It was in the pages of the Christian Science Sentinel that—ninety-two years ago—plans for the new Der Christian Science Herold in German were first made public. Under the heading "Important Announcement," the Editors detailed in the March 7, 1903, issue just why they were launching a new sister publication to stand beside The Christian Science Journal and the Sentinel as official organs of The First Church of Christ, Scientist.

"The Christian Science Publishing Society has long contemplated the publication of an official denominational monthly, to be printed in the German language, and has patiently and hopefully awaited the time at which it could be issued with usefulness to the Cause," the Editors said. "The Society is much pleased to announce that the steadily increasing demand for a magazine of this character indicates that the time for its publication is at hand ..."

The Editors went on to explain that the first issue of the Herald would be published in about three and a half weeks—in April of 1903. And that, "for the present," at least, the new magazine would be about thirty-two pages in length.

Next, came a rather surprising statement—one suggesting that the new Herold's special significance reached well beyond a single nationality. "It is not intended," the Editors wrote, "that the Herold shall take the place of the Sentinel or Journal, nor is it supposed that its subscription list will be confined to those who read German only. The call for Christian Science literature in the German language has come from many English-speaking people whose work has brought them in touch with the large German population of the United States and Canada, as well as from the German people themselves, and we believe that they will welcome and support this important addition to our official publications."

And what was to be the purpose of the new Herold? It would preach the gospel of Truth to non-English speakers. "We feel sure," the Editors said, "that our brethren in Germany will find the Herold a valuable assistant in their work, and that it will materially help them in making known the saving and regenerating gospel of Christian Science" (Christian Science Sentinel, Vol. 5 [March 7, 1903], p. 428).

Mary Baker Eddy had been actively nurturing the idea of a foreign-language publication for several years. In late 1900, she had asked one of the Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society, William P. McKenzie, to introduce a German periodical. But Mr. McKenzie hadn't been able to find a suitable translator to start up the magazine—not until he located a Chicago public-school German teacher named Louise Kollmorgen, who was willing to move to Boston in February of 1903 to set the work in motion.

When Mrs. Eddy heard the good news that Miss Kollmorgen had, in just two weeks, translated enough Journal and Sentinel material for the entire first issue of the Herold, she wrote Mr. McKenzie thanking him for his "letter full of glad tidings." And she suggested that the Trustees might next turn their thoughts toward founding a French-language "paper" so that "the dear workers in that field should share equally with those in Germany" (Mrs. Eddy's letter to W. P. McKenzie, March 5, 1903, Church History department of The Mother Church).

Several days later, Mrs. Eddy wrote to Archibald McLellan, Editor of the periodicals, offering the idea that he hire "a scholarly and literary class of writers salaried and to be depended upon" to write articles in German for the new Herold (March 9, 1903, Church History department). Then, over the next few years, Mrs. Eddy incorporated the Herald into the permanent publishing structure of the Church by providing for its perpetuity in the Manual of The Mother Church (see pp. 27, 65, 81).

It wasn't until Mrs. Eddy founded The Christian Science Monitor in 1908, though, that the unique mission of the Herold became fully apparent. In the lead editorial for the first issue of the Monitor, Mrs. Eddy drew clear lines of distinction between the four publications she had founded:

Four interrelated, yet distinct, missions—each supporting the other! Each designated to articulate, in a specific way, the truth, or the Science of Christianity. Each indispensable to preaching the gospel—the good news about God and His universal family of children—that Christ Jesus had commissioned his disciples to publish almost twenty centuries ago. "Go ye into all the world," the Master had said, "and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15).

What a mission for the Herald! "To proclaim the universal activity and availability of Truth." It's a mission that's more than international. It's cosmic. It's limitless. In every sense of the word, It's universal.

Is this too much to say about one magazine? Not at all. Because it's not too much to say about the "activity" and "availability" of God's laws, which the Herald represents. And in the Bible, Jeremiah represents God as saying "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" (Jer. 23: 24).

The Herald of Christian Science exists to "herald" the good news that God does indeed fill heaven and earth. It exists to trumpet forth the glorious facts of Life—of the beauty and innocence of God's spiritual universe. These facts need to be told. And when they're told with conviction and joy and courage, they heal. They redeem. They freshen and sweeten lives. They peel away encrusted layers of ritualized, stultified, diseased thinking. They make everything new as a soft and tender rosebud.

"The divine Principle of the universe must interpret the universe," Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 272). The Herald is one of the vehicles by which the spiritual universe is interpreted to human consciousness. The Herald's charge is to state that Truth is active and available, even when it seems most not be. Its charge is to declare that, in the very place where there seems to be conflict or contagion or poverty or disability, right there are Truth's peace and wholeness and superabundance and might. Right there is the universal design of God.

Today's Herald of Christian Science is preaching this gospel of Truth. It's preaching it in Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish—and in English Braille. It's preaching it in print and in shortwave broadcasts to the major continents of the earth. Hundreds of letters each month show that the shortwave Herald is bringing hope and health to people in Rwanda and China and Angola and Cuba and Russia and many other countries.

At the end of their announcement about the new Herold, the 1903 Editors invited Sentinel readers to "subscribe" to the Herald mission. "It is desirable," they wrote, "that a large number of subscriptions should be received for the year commencing April, 1903, and we hope that our friends will be prompt in sending them in."

That invitation to subscribe to the Herald mission still holds for Sentinel readers (and for all students of Christian Science, regardless of their native language). The Herald's mission excludes no one. Anyone can love and pray for this mission. Anyone can subscribe to any or all of the Herald editions—and share them. Anyone can consider writing for the Herald. Anyone can be part of its proclamation of universal Truth.

Mary Metzner Trammell

Editor's note: Following the editorial section is a special announcement detailing recent efforts of The Christian Science Publishing Society to fulfill more effectively the Herald's mission today.