Irving C. Tomlinson

Rev. Irving Clinton Tomlinson (March 22, 1860 – October 1, 1944) was an American Universalist minister who converted to Christian Science, becoming a practitioner and teacher. For a time, he lived as one of the workers in the household of church founder, Mary Baker Eddy, later writing a book about his experiences called Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy.

Early life Born Irving Clinton Tomlinson, in Perry, New York, His father was a Universalist minister, and his mother was a writer who was heavily involved in the church, and one of the founders of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. He was the class president of a senior class of seven students, and business manager of The Argo, the first student publication at Buchtel College. He was also a member of Phi Delta Theta, a fraternity.

While a senior, he and his classmates decided to surpass an effort made by the previous year's graduating class, which had been to place a two-ton boulder on the campus, a lasting reminder of them. Tomlinson and his classmates searched the vicinity and located a syenite boulder on a farm belonging to the industrialist son of Akron's founder, Colonel Simon Perkins. which measured 7 feet tall, 5 feet wide and 3.5 feet across (2.1×1.5×1.1m) and 90 cubic feet (23 m3). Buchtel later became the municipal University of Akron. Immediately after graduating, he became the minister at the First Universalist Society of Arlington, Massachusetts, later First Universalist Church.

Tomlinson also engaged in philanthropic work and organized a charity in Boston known as "The Mutual Helpers" which focused on helping those living in the tenement-house district, and was very successful.

Attending the Friday evening testimony meetings at the church, a precursor to the current Wednesday evening testimony meetings, convinced Tomlinson that "there was at least one church carrying out the Master's injunction to heal the sick." Some time later—still a Universalist minister—he had primary class instruction, taught by Flavia Knapp. Soon after the course was over, however, Tomlinson withdrew from the Universalist church, "[having] found it impossible to ride two horses going in opposite directions." The day after his admission into the church, he was one of a number of students invited to speak at a gathering of Christian Scientists at Pleasant View. His Christian Science Primary Class teacher, Flavia Knapp, the wife of Ira Knapp, one of the first five directors appointed by Mary Baker Eddy, helped him prepare his remarks. In November 1898, he was invited to be one of about seventy students in the last class taught by Mary Baker Eddy. The same year, he was also appointed as one of the five original lecturers of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship, giving the first ever lecture held at The Mother Church on September 28, 1898. Also in 1898, Eddy asked Tomlinson to serve on the Bible Lesson Committee, which prepares the lesson-sermons read in all Christian Science churches. Tomlinson served on this committee at various times until 1927.

Tomlinson served Eddy for 12 years, and was a worker in her household from 1907 to 1910. His book, Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy, which he began work on in the early 1930s and was published posthumously in 1945, the year after his death, contained a firsthand account of his daily work for Eddy from 1898 to 1910 and included a significant amount of content which had not been published before that time, much of which was based on his calendar and notebooks from those years. As part of what the Christian Science Publishing Society called "The Twentieth Century Biography Series," they came out with a greatly edited "amplified edition" in 1996.

Other roles he filled included being elected President of The Mother Church in 1903 and again in 1921. In 1928, he taught the Normal class, which trains new teachers of Christian Science and is held just once every three years.

Published writings (partial list) The Revelation of Saint John: An Open Book (1922) Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy (1945)