For the past three years the Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society, the editors, and the managing publisher for The Christian Science Journal, Sentinel, and Herald (JSH) have embraced Mary Baker Eddy’s statement, “The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 426).
The high goal for JSH is being reached, but not by focusing on a particular financial outcome. Rather, the focus is on understanding the purpose of these precious periodicals, striving to serve humanity one reader at a time, putting on record, holding guard over, and making universally available the Science of the Christ. And we trust that each reader, in his or her own way, will see and share the magazines’ value in the service of all mankind—healing the sick and elevating the race.
This desire to serve the reader and to respond in an easily accessible way to readers’ specific interests and needs has led the CSPS to offer the new digital resource JSH-Online. In turn, JSH-Online has demanded that we gain a higher understanding of the purpose of our periodicals, and how the format of the print editions of the Journal, Sentinel, and Herald can help support their spiritual missions. This insight into the unique nature of the print editions and their purpose to “put on record,” “hold guard,” and “proclaim the universal” Science of Truth is our guide as we take the individual steps to reach the world with Christ’s message (see Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353).
