Article July 4, 1994 Issue

A unique publishing opportunity

E. Anne Jesper

In 1908 Mary Baker Eddy called upon her Church to begin a daily newspaper and to call it The Christian Science Monitor. She spelled out the paper's purpose in the lead editorial of the first issue, "... to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent." She also wrote, "The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind" (reprinted in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353). This objective has guided Monitor journalism through all the years since that time. But when we look at the print media in general, it may be natural to wonder how a newspaper can bless people.

Reading a daily paper that places the emphasis on unbiased news stories, that highlights mankind's progress out of limitation, that gives reasons for hope without ignoring challenges, and that takes a firm moral stance—as the Monitor does—is an undisputed aid to spiritualizing one's consciousness, and spiritualization of thought is a distinct aim of Christian Science. In this way the Monitor blesses directly those who read the paper and those whose lives are touched by the reader's prayers or other actions prompted by what they have learned.

The Monitor's part in advancing mankind's progress toward true brotherhood is well expressed in Hymn 157 in the Christian Science Hymnal, which was written with the Monitor in mind. The final verse reads: