Editorials

WHEN men spoke of comfort originally they meant distinctly that which enabled them to be strong together, as when a garrison sorely forfought receives aid and strengthening, not only because of actual reserves, but because of the heartening such fresh helpers bring. It is in this light that we understand that phrase describing treason as giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy.

In all times thinkers have agreed that the commonwealth is the highest ideal for a nation, although there have been widely differing views in ancient and modern times as to how this form of government could be realized. It goes without saying that the ideals embodied in the commonwealth have been worked out in a more practical and satisfactory way in the United States of America than in any other country, and this is undoubtedly due to the fact that religious freedom was made the foundation stone of the great edifice which has been built up during the last two hundred years.

Real emancipation is spiritual freedom. Christian Science is the perfect emancipator, because it delivers mankind from all ills, from those of the human mind and thus of the flesh, and from all tyrannies including those organized by medical and ecclesiastical monopolies.

From a green hill high above a harbor one can watch the vessels come through its intricate entrance. The observer will see only placid surface and a ship following the winding course till its berth is gained and the anchor falls.

The approach of the first day of a new calendar year stimulates hope and invites gratitude. The year 1918 registered great victories.

At the beginning of another year many are asking what further changes are to come as crowns fall and thrones totter in the mighty shaking of all things by the fiat of omnipotent Truth. In the twelfth chapter of Hebrews reference is made to the giving of the Ten Commandments from Mt.

Students of the Bible find many a thrill of joy as its spiritual truths unfold to them. In the horror of darkness produced by aggressive war they have remembered that promise from the psalms: "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness;" and the reasonable basis for this expectation is that the upright man is "gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.

At the dawn of the world's first Christmas we read that the wise men from the East came to Jerusalem and inquired there for the newly born King of the Jews. We all know the story as given in the second chapter of Matthew, and we see how little Herod's duplicity and savagery availed to save himself or his dynasty, for there was not a single quality within the range of his thought which had any relation to the "everlasting king" of Jeremiah's prophecy,—the "King of nations,"—whose kingship endures whether men recognize it or not.

Mrs. Eddy's illustrated work, "Christ and Christmas," has by pen and picture presented a summing up of the meaning of the new birth.

The human will strives not for mastery over itself but for control over the lives and fortunes of others. Mrs.