"Happy Christmas!" Soon this cheery greeting will again ring out through all the Christian world, bringing its perennial message of hope and courage to men of good will. Yet how often does one hear some such plaint as this: "How I dread the oncoming holidays! Christmas holds no joy for me any more." Does not such a statement betray at once a lamentable ignorance of the spiritual significance of this holy anniversary? "Christmas to me," writes Mary Baker Eddy in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 262), "is the reminder of God's great gift,—His spiritual idea, man and the universe,—a gift which so transcends mortal, material, sensual giving that the merriment, mad ambition, rivalry, and ritual of our common Christmas seem a human mockery in mimicry of the real worship in commemoration of Christ's coming."
To the student of Christian Science, therefore, the Christmas season is synonymous with giving, not getting; thus the Scientist should approach the celebration of the Master's nativity with an earnest prayer that divine Love, the infinite Giver, will use him in the happifying work of giving. "God so loved the world," we read in the third chapter of John's Gospel. "that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Truly this was "God's great gift," exemplified throughout the human experience of the meek but mighty Nazarene. But can it be averred that this great gift was to be found alone in the personality of Christ Jesus? Is not the "only begotten Son" the glorious spiritual idea of man's sonship with the Father, which the Master taught?
Let us suppose that a company of travelers have lost their bearings in a dense and seemingly impenetrable jungle. They have neither maps nor compasses. Trails seem nonexistent. Confusion and despair are the order of the day. It is evident that the need of the distressed band is twofold: they need to know a way out, and someone to point the way.
