Editorial June 2, 1917 Issue

"Of inestimable value"

Archibald McLellan

In her address before the Alumni of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in 1895, our revered Leader said: "The systematized centres of Christian Science are life-giving fountains of truth. Our churches, The Christian Science Journal, and the Christian Science Quarterly, are prolific sources of spiritual power whose intellectual, moral, and spiritual animus is felt throughout the land. Our Publishing Society, and our Sunday Lessons, are of inestimable value to all seekers after Truth" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 113). In the twenty-two years that have intervened our Leader has added the Sentinel, Herold, and Monitor to the publications mentioned above, so that it may safely be assumed that they too are "of inestimable value" to every Christian Scientist. Remembering this, the announcement by The Christian Science Publishing Society of certain necessary changes in the prices at which the Sentinel and the other official periodicals of the Christian Science denomination are to be issued after July 1, will be cheerfully accepted by our readers because of the urgency of the reasons which from a material standpoint make these changes necessary.

Compared with the prices at which other religious publications have been sold, the prices of the Journal, Sentinel, Herold, and Quarterly have always been the minimum for such literature. Furthermore, practically every other religious periodical is in part supported by an income derived from the publication of a considerable quantity of general advertising matter. This recourse, however, has not seemed desirable in the case of the four publications named, and it has been a source of much satisfaction to Christian Scientists that these publications could be maintained without the introduction of matter which might divert the thought of the reader to subjects and interests foreign to the presentation of the truth of Christian Science in its purity. Christian Scientists have in fact been thankful to receive periodicals devoted to distinct objects, and they will, we are sure, be willing to bear the additional expense of enabling them to continue along the same lines as heretofore.

As to the Monitor, it goes without saying that a newspaper without advertising matter would be an anomaly, and it was never the intention or the purpose of Mrs. Eddy to make the Monitor abnormal in the slightest degree. It has been from the very start, and is now, a newspaper of the highest class and in the strictest sense, because its news has always been clean, truthful, and of value. Its advertising has been of the same high character as its news, and in fact the care with which it has been selected has made it of news value to every reader, a value which is enhanced by the fact that the advertising columns have been limited to a proper proportion of the total area of each edition.

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