Beloved Students:—For your manifold Christmas memorials, too numerous to name, I group you in one benison and send you my Christmas gift, two words enwrapped,— love and thanks.
To-day Christian Scientists have their record in the monarch's palace, the Alpine hamlet, the Christian traveler's resting-place. Wherever the child looks up in prayer, or the book of life is loved, the sinner reformed and the sick healed—those are the signs following. What is it that lifts a system of religion to deserved fame? Nothing worthy its name save one lowly offering—love.
This period, so fraught with opposites, seems lit for woman's hope with Divine light. It bids her bind the tendered tendril of the heart to all of holiest worth. To the woman at the sepulchre, bowed in strong affection's anguish, one word, "Mary!"—broke the gloom with Christ's all-conquering love. Then came her resurrection and task of glory, to know and to do God's will,—in the words of St. Paul: "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith: who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."
