Entrance upon a new year brings only gladness to the Christian Scientist, absolved as he is, through a higher concept of the truth of being, from the common belief that the passage of time as mortals know it means the inevitable approach of age and its attendant decay. In its dawning light he sees not the vestibule to the tomb of earthly hopes, but renewed opportunities for a higher demonstration of the truth revealed in Christian Science; namely, that "man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness" (Science and Health, p. 246).
It is indeed a wonderful vista which presents itself to view in the light of these words of our revered and beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy. No longer an age rampant with wrong, a race borne down with the weight of the sins of the fathers, but the coming of the millennium of peace and Joy, an era when the heritage of every child will be that of the infant Jesus, who "grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." Building on this foundation, each day and each year bringing its increment of wisdom and grace, what a work of ministry to a world burdened with sorrow and suffering will be possible to us when, as Paul writes, "we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
It is this "knowledge of the Son of God," knowledge of the one true God and His Son Christ Jesus, which the Christian Scientist is persistently seeking, for he knows the reward of this seeking is eternal life, even as the Master declared so many centuries ago. He knows too that there is only one source from which this knowledge can be gained, only one record of the life and works of the Son of man which is unimpeachable, the source to which Jesus commended his followers when he said, "Search the scriptures; . . . they are they which testify of me." The strange thing is that while this volume of Holy Writ has for so many centuries been an open book to seekers after truth, it was not until within the last half century that the key to this treasure house of wisdom became available through Mrs. Eddy's discovery of the Principle and rule by which the healing works of the Master were wrought, and the embodiment of the result of her search of the Scriptures in Science and Health and her other writings.
