Bliss Knapp

Bliss Knapp (June 7, 1877 – March 14, 1958), the son of Ira O. and Flavia S. Knapp, students of Mary Baker Eddy, was an early Christian Science lecturer, practitioner, teacher and the author of The Destiny of the Mother Church.

Bliss Knapp, C.S.B., was born on June 7, 1877, in Lyman, New Hampshire. His parents, Ira Oscar Knapp and Flavia Stickney Knapp, were students of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and they were pioneering workers in its growth. Ira Knapp was one of the original directors to whom Mrs. Eddy deeded the land on which the Original Edifice of the Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, was built.

Bliss Knapp's mother Flavia had studied under Eddy at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston, having completed her Primary in April 1889. In the summer of 1895 she taught a Primary class with Bliss as a member. He finished this class before the beginning of the fall session at the university. Bliss's sister Daphne was in Mrs. Eddy's last class of 1898, the so-called "Class of Seventy" as seventy invitations had been sent out although 67 attended. Mrs. Knapp was selected as the first teacher in the new Board of Education. Mrs. Knapp taught 85 primary class pupils as a teacher of Christian Science. She was selected to teach the 1898 Normal class but died on March 15, 1898.

Mrs. Eddy had requested that Bliss receive the finest education available in his day. Bliss initially entered Harvard part-time while studying Latin and Mathematics to bring them up to college level. He entered Harvard full-time in 1898. Despite evidence to the contrary, Mrs. Eddy saw much spiritual promise in the shy young man who couldn't find the courage to so much as get up and give a testimony at the Wednesday evening meetings until after he had been appointed to the Christian Science Board of Lectureship.^{[citation needed]}

While at Harvard, Knapp helped organize informal services among Christian Scientists. Initially held as receptions at the home of William P. McKenzie, prominent lecturers on Christian Science such as Edward A. Kimball of Chicago, Illinois, and Irving Tomlinson of Concord, New Hampshire, addressed these gatherings. Later after his graduation, Bliss and his cousin Edwin Johnson were instrumental in encouraging Mrs. Eddy to establish a church-sanctioned way to hold services at colleges and universities. Mrs. Eddy's response dated February 12, 1904, was a letter including her proposed changes to the By-laws of her Church known as the Manual of The Mother Church, which, with a few changes, would allow for the establishing what today are known as Christian Science College Organizations (in Article XXII Section 8). Harvard University thus became home to the first such Christian Science college organization and held the first lecture sponsored by such an organization, which was delivered by Judge Septimus J. Hanna in December 1905.

In his last year at Harvard, in March 1901, Bliss was notified by William B. Johnson, Clerk of the Mother Church that, "by recommendation of our Beloved Teacher, the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, and the unanimous vote of the CS Board of Directors, you have been made a First Member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist."

Immediately upon graduation in June 1901, Bliss Knapp entered the public practice of Christian Science healing with the encouragement of Eddy. In 1902, he was appointed Assistant Superintendent of the Children's Sunday School of the Mother Church.

In November 1903 Bliss was selected to attend the primary class of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, now under the Board of Education, and he was taught with Judge W.G. Ewing, Mrs. And Mrs. Archibald McClellan, Judge and Mrs. Clifford P. Smith and Mr. and Mrs. Ella S. Rathvon by a well-known student of Mrs. Eddy, Edward A. Kimball, C.S.D.