Editorial December 23, 1916 Issue

True Observance

Annie M. Knott

As the Christmas season approaches, many beginners in Christian Science ask how it should be observed, — whether the festivities, gift exchanging, and all the traditions of the past should be set aside, and if so what should be put in their place. Here it may be observed that those who have studied Mrs. Eddy's writings for a number of years find in them the best and broadest instructions as to how the most good can be gathered from the Christmas season, as well as from all others.

With the aid of the second concordance to our Leader's writings, we may find a number of truly helpful and inspiring statements respecting Christmas; and in all of them we discover as an undertone the gentle counsel given on page 485 of Science and Health, namely, "Emerge gently from matter into Spirit." This does not of course mean, as some may imagine, that we are to emerge haltingly, with a backward look over the past, as in the case of Lot's wife; but that we should advance with due consideration for the faltering steps of others, of those who have only begun to look into Christian Science as well as those who still believe that life, substance, and intelligence are dependent upon matter, and happiness upon material things.

On page 261 of Miscellany Mrs. Eddy tells us that "the full supply of juvenile joy" is not to be stinted, but she warns parents against the danger of the Santa Claus myth, because of the need that we "mold aright the first impressions of innocence." This recalls the experience of a mother who was becoming interested in Christian Science, when her little daughter returned from the Sunday school of another church and told wonderful tales of Santa Claus which had been given out there. The mother at this point felt that the child's budding faith should rest on something better than a myth, and so she told her that these stories had no foundation in truth. The child's distress was very great, and she tearfully asked if all she had been taught about the nativity of Jesus was just the same as the Santa Claus story. The mother of course explained to her the great difference between these, and showed her that the appearing of Christ Jesus meant the working out of the world's salvation from sin, sickness, and death; that the divine idea represented by Christ Jesus was too far above the mortal plane ever to have been conceived by mortal mind, that it was the revelation of God and His idea; so the child was comforted, and Christmas had for her a new and wonderful meaning.

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