WE are pleased to announce that, with the approval of our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, The Christian Science Publishing Society will shortly issue a daily newspaper to be known as The Christian Science Monitor. In making this announcement we can say for the Trustees of the Society that they confidently hope and expect to make the Monitor a worthy addition to the list of publications issued by the Society. It is their intention to publish a strictly up-to-date newspaper, in which all the news of the day that should be printed will find a place, and the news service of which will not be restricted to any one locality or section, but will cover the daily activities of the entire world.
As to the motive which has led to the establishment of a daily paper of this character, there is nothing we could say that would be so forceful or so timely as the announcement made by Mrs. Eddy when she established The Christian Science Journal. We quote as follows from her article, "A Timely Issue," as it appears in "Miscellaneous Writings":—
"Looking over the newspapers of the day, one naturally reflects that it is dangerous to live, so loaded with disease seems the very air. These descriptions carry fears to many minds, to be depicted in some future time upon the body. A periodical of our own will counteract to some extent this public nuisance; for through our paper, at the price at which we shall issue it, we shall be able to reach many homes with healing, purifying thought."
The last clause of the above quotation strikes the key-note for the Monitor, and what it will stand for. It is this "healing, purifying thought" that not only Christian Scientists but the better class of people everywhere are demanding to-day. The tide is "at the turn;" the current of human thought is setting in the direction of that which alone is real—the good that men do, and not the evil. All over the land there has been and is a call from the fathers and mothers who feel their responsibility in this direction, who are asking for a paper that will supply vital current news, the things we want to know and ought to know about our fellow-men, but which are submerged in the daily tidal wave of crime and disaster which the ordinary newspaper would have us believe sweeps over the world. There is a field, and a wide one, for a clean newspaper, and it is this field which the Monitor is entering.
It will be the mission of the Monitor to publish the real news of the world in a clean, wholesome manner, devoid of the sensational methods employed by so many newspapers. There will be no exploitation or illustration of vice and crime, but the aim of the editors will be to issue a paper which will be welcomed in every home where purity and refinement are cherished ideals. It is intended that the Monitor shall contain, in addition to the usual news features of the best city papers, such special departments as will make it a home paper of the highest grade,—one which will appeal to good men and women everywhere who are interested in the betterment of all human conditions and the moral and spiritual advancement of the race. From the "news" standpoint the Monitor will be of far wider scope than a merely local daily would cover, and will be read with interest from Maine to California and from Canada to Mexico. Even our friends across the sea will find the Monitor interesting from this standpoint.
While all Christian Scientists are requested to subscribe for the Monitor, for we believe it is only by their support that the success of an absolutely clean and unsensational newspaper can be assured, it is not believed that they alone are interested in a paper of this character. Indeed, it is hoped and believed that all others who have seen the need of a reform in journalism will find in the Monitor the ideal newspaper for which they have longed, and that they too will support it on its merits.
The sale price of The Christian Science Monitor will be two cents each copy, and the subscription price in the United States, Canada, and Mexico will be five dollars for one year, or three dollars for six months; in all other countries eight dollars and four dollars and fifty cents respectively. Subscriptions may be sent to The Christian Science Publishing Society, Falmouth and St. Paul Streets, Boston, Mass., or through local Reading Rooms.
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