Article December 7, 1912 Issue

OUR WORK FOR THE MONITOR

GUY S. PERKINS.

The question must often present itself to the thought of Christian Scientists, and is not infrequently voiced, "What am I doing, or what might I do, to widen the sphere of usefulness of The Christian Science Monitor?" It would sometimes seem that those seeking an answer to this query entertained the belief that successful work for the Monitor is essentially a question of methods, of location, or perhaps of funds. It is true that these factors and many others are most important, and that they require careful and special consideration. They are not, however, fundamental, but only structural in the development of a reasonable and successful Monitor cooperation.

In seeking the basic motive for our work, therefore, we as Christian Scientists should first know for what reason and through whom the Monitor came into existence. These points settled, we should carefully consider the meaning of our Leader's designation of the paper's mission, namely, "To injure no man, but to bless all mankind." A thoughtful consideration of this statement of purpose will disclose its larger meaning and significance. Furthermore, we do well carefully to examine our concepts of how the Christian Science movement should be advanced. Just who do we think most clearly divined the present needs of humanity, and with equal clearness discerned the best methods for meeting those needs?

How many of us, perhaps with kindly motives but in zealous self-deception, are going about, seeking perchance to establish the righteousness or rightness of our own methods for advancing the movement, when our Leader may have in wisdom pointed a better way. So, too, we may find, when we glimpse a little more clearly the meaning of her guiding statement of the work to be performed by our greatest impersonal missionary, that the work we would like to do might many times be better accomplished by the Monitor, to say nothing of the greater possibilities to be brought out for world-wide unity in Christian Science activities. If, indeed, in all our efforts to bless mankind we were to form the habit of seeking such guidance as our Leader may have given us relative to vehicle or procedure, we would surely increase the effectiveness of our work and approximate more nearly the standard she has held up to us.

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OUR WORK FOR THE MONITOR

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