During the winter of 1898, while living in Concord, New Hampshire, Mrs. Eddy called a member of her household to her room and imparted to him some of the inspiring thoughts that had come to her the night before. One of these seemed so important that she asked him to write it down and preserve it. So, taking a slip of paper, he wrote these words at her dictation: "Not matter but Mind satisfieth." We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Third Series (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1953), p. 8;
A few months later, Mrs. Eddy had occasion to remember the message that had been so carefully preserved and asked to have the slip of paper brought to her. The head of a local jewelry company had come to her house to show her a design for what he called a souvenir spoon, which his company wanted to make. Mrs. Eddy saw the possibility of incorporating the precious message into the design so that anyone who possessed and used the spoon —particularly her own followers—might keep the idea before his thought and learn from it an important lesson. Evidently many of them did, since the text "Not matter but Mind satisfieth" is quoted in grateful letters to the Sentinel, and in a testimony concerning the overcoming of addiction to alcohol and tobacco published in Mrs. Eddy's book Science and Health, in the chapter entitled "Fruitage," pages 678 and 679. This lesson remains to inspire and lift our thoughts above matter at any season of the year, though one might consider it particularly appropriate to heed during the Christmas season, when materialism often seems so aggressive..
Referring to the significance of Christmas, Mrs. Eddy once wrote: "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, "In Christian Science, Christmas stands for the real, the absolute and eternal,—for the things of Spirit, not of matter." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 260;
