No symbol of Truth is dearer to Christendom than that of the Bethlehem star. Princes and peasants have sung of the star; artists have painted it; adults and children have commemorated it in colorful pageantry; poets have lent their skill to its glorification. To one who has seen the light of Christian Science pierce the shadow of despair and illness, the Christmas season is a time for special joy. The significance of the Christ as God's ever-present idea has appeared to him; his life has become illumined by Truth.
Mary Baker Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 320): "The star of Bethlehem is the star of Boston, high in the zenith of Truth's domain, that looketh down on the long night of human beliefs, to pierce the darkness and melt into dawn. The star of Bethlehem is the light of all ages; is the light of Love, to-day christening religion undefiled, divine Science; giving to it a new name, and the white stone in token of purity and permanence." The Christ, Truth, enlightens one's inmost thoughts as it reveals the fact of God's allness, His supremacy over the universe, and man's dominion as the Father's spiritual son. Through the Science of Christ a glow comes into one's consciousness and can never be put out because that glow is evidence of one's immortality. The perfect, spiritual selfhood which one possesses in Christ is asserting its presence.
Many individuals suffer from the mental atmosphere of the world, and they are helpless to dispel the darkness of materialism until Christian Science destroys the mortal beliefs which brought the gloom. Then these sufferers are able to cast off the mental darkness and distressing pressure by the Christly understanding that Spirit fills the universe and that matter is only a supposed absence of Spirit. Suffering in a false atmosphere of thought may seem to be a disadvantage until one learns that such discomfort is proof that he is outgrowing materialism. Mrs. Eddy writes in "Unity of Good" (p. 56), "Holding a quickened sense of false environment, and suffering from mentality in opposition to Truth, are significant of that state of mind which the actual understanding of Christian Science first eliminates and then destroys."
