A large crowd, including delegations from Joplin, Webb City and other nearby towns, gathered at the Carthage High School auditorium to hear George Shaw Cook, C.S.B. of Boston -- a member of the board of lectureship of the mother Church of Christ, Scientist -- lecture on Christian Science. Cook 'was introduced by Walter C. Lanyon, of this city.' The report quotes the lecture at length on the Church's practical purpose and healing testimony. A second scrape of this report (node:4283, media:1681) preserves the masthead the first copy lost: 'SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 1917'. Since the report places the lecture 'last night', the lecture itself falls on Friday 16 March 1917 — a day earlier than the date asserted in the article node's title, which has taken the issue date for the event date. 17 March 1917 was a Saturday, so the dateline is internally consistent. This copy also preserves the lecture's substance. Cook argued that 'without adaptation to the needs of mankind the Christian Science church as an institution would have no good reason for existence', and that to justify its presence among men the Church of Christ, Scientist must be ready to answer, 'not theoretically but practically', the question: 'What is Christian Science able to do for suffering humanity?' He set out the teaching as standing 'first and last' for 'the fundamental fact that God is good, that He is Spirit, Mind, divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love'; for a perfect spiritual universe as the creation of God and a perfect spiritual man as the likeness of God; for 'the universal fatherhood and motherhood of God'; and for 'the complete and perfect brotherhood of man'. A special car on the electric line brought the Joplin delegation to the lecture.