conceived to be the light of both intrinsic and extrinsic evidence — the intrinsic evidence being Mrs. Eddy’s general statements which were intended to effectuate the discontinuance of the functional church activities of the Board of Directors, as well as the literature itself, without the approval of Mrs. Eddy .

In connection with the Court’s broad discretionary powers in deciding this case, it is reasonable to assume that the Court was influenced by the general disruption of the Cause, evidenced by the “alarming” number of induced cancellations of subscriptions to the periodicals so dramatically presented in the new Bill in Equity filed by the Board of Directors with the Court after the Master’s report.

The Court’s reference to Mrs. Eddy’s statement of purpose which it paraphrased as “to promote and extend the religion of Christian Science as taught by Mrs. Eddy” seems to have been the springboard of its entire decision, not only as regarding the Deed of Trust, but also as sustaining the status quo of The Mother Church, despite Mrs. Eddy’s meaningful provisions to the contrary. There can be no doubt but that the Court, if it had silently taken note at all of the fact that under the provisions of the Manual, all functions of The Mother Church ceased when Mrs. Eddy’s approval could no longer be obtained for the election of its officers; regarded such restrictions as a colossal oversight on Mrs. Eddy’s part, thus the Court felt called upon to correct, by its decision, the Manual’s presumed “defects” — in the manner expressed in its own words in connection with the Trust Deed which was to “so mould the language of the founder of the trust, as to carry into effect the intention which it is of opinion has by the instrument as a whole been sufficiently declared.”

It does not follow that the Board is not subject to reproof or dismissal by a higher tribunal than itself, for the Finance Committee, in addition to all First Readers, as well as former First Readers, had the power under the Manual to admonish and dismiss members of the Board. These functions had been in the By-Laws for eleven years prior to Mrs. Eddy’s passing.

The fact that nothing but “finance” is placed over the existing Board of Directors in its church functions shows that this is the true nature of its extant calling to which it is subject, and to which it must do obeisance. In other words, this fact is an axionomatic reminder that nothing can rise higher than its source. This alone should defeat a claim that the existing Board of Directors is the authorized authority of the Church.

Thus, again, attention is called to the fact that the Supreme Judicial Court took no cognizance of the fact that while the Board of Directors, under the financial Deed of Trust, could perpetuate itself without Mrs. Eddy’s approval, the Board of Five Directors, under the Manual, could not do so without such approval and had ceased to exist before its Bill in Equity was filed. The termination of the Board’s Directorate voided the Manual power of its five directors as an ecclesiastical body to remove a Publishing Society Trustee.

Thus ended the conflict which faithfulness to the precepts of the Word of Science and Health and to the demands of the Manual would have revealed to be the inexorable fulfillment of the passing of Motherhood to the end that the “adorned” (completed) Word as Bride might hold sway, but which has been erroneously construed to establish the supposed, permanent authority of the extant Officers of The Mother Church as an ecclesiastical, governing body of the Christian Science Movement of today.

Confusion arose within the church by reason of the Directors’ attempt to overrule the legal trusts which Mrs. Eddy with much deliberation, had place entirely outside of church contemplation — which attempt yielded to palpable error when they decided to appeal to lawyers for a willful solution to such matters when the Directors’ only concern should have been directed to the secular "behavioral" demands of the Manual which are as much within the Court’s rightful jurisdiction as are the other legal documents outside of the church domain.

Had Christian Scientists been obedient to the letter and spirit of the Manual, instead seeking to lawyers for personal lawyerly advice, they would have understood the deeper spiritual meaning of Mrs. Eddy’s Plan for the future of her Cause.

“Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” - 1 Samuel 15:22.

Thus, the Supreme Judicial Court’s Decision was erroneously thought to sustain the authority of the Board of Directors as an authorized ecclesiastical board, with the Manual entirely yielding to the “law of the unjust” [directors] and with all functions of The Mother Church under the fiat color of the law. How truly fitting then, to this lamentably travesty of Mrs. Eddy’s spiritually inspired Plan, is Isaiah’s prophecy:

“And judgment is tuned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” — Isaiah 59:14.