It was a dark and foggy day when Mary Baker Eddy was handed the first copy of the first issue of The Christian Science Monitor on November 25, 1908. Someone in her household remarked upon the weather. Mrs. Eddy’s quick response indicated she was looking beyond what the material senses were reporting. “Yes,” she said, “but only according to sense. We know the reverse of error is true. This, in truth, is the lightest day of all days. This is the day when our daily paper goes forth to lighten mankind” (Heather Vogel Frederick, Life at 400 Beacon Street, p. 329).

Just four months earlier, at the end of July, she had written to the Christian Science Board of Directors requesting that they start a daily newspaper. She then wrote to the Board of Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society on the same subject, saying, “Let there be no delay. The Cause demands that it be issued now” (Erwin D. Canham, Commitment to Freedom: The Story of The Christian Science Monitor, p. 23).

For the Directors, their task must have appeared enormous. They would need to extend the newly completed Christian Science Publishing House, raise funds, find and hire journalists who were Christian Scientists, purchase and install equipment, and tackle all the tasks of establishing a new business. But the Directors had been learning through their study and practice of Christian Science that, as Jesus demonstrated, God is infinite, ever-present, constant good—the source of all knowledge, action, and power—and that man is God’s beloved child, created in His image and likeness. And they had been learning that the Christ, which Mrs. Eddy describes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as “the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness” (p. 332), was constantly present to overcome every belief of limitation.