"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Juæda in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. . . . and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was." Referring to this wondrous event in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes on page 95, "Led by a solitary star amid the darkness, the Magi of old foretold the Messiahship of Truth." Howsoever this astonishing phenomenon may be regarded from material standpoints of astronomy and astrology, the essential fact about it is that these Wisemen were led to be in the right place at the right time. Whether the spiritual illumination which guided them on their journey to the very spot where Jesus was born appeared, to their human sense, to be a star, moving before them until it stood above the inn where lay the Christ-child, is of secondary importance; their recognition of the Christ, the promised Messiah, is the far more important fact.
More than eighteen hundred years after this occurrence, Phillips Brooks, an eminent Boston clergyman who has been described as "Preacher of the word of God and lover of mankind," wrote:
O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
