Article April 15, 1911 Issue

A WHOLESOME INFLUENCE

NAPOLEON ROSS

A few months ago, as the writer entered a subway car in a large eastern city, he saw a little girl of perhaps eleven years reading in a newspaper of the ultrasensational type the demoralizing details of a trial that was then in progress in the criminal courts. The child had evidently been sent downtown to do some shopping, for she had some bundles tucked under her arm, and it seemed quite possible that she had been told to buy the paper also.

The incident impressed me greatly, for it carried with it an object-lesson which stamped upon my consciousness as never before the need of a higher order of daily newspaper. Here was a mere child reading and carrying into the home for others to read a form of literature which has for years been eating unseen at the very vitals of society; unseen, because in the guise and with the sanction of journalism it has wormed its way with serpentlike subtlety into the family circle, where parents and children alike have been beguiled into reading it. How ruthlessly evil pushes its propaganda amid such defenselessness need not be rehearsed here.

As I meditated, however, my thoughts turned from the pitiable sight in front of me to the words of our beloved Leader on page 96 of Science and Health, where she says, "During this final conflict, wicked minds will endeavor to find means by which to accomplish more evil; but those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check, they will aid in the rejection of error." And I thanked God then and there for giving her the courage to go forward, heedless of the opposition which might arise, to crown her endeavors with the launching of a daily newspaper, whose one exalted aim is to benefit all who read it. Many are the gatherings about the evening lamp that are being blessed by this gift to a sin-burdened world, and countless thousands of fathers and mothers are offering up their prayers of thanksgiving for The Christian Science Monitor!

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