Article April 23, 1927 Issue

Christian Scientists do not ignore crime, as one might...

Francis Lyster Jandron,—Ironwood

Daily Globe

Christian Scientists do not ignore crime, as one might wrongly infer from your recent and very interesting editorial on the attitude of The Christian Science Monitor toward the exploiting of sensational details of crime in our American newspapers. The teachings of Christian Science emphatically and unequivocally demand that sin in all its forms shall be uncovered, forsaken, and so destroyed and forgiven. This process is never aided, however, by emphasizing crime rather than its suppression, by attempts to make wrongdoing appear artistic, or posing criminals as heroes.

Through education and example the public must be led to see that good news contains satisfying news values, since it is not in accord with any accepted standard of citizenship that the wrongdoer should have the last word. Your paper is evidently reaching out in the direction of the high ideals of citizenship which The Christian Science Monitor aims to embody, and I appreciate this fact no less than I do the moderate, sympathetic tone of your editorial.

The happy medium you look forward to can come only through the adoption of Mary Baker Eddy's declaration of purpose when she established The Christian Science Monitor almost twenty years ago (see The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353): "The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind."