In 1919, while the Great Litigation was under way, the Christian Science Board of Directors established a committee of seven prominent and impartial Christian Scientists to be called the "Committee on General Welfare," to report its findings to the membership of the Mother Church. The committee completed its investigation on March 3, 1920, ahead of the final decision of the Court. Here are a few of the findings in their report:

1. "Nearly ten years before Mrs. Eddy passed on, she provided for her successor when she said in Miscellany:

"What remains to lead on the centuries and reveal my successor, is man in the image and likeness of the Father-Mother God, man the generic term for mankind (My. 347) wherein and whereby man governed by his creator is self-governed." (My. 254).
2. "...each member of the church is intended to be self-governed, and is subject to discipline only so far as he 'shall depart from the Tenets and be found having the name without the life of a Christian Scientist...'" (Man. Art. 11, Sec. 1).

3. "The Directors claim that, 'the legal right of The Mother Church, through its Directors, to exercise supervisory control of the Christian Science periodicals was a question that was decided by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.'" [Editor's note: this statement is not true].

4. "There is a strong sentiment in the Christian Science Field that Mrs. Eddy's passing did not automatically vest the authority of the governance of the Church in the Christian Science Board of Directors, but that those reservations of authority retained by Mrs. Eddy for herself, passed legitimately to her success as named in her statement on page 347 of Miscellany [quoted above] where she refers to .man in the image and likeness of the Father-Mother God, man the generic term for mankind,. as her successor."

5. "To be secure, the governance of the Church must, as our Leader has declared, be 'administered by
the common consent of the governed.'" (My. 254).

6. "To the Committee on General Welfare, the present recognition of Mrs. Eddy's successor is of paramount importance because it supplies that potential authority without which neither the spiritual nor the business affairs of the Church can be properly administered."

7. "The spiritualizing influence exerted by Mrs. Eddy's teachings upon the general human consciousness constitutes an immeasurable moral force springing from the individual demonstration of that true nature of man which is in fact Mrs. Eddy's successor, and which is entitled to recognition as the great impersonal Leader of the Christian Science movement."

8. "Under Mrs. Eddy's personal leadership, the Church government was administered by a board of five directors, each of whom was the director of a particular branch or department of the Church.s vital affairs."

9. "One member, for example, directed in person the editorial policy for all the Christian Science periodicals, including the Monitor; another member directed the publication and circulation of Mrs. Eddy.s works; still another member directed the treasury and was responsible for all funds, while another member directed the affairs of the local reading rooms and was individually responsible for other special duties connected with the Church."

10. "These five directors when duly assembled in meetings, subject to Mrs. Eddy's leadership, were then both in name and in fact the Christian Science Board of Directors of the Mother Church."

11. "The Mother Church...is the most democratic organization on earth and cannot be said to be administered in any other way than by the consent of the governed."