To Christian Scientists, Thanksgiving Day is more than a day set aside for expressing gratitude. It is a viewpoint from which to examine oneself and one's experience every day of the year.
Christ Jesus showed us the characteristics of the ideal: manhood untouched by sin, disease, or death; mentality influenced by Soul, not by physical sense; love that is completely unselfed, that forgives its enemies and triumphs over hate; life that knows no limits. Mrs. Eddy explains the basis for this ideal and the system for attaining it. Through her, the Comforter has come, as Jesus promised in these words (John 14:26): "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."
Mrs. Eddy shows us that matter is unreal. In the Preface of Science and Health she says (p. viii), "Theology and physics teach that both Spirit and matter are real and good, whereas the fact is that Spirit is good and real, and matter is Spirit's opposite." And on page 14 of the same book, she recalls Jesus' words: "We cannot 'serve two masters.' To be 'present with the Lord' is to have, not mere emotional ecstasy or faith, but the actual demonstration and understanding of Life as revealed in Christian Science. To be 'with the Lord' is to be in obedience to the law of God, to be absolutely governed by divine Love,—by Spirit, not by matter."
