In an article which Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, wrote at one time for the New York World and which now appears in her book "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" she says (pp. 259, 260): "Christmas respects the Christ too much to submerge itself in merely temporary means and ends. It represents the eternal informing Soul recognized only in harmony, in the beauty and bounty of Life everlasting,—in the truth that is Life, the Life that heals and saves mankind. An eternal Christmas would make matter an alien save as phenomenon, and matter would reverentially withdraw itself before Mind. The despotism of material sense or the flesh would flee before such reality, to make room for substance, and the shadow of frivolity and the inaccuracy of material sense would disappear." And she continues, "The basis of Christmas is the rock, Christ Jesus; its fruits are inspiration and spiritual understanding of joy and rejoicing,—not because of tradition, usage, or corporeal pleasures, but because of fundamental and demonstrable truth, because of the heaven within us."
Contemplation of the spiritual significance of Christmas promotes a renewed endeavor on the part of every Christian Scientist to demonstrate the joy and inspiration which the understanding of man's sonship with God inevitably brings. The Christmas season presents the opportunity to renew our devotion to full attainment of the Christ ideal. It impels, of course, a deeper appreciation of the life and character of the great Exemplar and of what his coming represents for mankind today. In her definition of "Jesus," which appears in the Glossary of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 589), Mrs. Eddy declares him to be "the highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea, rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man's immortality."
Commemoration of the Saviour's birth also prompts one to make thoughtful consideration of one's own approximation of the life and character of Jesus. In what measure is the Christ being reflected in our lives? Is the Christ finding demonstrable expression in our home, in church activities, and in our business contacts? Are we proving in some measure that the kingdom of heaven is, as Jesus declared, within us; in other words, that the subjective consciousness of harmonious and perfect being is ours? Are we learning through our study of Christian Science to claim that consciousness of perfection into which nothing can enter that "worketh ... or maketh a lie"? Demonstration of the Christ demands steadfast adherence to the absolute truth of being, for the Christ-consciousness recognizes only the real, the perfect, and the eternal, and from that divine altitude denies reality to the suppositional, the problematical, and every material and mortal belief.
