classes that passed through the college during the eight years of its existence. The students aggregated four thousand. It will be seen that Mrs. Eddy must have taught from thirty to fifty students a month throughout this period. The task was herculean, the work accomplished amazing, for it must be remembered that she was not only teaching several hours every day but she was also lecturing every Thursday evening in the parlors of the college and preaching almost every Sunday. During the first few months after her return to Boston she was arranging for the establishment of the Journal, which made great demands upon her time.
The Journal of Christian Science, afterwards called The Christian Science Journal made its first appearance April 14, 1883. The little magazine, destined to become the organ of the church, was at first an eight-page paper, issued every other month. It was an attractive publication from the first moment of its birth, and to-day those first numbers are so rare and so eagerly desired that the bound volumes are worth their weight in gold. In the prospectus Mrs. Eddy stated the purpose of the Journal, or rather her purpose in founding it. She said it was the desire of her heart “to bring to many a household health, happiness, and increased power to be good and to do good; — to kindle all minds with a common sentiment in a regard for and understanding of Infinite Truth.”
It was not a great literary output in its first issues nor did it leap at once to financial self-sufficiency. Rather was it a shy, modest little pamphlet which
