Deeply hidden in many a heart lies the longing for higher ideals and achievements. Especially at Christmas time this may be glossed over by traditional merrymaking, but the longing persists and will be satisfied. The Christian Scientist's motto is: Truth, not tradition. At Christmas time many students of this Science take current inventory of their thoughts and aims, resolving to knit them more closely with the spiritual and practical idealism for which this revelation of spiritual being stands.
On page 260 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" Mrs. Eddy writes, "An eternal Christmas would make matter an alien save as phenomenon, and matter would reverentially withdraw itself before Mind." Are we steadily proving that matter is but a substanceless, mindless phenomenon of mortal thought through which we can neither suffer nor enjoy? Are we actively acknowledging that Spirit is the life and substance of our being, now and forever? Are we proving that strength is the spiritual ability invariably to resist wrong and follow the right? Are we discerning more of the glory of Being through spiritual sense, which discriminates decisively between vague beliefs and scientific knowing? Are we reflecting more spiritual light, more spiritual joy, directly from God, irrespective of persons, places, and things? Are we turning from material idolatry to the worship of the one God? If so, the Christmas spirit is glowing in our consciousness and our new birth is bringing spiritual healing to the world as well as to ourselves.
At a Christian Science testimony meeting a father related that his little boy had been laid low with sickness and high fever. It was Christmas Eve, and the father watched alone with the child, faithfully declaring the truth of God's omnipotence and omnipresence, in spite of his human fears and forebodings. But he did more than watch the sick child; he watched the light of Spirit which dawned upon him as it dawned upon the watchful shepherds, their faces turned toward the dawn. With the coming of spiritual light to his uplifted thought came peace and healing to the child. This, the father said, was the way in which he celebrated his first Christmas in Christian Science.
