"An International Daily Newspaper"

The Christian Science Monitor —An International Daily Newspaper." Such is the title that appears on the front page of our daily newspaper. Perhaps many of us see those words so regularly that we are apt to glance at them thoughtlessly, to take them for granted, just as we may take for granted the rising of the sun or the flowing of a river. Yet that title deserves pondering. Its words are worth weighing and defining, that the reasons and purposes behind them may be more clearly revealed to us.

The first step in this process is to find what Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has written on the subject. Turning to one of her books, "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 353), we find the answer in two terse sentences. Here is reprinted an extract from an editorial from her pen, which appeared in the first issue of the Monitor about twenty-seven years ago. After interpreting the names she had given to the Christian Science periodicals previously established, she writes of the daily newspaper which she had just given to the world, "The next I named Monitor, to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent." Having thus explained its name, she continues with a wonderfully broad statement of its mission, unique in the history of newspapers: "The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind."

There is a gold mine of spiritual inspiration in that statement of purpose, "to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent." What is this Science? In her work, "Rudimental Divine Science," our Leader asks the very same direct question (p. 1), "How would you define Christian Science?" Her answer is equally direct and concise: "As the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony." It is evident, then, that this Science, the law of God, is forever "undivided." It is inseparable from God, the only Mind. It operates wherever God is, and God is omnipresent. Therefore it is impossible that God's law should be divided; it could not be valid in one place and not in another, be invoked by one nation and not by another, favor one individual and not another. To the extent we perceive the fact that the only law there is or can be proceeds from, is determined and maintained by God, infinite Mind, omnipresent Principle, we are able to interpret and demonstrate in our daily lives and contacts with the world at large "the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony." It is grand to note that our Leader uses those words, "rule of universal harmony." This condition is not a dim and distant dream, but a spiritual fact here, now, and always. It is ours for proving.

Then, too, this Science, this law of God, "operates unspent." There is no limitation, no exhaustion, no spasmodic operation, no varying in the activity of divine law. It has operated throughout what the human mind calls all time and history. The infinite now, in which there is no past, no future, is its province. "Universal harmony" is not, therefore, the far-distant result of a slow and painful process of evolution. It is God's law now.

How, then, does the Monitor go about its mission of spreading this Science? That, surely, is a question which every Christian Scientist should ask himself. He should search his own thoughts and find out how he is answering it. Such a search reveals the responsibility of each Christian Scientist for individual mental activity. It establishes the conviction that the Monitor is not merely a newspaper for which a particular group of faithful workers in Boston and various centers of the world are solely responsible. A deeper study of these words of our Leader, above quoted, convinces the student that this newspaper involves privileges and obligations for Christian Scientists individually and collectively throughout the Field. Only as they not only subscribe for and read the Monitor, but constantly realize its purpose with a clear vision of "the Science that operates unspent," and behold the fulfilling of that purpose, will its spiritual mission be more fully and adequately demonstrated.

Many of us are apt to focus our attention on what we believe to be the immediate problems confronting us. According to our understanding and our diligence we are ready enough to apply the teachings of Christian Science to the solution of these so-called personal problems. All too often, though, we may overlook or neglect what are called world problems, as though they were sufficiently remote from our petty surroundings not to bother us unduly. We postpone the consideration of them to a more convenient season. Yet it is just as incumbent on us mentally to handle the false beliefs seen as narrow nationalism, aggrandizement, war scares, retaliatory tariffs, economic crises, class strife, and all such paradoxes of human civilization. We need, one and all, to awaken to this duty and to remain awake. The purpose of the Monitor is our constant reminder of this obligation.

A monitor is one who admonishes. Among the definitions of the word "admonish" are "exhort, give advice, warn, inform, remind." It is the function of the Monitor to do all these very things in regard to world events, national and international. It is our part to heed such information and admonition and to think rightly on such matters.

It is therefore in our hands, as individual Christian Scientists, to further the spiritual mission of the Monitor. On the degree of our discernment of the divine facts depends the success of our newspaper in manifesting them through its contents, in the quality of its composition, and in its effects on the world's thinking. We need to realize daily more fully the profound meaning of the words in the Lord's Prayer,

"Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven," and the spiritual interpretation of them which Mrs. Eddy has written in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 17): "Enable us to know,—as in heaven, so on earth,—God is omnipotent, supreme." Our conviction of this supremeness of God will result in its better, purer, fuller manifestation to the nations of mankind through the columns of The Christian Science Monitor.

Isaiah writes, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!" All true tidings are tidings of good. Salvation and peace should be universal, because God reigns.