On one Christmas Eve many years ago, while visiting relatives in another state, I heard a discussion about a baby that was dying. The previous year its baby brother, displaying the same symptoms, had died after ten days, cause unknown. This was the tenth night the baby had been ill.
As I listened I thought, "Christmas Eve is a time to celebrate the coming of Christ, a time for joy, not a time for sadness and death." This was early in my study of Christian Science, but I explained that I was a Christian Scientist and offered to visit the baby.
We entered the house, passing through a room where a few people sat quietly around a Christmas tree; the atmosphere was heavy with gloom and sadness.
