MARY BAKER EDDY was always giving. Regarding that great gift to the world, The Christian Science Monitor, she says (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353), "The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind." This purpose for the Monitor was characteristic of our Leader, whose warm mother heart was such a clear reflection of the great heart of divine Love. Even while zealously watching over her own flock with protective care, she was ever reaching out beyond the needs of her own particular followers, beyond the confines of her own organization, with tender, yearning love for all mankind.
Her purpose in establishing this newspaper is well interpreted in its issue of September 4, 1934, where we read: "It is the goal of the Monitor to give to its readers a newspaper which will be vital, realistic and comprehensive, which will give to the good news, to the encouraging news and to the constructive news the prominence it rightly deserves. At the same time the Monitor ignores nothing essential to a penetrating understanding of those aggravated social conditions to which readers of the Monitor, particularly, can give healing attention." Consequently, Christian Scientists read their paper not only to be informed, and with the assurance that the information in its columns is reliable, but also to give earnest, prayerful thought to the contents in order that their Leader's purpose for her newspaper be fulfilled.
Every issue of the Monitor contains significant statements—statements which deserve prayerful consideration on the part of those who are interested in the forward march of the world and the betterment of conditions for mankind. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy does away completely with the idea of prayer to a far-off, mysterious, manlike God. She accepts God as the great I AM and reveals Him as the all-acting, all-wise Father-Mother, divine Principle, Love. She acknowledges that man is made in God's image and likeness, spiritual and perfect. Ever regarding Christ Jesus as the Way shower, she writes in her beautiful chapter on Prayer in Science and Health (p. 1), "Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, arc God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind." Here, then, is the Christianly scientific way to aid humanity, "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man," which, according to the Bible (James 5:16), "availeth much."
