Editorials

IN the allegory of the vine and its fruitful branches set forth so appealingly in John's Gospel, Jesus made plain that he was the true vine, while they, his devout followers, were the branches, watched and tended by the Father, the divine husbandman; and he revealed the impelling fact that, since he was the true vine, whosoever should abide in him would bring forth much fruit; and, conversely, he taught that a branch which, shut off from its divine source, did not abide in him would be cast forth and withered, ultimately to be burned. And he closed his message with a statement of the reasons why he had spoken to his beloved disciples in such terms.

WHEN , in the course of human experience, our dear friends are no longer visibly with us, we are reassured by the promise of the sweet bard of Israel, that the rod and staff of our loving Father-Mother God will comfort both them and us. In the words of our Leader, "The transition from our lower sense of Life to a new and higher sense thereof, even though it be through the door named death, yields a clearer and nearer sense of Life to those who have utilized the present, and are ripe for the harvesthome" (Miscellaneous Writings, p.

When at the time of Jesus' birth the angels gave their heavenly message of universal peace and good will, they inaugurated a sense of joy and happiness which has ever since been associated in the thought of mankind with Christmas. In Christian lands men have been awakening more and more fully to the marvelous good which was to accrue from the appearing of this infant child.

It is not uncommon to hear it remarked that Christian Scientists possess an extraordinary confidence in their religion. And the observation is justified, because no body of religionists have greater assurance than they in the doctrine which they have made their own.

In his first epistle, John finds conclusive proof of the love which God has "toward us" in the fact that He "sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him;" and he defines the purpose of the Saviour's coming in these significant words, "to be the propitiation for our sins. " The advent of the Messiah as the Son of God had long been anticipated by the Hebrew race.

Living as he does in a world where good and evil are believed in and practiced as equally real, the Christian Scientist, while enjoying the privilege of knowing good and doing good, has ever to be on the alert lest he be ensnared by the false beliefs of evil. But let it be said at once that no one is better qualified than is the Christian Scientist to resist evil in its every seeming form; for no one has a better understanding than he of the allness of God, good, and the unreality of evil, and of the value of this understanding as embodied in right thinking.

Although men have preached the desirability of gratitude, although they have sung of its beauties and loveliness, its duties as well as its advantages have not always been realized; but most prominent of all has been the feeling in the hearts of multitudes of a lack of cause for this virtue. All too frequently men have gone on, blind to the blessings which have been appearing constantly around them.

Unity implies oneness; that is, an indissoluble relationship between entities. On page 470 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs.

" HOW much more should we seek to apprehend the spiritual ideas of God, than to dwell on the objects of sense! To discern the rhythm of Spirit and to be holy, thought must be purely spiritual. " Thus writes Mrs.

PAUL had a wonderfully wide vision of the scope of Christianity. Although he was of Jewish descent, and at one time was so bigoted in favor of the religious beliefs of his forefathers as to be a ruthless persecutor of the first Christians, yet after his conversion to Christianity he became chief among the apostles in the desire to see the Christianization of the Gentile nations as well as of his own.